THE Gwent man found dead in a doorway was four times over the drink drive limit, his body had been daubed with pink lipstick and his hair hacked off, it has now been revealed.
And detectives are trying to discover how traces of valium and other drugs got into the Cwmbran man’s bloodstream – as he was not known to be a user of either substance.
Rodney Edward Jones, 30, a known alcoholic nicknamed ‘Bod’, was found slumped in the doorway of the Oakfield Court Farm Community Centre in Hogarth Close on Tuesday, September 26.
Offensive comments had been written all over him in lipstick and his hair had been hacked into a crude Mohican.
His back was covered in “horrendous scrape marks, as if he had been dragged”.
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Coates, the man leading the investigation, said: “He had gone to a flat in Hogarth Close. He had fallen into unconsciousness and it seemed he was stripped while he was lying face-down on the floor in the lounge.”
His body was then dressed and moved around 20 feet to the front of the nearby community centre.
Police were called to the scene at around midnight, with an ambulance, undertaker and forensic team not far behind.
Detective Chief Inspector Coates said the ambulance crew recognised the dead man immediately, as he was thought to have regularly invented illnesses to secure a hospital stay.
He was also registered disabled, as he suffered from epilepsy, and received treatment for alcoholism at Talygarn Rehabilitation Centre in Llantrisant.
A regular at local pubs, he would pay £80 over the bar each week and drink until it ran out.
He was barred from several of his former haunts for his own safety, due to his epilepsy and excessive drinking.
At the time of his death, he was covered in bruises and had a fractured shoulder, which he had claimed were from a fracas with a taxi driver a fortnight before.
Detective Chief Inspector Coates added: “He was a man living on the edge.”
However, he was regarded as a “likeable rogue” and popular in Cwmbran.
Reports of a murder inquiry into his death prompted a huge public response, with people coming forward from all walks of life to offer evidence and witness statements.
Bod was seen withdrawing £190 in benefits from Cwmbran post office at 9am on the day of his death, before heading to the Lower Bridge End Inn at around 11am.
He was last seen alive at approximately 4.30pm, still drinking in the pub with a group of people.
But, despite the wealth of information, police were still struggling to piece together his last hours.
A seven-and-a-half hour post-mortem examination failed to determine the cause of death, but a preliminary toxicology test showed the presence of the drugs and a single needlemark on his body.
Three people originally arrested in connection with Bod’s death were released, two men without charge and a woman on police bail.
They had been questioned for 36 hours at Pontypool police station and were still integral to police inquiries, having been the last people to see Bod alive.
Anyone with information surrounding Rodney Jones’ whereabouts on September 26 is asked to contact the incident room on 01495 232260.
NEWPORT’S Royal Gwent Hospital had been forced to close its doors to emergencies because of a lack of beds.
The decision was taken late last night as the numbers of patients needing attention began to mount beyond what hard-pressed staff and facilities could cope with. The hospital re-opened at 1.30pm.
Patients faced waits of several hours to be seen and the situation has been described as “meltdown” by a relative of a patient admitted last night.
“It was ridiculous. Someone with the man in the cubicle next to my husband’s said he had been waiting 15 hours for a bed,” she said.
The hospital was hoping to reopen to all emergencies as the Argus went to press, but general manager Alan Davies described the last few hours as “dire” and said the situation is being constantly monitored.
At one point in the early hours of this morning, several patients were transferred out of Gwent – to Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr and the Royal Glamorgan Hospital at Pontypridd – because there were also no beds at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny nor Caerphilly Miners’ Hospital. Problems began with a build-up of emergency admissions early yesterday evening. Mr Davies said it had been agreed that any emergency medical or surgical cases should go to Nevill Hall unless their condition was deemed extreme.
“By mid-evening we were looking from Bristol right through to Swansea but we did not close at that stage because we cannot just close when there is no capacity anywhere else,” he said.
“Towards midnight beds became available at Nevill Hall and Caerphilly. At 11.30pm, because we had seven patients in A and E but did not have any beds, the safe thing to do was close to emergencies.”
Diversion of emergency medical patients between hospitals in Gwent has been a regular occurrence in the face of increases in emergency medical admissions of between six and 12 per cent a month since April. The hospital remained open to paediatric and maternity cases, throughout the night and began seeing chest pain cases again at 12.30pm. It was planned to reopen to all emergencies at 1.30pm.
The hospital will have more beds available from November as plans for coping with winter emergencies begin to kick in.