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Marsh Run residents recall Fauquier man found dead
The streets in Marsh Run were all but deserted as a soft, steady rain fell on Wednesday afternoon. Empty swings in a small play area on Long Street moved gently as puddles formed beneath them. Across the road, yellow crime scene tape still surrounded a nondescript home on a corner lot as it glistened in the rain.Most residents ignored the doorbell and knocking at the door. Those who answered said they heard what happened in their community on Easter Sunday ? when Thomas James Norton, 61, was found dead in his Long Street home ? but declined to say much about it. Just one resident and a young girl on her way to a friend’s house stopped to talk.
“Everyone knew of him, but no one really knew him all that well,” a former neighbor said. “He kind of kept to himself.”
An acquaintance found Norton when he went to take him to church on Sunday morning, and called police. Fauquier County detectives are investigating Morton’s death as a homicide.
A neighborhood girl, who appeared to be 11 or 12, said she and some friends were walking in the area on Sunday when someone told them what happened.
“[Norton] was very nice and friendly to all of us kids. He would always come and say hi when we were out playing,” she said. “It was sad and scary to hear what happened since we didn’t know exactly what was going on. My mom told me to stay in the house the rest of the day.”
According to Maj. Paul Mercer of the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office, deputies went to a private home in the 6200 block of Long Street in Bealeton for a report of a deceased person at approximately 10:21 a.m.
When deputies got there they found Norton, who resided at the address, dead on the floor in the living room.
According to a subsequent search warrant, Norton was "lying on the ground in a pool of blood with blood on the victim's head and arms." The time and exact cause of death is pending an autopsy.
“Everyone is scared. The person who did this is still out there,” Norton’s former neighbor said. “Before this happened, I didn’t really think too much about [security]. Now we make sure our doors are locked every night and our windows are always locked.”
There are a lot of different rumors circulating in the community about what happened, the young girl added.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Sgt. James Hartman of the Fauquier County Criminal Investigations Division at (540) 347-6870.
E-mail the reporter: abogdanovic@timespapers.com .
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