North Little Rock police are investigating the death of a Maumelle man -- whose body officers found in a vacant house on Monday -- as a homicide, a police spokesman said Tuesday.
Officers found the body of Kenneth Terrell Kilow, 43, inside a vacant house at 2209 W. Long 17th St., said Sgt. Amy Cooper, a spokesman for the North Little Rock Police Department.
Kilow was reported as missing in Maumelle on Nov. 20, Cooper said.
Investigators were not initially able to identify the victim and sent the body to the state Crime Laboratory, where he was identified, Cooper said. Medical examiners also determined that the manner of death was homicide, Cooper said.
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Jim Martin, managing partner with JD Martin Construction Services, is remodeling the house next door to where Kilow's body was found.
Martin said he was walking around the sandstone-and-panel house Monday "looking for good bones."
The term "good bones" is a house term used by, among others, contractors, real estate agents and buyers.
If the house had a solid foundation and no irreparable faults, Martin said, he thought he'd buy and renovate it.
The two-story house has a large, concrete front porch, two weathered, glass-pane windows facing over the street and a shaded backyard with two storage buildings. In such a quiet neighborhood, Martin said, it could be a good home.
"We walked around the back and the door was wide open," Martin said.
Sometimes people will break into vacant houses, so Martin said he and the construction workers with him went inside to take a look.
"We went upstairs and he was on the floor," Martin said. "At first, I thought it was a mannequin, some kind of Halloween thing ... you really couldn't tell it was a body."
The figure, he said, was lying face-down on the floor of an upstairs bedroom, right behind two glass-pane windows. The long sleeves and pants covered most of the figure's skin, he said, and it wasn't until he got closer that he could tell that the form was a dead man.
"I just called the police and left," Martin said. "I thought maybe he'd frozen in there; I didn't know [it was a homicide]."
Martin said he's no longer interested in buying the house.
Terrence McDaniels, who lives just a block away, said he knew the man officers found was Kilow as soon as he heard what clothes were on the body. In information released by the Maumelle Police Department, family members said Kilow was last seen wearing a brown jumpsuit.
Metro on 12/19/2018