GULFPORT — A Mississippi coroner says a South Dakota man found dead in a tent in Gulfport on Monday died of hypothermia. But authorities have been unable to find relatives of the man, identified as 59-year-old James Hooker.
Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove tells The Sun Herald Hooker is the Gulf coast region’s first weather-related death in an arctic blast that began sweeping through the area Sunday, and the first cold-weather death in Harrison County in three years.
Hargrove says Hooker, from Sioux Falls, S.D., had pitched a one-man tent Sunday, when temperatures overnight plunged to the upper 20s.
The coroner says Hooker was wearing layers of clothing but his clothes were wet.
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