Texas police believe a man who killed himself on Sunday lived with his roommate’s dead body for months.
A resident told KTRK that he requested the welfare check from Harris County police after spotting large flies on the side of his neighbors’ home while mowing the lawn. Deputies who responded to the residence made entry after noticing the flies in addition to a foul stench.
“If you ever smelled a rat in your wall, it’s awful. As soon as they opened the door, you could smell it as soon as the wind blew it across the street. We knew something was really wrong,” another resident told KTRK.
Deputy Thomas Gilliland said a man who lived in the home fatally shot himself in a bedroom as officers entered. In a different room, cops reportedly discovered a man whose body was decomposing. Police believe the man had been dead for several months, though it is unclear how he died.
KHOU reported that the man who fatally shot himself on Sunday is 63 and the other man is 62. Authorities have not publicly disclosed their names or their relationship to each other.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences is in the process of ascertaining how the 62-year-old man died.
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[Featured image: KHOU video screengrab]
