‘I’m not a murderer’: Police clear former owner of SC home where body was found in freezer

NORWAY, S.C. (WIS) - The former owner of a Norway home where a body was found in a freezer spoke with WIS on Tuesday.

“I lived in there for 10 years,” said Ronald Phillips.

The house that Phillips once called home is now the center of a high-profile investigation after the body was found Sunday night.

“These kids went in there Sunday night when it was dark, and then came back out and opened the freezer and there was a body,” he said.

Phillips sold the property years ago but says the house has always had a haunted reputation in the Norway community.

“People started busting the windows out and going in because it’s always been known that there’s a few voices in that house,” the former owner explained.

After the body was found, investigators called Phillips in for questioning, but he was quickly released.

“Everybody knows me as a person, and I’m not a murderer,” he said.

In a new twist to the story Tuesday, the Orangeburg County Fire District is investigating what they are calling a “suspicious fire” that destroyed the home just one day after the body was found.

“It was leveled to the ground so evidentially someone’s trying to cover up something,” Phillips said. “I don’t know, I don’t have the answer.”

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