Man drags body wrapped in blanket down apartment stairs as witnesses watch, TN cops say

Witnesses at an apartment complex watched a man drag a dead body wrapped in blankets down the stairs and dump it in a rain culvert, Tennessee police said.

Now, the 38-year-old is charged.

A maintenance worker at the apartment complex noticed a man, later identified as Dominic Collier, dragging the body through the apartment complex on Jan. 24, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said in an arrest affidavit.

He alerted his supervisor and the property manager, who both began investigating. The manager reviewed the surveillance footage and saw what the worker described, police said.

The man seen walking down a hill in the video was the same man the maintenance worker had seen, according to police.

A resident of the complex flagged the workers down and said he saw also the man dragging something before shoving it in a rain culvert, Nashville police wrote in the report.

When the apartment workers went to the culvert, they found a dead body, police said.

Someone had duct taped two blankets and a shower curtain around the victim’s body then put a white garbage bag and a green camo backpack over his head, police said.

The leasing office identified the man seen moving the body as Collier, and police went to speak with him, according to the report. They reported they found Collier wearing a new set of clothes, with the clothes he was last seen wearing draped over a chair.

He refused to speak to police, investigators said. McClatchy News could not immediately reach his lawyer.

Collier is charged with abuse of a corpse, non-report of a dead body and tampering with evidence, Davidson County records show.

The medical examiner will determine the victim’s identity and cause of death.

This story was originally published January 25, 2024 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Man drags body wrapped in blanket down apartment stairs as witnesses watch, TN cops say."