Blood pool led to body of neighbour in meter cupboard

THE noise of the early-morning garbage truck woke Mong Tran and then led him to his gruesome discovery.

As he walked to take his rubbish out at 4.30am on Boxing Day he saw blood seeping out from underneath the gas meter cupboard tucked under the stairs of his Waterloo apartment block. He opened the cupboard door and found his neighbour slumped inside.

The man, dressed in a red and white, tight-fitting Aussie Rules singlet, grey shorts and thongs, was dead and his body had been stuffed, standing upright, into the tight space.

”I saw the blood there, just on the floor,” Mr Tran said. ”I opened the door and saw [him] and then I ran back up to my place and called the police.”

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The dead man was known to fellow Walker Street residents only as Rodney. Neighbours in adjoining housing commission blocks sit outside during the day and share their lives but they knew little of the man in his mid-50s, who had physical impairments, lived alone and appeared to have little contact with family. The last time anyone saw him alive was at 6pm on Christmas Day. What happened between that time and when Mr Tran discovered his body is the subject of a police investigation involving the homicide squad.

It is believed Rodney had been dead for a number of hours before he was found.

Mr Tran, who lives in a second-level unit below Rodney’s and one floor above where the body was discovered, said he did not hear a thing.

Another neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said someone had recently come to Rodney’s apartment in an attempt to rob him.

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”There’s no motive to kill him,” said another neighbour, Nathan Baker. ”He’s a pretty quiet sort of bloke.”

Worried about crime in the area, a resident two doors down from where the body was found had installed two of his own security cameras, pointing down from his third-storey balcony onto the street.

Police have taken away 11 days’ worth of footage. Superintendent Luke Freudenstein said a cause of death was yet to be established and there were no clear signs of injury.

”It is a suspicious death due to the circumstances in which the person was found,” he said.

Anyone who might have seen Rodney after 6pm on Christmas Day is urged to contact police.

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