EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -
The body of Richard Fulkerson II was found in the back of his repossessed pick up truck at an Evansville credit union Friday. He'd been wanted by police for over a month.
The big question now is why did it take so long to find him?
We can't know exactly what happened, but police say they have a pretty good idea.
As for why the back of that truck hadn't been searched earlier, they say they never expected they would find Fulkerson's body there.
"You learn something new all the time. I've never encountered a case like this," said Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin. "It was on nobody's mind that there may be a body in the back of the vehicle."
That's exactly what police found themselves investigating Thursday afternoon after getting a 911 call from Sterling Federal Credit Union.
The Coroner's Office hasn't announced a cause of death, but Bolin says there were no signs of trauma or foul play.
"It looked like Richard had kind of made a bed in the back of the truck. There was a comforter back there, smoked a couple cigarettes and it appears at this time, we won't know until we get the toxicology reports, but it appears to be an overdose."
The question many now want answered is why didn't police look in the back of the truck before?
Especially since it was initially found in Henderson shortly after the alleged stabbing.
Bolin says police never requested a search warrant because at the time, they thought they had all the evidence they needed for their case.
"The crime scene happened at a house, all the evidence we needed was in the house. We had a victim who was still alive who gave a statement," Bolin said.
Now, looking back on things, it's a different story.
"With hindsight, I mean, now that we know we have a body in the truck, yeah you would want to look, but do I think our detectives did anything wrong? Absolutely not," Bolin said.
At this point, the department can't go back and change anything, but Bolin says they can, and will, use this case as a lesson as they move forward.
"It's always a learning tool and we're going to look at things different. Now we've got this what if scenario that we never had before," Bolin said.
The Coroner's Office is awaiting toxicology results before announcing an official cause of death, but they do lost the time of death early in the morning of January 11th, the day after Fulkerson was accused of stabbing his wife.
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