Vehicular homicide is the ruling in the cause of death of Ontiveres Gonzales, 33, who was killed on Saturday night, May 3, said Panola County Coroner Donna Stevens.

Gonzales’ body was found off an embankment on May 10 by boys riding four-wheelers, the coroner said.

The incident occurred on Highway 6 about one mile from the Quitman County line, Stevens said. He died from "head trauma."

Handling the case is Agent Chuck Poe of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Stevens said Gonzales had been in the U.S. legally for seven years and he was employed by a sod farm near the scene of his death.

The date of Gonzales’ death was determined after interviews with co-workers and friends, she said, based upon when he’d last been seen by them.

"He’d been seen walking on the (south) side of the road … then he didn’t show up the next day," the coroner said.

Officials are hoping that someone with knowledge of the crime will call Stevens at 487-3554 or Poe at 563-4651 Ext.6424.

To that, an angry Alderman Rufus Manley said Tuesday, "I’m going to call the health department and the environmental people, too. We’ve had at least two leaks in the [above ground] sewer bypass when it was run over and broke … if this was up in the east part of town I think we’d have done something about it by now."

Manley said the city should consider declaring the problem an "emergency" because raw sewage has run into a yard, a field and into a ditch before the breaks were repaired.

"The last time we declared an emergency, " Mayor Bobby Baker told aldermen, "you didn’t like that we spent some $50,000 fixing a hole that fell in some 200 feet north of this spot. You didn’t like the bill.