Princeton — The county medical examiner has ruled suicide in the death of a man found facedown Thursday morning outside his car at a Princeton-area convenience store.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Tammy Amaon identified the man as Raymond Edward Edwards, 53, of Smithfield. She said Edwards did not leave a note at the scene.

At 6:15 a.m. Thursday, Chad Myers arrived to open Myers Community Mart at 4321 U.S. 70 East. He spotted Edwards lying facedown under the open driver’s-side door of his burgundy Ford Thunderbird in the store’s parking lot.

Myers said he knew Edwards and thought he was looking underneath his car, so he went into the store.

When he came out a few minutes later and Edwards was still lying there, Myers said he knew something was wrong.

“I just had a bad feeling,” Myers said.

Myers approached Edwards, turned him over and discovered a piece of cord, like for affixing a sign to a post, tight around Edwards’ neck. Myers said Edwards was not breathing and was purple. Also, one shoe was on his foot, and the other was underneath the car.

Myers called 9-1-1, but medics who arrived on the scene could not revive Edwards. Myers said the investigation went on at the scene until about 9:30 a.m. and drew a crowd of curious people.

Unfortunately, he said, that’s how some members of Edwards’ family learned the news.

“He came in the store right often,” Myers said. “He was really nice. He would get cigarettes and a cup of coffee.”

Myers said Edwards was the father of Danny Ray Edwards, a 32-year-old Kenly man gunned down in February 2006 at the scene of a dogfight outside of Kenly. The man charged in Danny Edwards’ death, Tristan Hinson of Kenly, is due in court May 19 for the setting of his trial date.

Edwards had told Myers he couldn’t cope with his son’s death.

Amaon said the Sheriff’s Office is not investigating any link between that case and Edwards’ death.

Myers said he had no idea why Edwards would have chosen the parking lot of his store to take his own life. Myers said he’d been told Edwards, a painter and carpenter, was due to meet co-workers at the Handy Mart in Princeton that morning to go out on a job.

“I never thought I’d wake up and see that,” Myers said.

By 10 a.m. Thursday, Myers was back at the store’s grill, fixing up three hot dogs for a customer. Edwards’ car was still at the scene, but nothing in the parking lot indicated what had happened there earlier in the day.