Police probe homicide outside rental complex

Police are investigating the city’s latest homicide after the body of a man was found Friday morning in the parking lot of a northeast Edmonton rental complex.

Officers arrived at the Parkridge Estates scene near 29 Street and 116A Avenue around 6:45 a.m. after a citizen who found the man’s body in the parking lot called police.

Witnesses later told investigators they heard a disturbance around 3 a.m. Friday after a fight involving weapons broke out between several people, police said in a statement issued just before 5 p.m. Friday.

A command post was set up near the townhouse-complex parking lot as officers investigated and the homicide unit was called in.

Stephanie Faelker, who lives in the complex, said she believed the victim lived in the 200 block of the unit.

A neighbour told her she saw two men enter the unit with wooden fence boards.

They emerged later and were beating the victim on the ground.

She said landlords have recently been working to evict several residents after complaints of criminal activity.

“We’ve had so many problems with (the unit),” she said. “They’ve caused so much ... they get drunk, get in fights, run into other people’s houses.

“We’ve been dealing with them for over a year now,” she added. “They cause so many problems for everybody.”

An autopsy of the victim has been scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday but police have already classified it as a homicide.

The city has had 27 homicides to date, two of which Edmonton police are not counting as homicides — one involved an officer fatally shooting a suspect and the other is a fatal hit and run.