HALIFAX – Halifax Regional Police have charged a man with second-degree murder after a fatal stabbing in the city’s west-end early Sunday morning.
Vincent James Steele, 21, was arrested outside a home on Seaforth Street and later arraigned and charged with second-degree murder.
Const. Pierre Bourdages said officers were called to the street around 3:45 a.m. after reports of a disturbance.
Bourdages said officers found several people standing in the street, but no one involved wanted the police’s assistance, so officers left the scene around 4 a.m.
“Once we arrived there, there was no report of any assault, simply a dispute,” said Bourdages on Sunday.
About 20 minutes later, officers were called to a duplex at 6257 Seaforth Street and a 20-year-old man was found dead inside, said Bourdages.
Bourdages said investigators believe the incidents are related and that the victim and suspect knew each other.
The name of the victim has not been released pending the notification of family.
The Forensic Identification Unit showed up in two separate white vans around 2:30 p.m. They entered the house wearing sterile blue scrubs and foot coverings.
Animal control was also called to the scene to remove a house cat from the apartment.
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The house is a rental; in fact the tenants posted a Kijiji ad in late March looking for a new roommate to share the four bedroom flat.
Neighbours on the street say the house had a reputation for being a bit of a ‘party spot’ and that it wasn’t uncommon to see many people coming and going.
One man who has lived across the street for the past six months says he was walking by the residence around 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. He heard loud music and noticed mattresses up against the windows, but he says he didn’t think much of it.
The man who lives in the attached home next door, who does not want his name used, says the current tenants only moved there in the last couple of months. He says they were relatively quiet, but that he’d had at least one run-in with them over money stolen from his mailbox.
“I knew they were kind of sketchy but I didn’t think they were that sketchy,” he says. “I’ve had my own confrontations with them… I don’t even know what to say my mind is still processing it.”
“I hate feeling unsafe in my own apartment, but this just puts the cherry on the cake for me, but I would never have fathomed that this would happen,” he says.
Steele is being held in police custody for a court appearance in Halifax provincial court on April 2.
– with files from the Canadian Press
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