A South Point man who died Dec. 29 at a Huntington, W.Va., hospital did not die from injuries he received during a fight in South Point a week before, Lawrence County Sheriff Jeff Lawless said Thursday.

Lawless said a preliminary report from an autopsy conducted this week showed Henry Lee Belcher, 45, died of health issues likely related to alcoholism.

Lawless said Belcher had gone to a South Point residence Dec. 22 and got into an altercation with people there.

But by the time a deputy had arrived, Belcher had left the residence and had no contact with authorities about the fight.

Lawless said, a couple days after the fight, Belcher went to Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital in Russell, Ky., where doctors assessed his condition and sent him to a Huntington hospital, where he later died.

Lawless noted Belcher was, “two or three times the size of the other guy in the fight,” and that his death “had nothing to do with the fight, it had to do with alcohol and related medical issues.”