Responding to reports of an alleged armed man, police found a Pinehurst man dead from a gunshot wound Tuesday in an upstairs apartment of a Taylortown building.

The man’s name has not been released.

Police responded to 200 Westgate Drive at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday to investigate a report that an armed man, who was possibly under duress and intending to harm himself, apparently had locked himself in the apartment, according to a news release from the Taylortown Police Depart-ment.

A witness who said he drove by the building on Tuesday indicated in an email to The Pilot that police were “all over the place with rifles drawn and two ducked behind their cars with guns drawn.”

The building is a multi-use medicalfacility and is visible from N.C. 211.

On Thursday, Taylortown Police Chief S.D. Johnson said the victim had sent an email to a friend. That friend responded to the email but didn’t receive a reply, Johnson said.

Johnson said a friend of the victim contacted police at 11 a.m. He said he was unsure if the person who contacted the police was the same person who received the email.

At 11:40 a.m., members of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office special response team made two forcible entries to the rear unit of the building. A robot searched the upstairs unit and found a man in a recliner chair in an unconscious state, according to the release. The victim appeared to have a gunshot wound to the head, the release said. Moore County EMS pronounced the man dead.

The body was transported to the medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill. Johnson said Thursday he had not received any additional information from the medical examiner’s office.

Contact Tom Embrey at tembrey@thepilot.com.