Elderly Man Found Naked, Dead In The Snow Outside His Flat After Freezing To Death

An elderly 63-year-old man who lived alone was reportedly found naked and frozen to death in the snow outside his residence in Cambria County earlier this week.

Daryl Lewis, 63, of Johnstown, was found partially unclothed and dead, possibly due to hypothermia, on the steps outside his flat, which is located at the 100 block of Adams Street of Cambria County on Friday, Jan. 21, PennLive reported.

The gruesome discovery was reportedly made by another tenant living in the same apartment complex.

Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees stated that Lewis appeared to have removed some of his clothing after falling on the outside apartment stairwell. He added that it is unknown how long Lewis was there before he was discovered by the tenant. Lees explained that removing clothing in the severe cold is a common response seen in a lot of hypothermia cases, as the extreme cold actually can feel like burning heat for the victims.

“He was found partially clothed. A lot of times, when somebody is experiencing hypothermia, we often see them stripping down their clothes and taking their clothes off because of the heat that they feel when they’re actually freezing,” Lees said.

The authorities ruled Lewis’s death as accidental. Lees stated that this is the second time this week that a person has died due to the extreme cold weather in the area.

In a similar but unrelated incident, a Virginia mother reportedly attempted to drown her 7-month old son in the freezing waters of the Appomattox River in early January 2021, Latin Times reported.

Officers from Hopewell Police Department responded to a call at around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 11, 2021, about a woman who had waded into the chilly river near the 500 block of Riverside Avenue.

Witnesses stated they saw a woman holding a child and walking towards the river, dropping the toddler in the freezing cold water and then proceeding to walk further into the deeper end of the river.

The Hopewell Police Department and the Hopewell Fire Department immediately responded to the scene and retrieved the unconscious baby.

Meanwhile, the mother, Leslei Kuykendall, 38, was pulled from the river by a rescue boat crew and taken to John Randolph Medical Center for treatment.

Following this, Kuykendall was arrested and detained in the Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George on charges of attempted murder.