An Alabama man is under investigation after an alleged burglar died after being tied to a tree.
Late Friday night, Nathaniel Johnson had apparently laid a trap for an alleged burglar. He had been robbed before and was tired of it, so he parked his car at a neighbor’s place and then waited inside the home.
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According to deputies, Johnson waited until Cleveland Gully arrived and picked the lock on the door. Johnson then tackled Gully to the ground and tied his hands behind his back.
“He began to tie him to the tree still in the standing up position,” said Washington County Sheriff Richard Stringer.
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Johnson used electrical wire and rope from a nearby clothesline to tie Gully up, also using “multiple layers of masking tape that he had wrapped around his mouth and all the way around his head.”
Johnson then left to go get a neighbor and call the authorities, but when police arrived, Gully was already dead.
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“I don’t think he was intending to kill the intruder,” Stringer said. “I think he wanted to capture him and have him arrested.”
The cause of Gully’s death is yet unknown, and police are investigating the incident.
