Dead man found on UA property

A Sun Tran bus driver reported seeing a man lying in the 2200 block of West Anklam Road shortly after 11 a.m. Tucson Fire Department personnel arrived and discovered that the Caucasian man, estimated to be about 44 years old, was dead.

The man was found near a homeless encampment and appears to be a homeless man himself, university police Cmdr. Brian Seastone said. Police are trying to confirm the man's identity and said they will attempt to notify his next of kin before releasing his name.

Tucson police homicide detectives are leading the investigation, even though the man was found on University of Arizona property.

Seastone said the reason is that Tucson police "have the expertise in homicide investigations." Investigators are, however, coordinating their efforts with University of Arizona Police Department detectives, he said.

Seastone said university police will explore the possibility that the death is related to an incident Sunday in which another man said he was shot at while hiking on Tumamoc Hill.

The man told police he was hiking between 4 and 6 p.m. when he heard several shots, possibly from a rifle. Officers combed the area but found no suspicious activity or evidence of a shooting, university police reports stated.

Police refused comment about the cause of the man's death, adding that an autopsy will be performed.

If investigators determine the death is a homicide, it will be considered a campus homicide and recorded as part of the university's crime statistics, Seastone said.

The university's last homicide was in 1990, when university police Cpl. Kevin Barleycorn, 37, was accidentally shot by another UA officer as Barleycorn tried to subdue a gun-toting party crasher at what was then the Kappa Sigma fraternity house, 430 N. Cherry Ave.

The party crasher, Eddie Morris Myers Jr., then 17, faced charges of second-degree murder and five counts of aggravated assault, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to five years in prison.