Dead man found in a vacant house appears to have died a violent death

A man whose body was found in a blighted house on Houston Avenue late Wednesday afternoon, appears to have died a violent death, Bibb County deputy coroner Lonnie Miley said.

The dead man was identified by Coroner Leon Jones as 51-year-old Jeffery McKuhen, of a Jeffersonville Road address.

A man who made the gruesome discovery flagged down an officer about 4:15 p.m., according to a Bibb County’s sheriff’s investigator. The call was dispatched to deputies as a report of a dead person with a gunshot wound, but Miley could not confirm the cause of death as of late Wednesday.

The man who found the body sat watching investigators work from a white cement wall across the street from the house, which had large holes in the roof and broken or boarded-up windows.

The man, who was taken downtown and interviewed by detectives, told a Telegraph reporter that he stays in the house randomly and had come by to chill and watch videos on his phone.

He said he walked in the house through the back on Wednesday and hung out for a bit before going to the front room, where he noticed a foot under some items.

"I got up so fast like, 'Yo, I got a gun on me, you better be careful now.' But I just had a hammer in my hand," he said.

The man, who stays at Salvation Army most of the time, said he banged the hammer on the floor to startle the person. The foot didn't move.

"I used the back of the hammer ... and started pulling stuff off," he said. Thats when he noticed what looked like dried blood spattered on the wall. "It looked like someone just popped him right there on the spot."

Laura Corley 744-4334; @Lauraecor

This story was originally published January 10, 2018 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Dead man found in a vacant house appears to have died a violent death."