Police investigating body in alley
Resident thinks she heard shots in hours before grisly find made
A downtown Windsor resident says she heard what sounded like a gunshot six hours before a man’s body was discovered Wednesday morning in an alley behind her home on Caroline Street.
Police closed streets in the area around the alley off the 900 block of Church Street in order to investigate after being contacted by another resident just before 7 a.m.
“I went down the alley and found a body next to my truck,” said George, who lives on Church Street and declined to give his last name. “He was laying down on his left-hand side and there was trauma to the head and blood on the snow. I’m assuming he was dead.”
George called 911 and Windsor police officers quickly converged on the scene. Police closed Church Street from Caroline to Erie Street, and Caroline from Church to Bruce Avenue. Police reopened Church St. at 6:30 p.m. but not the alley where the body was discovered.
A white sheet could be seen over the body in the alley later in the morning as investigators with the major crimes branch and forensic identification unit studied the scene. A coroner also arrived.
Police spokesman Sgt. Steve Betteridge would only confirm a dead adult male was found in the alley.
Officers canvassed the neighbourhood asking people if they saw or heard anything.
Karen Tilley said she was getting ready for bed around 12:30 p.m. when she heard a noise behind her Caroline Street house.
“All of a sudden, I heard what I thought was a shot,” Tilley said. “I said to my husband, ‘What the heck was that?’ But I just thought, ‘Oh well, it was probably nothing.’ ”
Tilley was shocked in the morning when she saw police cars and flashing lights in the alley. The Tilleys have lived in the neighbourhood for seven years and, except for transients pushing shopping carts, they haven’t had any problems, she said.
“It’s really unnerving,” said her husband, Jim. “It’s scary ... and when it’s in your own backyard it’s a bit of a wakeup. It really gets you thinking about what if I had been in that alley. Hopefully, it wasn’t just a random thing, although it doesn’t make it any better.”
Jasmine Smith has lived on Caroline Street for several years and said it’s always been a very quiet, family neighbourhood. It wasn’t until Wednesday morning when she was having coffee and opened the back door to let her dogs out that she saw the police cars.
“I instantly freaked out a little bit,” she said. “It’s scary, obviously, but there’s bad stuff everywhere. No neighbourhood is safe, no neighbourhood is perfect.”
Natashia Brown, who lives on Dougall Avenue, was dropping off her children at Dougall Avenue Public School when she heard about the death. She wasn’t surprised because the “neighbourhood is not the best around here. There’s a lot of drugs in this area.”