A man died of a heart attack while burying a woman he strangled.
The Edgefield County Sheriff says evidence shows Joseph McKinnon strangled Patricia Dent inside his home and was burying her in the backyard, when he died of a heart attack.
Police responded to a 911 call about an unresponsive man in the backyard of a Trenton home, in South Carolina, on Saturday, May 7.
Sheriff Jody Rowland said deputies responded to the home to check on “an unresponsive male lying in his yard.”
Deputies found Joseph McKinnon’s body near a freshly dug grave. While investigating his death deputies inspected the makeshift grave and found the body of McKinnon’s girlfriend Patricia Dent, 65.
Authorities theorize that McKinnon, 60, killed Dent inside the home then buried her body in the yard. He was in the process of covering the hole with dirt when he suffered an apparent cardiac arrest and died.
An autopsy determined Dent died by strangulation. Her body was bound and wrapped in trash bags before being placed in the hole. The grave was partially filled with dirt when McKinnon collapsed and died.
McKinnon and Dent lived in the home together. She was supposed to be at work at the Mount Vintage golf course the day she died, but she didn’t show up and didn’t respond to calls and texts.
