Two Elderly Men Found Dead at Home in Marion

(Marion, AR) As kids play on a quiet street in Marion, crime scene tape surrounds a nearby home where the bodies of two elderly men were found Monday.

“I’ve never seen any fighting or arguing,” Neighbor Carl Mathes said. “They were by themselves.”

Neighbors say the men who lived in the home were quiet.

“They stayed in the house. They watched TV,” landlord Zach Watlington said. “One of the men rode his bicycle to the store every day. They didn`t bother anybody. They were quiet folks.

But it recently became too quiet. The men hadn’t been seen for 4 or 5 days.

“We noticed the door was shut and the mail was full and there were notes on the door. We thought something was wrong,” Watlington said. ”There was kind of an odor at the door.”

“Neighbors say when they went inside the home they found one man dead in the living room and one in the bathroom. Now police are trying to figure out what killed them.”

Family  tell us the two men were 69 year old John Schaffer and James Hill, a war veteran in his seventies.

Schaffer’s son told us by phone that Hill was in bad health and his father was taking care of him. He still doesn’t know what caused their deaths, but he’s hoping an autopsy will bring his family closure.

Police sent the bodies Little Rock for autopsies.

So far no cause of death has been released.