Man found dead in chimney a month after tenants hear screams for help

Zachariah Andrews was discovered by maintenance worker investigating foul smell

Zachariah Andrews ( )

A man has been found dead in a chimney more than a month after tenants in the building reported hearing someone screaming for help.

A maintenance worker investigating a foul smell in a block of apartments in Norfolk, Nebraska, found Zachariah Andrews, 29, stuck in the chimney on 19 October.

The worker first found a shoe before finding the decomposing body of the 29-year-old.

His remains had to be identified by scars, marks, tattoos, and an identification card found on him, police said.

Andrews’s family has been informed and Norfolk Police Division said the force is investigating the circumstances of his death.

The grim discovery comes one month after police officers were called to the apartment block on 1414 South 3rd Street on 16 September, after a resident reported hearing a man calling out for help for three to four minutes.

The calls appeared to be coming from the first floor, the resident said, and two officers were dispatched.

But on arrival, the screaming could no longer be heard.

The resident was told to call the police back if he heard the noise again.

The responding officers also had contact with three additional residents, including the apartment beneath the reporting party, and no other person said they had heard the shouting.

A maintenance worker investigating a foul smell in a block of apartments found Andrew (Google Maps)

There was a loud television playing in one of the apartments, police said.

On 20 September, a parking warning was placed on Andrews’s vehicle nearby.

A missing persons report was then filed on 3 October and he was entered into the national database of missing persons.

That same day, Madison County Sheriff’s office issued a warrant for his arrest on seven counts of violating a protective order.

According to The New York Post, Andrews had repeatedly posted on Facebook about reaching out to an unnamed woman.

Responding to the posts, which covered a period of several months, friends of Andrews told him to stop trying to contact the woman and advised him to remember what he had learnt in “treatment”.

Local media reported that he had been previously charged with trying to entice a 12-year-old girl who was trying to sell a swimsuit on Facebook.