A second-degree murder charge has been laid against a 42-year-old London, Ont., man in connection with a death investigation Thursday morning at an apartment building in the city’s Woodfield neighbourhood.
Police responded to the scene at 69 Cartwright St., just south of Princess Avenue, in the downtown-area neighbourhood around 6:40 a.m. to check the welfare of the occupants of a unit following a report of a disturbance.
Officers at the scene located an adult male inside one of the units, whom police described in a media release as being “obviously deceased.”
Roughly 20 minutes later, police said they arrested a second man a short distance away. Late Thursday afternoon, police announced that a charge of second-degree murder had been laid against Kenneth Cardiff, 42, of London.
Police said the accused and the deceased, whose identity has not been released, were known to each other.
A man who identified himself to reporters as a good friend and neighbour of the deceased said the man had a lot of friends and was loved.
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“I can’t imagine who would have done this to him… (Police) won’t really tell us anything. I was just with him last night. He’s my neighbour, I saw him at like 10:00 last night,” said Christopher Bettridge.
“It really is a tragedy, you know, he was such a good man, big heart. One of the last things he did was buy us a gift for our cat. That’s the kind of person he was, that he would think of something like that.”
Bettridge said his last interaction with his neighbour was late Wednesday night.
“He came upstairs to bring us Pepsi and Cheetos last night just out of nowhere, just share a joke with us, he had something funny he had done… We bumped arms and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.'”
In their initial media statement, officials said a police presence was expected throughout the day along the small residential side street, which runs between Central and Dufferin avenues, intersected by Princess Avenue.
A 980 CFPL reporter on scene shortly after noon counted at least half a dozen police cruisers stationed along Cartwright and nearby Princess, along with a forensics van.
“Residents in the area can expect officers to be knocking on doors, doing canvassing, trying to find out if anyone saw or witnessed anything,” Cst. Travis Buckle, a media officer with London police, told reporters at the scene during the lunch hour.
“We’re urging members of the public to please come forward if they do have any information. Contact the London Police Service or Crime Stoppers.”
— With files from Andrew Graham
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