State College Man Accused of Putting Roommate’s Body in Trash Can After Overdose Death

A State College man was charged on Monday for dumping an overdose victim’s body in a stolen trash can and leaving it outside an unoccupied home, according to borough police.

Christopher L. Hampton, 50, is charged with abuse of a corpse, as well as theft and receiving stolen property.

Police responded on Dec. 15, 2022, to a report of a human body in a trash can outside a residence on Oakhurst Lane in College Township. Officers found a man wrapped in an area rug inside the bin, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed on Monday.

After identifying the man by his fingerprints and a state photo database, investigators went to an associated address on Wintergreen Circle in State College and encountered , Hampton, who said the man lived with him.

According to the affidavit, Hampton said the two were traveling through Ohio earlier in the month and stopped at a gas station. After going inside the store, Hampton returned to the car and found the man looked as if he had fallen, with injuries to his face and foot, but he believed he was alive.

“Hampton provided varying accounts of when he first realized the male was deceased,” a State College detective wrote.

He said he then took the man’s body to his girlfriend’s home on West South Hills Avenue and “left him in the driveway wrapped in a carpet for a few days while he decided what to do,” according to the affidavit.

Hampton later admitted he stole a borough-issued trash can from outside a home on South Allen Street, placed the man’s body inside of it and wheeled it to an Oakhurst Lane house he believed to be abandoned, according to the affidavit.

Detectives spoke to Hampton’s girlfriend, who showed them text messages he sent while in Ohio. A photo of the man’s bloody face was followed by a text in which Hampton wrote, “I think he died,” according to the affidavit. After she called and told him to take the man to the hospital, Hampton said that he was conscious and refused to go, police wrote.

The woman told detectives she was aware that Hampton stored the body at her home for several days and that he discussed several ideas with her, including one involving an abandoned house. She has not been charged in the case.

A medical examiner’s autopsy found no injury or trauma that could have resulted in the man’s death, police wrote. Toxicology results determined the man died from an overdose of fentanyl, methamphetamine and xylazine, also known as “tranq.”

Hampton has been incarcerated at the Centre County Correctional Facility since May 13 on unrelated charges.

He was arraigned on the abuse of a corpse and theft charges Monday afternoon by District Judge Gregory Koehle, who set bail at $10,000.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 12