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Police probe man's death in burned SUV

LATROBE — Toxicology tests and other investigations are ongoing as state police try to figure out why a man burned to death in a sport-utility vehicle parked in a Western Pennsylvania Wal-Mart parking lot.

The Westmoreland County Coroner said this morning that surveillance video shows 27-year-old Nicholas Gillespie of Greensburg drove into the lot on Route 30 in Unity Township about 3:30 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters found his body in the passenger seat about 5 a.m. when they responded to a report that the parked vehicle was burning.

An autopsy determined Gillespie died of carbon monoxide poisoning and burns from the vehicle fire. The coroner has ruled his death an accident.

But the coroner and state troopers from the Greensburg barracks have yet to determine whether Gillespie was intoxicated or if there’s some other explanation for the incident.

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