Body found on Blandford Drive ID’d as Vancouver man

Authorities have identified the man whose body was found in the roadway Saturday night as a Vancouver man.

The body of Denis O. Ponomarev, 25, was found in the 600 block of North Blandford Drive Saturday at about 11:45 p.m., according to the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Vancouver Police Department.

Investigators are still working to determine how and when the man died, Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said.

Though the agency’s major crimes detectives were originally involved in the investigation, the case has since been handed over to be solely investigated by traffic detectives. Kapp said the reason is that there is no suspicion of assault or other person-to-person crimes and because the deceased person was found in the roadway.

“It’s possible the person was hit by a car, but we don’t really know that,” Kapp said. “There are more unknowns than knowns at this point. We don’t really know why someone would be in the road deceased.”

Currently, Kapp said, detectives are waiting on a toxicology report to see if that information helps investigators piece together what happened.