Couple found dead in house with heater reading over 1000 degrees

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A couple was found dead during a welfare check Saturday in Spartanburg, South Carolina after a family reported not hearing from them for a few days.

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In a police report obtained by WYFF, the Spartanburg Police Department said that officers were called around 6 p.m. Saturday to a house on Woodview Avenue at the request of the family members who had not heard from the couple since Wednesday.

When officers arrived, they noticed that all the doors were locked, but one of the windows was not, according to the news outlet. The officers removed the screen from the window, looked around and found the couple dead in the bedroom.

The man was found lying on the bed and the woman was found on the side of the bed, slouched in a chair, WYFF reported. Investigators said that there did not appear to be any signs of a struggle or foul play.

The victims were identified as Joan Littlejohn, 84, and Glenndoow Fowler, 82, according to WSPA.

The police report obtained by the news outlet said that the temperature inside the house was over 120 degrees. Fire crews located the heater in the basement and noted that it was extremely hot. The fire crews did a reading of the heater before deactivating it, and it was over 1,000 degrees.

“The heater was so hot it looked as if the basement was currently on fire,” one of the firefighters said in the report obtained by WYFF. “They then measured the temperature of the heater itself and measured it at over 1000 degrees.”

The body temperatures of the victims were measured by medics using thermometers that went up to 106 degrees. Both of the victims’ temperatures exceeded that reading, police said, according to WYFF.

The coroner’s office is working to determine a cause of death and expressed concern about why the temperature in the house was so high, WSPA reported.

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