A man who had become a fixture in an Ohio neighborhood was asking locals for a cigarette when he was fatally stabbed, reportedly by a man wielding a samurai sword-like weapon.
Matthew Earl McKnight, who was arrested at the scene on November 16 for the alleged murder of Kyle Brown, is still in custody at the Darke County Jail.
Greenville Police Chief Ryan Benge told WHIO, a local CBS affiliate, that “the two know each other.” I’m not going to comment on previous disagreements or what might have led to them.”
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Brown, according to neighbors at the Walnut Street apartment complex, was homeless but well-known to local residents.
Sheila Horne told WHIO that she would frequently “sit with” Brown so he had somewhere to go during the day, explaining that he “lived at the bridge.”
On the day Brown was killed, he was reportedly looking for a cigarette.
“I didn’t have any, so he went next door, and that guy just took some kind of a sword, like a samurai sword, and stabbed him,” Horne said of McKnight.
She described her previous encounter with McKnight, saying, “[h]e pulled a knife on me because I went over to ask for a cigarette one day, and I had to run. But he was extremely mentally ill, and he would sit up all night yelling and screaming.”
According to WHIO, police arrived and arrested McKnight after he threatened the guest of another tenant in the apartment complex.
Following McKnight’s alleged attack, Brown was flown to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, where he was pronounced dead.
Greenville detectives are looking for evidence of previous complaints or incidents from McKnight’s time living in the apartment complex.
