For hours Saturday, a pool of blood in a corner hallway of a Minneapolis public housing high-rise served as a grim reminder of a woman's violent death earlier in the day -- and spurred residents to plead for better security in the place they call home.
Woman's death under investigation in Minneapolis
A woman's body was found in a hall Saturday morning, and another resident of the building is expected to be charged with murder Monday.
By TERRY COLLINS, Star Tribune
December 17, 2007 at 6:00AM
Police arrested a 48-year-old man who lives in the building and said they expect him to be charged with murder on Monday.
They are investigating the nature of the relationship between him and the victim, who tenants say was fatally stabbed. Her name was not released Saturday.
"Clearly they knew each other," said Lt. Amelia Huffman, head of the homicide unit.
Officers were called to the Elliot Twins Apartments, 1225 S. 8th St., about 8:30 a.m. Saturday after the woman was found dead by paramedics responding to a 911 call.
One tenant, Daniel Williamson, said he was briefly awakened around 5:30 a.m. by banging noises outside his ninth-floor apartment. He did not check on it because he thought it was just a neighbor stumbling by in a drunken stupor.
"I heard a voice say, 'Help me! Don't do this!'" Williamson said.
Three hours later, he heard police outside his door and saw blood splattered across the hall's walls and floors. While providing information to police later at City Hall, Williamson saw the suspect, who lives across the hall from him, wearing blood-stained clothing in police custody, he said.
Calls placed to the building's management were not immediately returned.
In 2005, the suspect was arrested for fifth-degree domestic assault. Tenants said he has a history of drinking and abusing women.
On Saturday, they pleaded for more security and a better screening process for residents and visitors.
"It floors me," said Barbara Collins, a former resident council president who's lived in the building east of downtown for nine years. "We're supposed to feel safe in here."
Collins said she and other tenants constantly encourage their neighbors to shoo off loiterers and make sure they don't let strangers in.
She hopes the death leads the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority to take a fresh hard look at its policies.
"A lot of tenants have to take some responsibility, too," Collins said. "We have to look out for each other."
Terry Collins • 612-673-1790
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TERRY COLLINS, Star Tribune
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