MOULTRIE, Ga. — Two days before a man’s battered body was found Monday inside his Sardis Church Road home police arrested another resident of the area after police responded to the brutal beating of another neighbor.

A witness told a deputy who responded to the 700 block of Sardis Church Road at around 6 p.m. on Saturday that she saw the man hit another person multiple times with his fists. When the victim, whom she identified as Oscar Hernandez, fell to the ground his assailant then began kicking him.

The witness told police that Hernandez’s attacker frequently assaults people in the area when he has been drinking heavily. The report did not indicate that the officer spoke to Hernandez at that time.

While investigating the incident the deputy located a man identified as Miguel Angel Matar sleeping in a makeshift bed at Lot 9 699 Sardis Church Road. Police charged the man, who also was identified as Miguel Angel Medina, 37, with use of fighting words.

He was released from Colquitt County Jail the same day on the misdemeanor charge.

At about 6:30 p.m. Monday police were called to Lot 7 699 Sardis Church Road to a 10-by-15-foot structure containing two beds. Inside they found the body of a man who had been severely beaten.

As of Wednesday afternoon the man had not been positively identified, Colquitt County Coroner Verlyn Brock said. An acquaintance was scheduled to identify the body at a local funeral home.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation performed an autopsy on Wednesday.

Although the agency has not issued its report, preliminary indications are that the man died of trauma to the head, Brock said. The death has been ruled a homicide.

The man identified as Matar or Medina was in jail on Wednesday, but no additional charges had been filed against him.

Jamy Steinberg, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Thomasville office, said on Wednesday that there had been no new developments in the investigation.

On Tuesday Steinberg told The Observer that the agency was looking into whether the beating the victim suffered contributed to his death or there was some other medical issue.