A Texas real estate agent was showing a home to a client when the two of them stumbled upon a dead body in one of the rooms.
The agent, whose name is not being released by the police, found the body in the 8000 block of houses on Tri City Beach Road in Chambers County, Texas. After arriving at the scene, local police announced that the death was violent and not related to the recent storm and subsequent flooding that hit the area this month. The body of the man, said to have been in his 50s and to have had light-colored hair, was transported out of the house by helicopter for investigation by a team of detectives.
“History does in fact have a tendency to always repeat itself as once again, in the midst of a natural disaster, deputies are faced with another perplexing investigation,” the Chambers County Sheriff’s office wrote in a Facebook post on Sep. 21.
Two days after the incident, the Sheriff’s Office released an updated Facebook post saying that the homicide did not occur in the area near the house. The man has also been identified although the office is waiting for information from the medical examiner before releasing his name, cause of death and list of suspects to the public.
It was unclear how the intruder was able to gain access to the home.
“I am confident that my criminal investigation division will have positive identification and cause of death along with a list of suspects in the next 48 hours,” Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said in the post.
Homes that stand empty in wait of a buyer are often a consistent source of danger for agents and neighbors. Over the years, agents have stumbled upon everything from drugs and remnants of people’s parties to entire families squatting inside model and open houses. Safety experts advise not showing empty houses alone and always having an easy way to reach you phone and contact the police in an emergency.