Little known about bodies found

Key West police continue to remain mum about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a man and woman found in their apartment in the 900 block of White Street Wednesday morning, city police said.

“Foul play is not suspected,” said Key West Police Chief Donie Lee. “At this point there is no indication it was a suicide,” he said without expounding.

Police said they received a call around 9:16 a.m. from the landlord, who had gone to check on the woman who hadn’t shown up to her job for the past few days. Co-workers had gone over to the home with concerns.

Officers entered the apartment and found Richard Hadlock, 50, in a room and then entered a separate room to find Sandra Lee Witkowski, 54.

Hadlock, deputy chief of the Naval Air Station Key West fire and emergency services, had several medical issues, Lee said. But police didn’t comment on Witkowski’s health and said they had to wait for the autopsy results to determine a cause of death.

“It’s a medical examiner’s case now,” Lee said. It can take nine weeks for police to receive results of toxicology screens.

Hadlock had worked for NAS Key West since 1994 as a civilian employee after serving four years in the Navy. He was remembered by friends and colleagues as a kind man with a brilliant smile.

“Our first thoughts are with his family and anyone else affected,” said Trice Denny, a spokeswoman for NAS Key West. “And the firefighters, we’ve got to spend some time with them to make sure they’re OK.”

Hadlock had been ill for at least two years. In December, his family posted a GoFundMe page aiming to raise $8,000 in an effort to bring him home to Roosevelt, Utah, from Key West.

“Because of brain trauma and PTSD he is unable to drive or fly,” his mother Dianna Hadlock wrote. “I will need to go to Key West, Florida, and bring him home. Because of his ailing health he wants to be home.”

His mother, who couldn’t be reached immediately for this story, updated the GoFundMe page after her son’s death, saying the money would now be used “to bring Richie’s body home to be laid to rest.”

A year earlier, Hadlock’s brother Cameron had posted on Facebook that Richard — Rich as those close to him called him — had been hospitalized in Key West for more than one week and had to be airlifted to Miami.

“Not sure if or when his clock stops,” his brother wrote.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 11:37 AM with the headline "Little known about bodies found."