Pittsburgh police early Wednesday arrested a man they say fatally stabbed his roommate hours earlier in their home in Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood.
Police were dispatched around 6 p.m. Tuesday to a home in the 200 block of South Aiken Avenue for “a dispute between roommates,” Pittsburgh Acting police Chief Jason Lando said. Officers left without making any arrests.
About two hours later, they say Eric Henderson, 44, stabbed his roommate several times in the face and head.
Officers returned to the home following a 911 call around 8:25 p.m. about a man found unresponsive and bleeding, Lando said. Three men with mental-health issues lived in the residence Lando described as a “group home.”
Police said the third roommate called authorities.
Officers found Timothy Moran, 62, “bleeding profusely from the head” inside the home, Lando told reporters. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Henderson was arrested shortly before 5:20 a.m. Wednesday at a home in Bellevue, Lando said. Henderson’s relation to the Bellevue address remained unclear.
Police said they plan to charge Henderson with criminal homicide. No court records were available Wednesday afternoon.
Lando on Wednesday used his first press conference as chief to defend officers for leaving the house after the initial call around 6 p.m. Tuesday.
No violence was reported initially and no weapons were found, the chief said. Command staff found no wrongdoing when they reviewed the officers’ body-worn camera footage, he added.
“Our responding officers handled the situation appropriately,” Lando said.
The verbal dispute between the roommates started Tuesday after one of the roommates got “into someone’s personal space,” the chief said.
He declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Lando said officers conducted a sweep of the house to search for other victims after the second call. The Mobile Crime Unit processed evidence at the scene.
Pittsburgh police have responded at least eight times to the home in the past three months, Zone 5 Commander Lance Hoyson told reporters during the afternoon press conference.
Those calls were “not of a criminal manner” and typically involved welfare checks of the residents, Hoyson said.
