Man who previously survived a week-long exposure to elements found dead inside home

A Madison man who spent six days last April on the ground between his carport and his house before a mail carrier found him was found dead in his house on Friday, May 27.

According to Madison Police Department reports, the body of Jim Howser, 79, was found at 6:28 p.m. Madison Police Chief Bill Ashburn said a woman went to the house to check on Howser and became concerned and spoke to a neighbor about the absence of movement. The neighbor then called police and an officer located Howser’s body in a recliner in the living room. Morgan County Coroner Adam Carter estimated Howser had been deceased several days before his body was discovered.

In a story published in the Morgan County Citizen in April 2021, Howser’s six day ordeal was examined. Howler was saved when a Madison Post Office mail carrier, Elaine Fulton, noticed that mail in Howser’s Harris Street mailbox was filling up.

“I was thinking to myself that something ain’t right. This mail has been here all week,” Fulton was quoted as saying. Fulton found Howser wedged inside a door frame of the Harris Street house. Howser said at the time his legs had collapsed after he consumed several energy drinks. “During this time I had no hydration, no nutrition, no anything,” he said at the time. “This was at the end of a period of total withdrawal from life sustaining stuff.”

Fulton said at the time that God told her to turn around and go back and see if she could find Howser. “I guess it was God,” she said. “I just couldn’t go off that route without going back to see. It didn’t sit right. He hadn’t gotten his mail. This mail has been here all week.”

After Fulton found Howser she gave the man a bottle of water and called EMS technicians who treated Howser and transported him to Morgan Medical Center.