Man whose dog ate his face was listed as homicide victim by mistake

Published 3:20 pm Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Following a miscoding by Federal Way police, what was thought to be a homicide turned out to be a man who died of natural causes and whose dog began to eat him.

On Nov. 3, according to the Federal Way police blotter, at 9:11 a.m. in the 2000 block of South 308th St., a man reported that he found a man lying in their backyard who appeared to be dead. According to Federal Way Police Department Cmdr. Kyle Buchanan, this man, who they believe was transient, was found dead, and he was initially coded in the police department’s system as dying of a homicide.

Buchanan said since the beginning, the incident being reported as a homicide was a mistake and the man is believed to have died of natural causes. Buchanan said the buttons to code a report as a natural cause death and a homicide are very close together, so the mistake could happen easily.

Buchanan said the man’s face and head suffered major injuries, but it’s believed that this was due to the man’s dog beginning to eat him after he died. Buchanan said it’s likely the man died of a drug overdose, but the specific details of the man’s death will be determined from an autopsy.

Buchanan said the coding error was fixed and will be reflected on the crime map.