Authorities in the Quad Cities are doing an autopsy on the body of a man found in a burning heap of yard waste Sunday evening. Captain David Struckman, commander of criminal investigation for the Davenport Police Department, says a 46-year-old Bellevue, Iowa, man had been burning some trash for his mother at her home, and after visiting with him once she went back out later to check on him and found he’d been engulfed in the fire. The victim’s now been identified as 46-year-old Bryan D. Hink of Bellevue. Captain Struckman says the woman called the Quad City firefighters upon discovering his body. The fire department came and police were also notified, and the motions taken to begin a criminal investigation since it’s a mysterious death. An autopsy’s been scheduled and Struckman says they don’t think at this time there was any foul play, but hope to know more once the autopsy’s done. The fire would be the obvious cause of death, the captain says, but until they rule out anything like a preexisting medical condition police aren’t ruling out any contributing factors, and hope to find out exactly why the man fell into the fire. Captain Struckman says a 74-year-old woman died in her back yard in March and was found amid a small brush fire she’d set, but authorities say she’d died of natural causes. Struckman says fire can be dangerous, as it can flare up or do things rapidly that can harm people, as we’ve seen in these two incidents. The fire and police investigators did a complete arson investigation into the death of the woman in March to ensure there was nothing suspicious about that case.
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