<!--Rick Pfeiffer--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Rick Pfeiffer</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com">rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
Falls police are searching for a suspect in the city’s first homicide of 2010.
Officers responded to a report of a man who appeared to be dead, found in an apartment building at Ontario Avenue and 18th Street at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
“They found Thomas Howard lying on the kitchen floor bleeding,” Falls Detective Capt. Ernest Palmer said. “There was lumber lying on top of him and some power tools were near his body.”
Palmer said Howard, 24, who lived in the apartment at 1803 Ontario Ave., was dead when police arrived, but it was not immediately clear how he had died.
“We found an entry wound in his chest, but we weren’t sure if it might have been an accident with one of the power tools,” Palmer said. “He was wearing safety glasses and appeared to have been working on a remodeling project. We believe he was building some kind of recording studio, there was that type of equipment there.”
Howard’s body was taken to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where doctors took x-rays and found a bullet lodged in the victim’s spine. An autopsy by the Erie County Medical Examiner on Tuesday determined that Howard died from a “gunshot wound to the chest and bled out through his lungs.”
Palmer said Howard’s body was discovered by a friend who had gone to look for him when he failed to answer cell phone calls from his girlfriend. Howard lived in the apartment with his girlfriend but police said she was not home at the time of the shooting.
Neighbors in the apartment building reported hearing “a scuffle” in Howard’s apartment, but no gunshots.
The detective chief said early indications are a robbery attempt may have led to the slaying. Palmer declined to discuss specifics about what might have been taken from the apartment.
Howard had some previous brushes with law enforcement, including a small number of arrests on what were described as “minor charges.”
“There was nothing serious,” Palmer said.
Detectives are seeking assistance from the public in their investigation. Anyone who may have information about the murder is urged to contact the Falls police at 286-4553.
