Police have charged a Halifax man with manslaughter after a 48-year-old male was stabbed to death in Spryfield yesterday.
Police were called to the apartment building at 6 Foxwood Terr. at 1:34 a.m. to discover Robert Douglas Payne of Halifax suffering from stab wounds. He was taken to hospital but later died.
Another man in the apartment at the time was arrested without incident, and last evening the 28-year-old was charged with one count of manslaughter. Michael Ells of Halifax will be in Halifax provincial court today to face the charge.
“What we believe is this is not a random incident, both individuals involved are known to each other and that it doesn’t have any impact on anything else going on around the city,” said Halifax Regional Police spokesman Const. Brian Palmeter earlier in the day.
“At this point, investigators are speaking to witnesses and following other leads and shortly we’ll have some kind of resolution one way or another.”
Palmeter confirmed yesterday afternoon the victim was known to police but the person in custody was not. He wouldn’t say where the 911 call came from, saying it was part of the ongoing investigation.
Resident Elaine Crawford said the man in custody was slim with a “nervous shaky voice” who lived directly above her on the third floor.
She said he’d borrowed a half-dozen potatoes from her earlier yesterday.
Crawford said she heard a large thump from the man’s apartment, though she thought it was closer to 11 p.m.
“I heard a real big thump, bang, boom. I thought, ‘Oh my God, that kid upstairs must be noisy,’” she said.
She said just before the sound she heard people running upstairs.
Crawford said the young man had moved in three or four months ago. She said she had seen an older man in the male’s apartment the day before the stabbing and thought it might have been his father.
