A Cramer Street resident was shocked to wake to the news there had been a stabbing death metres from her home on Friday night.
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Emergency services were called to a Cramer Street unit about 8.30pm where a 40-year-old man was located with life-threatening injuries.
The man was taken by ambulance to the Warrnambool Base Hospital where he died about 3am Saturday. He had only recently moved to the city.
A 51-year-old Warrnambool man was arrested and taken into custody after a siege-type situation developed at his Garden Street property where he returned after the incident.
There were negotiations with the man and at 6.40am Saturday he was detained by police.
Police evacuated a nearby female neighbour in Garden Street to safety during the incident.
Victoria Police critical incident response team members travelled to Warrnambool overnight and Victoria Police homicide squad detectives are in Warrnambool investigating the incident.
Major crime scene investigators are also forensically examining the Cramer Street address.
Both properties were cordoned off, attracting lots of interest from curious passers-by.
The addresses are believed to be emergency housing units.
The Standard informed a nearby female neighbour about 11am Saturday of the previous evening’s stabbing and the man’s subsequent death.
She said she kept to herself and had lived in Cramer Street for about a month.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I’m flabbergasted. I didn’t hear a thing. I had my fan going all night and didn’t hear a thing (last night). I was home but I was asleep by then because I start work at six o’clock in the morning.”
She said she woke up about 2am and went back to sleep two hours later, completely unaware of what was going on.
The woman said she wasn’t concerned for her safety. “I love it here,” she said.
About two kilometres down the road in Garden Street, where police had stormed the property in the early hours of the morning, residents The Standard spoke to were also unaware of the night’s events.
A Garden Street neighbour said the first he knew was when he saw the police cars and a broken window at the accused’s property before 7am on his way to the corner shop.
He saw a person at the property taken by ambulance. An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said they were called to a Garden Street address at 4.26am but could not comment further as it was a police matter.
“It came as a shock to me this morning,” the Garden Street resident said. “It wasn’t until I got home from the shop that I heard there had been a stabbing and he had died.”
The resident said he was a poor sleeper and normally woke during the night but didn’t hear anything.
“I opened the curtains and the door and there was bloody cops everywhere. I didn’t know what had happened.”
Another male neighbour in Garden Street, who moved in four weeks ago, said he was also unaware of the night’s events.
“The first I knew of it was when I opened the door and the coppers were out there about 10am,” he said. “I didn’t even know what was going on. I just saw the cars there. I haven’t heard much. I was asleep for most of it.”
He said he wasn’t concerned for his safety and generally it was a quiet neighbourhood apart from some recent activity.
“It’s the first thing that’s happened in a month,” he saud. “It’s usually pretty quiet.”
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