East Macon man’s body found in basement a month after he died

The body of a man in his late 50s was found Friday afternoon at his east Macon home about a month after his death, Macon-Bibb County Deputy Coroner Ronnie Miley said.

Charles Daniel, who was born in 1957, was found by his nephew about noon in the basement of a house they shared on Dorothy Drive, Miley said. Daniel lived downstairs, and his nephew lived upstairs.

Daniel’s nephew, a truck driver, is “on the road quite a bit and had not talked to his uncle in probably close to a month,” Miley said, adding that Daniel’s nephew knocked on the basement door Friday to check on him.

Daniel, who was on disability, “was a gentleman that often stayed to himself and just worked on doing things downstairs in the basement,” Miley said. “So even when his nephew was here sometimes, they would talk and sometimes they would not talk.”

Even though other relatives live in Macon, “nobody checked” on Daniel, Miley said.

An autopsy will not be performed because officials say they think Daniel died of natural causes, Miley said.

Daniel is the sixth person to be found — apparently unnoticed for a while — deceased from apparent natural causes in their Bibb County homes this year.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 2:15 PM with the headline "East Macon man’s body found in basement a month after he died."