SPRINGFIELD — Police are investigating the shooting of a man found dead in a car Thursday morning as a homicide.
Cagney Aaron Benson, 29, was found in a 2009 Chevy Cobalt that was parked and not running at an intersection in the Maharaj Mobile Home Park. Police responded around 7:30 a.m. and found him dead inside the car.
Neighbors, who declined to give their names, said they were getting children ready for school and noticed a car parked at Everitt Avenue and Springfield Avenue blocking traffic. No one heard any gunshots, so the neighbors said they believe Benson had been shot somewhere else and died trying to escape whoever shot him.
Springfield Police Chief Philip Thorne said he has no indication Benson was shot somewhere else. Early Thursday afternoon, police had no suspects and no witnesses. Thorne asked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office to take the lead in the investigation.
--- VIDEO: THORNE TALKS ABOUT THE CASE»»
Benson had been in and out of state prison for the past 10 years, serving three separate stints for drug convictions. He died less than a mile from the address he listed when he was released from prison in September after serving about 18 months for possession of cocaine and possession of bath salts. Court records indicate he is survived by at least one child.
Neighbors said the neighborhood is typically quiet at night because its working class residents are usually in bed around the time the streetlights come on. They added that criminal activity there was rarely more serious than schoolchildren fighting at the railroad tracks nearby. Thorne said the park had improved over the past few years, but police still respond to a “moderate” level of criminal activity there.
Police are trying to figure out what Benson was doing Wednesday night before he was killed.
“We’re trying to run down where he was last night ... and see where that takes us,” Thorne said.