Police and emergency services visited Joan Littlejohn (84) and Glennwood Fowler (82) in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Saturday evening. Their family had not seen or heard from them since Wednesday and were worried.
Emergency workers entered the house through an unlocked window and found the couple dead in the bedroom. The man, Fowler, lay naked on the bed, Littlejohn slumped in a chair next to it. Police said there were no signs of a fight.
It was immediately clear that it was “extremely hot” in the house, the police said. The fire brigade was called and when they checked the basement, the firefighters initially thought it was on fire. Until they realized that it was the boiler that was so piping hot. They turned off the heating, after which they measured the temperature of the device: more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about 538 degrees Celsius.
There was also a strong smell of gas in the house. All windows were opened to ventilate and let the cold outside air in, but even after 20 minutes a temperature of about 48.9 degrees Celsius was measured in the house. After two and a half hours of ventilation it was still more than 35 degrees.
CO poisoning?
The rescuers also tried to measure the victims’ body temperatures, but their device only went up to 41 degrees Celsius, and both in their octogenarians are said to have exceeded that.
The fire brigade did not detect elevated CO levels in the home, although the coroner has not yet ruled out CO poisoning as a cause of death. It will be examined whether this can be determined in the bodies of the victims.
Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger told local news site WYFF on Monday that the couple’s deaths remain under investigation. “We did not find any foul play on the bodies, but we are concerned about why the temperature was so high,” Clevenger said. An expert will inspect the boiler.
Tinkered with wire
Family members told police that they had come to help their parents with their heating on Wednesday. Littlejohn and Fowler had complained that the house was getting too cold, and both their gas heating and gas boiler were not working. The family members told police they noticed the boiler’s pilot light had gone out. They said they started “tinkering” with the device, moved a wire, and the pilot light came back on. They left immediately afterwards, but they had not heard from the couple since.
According to their family, the man and woman had various health problems and had difficulty walking.