Monday night just before 10 pm Cleveland Fire received a call for a man found hanging on a fence which was on fire. Units arrived and found 48-year-old Billy Keith Hilton deceased. The fence, transformer, pole and grass around the scene were on fire. He was along the TXDOT easement along US 59 about 100 feet north of the entrance of the US 69 Food Mart which remains closed since it was flooded by Harvey. According to the preliminary investigation by Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Darrell Elliott, Hilton was on an aluminum ladder and used a metal pipe to try to disengage the fusible link between the transformer and the secondary line. He came in contact with the 37,000 volt line which knocked him off the ladder into the secondary line and then falling onto the wooden fence below. Elliott said Hilton, who was an electrician had been hired to new wiring to the Food Mart. Precinct 6 Justice of the Peace, Judge Ralph Fuller conducted the inquest and ordered an autopsy. According to Elliott, the preliminary autopsy results show that death was due to electrocution.
