Though bravely dealing with his new reality of life without his dad, of mortgage payments and job searches, 20-year-old Josh Sparkman still took time to talk Wednesday.

“I’ve always loved my dad,” he said. “How can you not love someone not even technically related to you who took you in?”

Sparkman’s adopted father, Bill Sparkman, has made national headlines for the past weeks after he was found dead near a cemetery in Clay County, a rope around his neck, the word “fed” written on his naked chest.

Josh Sparkman was in Cookeville, Tenn., when he learned of his father’s death a day after his body was discovered.

“My good friend comes over to the apartment I was staying at and hands me a note from the Cookeville Police Department that says, ‘Josh Sparkman, call your uncle in Kentucky. Emergency.’ But I don’t have an uncle in Kentucky. I knew if my uncle was in Kentucky, something was bad wrong. I was kind of assuming the worst as soon as I found that out.”

Sparkman came to London immediately.

“I talked to my uncle and he told me my dad had passed, but he hadn’t told me how it happened,” he said.

He learned those details while listening to the news.

“Because of this apparent leak that they had, that’s how I found out most of this information about what’s happened,” he said. “They leaked it to the media. (The police) haven’t called me and told me anything.”

Sparkman said he is aware investigators are being careful not to compromise their investigation.

“I can understand why they’re not telling me much because it’s an ongoing investigation,” he said. “And they’re just wanting to leave it open and try to find out exactly what happened. They want to keep as much under wraps as possible. That way, if someone had done this, if they catch him, they have plenty of information they can use as evidence.”

Still, Sparkman said he wishes police would confirm his father’s death was a homicide.

“I’m not very happy that they’re still mentioning suicide and accident,” he said. “I don’t see how anyone would battle cancer like that for as long as he did and turn around and kill themselves a few years later ... My dad was a good man. I think he should be more respected than for them to still be mentioning that. I find that disrespectful, dishonorable.”

Sparkman said he last saw his father in August.

“His birthday was on the 12th,” he said. “I came up to see him, spent some time with him. We went out to eat ... He was glad to see me.”

Sparkman said he and his father had a good relationship.

“My dad was a good dad,” he said. “He was strict when he needed to be, but he was really understanding about things.”

Sparkman said his father adopted him when he was about 2 years old; Josh had previously been in a foster care home. Working for the Boy Scouts brought Bill Sparkman to London in 1993, and he was immediately charmed by Laurel County.

“He liked the town and this is where he wanted to raise me,” Josh Sparkman said, adding his father liked the fact that, at the time, his property was surrounded by trees.

“He liked that,” he said. “He still had the peaceful seclusion of being out in the country.”

Sparkman said he is determined to stay in London and live in the home his father carefully maintained for him.

“My dad, when he bought this house, he bought this house to raise me here and so he would have something to leave me,” he said. “That’s why he worked 16 years of his life to pay for it. There’s no way I could ever get rid of the house. He wanted me to live here and never have to pay a house payment. He got the house for me.”

Sparkman said his father worked hard to provide for him. In 2005, he went to the university to earn his teaching degree. All the while, he worked part-time for the U.S. Census.

“He worked for the 2000 Census,” he said. “And then a year or so after that, he found out about this door-to-door job that they were going to start doing year-round. He’s done it since.”

Sparkman confirmed Clay County was one of the areas his father was responsible for covering.

Sparkman said he will begin a job search in the coming days and plans to stay in London. Ultimately, he would like to go back to school.

“I’m torn between two things,” he said of his career plans. “My original dream of what I wanted to be and another one I would like to do. I’ve always wanted to be a motorcycle mechanic ... But, at the same time, I kind of want to go through school and become a teacher too — like my dad.”

Staff writer Tara Kaprowy can be reached by e-mail at tkaprowy@sentinel-echo.com.