Victim in suspicious death identified as 22-year-old father of two

A young man fatally injured outside a north-side condo building early Sunday has been identified by relatives as a 22-year-old father of two small girls.

Bruce Dumais was stabbed to death on the street, members of his family said.

“He had two little girls and he loved them a lot and they really loved him, too,” said Dumais’s aunt, Evelyn Dumais. “He was a caring, respectable person. If he had a dark side, I never saw it.”

Police are so far calling the incident a suspicious death, but homicide detectives and forensic teams are investigating. Should the death be declared a homicide, it would be Edmonton’s 26th of the year.

The victim was found bleeding on the pavement in front of the Windermere condo building at 106th Street and 107th Avenue in Central McDougall. He was taken to hospital, where he died.

A trickle of blood remained in the roadway gutter later Sunday morning, as the young man’s friend, Travis Lewis, came to the scene to pay his respects. Waving a hand and pointing up to the sky, Lewis described Dumais as “a cool guy” who lived nearby with his girlfriend.

“My friend got stabbed. He got jumped by three guys, he got stabbed once, instant death right there,” said Lewis, 22.

Lewis said he was at a downtown bar Saturday night when he got a call telling him police were at the scene, near where his son was staying. He took a cab to the area, where he was detained by police.

Officers told Lewis his friend Bruce had died and asked if they knew each other.

The victim wasn’t a resident of the building where he died, so it’s unclear why he was there, said John Cherry, a resident of the 12-suite Windermere condominium.

Cherry heard two male voices yelling shortly after midnight, which he said isn’t unusual in the neighbourhood. But this time was different, since one of the voices sounded almost like crying. Cherry said he didn’t investigate until police arrived about seven minutes later.

“I heard the cops come and the sirens stop right here, so I did look out the window. And he was lying right where you see the blood puddle. To me it looked like he was already deceased.”

Cherry saw an ambulance take the motionless man away. A few minutes later, police woke up residents to ask if anyone had heard or seen anything. Soon afterwards, forensics teams set up a tent around the scene, marking several pools of blood on the street with spray-painted numbers.

Police said they don’t know how many individuals were involved, and are going door-to-door to find witnesses.

Evelyn Dumais said her nephew had lived in Edmonton about a year after growing up in the Buffalo Lake area near Lac La Biche.

Another aunt, Janet Blyan, said Dumais had a special knack for relating to children.

“He made them laugh, he loved them, and all kids trusted him,” said Blyan. “It’s hard. It’s devastating. Twenty-two years old."

Dumais wrote poetry and loved to draw. Two months ago, he split up with his common-law wife but still kept in close contact with his family, supporting them financially by working out of town. He had just finished his first year of a welding apprenticeship, she said.

Cherry said his neighbourhood has its problems, but the Windermere condo board strictly monitors its tenants and is a great place to live.

A community police station right across the street is open during the day, and patrol officers regularly communicate with tenants. But there’s no way they can stop everything that happens outside, Cherry said.

An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.