Authorities in Polk County were at a loss Monday to explain what caused a massive overnight explosion in an out building behind a home south of Cedartown that left two men dead.
The 12:20 a.m. blast leveled the workshop/garage building behind a home in the 1000 block of Youngs Farm Road.
The explosion and ensuing fire killed James Thomas Sharp, 33, who lived at the rental home along with his wife and children, and Charles Franklin Wells Jr., 18, who lived a short distance away on Buchanan Highway, according to Polk police Chief Kenny Dodd.
The initial blast “blew the walls out first, and then the roof came in. It threw debris approximately 100 yards, so it was a massive explosion,” Dodd told the AJC.
“We’ve not been able to find any reason for the explosion,” the chief said late Monday morning.
“Right now, we have a backhoe up here digging through the debris,” Dodd said. “We do know there were no liquids in there, nothing flammable, no propane, no natural gas, so it’s just kind of a mystery to us right now.”
Dodd said the family had antiques, clothing and other assorted items stored in the out building.
Asked if investigators had found anything to suggest that illegal drug activity, such as the manufacture of methamphetamine, might have caused the explosion, Dodd said, “we have not been able to rule it out, but the information that we’ve gathered from witnesses and family members does not lead us to believe that at this point.”
Matt Crawford, 18, lives nearby. Crawford, whose cousin, Wells, was one of the two men killed, said he “heard an explosion, so I took off from my house and ran over here. I was the first one here.”
He said that when he got there, he could hear the victims yelling for help but could not go into the burning building to rescue them.
Another neighbor, Tony Summerville, said the Sharps had only lived in the house for a few months, but “were good neighbors.”
“It’s terrible,” he said. “It’s a tragedy any way you slice it.”
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