Elderly couple found dead in their home after heater hit 1,000 degrees

An elderly South Carolina couple was found dead Saturday in what local officials are calling an “extremely hot” house.

On Jan. 6, a police officer went to a home in Spartanburg to conduct a wellness check after family members said they hadn’t heard from the people living there in three days, according to reports from CBS News and WSPA.

Police entered through the bedroom window, where they discovered the bodies of 84-year-old Joan Littlejohn and 82-year-old Glennwood Fowler lying dead in their bed. There were no signs of foul play, sources said.

The officer reported that the home was “extremely hot” and found that the victims’ body temperatures were over 106 degrees. The interior of the home was also reportedly 120 degrees, news reports said.

Checking the basement, they discovered that the “heater was so hot it looked as if the basement was currently on fire,” one firefighter said.

They then deactivated the heater and measured its temperature at well over 1,000 degrees, CBS News said.

The victims’ family told police that the home’s hot water heater and heater had both been not working, and that someone in the family “fiddled” with the hot water heater several days earlier and had been able to get the pilot light back on.

Carbon dioxide levels in the home were not a concern, but the coroner said that his office will continue to investigate the incident.

A specialist has been hired to investigate the furnace.