Man's body found in back seat of burning car in northwest Atlanta

Authorities are trying to determine what killed a man whose body was found in a burning car in northwest Atlanta early Monday.

Atlanta fire Battalion Chief David Rhodes told the AJC that his crews got a call at 4:53 a.m. about a car fire in the 2100 block of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.

When firefighters from a station just a couple of blocks away responded, they found flames coming from the engine compartment of the vehicle, Rhodes said.

While they were dousing the flames, a neighbor “came up and notified them that a person typically sleeps in that vehicle,” Rhodes said. “As they put the fire out and opened the vehicle, they did find a deceased person in the back seat.”

Rhodes said that it appears that the man, who was in his 30s and lived at the address where the car burned, had been asleep in the back seat, covered by a blanket.

He said that while the fire was confined to the car’s engine compartment, “there was enough smoke in the vehicle that could cause an individual to have problems.”

Still, Rhodes said, the man’s death would “likely be treated as a homicide investigation until everything is ruled out and the medical examiner can determine the cause of death.”