Police: Man died while burying victim

When police in South Carolina responded to a report of an unconscious man in a yard, it didn’t take long for authorities to confirm that Joseph Anthony Mckinnon was dead. But as police were notifying next of kin on Saturday, they say something else was discovered in the garden of the backyard: “a freshly dug pit” with the body of the man’s girlfriend wrapped in trash bags.

Investigators suspected foul play in the death of Patricia Ruth Dent, and their suspicions were confirmed Monday after an autopsy found Mckinnon, 60, died of a heart attack while Dent, 65, died of strangulation.