A man who was bleeding from knife wounds staggered into a Lakewood 7-Eleven Wednesday night, proclaimed he’d been stabbed and collapsed. He died later at a hospital.
The dead man did not have identification on him and Lakewood police are following leads to figure out who he was, said Lakewood Police spokesman Steve Davis.
“When we start out with far less information and don’t even have an indication of who may have been killed than it increases our workload dramatically,” Davis said. “There have been many times that people experience very violent, brutal ways to die. This is one of them.”
The knifing happened outside the store in the 1100 block of South Sheridan Boulevard at 9:10 p.m., Davis said. Several witnesses described some type of a confrontation. He withheld some of the details of the fight for investigative purposes.
One of the key witnesses was the 7-Eleven clerk.
“The first thing he knew was this guy walks in and says he was stabbed and then he collapsed on the floor,” Davis said.
The wounded man bled on the floor near the cash register.
“As soon as we walked in it was obvious. There was visible blood…he wasn’t breathing.,” Davis said.
An ambulance immediately rushed the man to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, he said.
Detectives are following leads including interviewing witnesses while the investigating the incident as a homicide, Davis said.
“Each of them a little bit to add,” Davis said. “(Police) developed a theory of who he may be,” Davis said.
But the biggest barrier in solving the case remains the identify of the victim, he said. When detectives know who the victim they can contact relatives, acquaintances, co-workers and friends.
“Then we can go from there,” Davis said.
Anyone with information that could help the investigation are asked to call the Lakewood police at 303-987-7111.
