Police in South Carolina say they discovered a couple dead in an "extremely hot" home where the temperature of the residence's heater was recorded at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Authorities were called to the home in Spartanburg around 6pm Saturday to perform a welfare check on an elderly couple who'd been out of touch with family. The home was locked, but authorities gained access through a bedroom window. Inside the bedroom, Joan Littlejohn, 84, and Glennwood Fowler, 82, were found dead. Medics checked the body temperatures and found they exceeded 106 degrees, the maximum logged by the thermometer. The home itself was at least 120 degrees, even after 20 minutes with the home open to the cold air outside, per WYFF. The heater registered at more than 1,000 degrees on thermal imaging cameras, per the State.
"One firefighter stated the heater was so hot it looked as if the basement was currently on fire," a responding officer wrote in the police report. The couple's children told police they'd visited the home Jan. 3 after the couple complained that their gas heater and gas water heater were out and the home was becoming cold. The family members said they started "fiddling" with the water heater and moved a wire before noticing the pilot light turn on, per WYFF. They then left. Fowler was reportedly found unclothed. "We did not note foul play to the bodies on scene but are concerned with why the temperature was so high," the coroner wrote in a Monday report, noting further testing would be done, per the State. Firefighters detected a strong odor of natural gas while in the home. Carbon monoxide levels were found to be safe. (More South Carolina stories.)
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