An 82-year-old Gadsden man found dead in his apartment Wednesday died of blunt force trauma, according to a preliminary autopsy report.
Etowah County Coroner Michael Head said the death of Charlie Yarbrough, 82, was evidently a homicide.
According to police reports, Gadsden police officers were called to Pine Ridge Apartments on Air Depot Road about 2 p.m. Wednesday. They found in one apartment the body of an 82-year-old man covered in blood.
The man’s daughter, his primary caregiver, said she had last spoken with him the previous afternoon, when he had seemed fine. When she came to check on him and take him to lunch, she told police, she discovered him lying on the bathroom floor and covered him with a blanket before calling medics.
When he was examined, the man was found with a wound to the back of his head, apparently from some object.
There was blood in other parts of the apartment, and evidence that someone had tried to clean up blood. There was no sign of forced entry. A sliding glass door was discovered unlocked.