A fire that gutted a single-story home on Monteith Circle in Foley has turned into the city’s first homicide investigation in five years, after autopsy findings pointed to foul play.
Foley’s police chief confirmed that investigators upgraded the case to a homicide inquiry after evidence collected at the scene and the results of an autopsy indicated the death was not accidental. The home belongs to a 70-year-old area resident, though authorities have withheld the identity of the person found inside pending notification of family members and formal identification.
According to the Foley Fire Department, crews were called to the Monteith Oaks subdivision around 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night after a passerby jogging through the neighborhood spotted the blaze and called it in. Firefighters arrived within about five minutes to find the structure already well involved in flames. A body was later located inside a bathroom of the home once crews could safely search the interior.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office opened a joint investigation into the fire’s cause and origin alongside Foley police and fire departments starting the following morning. Once autopsy results confirmed signs of foul play, the police chief requested the activation of the regional Major Crimes Unit, a multi-agency task force that assists local departments with complex criminal investigations.
Foley police are asking anyone with information about the incident to come forward. The case marks a rare violent crime for the coastal Baldwin County city, which hadn’t investigated a homicide since 2009.
That earlier case, which remains a point of reference for longtime residents, involved a man found dead in his home with trauma to his head and neck; a suspect was later arrested and charged with murder years afterward. Baldwin County has also seen other high-profile violent crime cases in neighboring jurisdictions in recent years, underscoring how unusual homicide investigations are for the area’s small-city police departments, which typically handle far more property crime and traffic enforcement than violent crime.
Investigators have not released a possible motive or named any suspects in the Monteith Circle case. The Major Crimes Unit’s involvement signals that Foley police are treating the investigation as a significant undertaking requiring additional forensic and investigative resources beyond what the department typically deploys.
Residents of the Monteith Oaks subdivision, a quiet residential pocket of Foley, described the fire and subsequent investigation as shocking for a community more accustomed to routine calls than violent crime. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Foley Police Department.