South Carolina Couple Died After Home Heater Reached 1,000 Degrees

A South Carolina couple was found dead in a bedroom in Spartanburg, last week after the home heater reached 1,000 degrees. The couple was found during a wellness check after their family hadn’t heard from them in three days. Authorities had to enter the home through a window. That's when police officers found 84-year-old Joan Littlejohn and 82-year-old Glennwood Fowler dead. The bodies were laying in their bed inside what the responding officer called an “extremely hot” residence. He recorded body temperatures on the couple at 106-degrees, which was as high as his device would record.

The fire department found that the temperature inside the home was over 120 degrees after the residence had been open to cold weather “for about 20 minutes.” CBS News reports Firefighters went into the basement and the temperature near the furnace was 1,000 degrees. They eventually shut it off.

The police report states no foul play was detected after the South Carolina couple was found dead. City officials are trying to determine how the heater reached such a high temp that a firefighter said it was “so hot it looked as if the basement was currently on fire.”

Reports also say the couple had complained that their furnace and hot water heater were not working properly on Wednesday. Apparently family members came to their home and “fiddled” with it until the pilot light on the heater turned on.

The FBI released its "Most Dangerous States List" and a Carolina is on it!  According to the latest data from Deslide , there were 334 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people nationwide in 2021. Violent crime is a broad category that consists of four types of the most serious offenses. Robbery, rape, aggravated assault, and homicide.

Using violent crime data from the FBI’s 2021 UCR, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 15 most dangerous states in America. In each of the states on this list, the violent crime rate exceeds the national rate. We also considered the homicide rate - a component of the overall violent crime rate - in each of these states.

The largest share of states on this list is in the South, though there are also a handful of states in the West and Midwest.

To compile its annual reports, the FBI relies on state and local police departments to voluntarily submit crime data. While participation has never been 100%, this year it was especially low. The FBI recently switched to a new crime-reporting system, known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS. This report completely phases out its legacy Summary Reporting System.

The latest FBI report excludes nine states due to insufficient reporting: California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania. Whether or not 2021 crime estimates for these states will eventually be released remains to be seen.

Still, the FBI’s latest report offers some useful insight into violent crime levels across the country in 2021. In some states, criminal violence is much more common than it is nationwide.

Violent crime is often more common in economically disadvantaged areas with high poverty. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey shows that in the majority of the states on this list, the poverty rate exceeds the national rate of 12.8%.