A man known in an Ohio neighborhood was requesting a cigarette when he was fatally stabbed, allegedly by an individual using a weapon resembling a samurai sword.
Matthew Earl McKnight was taken into custody on Nov. 16 for the suspected murder of Kyle Brown and is currently held at the Darke County Jail. Greenville Police Chief Ryan Benge informed WHIO, a local CBS affiliate, that “the two do know each other. I’m not going to comment yet on past disagreements or what may have led up to it.”
Neighbors at the Walnut Street apartment block reported that Brown was homeless but recognized by many in the community. Sheila Horne shared with WHIO that she frequently “sat with” Brown to provide him with a place to go during the day, noting that he “lived at the bridge.”
On the day Brown lost his life, he was said to be inquiring about a cigarette.
“I didn’t have any, so he went next door and that guy just took some kind of a sword, samurai sword and stabbed him,” Horne said, referring to McKnight. She described her own previous run-in with McKnight, saying that “[h]e pulled a knife on me before because I went over to ask for a cigarette one day, and I had to run. But he was very mentally ill and he’d sit up all through the night and yell and scream.”
Police responded to a situation at an apartment block and took McKnight into custody after he made threats towards a guest of another resident. Following the reported incident involving McKnight, Brown was transported to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, where he was declared deceased.
Detectives in Greenville are looking into McKnight’s residency at the apartment block to uncover any previous complaints or incidents.