The following will no doubt strike readers of a certain age as something out of a Rod Serling television series. Maybe "The Twilight Zone." Or "Night Gallery."
But this twist ending was very real.
On Saturday, Edgefield County Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of an unconscious man layng in his yard in Trenton, South Carolina.
Upon arrival, deputies found Joseph McKinnin, 60, dead on the ground.
They found something else, too: A freshly dug grave. And it wasn't empty.
In the grave was the body of McKinnon's 65-year-old girlfriend, Patricia Dent.
An autopsy showed Dent died of strangulation. Authorities say McKinnon killed her inside the house and decided to bury her on the property. No doubt he hoped to get away with the crime.
But fate had a different idea. McKinnon bound her body and wrapped it in plastic. But while filling in the grave with shovels of earth, he suffered a heart attack and died before he could complete the job.
Call it karma. Call it poetic justice. Or just call it bad luck.
But maybe, just maybe, a higher court rendered its verdict.