Blood on their doorstep: Neighbourhood devastated by stabbed man’s death

1 day ago 1

On a humming Monday morning, the inner-northern suburb of Ascot Vale appeared to be business as usual, with shopkeepers opening their doors and locals walking their dogs.

But on closer inspection, blood spattered the footpath outside businesses on Maribyrnong Road. And traumatised florist, Lucia Lay, burst into tears as she recounted hearing a fatal stabbing unfold outside her shop the previous day.

The scene at Ascot Vale on Monday morning.

“I kept asking [a customer], ‘is it serious? Is it looking bad?’ And he goes, ‘I’m not sure yet, because there’s a few cars blocking our view’,” Lay, who owns Ascot Vale Florist, told The Age.

“Then after that, [we saw] people carrying the man across [the road].”

Lay – who moved her business to Maribyrnong Road just weeks ago, after a decade on Union Road – said she and other locals often heard people screaming and swearing on the footpath outside, but had been conditioned to pay them no mind.

On Sunday, when her shop was ordinarily closed, she and her husband had come in to clean and overheard the fight unfolding outside. She was not concerned at first, but she and two young customers who knocked on her door and asked to buy flowers later watched as it spun out of control.

Yelling turned into two offenders chasing a man up and down either side of Maribyrnong Road, and fighting him under a tree outside the nearby nail salon, Lay said.

One woman, who Lay thought was a customer of the nail salon, came out to help and was left crying and shaking, she said. Lay’s husband also tried to intervene, while a girl cleaning windows outside the nearby IGA quickly fled inside after she saw the commotion.

“[The alleged offenders] ran across us, where the [customer] was here, and I quickly grabbed the boy inside and then locked the door while they went past,” Lay said.

The florist quickly called police when she realised the fight was serious, but officers were on scene within minutes, suggesting others had also called.

Locals said the fight started at the tram stop on Maribyrnong Road, where the alleged victim - wearing casual clothes and a backpack - appeared to be waiting for the tram.

Bloodied rags and bandages were on the footpath outside a local business across the road on Sunday in the aftermath of the alleged altercation, and blood spatter was still visible on Monday morning.

A cleaning crew arrived at the scene about 10.30am on Monday to wash away the rest of the blood.

A police officer told Lay after Sunday’s incident that the man was taken to hospital. “At nighttime, my husband said he died,” Lay said, sobbing.

Physiotherapist Monica Pacheco works at paediatric practice Panda for Kids, which was closed when the incident happened on its doorstep on Sunday.

While it was common for people to act out on the street, Pacheco had never seen it escalate to violence, she said.

“The fact that it did happen and so close to the clinic: we see kids here, so we get a lot of young families coming in and leaving, walking to the public transport. It’s a bit scary,” Pacheco said.

“I used to lock the door between patients and I stopped for a little while, but I guess it makes me feel like I need to start doing more of this kind of security measures again.”

David Thiessen, principal of Belle Property Ascot Vale on the corner of Maribyrnong and Union roads, said he’d lived in the area for 30 years, and it was always community-minded and family oriented.

“This is just sad – very, very sad and disappointing,” he said.

Police were called to the intersection of Maribyrnong and Union roads in the suburb about 3.45pm on Sunday, with reports that a man had been stabbed.

He was treated at the scene and taken with life-threatening injuries to hospital, where he later died. Police were yet to formally identify the man as of Monday morning.

An 18-year-old man, who police arrested within about 15 minutes of arriving on the scene, was yet to be charged on Monday, while another suspect remained on the run.

Police were yet to release any more details about the incident.

They have appealed for anyone who witnessed the stabbing, or has CCTV or dashcam footage from the incident, to contact them anonymously at crimestoppersvic.com.au or on 1800 333 000.

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