EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally said police were called to an address near 87 Avenue. Police later clarified the building was located near 84 Avenue. The article has since been updated to reflect the new information.
Police are investigating after a body was discovered in the elevator of a high-rise apartment building in west Edmonton’s Meadowlark area on Thursday afternoon.
Officers responded to the Whitehall Square Tower C apartment building, near 154 Street and 84 Avenue, around 4:45 p.m. after a body was discovered in an elevator, police said.
The elevator could be seen taped off and covered, and homicide detectives were called in to take over investigating the suspicious death.
Tyler Pilon lives in the building and had just arrived home from getting groceries at Walmart with his girlfriend when he saw something was wrong.
“I was stopped by the police and we were told we were allowed to climb the stairs instead of using the elevator — they had both of them blocked off. One with a tarp, but at the very bottom you were able to see feet of a dead body — I presume only because there was nobody actually helping the man.”
Pilon said the experience was frightening.
“If we didn’t stop at Walmart we would have come home to see this,” he said.
Jamie Gibert also lives in the Boardwalk Communities-owned building and told Global News he saw police officers “going floor to floor, checking each suite.”
The person’s age was not disclosed but police said the victim was a man.
The medical examiner’s office has yet to schedule an autopsy, police said in an update early Friday morning.