The city has marked its first homicide of 2019 after a man was stabbed to death at an apartment building in Scarborough’s Kennedy Park neighbourhood early Sunday morning.
Shortly after midnight, 36-year-old Ian Dyer was found suffering from a stab wound inside a unit on the 12th floor of a residential building on Gordonridge Place, located near Danforth Road and Midland Avenue.
Despite life-saving efforts, police say Dyer, who was located without vital signs, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police have not yet released any information on possible suspects but said officers are currently reviewing video surveillance footage and interviewing residents of the building.
“The canvass last night didn’t yield a lot of information just due to the early morning hours so we are re-canvassing this morning,” Det. Paul Worden told reporters on Sunday afternoon.
Worden confirmed that Dyer did not live in the building but had been staying there at a friend’s place for the past few days.
Worden said he believes Dyer was alone in the unit for a brief period of time before the suspect or suspects arrived.
“We’ve been able to narrow down a timeframe in which we believe the murder took place. We are asking anybody in the building… between 11:30 p.m. and midnight (who) may have heard any kind of commotion or seen Mr. Dyer or anybody in the building who looked suspicious to contact us,” he said.
“We are trying to track Mr. Dyer’s movements in the day leading up to his death so if anybody has any information about where Mr. Dyer was yesterday… we would like information on that as well.”
Police are also looking for information about a German Shepherd that got loose from the 12th floor apartment where Dyer was killed.
“There was also a large dog in the apartment that got out and it ended up on one of the other floors. We’d like to know if anyone saw a large German Shepherd wandering the halls at that time,” Worden said.
“Maybe they could help us figure out how it got down to the other floor. That might be some indication of where people went after this occurred.”
When asked about public safety, Worden said the building has a “troubled past.”
“Unfortunately violence is not uncommon there. I don’t think the risk level is any higher than it would normally be in that building… The information that we are getting is that the building and that particular floor had heavy drug activity,” he said.
“The type of people who show up and deal in drugs, that leads to robberies and other violence. So it stems from that. There are a lot of good people in the building and they are being taken advantage of and they feel like they can’t live full lives because they are limited and scared to move around the building freely.”
Police do not believe the victim was involved in any criminal activity at the time of the stabbing.
“He wasn’t doing anything of a criminal nature at the time he was killed. He was in the apartment with friends and everything was fine according to the people who were last with him,” Worden said.
The murder weapon has not yet been recovered.
A post-mortem examination will take place later today or tomorrow.
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