Friends of David Fugler are upset after the death of their fellow Hamilton lodging house resident.
Sitting out front of their low-rent, multiplex home on Queen St. S. — which they call Queen’s Lodge — while smoking cigarettes and drinking Diet Coke, Thomas Shaw and housemate William still couldn’t “believe he (Fugler) is gone
“We can’t figure out why; we didn’t see anybody on (an interior surveillance) camera. So it was all done upstairs,“ said Shaw.
On Wednesday morning, Hamilton Police announced that Fugler’s roommate — Hemraj “Richie” Lakhan, 40 — was charged with second-degree murder in his death.
“Dave was a great guy,” said Shaw. “He’d goes out in the morning for a cup of tea and sit in the the front TV room and watch TV.”
Shaw said Fugler was partly blind, got around with a walking cane and his birthday was coming up on Aug. 16.
“He had baseball cards, he loved his baseball cards. He loved sports,” said Shaw. “He loved wrestling matches. Who doesn’t? He was a great f—ing guy.
“We can’t believe he is gone.”
Det.-Sgt. Sara Beck, of the Hamilton Police homicide unit, said Wednesday at a news conference that the victim’s death was not originally deemed a homicide. Paramedics had responded to the scene on Saturday at 9:30 p.m. for a medical call and found Fugler “unconscious in his room.”
Fugler died in a hospital on Sunday at 3 a.m., said Beck, and after next of kin were contacted, the coroner “ordered an autopsy” to confirm the cause on Monday morning before declaring the death a homicide.
“Mental health does play a role in what happened,” said Beck. Police had also confirmed that no firearms were involved in the death.
Police had not yet disclosed the cause of Fugler’s death.
Beck said Lakhan was arrested at Queen’s Lodge on Tuesday afternoon.
Shaw explained the setup of the Victorian-style house, which has seven or eight separate or shared rooms on the upper levels, plus common areas to watch TV and a shared kitchen. It recently housed nine people, plus two to three staff to help them out with food and laundry.
Shaw said Lakhan had allegedly been telling them recently that he was hearing voices in his head, which other residents confirmed. He said Lakhan was “calm and cool and collected” in the days between the medical call and his arrest.
Shaw said Lakhan arrived at the lodging house about a year ago and Fugler had been living there for about 10 years, pointing over his left shoulder to the second-floor front windows where he said they lived.