THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100444
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Police are still waiting for the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death of an Elizabeth City man whose nude body was found in his apartment.
A Pitt County Medical Examiner in Greenville rescheduled the examination of 34-year-old Michael Kevin Arranz's body for this morning because of a backlog in that office, Elizabeth City Police Lt. Joe Tade said Tuesday.
Bodies in suspicious local deaths are routinely sent to Greenville to be studied by a forensic pathologist. Arranz's was the first death ruled suspicious in Elizabeth City this year, police said.
Arranz's nude body was found Monday face down on his bed in his cramped third-floor apartment at Riverwind II, 1212 Carolina Ave. He reportedly had been bound, but police would not say where or how.
Homicide has not been ruled out, but police said there were no signs of struggle or forced entry to the apartment.
Police have interviewed about a dozen people, including most other residents in the 12-unit apartment building, Tade said. The three-story structure is part of the Riverwind complex, which includes a larger apartment building and a health club.
The shaded, peaceful surrounding neighborhood, which on Monday was cluttered with police cars and curious residents, seemed to return to normal Tuesday.
Arranz's cars, a blue Jeep wagon he had just bought to take to college, and a rusty, reddish-brown 1960s Mustang whose license tag had been moved to the jeep, remained parked outside the building.
The apartment had been roped off by police tape about 1:30 p.m. Monday, shortly after a brother and apartment employee discovered Arranz's body. Police said Arranz had been dead for several days, and family members came looking for him after he failed to show up at a birthday party planned for him Sunday.
Officials removed Arranz's body from the building about 7:30 p.m. Monday. Tade and other investigators remained at the scene until after 9 p.m. Monday.
KEYWORDS: FATALITY by CNB