Sheriff: Man fatally shoots self after living with corpse

HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities on Sunday continued to investigate what led a man to fatally shoot himself just before deputies entered his home and found he had been living for months with a corpse.

Neighbors contacted the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday evening about concerns they hadn’t seen one of the men who lived at the home for months, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, an agency spokesman.

At the home in west Houston, deputies “did notice that there were a lot of flies and a bad odor from one end of the house,” Gilliland said.

After entering the home, the deputies heard a shot and found the body of a man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Gilliland said.

“In another adjoining bedroom, they did find the body of a male also that had been severely decomposed,” Gilliland said, citing a timeframe of at least several months.

He said an autopsy was planned on the decomposed body.

Investigators believe the two men lived together but said they were trying to determine other details about their relationship.

Both men were believed to be in their 60s. Their names have not been released by authorities.