Investigators in Foley spent days sifting through the charred remains of a Monteith Circle home after a fire that gutted the residence was ruled the city’s first homicide in five years, a determination that came within about 16 hours of the blaze being reported.
Foley firefighters responded to the one-story brick home in the Monteith Oaks subdivision around 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night after a passerby jogging in the area reported the fire. Crews arrived within minutes, but the fire chief said the blaze was already fully involved by the time firefighters reached the scene, a detail that later helped raise investigators’ suspicions.
A body was found inside the home’s bathroom, badly burned in the fire. Authorities believed the victim was a 70-year-old man who had lived alone at the residence for years, according to Baldwin County property records, though officials said dental records would be needed to formally confirm his identity given the extent of the burns.
The Foley police chief handed the investigation over to Baldwin County’s Major Crimes Unit, a multi-agency task force that draws on investigators from law enforcement agencies throughout the area. A member of that unit said tips had come in following the fire but that there was little new information to share as the investigation continued.
Fire officials said the speed and intensity of the flames stood out as unusual compared with typical residential fires, one of several factors that led investigators to suspect the blaze was not accidental. Results from the victim’s autopsy further corroborated evidence gathered at the scene, prompting officials to classify the death as a homicide.
Neighbors described the resident as someone who largely kept to himself but would occasionally stop by to talk. One neighbor, also a Foley councilman, said his first assumption was that the fire might be connected to an earlier incident in which police were called to the home over concerns the resident might harm himself, though officials said that episode was unrelated to the fire.
Baldwin County’s Major Crimes Unit continued processing evidence from the scene in the days following the fire, with investigators asking anyone with information about the case to come forward as the homicide investigation moved into its next phase.