Man accused of abusing corpse, tampering with evidence in Dayton homicide

Oct. 16—A warrant was issued for the arrest of a Dayton man indicted Wednesday in connection to the November death of a 36-year-old man whose body was found wrapped in a tarp.

James Ernest Hancock, 49, is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 31 in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court for two counts of tampering with evidence and one count of gross abuse of a corpse, all felony charges.

The victim in the case was identified as Matthew Joseph Edward Thomas of Dayton, who was pronounced dead Nov. 1, 2023, by the Montgomery County Coroner's Office.

"This incident was later determined to be a homicide," Dayton police Lt. Steven Bauer said previously.

Dayton police were dispatched around 6:45 a.m. to an apartment in the first block of Richmond Avenue on a report of a suspicious circumstance.

A 911 caller reported two men appeared to be putting a body wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of a pickup truck, according to Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center records.

It is not clear how Thomas died and the Dayton Daily News has requested his cause of death from the coroner's office.

As part of the investigation, which remains ongoing, the Dayton Police Homicide Unit was seeking an older model red and white Ford pickup truck.