Man Who Buried Girlfriend After Killing Her Dies Of Heart Attack While Covering Pit

A South Carolina man who strangled his girlfriend to death died of a heart attack while burying the woman's body in the backyard of his house, police said.

Joseph McKinnon, 60, was found dead inside his home in Trenton on Saturday after the deputies from the Edgefield County Sheriff’s responded to a report of "an unresponsive male" lying in his yard. The emergency officers tried to revive McKinnon but he died of a heart attack, police said, NY Post reported.

The deputies who searched the area found a second body in a freshly dug pit, identified as that of 65-year-old Patricia Dent, Mckinnon's girlfriend who lived with him. An autopsy report revealed that Dent died by strangulation.

Dent, who was supposed to show up at work did not turn up at the Mount Vintage golf course that day and did not respond to phone calls or text messages, reports said.

Investigators determined that Mckinnon attacked Dent while they were both inside the house. He "then bound her and wrapped her in trash bags before putting her in the previously dug pit," Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office officials said.

Mckinnon then left his shovel aside and tried to walk away but experienced a heart attack.

Meanwhile, Pamela Briggs, Dent's twin sister, said she was shocked by the tragic news. "I’m shocked. I didn’t see any of this coming," Briggs said. "Everybody who ever met her liked her. She was just full of energy and working at 65," she recollected, as reported by Cleveland 19.

Last month, Police in Illinois took into custody two brothers after they discovered the dead bodies of their mother and sister inside plastic containers buried in the backyard of their home in Chicago. Michael Lelko, 45, of Lyons was charged with two felony counts of concealment of death/moving body after admitting that he buried his 79-year-old mother and 44-year-old sister in 2015 and 2019 respectively. His brother John Lelko was also taken into custody and released later. They were not charged with the deaths as authorities couldn't determine their cause of death due to the deterioration of their bodies.