A man was found dead early Sunday morning behind a downtown restaurant by someone walking through the parking lot, police said.
The identity of the 37-year-old Morgan Hill resident is being withheld, according to a Santa Clara County Coroner's Office representative.
"We are not releasing that information at this time pending contact with the family," the representative said shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday. On Monday morning, another representative said all calls about the death were being referred to Morgan Hill police. The autopsy was scheduled to be performed Monday morning, but was not complete by presstime.
Morgan Hill police responded to the call of a man down in the parking lot of the Just Breakfast restaurant at 6:30 a.m., according to Morgan Hill police Special Operations Sgt. Jerry Neumayer. A restaurant employee alerted the police after a passerby spotted the man, police said. The passerby didn't know the man was dead.
When police and paramedics arrived, they found the man with what appeared to be foam around his mouth and started CPR. They pronounced the man dead at sometime between 6:45 a.m. and 7 a.m., Neumayer said. The foam-like substance around his mouth could have been caused by choking or vomiting.
Investigators were on scene for approximately two hours photographing the scene, collecting evidence and attempting to find witnesses.
Police are treating the incident as a suspicious death, Neumayer added.
"We're still investigating, we're not sure at this point what happened," he said Sunday afternoon. "The cause of death is unknown. We're waiting for the coroner's report. There were no signs of trauma to the body."
Neumayer said detectives interviewed area residents but found no one who had witnessed anything that could shed light on the incident. Detectives also talked to people who were with the man during the night, but, Neumayer said, there is a four- or five-hour time period that's unaccounted for.
"From what we understand, they may have been partying, but we're still looking into exactly what happened," he said.
There are several bars and restaurants in the downtown area, but detectives are still piecing together the man's activities before he died.
Just Breakfast owner Fred Asadi said the incident didn't disturb patrons too much.
"It happened so early, by 10 a.m. there was a new crowd and they hadn't seen anything, it was all cleared by then," Asadi said, gesturing to the portion of the parking lot directly behind his restaurant where the body was found.
Still, Asadi said restaurant employees were shaken.
"All day, people were thinking about it all, who was his family, were they waiting for him and he never came home?" Asadi said.
Asadi said the incident might have caused more of a stir if it had been someone shot, or killed and then dumped off there, but he didn't think that was what happened.
"We don't know what happened," he said.
Bartender Deeanna Haygood was working the morning shift Monday at M & H Tavern, about a block south of Just Breakfast on Monterey, and said people were definitely talking about it - but there wasn't much to say.
"We don't know what happened," she said. "No one really knows anything."
Marilyn Dubil Marilyn Dubil is a reporter with South Valley Newspapers' Morgan Hill bureau.
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