Investigators spent seven hours combing the scene around the body of a 58-year-old man found dead near early Thursday near Marion High School. While there were blood stains under the body, there were no visible wounds according to Marion Police Chief Harry Daugherty.
"Externally, we did not see anything and so we’ll have to wait for the autopsy," Daugherty says. "If did see it, we would have called it — whatever it was — but we just do not know. That’s why it’s being considered a suspicious death at this time."
Marion police set up a tent to shield the body, but before it was erected a photographer for The Cedar Rapids Gazette snapped a picture with a telephoto lens and it showed the man was not fully clothed.
"I’m not going to discuss anything to do with the body at all — the state of dress or undress," Daugherty says. "That’s all part of the investigation." A school maintenance worker found the body outside the high school’s shop building shortly before 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Ashleede Cook lives near the school and woke others nearby when she saw police on the scene. "I thought it was really creepy," she says. Late yesterday authorities released the name of the man found dead at the school. The man was identified as Gale Ferroggiaro, who lived in an apartment five blocks from Marion High.