The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is now investigating the death of a man found in a muddy Abbotsford field Sunday morning.

A man on a Sunday-morning drive discovered the body of a dead man lying 10 metres off of Farmer Road in a muddy field near the American border.

Abbotsford police were called around 9:20 a.m. and the muddy conditions meant they took their time before deciding to rule it a suspicious death and call in IHIT, police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald said.

“On initial observation certainly it’s suspicious for a person to be 10 metres off a roadway in the middle of a farm field and be dead,’ MacDonald told The Sun Sunday morning. “But we don’t have any definitive signs that, ‘OK, this is a heart attack or homicide.’”

MacDonald said because of the mud the man’s age is still unknown.

If the death is ruled a homicide it would be the city’s second this year after not recording a single one all of last year. The peaceful year meant the municipality could rid itself of the disturbing Canada’s Murder Capital nickname brought on by high levels of gang violence in previous years.

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