Authorities are investigating the cause of death of a man who was found lying facedown in the street near his home early Sunday.
Kelvin Mosley, 44, of 1617 S. Stanley St. was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m., about 45 minutes after four teens walking by found him lying in the road in the 1600 block of Stanley.
There were no visible signs of trauma, and the cause of death is unknown, said Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Mosley, a cook who was described as full of life and close with family and friends, recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Jessie Copeland.
“He did not deserve to die like this, he was almost home,” Copeland said Sunday night from the house they shared. “He will be missed dearly by me, his friends and family.”
She told police she gave him a ride to LA Connection, a Western Avenue bar, late Saturday evening.
Mosley left the bar at some point with a friend, who dropped him off at another friend’s house. He apparently decided to walk home from there, Copeland said.
His cell phone showed he called her phone about 10 minutes prior to the 911 call. She regrets she never heard the phone ring, as he probably was calling her for a ride home.
“If I had, he would be watching basketball,” she said.
Copeland said a police officer knocked on her door about 2:30 a.m. and asked her if she had seen or heard anything about a man in the street, dead.
She said she didn’t and then looked out the window. As a police flashlight illuminated the body, she felt a jolt. She was fairly sure it was her fiance.
“I gave them a photo of Kelvin and asked them to tell me it was not him,” she said.
But to her dismay, it was a match.
Copeland, a certified nursing assistant at Bel-Wood Nursing Home, said Mosley didn’t appear to have gunshot or stab wounds when she ran out in the street to see him. However, his wallet and shoes were missing.
Mosley’s sister, Stacy Mosley, said she and her family saw some bruises on his face at the coroners’ office Sunday.
Police confirmed Sunday evening that Mosley’s shoes were missing when officers arrived at the scene, but released no further information, including whether anyone had been taken into custody or arrested. “He was a good father figure, a good male figure,” Stacy Mosley said of her brother, adding he had eight children, five girls and three boys.
He served in the military in Seattle for four years in the 1980s and had been working at a Bartonville restaurant as a cook for about 10 years at the time of his death, she added.
Pearlie Mosley described her son as full of life and outgoing. “Everybody loved him,” she said.
“Everybody has taken it real hard,” Stacy Mosley added.
Riya V. Anandwala can be reached at 686-3194 or [email protected].
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