Massey Place home had ‘strange’ activities before homicide: Neighbour

Questions of safety are top of mind for a Massey Place resident after a homicide involving minors occurred Monday.

Hilda Raquel de Paula lives in a duplex with her four children on Matheson Drive. She spoke to 650 CKOM in Spanish, translated through an app, to say “strange” activities had happened next door since she moved in a year ago, including a stream of late-night visitors and suspicious noises.

The situation with her neighbours escalated early Monday morning when she awoke to “strange” noises and saw firefighters, paramedics and police arrive next door.

She said she saw first responders take a young man out of the house on a stretcher.

“When I saw him, the young man was still alive because I saw that he moved, and then the ambulance took him away quickly,” she said through the translator app.

While she is thankful her children did not wake up, de Paula expressed worry over the events next door, noting that the house is now empty.

According to a media release on Monday, police responded to the 1000 block of Matheson Drive for a call about an injured boy. The 12-year-old was taken to hospital and died there shortly after.

Police have since charged two boys, ages 12 and 13, with manslaughter in connection with the death.

The two boys also face four weapons-related offences and are set to appear in Saskatoon provincial court next week.

Other residents on Matheson Drive told 650 CKOM they are aware of the incident but that neighbourhood safety isn’t a concern.

Five homicides in just over two weeks

While this death is Saskatoon’s fifth homicide in 2024 — and fifth since Feb. 3 — Cameron McBride, deputy chief of operations with the Saskatoon Police Service, said there isn’t a threat to public safety.

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“There’s absolutely nothing that connects them or that should lead us to believe there’s a circumstance in Saskatoon that is a grave cause for concern,” McBride said in an interview with 650 CKOM on Wednesday.

“We know that an individual’s lifestyle and the intersection between drug use and gang life and those types of high-risk indicators leads individuals to a point where they’re more likely to experience violence,” McBride shared.

He listed drug use, drug trafficking, gang affiliation and mental health as key contributing factors to homicides in the city.