Neighbors unnerved after man found dead

I really hate to state the obvious but this man would have been safer in city council chambers even without the metal detectors.

Neighbors unnerved after man found dead
Man found stabbed inside his apartment in "suspicious death."

Mike Penprase • News-Leader • August 16, 2008


The discovery of a man's body in a north Springfield apartment sent police looking for people who not only knew the unidentified man, but who may know what led to his stabbing death.
Advertisement

Meanwhile, residents of the Grandview Village complex at 3035 N. Kentwood Ave. said they are worried the man's death is more evidence the complex is losing its peacefulness.

Evidence was so tentative that investigators are terming the incident a "suspicious death" and not a homicide, Springfield Police Department spokesman Officer Grant Story said. It's likely the middle-aged white man won't be identified until today, he said.

Police were called to the complex of brick buildings located just north of the Interstate 44-Glenstone Avenue interchange at 1:16 p.m., Story said.

Officers were called after neighbors said they hadn't seen the man for several days.

An apartment manager who entered the ground-floor apartment in Building A found the man's body near the front door, Story said. The man was stabbed several times, and it appears the wounds led to his death, he said.

Although it would be unusual for someone to stab himself several times, investigators aren't ruling that out, or the possibility the man was attacked, Story said.
Advertisement

"I believe there has been some evidence collected," Story said.

It appeared the man had been dead for several days, which could make the investigation more difficult, Story said.

That's why nearly a dozen officers spent Friday afternoon talking to people living in the complex in an effort to get more information about the dead man, he said.

Several apartment complex residents said they were familiar with the man but didn't know much about him.

"I just knew him by his first name, Art," said Jared Beall, who lives in the apartment above the dead man's apartment.

There hadn't been anything unusual going on at the apartment, other than the number of people showing up there, he said.

"A lot of people usually coming in and out of there at night."

Other residents of the apartment complex located where east-west Norton Road becomes an extension of North Kentwood said the death made them uneasy for their own safety.

Several said the complex's former owner had on-site security officers, but that ended when the complex was sold.