Parkdale man charged with 2nd-degree murder in connection with 75-year-old neighbour’s death

Toronto police say a man has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the death of his 75-year-old female neighbour.

Police said in a statement on Sunday that officers were called to an apartment building on Shaw Street, just north of King Street West, after 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Officers found the victim, who was identified as Teresa Santos, inside an apartment unit dead.

Investigators said she was last seen on Aug. 8 and were looking to speak with anyone who saw her on that date.

In an update released on Monday afternoon, police said a suspect was arrested earlier in the day.

Forty-year-old Damien Allred was charged with second-degree murder. He was scheduled to appear in a Toronto court on Tuesday.

Neighbours told Global News that Allred and the woman were neighbours, who lived on the same floor of the apartment.

Several of them spoke about their uneasiness around Allred. One neighbour told Global News Allred allegedly threatened her friend on the elevator on Friday.

“He followed her and she pressed her floor number and she had a weird feeling. She asked him, ‘Which floor are you going to?’ He said to her, ‘You don’t want to know. You don’t get out of this elevator right now, you don’t what I might do from here to the eighth floor,'” the neighbour described.

—With files from Catherine McDonald