CLAWSON, Mich. (WXYZ) — “This is a sad day," said Clawson Police Chief Scott Sarvello as he addressed local media Monday morning. "We have a victim of a homicide. His family and friends are having to deal with such a tragic situation."
It’s not an announcement Chief Sarvello or the Clawson Police are used to making. Just after midnight Sunday morning, the city recorded its first homicide since 2004 after a body was found in a home on Nakota Street, near 14 Mile and Main Street.
Neighbors of the suspect are left with a lot of questions following a bizarre night.
“Around 11:00 p.m, 11:15 p.m, I heard bang bang bang bang bang," said neighbor Sean McGowan. "I was like, 'that sounds like someone was banging on my door.'"
McGowan woke up to his 37-year-old next-door neighbor frantically banging on his door. Before McGowan got out of bed, his neighbor was gone.
“He was just out of it," McGowan recalled. "I can’t say if he was under the influence of whatever, but definitely not his personality.”
The normally friendly, quiet neighbor kept going down the block. He allegedly stole a flag from someone’s porch, and then eventually found an unlocked door.
Police say he went inside the home and attacked a woman with a beer bottle
“Unannounced. Never seen him before in my life,” said the woman's husband, who woke up on his couch to find the stranger inside his home.
The husband says the suspect was draped in an American flag and introduced himself before going into the kitchen and grabbing a beer bottle.
"Grabbed a beer bottle from the kitchen and threw it from the kitchen to the dining room hitting my wife on the forehead,” said the husband. "It busted everywhere like a window in a car. She was bleeding like a UFC fighter in a fight.”
Three kids were inside the home, but the husband says they luckily slept through the entire incident.
He then ran after the guy, who was stopped by neighbors until police showed up. Neighbors say the suspect was not making much sense.
"When the cop was trying to arrest him, he kept telling the cop he wasn’t real," the husband said. "He was definitely on something.”
But something the suspect said led police to search his home. Inside, they found his 34-year-old friend, shot dead.
"The victim came over like I said, they were friends,” Chief Sarvello said. "Keep the victim’s family in your thoughts and prayers, they’re going through a lot right now.”
On Monday, the friend's car was still parked on the street in front McGowans home.
“Something happened in that house that set him off on that crazy little rampage he had up and down the street here," McGowan said. "It’s unfortunate. Makes me feel really bad more than anything else for the victim and for him because you just don't like to see stories like this.”
The husband said his wife was treated at the scene and is okay.
Police have not yet released the identity of the suspect or the victim.
The suspect is expected to be arraigned in court on Tuesday.
