By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Del Rio police are working to positively identify a man whose body was found in a storm drain on the city’s south side late Saturday afternoon.
Police officers were dispatched to the intersection of Andrade and Rubio streets in the San Felipe neighborhood of south Del Rio at 5:59 p.m. Saturday, after receiving a call from a man who said he had seen a body in a storm drain, Del Rio Police Department Cpl. Estevan Hernandez, of the DRPD’s detective division, told the 830 Times in an interview Monday.
“The call came in from a man who was walking to check the mail at a deceased family member’s house. He was walking down the street and was about to flick his cigarette into the storm drain but decided to glance into the drain first. When he did, he saw a Hispanic male, possibly in his late 30s, who did not respond to calls from the man,” Hernandez said.
The detective said the man called for emergency services, and firefighters and an emergency medical services team from the hospital were dispatched to the intersection.
“The fire department arrived on-scene with some equipment to prepare for an extraction, but they came to the conclusion the man in the storm drain was not exhibiting any signs of life, and our patrol officers notified our detective division,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said he was notified of the situation shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday and said he in turn notified Justice of the Peace Pct. 1 Jesse James Treviño, who pronounced the man in the drain dead at the scene at 7:08 p.m. Saturday.
“From there, we tried to gather as much information at the scene as we could, took photographs, spoke with some of the neighbors in the area, to see if they had heard anything or seen anything, because this was an odd situation,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said after the scene was photographed, officers rigged a harness to remove the man’s body from the storm drain, which is about five feet below the level of the street.
Hernandez said as he and patrol officers looked around the area, they determined the closest entry point into the storm drainage system is a culvert that empties into the San Felipe Creek about a tenth of a mile southwest of the street intersection where the body was found.
Hernandez said he currently believes the man entered the culvert at the San Felipe Creek and crawled to the location where his body was discovered. He discounted the idea the man may have been killed elsewhere, then dumped into the storm drain, saying when firefighters tried to remove the heavy metal grate covering the drain, they had to call for several pieces of specialized equipment to pull it up.
Hernandez said he believes the man was in the drain between 24 and 36 hours, adding Treviño ordered an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death. The autopsy will be performed by the Webb County Medical Examiner’s Office in Laredo.
Hernandez said the man’s body did not exhibit any obvious signs of foul play. He said the man’s body had scratches and bruises on his forearms and knees consistent with making his way along the metal culvert.
DRPD Capt. Hubert Smith, who heads the police department’s detective division, said the man has not been positively identified, as he was found completely nude and not carrying any type of identification.
Smith said the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office assisted in the investigation by providing a small remotely operated vehicle that was placed inside the culvert to allow detectives to search for evidence inside the large pipe.
Hernandez said the area at the entrance to the culvert was also searched, but no clothing or other identifying items could be located.
Smith said detectives at first theorized the man might have been an undocumented person, but additional information led them to believe the man is from the Del Rio area and may have had encounters with police previously.
“We heard from some possible family members, and we started going through body camera footage from interactions earlier this year, to start building his identity,” Hernandez said.
Both Hernandez and Smith said once the man is positively identified, his next of kin will be notified before his identity is made public.
“The body was sent as a ‘John Doe’ to the medical examiner’s office, due to the fact that we were not able to identify him in the beginning of the investigation, so we decided to send him as a ‘John Doe’ until he is positively identified,” Smith said.
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