WORCESTER, Mass. — Police are investigating after a 54-year-old man was found dead in Worcester.
Firefighters responded to a home on Halmstad Street late Tuesday night after neighbors reported smelling smoke in the building. They put out a small fire in unit 1's living room and while there found a man, dead.
Police said the 54-year-old Worcester man was lying face down on the floor, with his lower body badly burned, suffering a head injury.
Several minutes after the call about the fire, someone else reported an intoxicated man stumbling through traffic on Greenwood Street, which is close to Halmstad Street.
At 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, officers found Brayan Flores, 28, matching the description of the caller. He was behaving "strangely" and allegedly refused the officers' commands to remove his hands from his pockets.
Officers said they found a bag of cheese puffs in his waist and a small "torch" style light on the ground near him. Suspecting these items were stolen, they contacted a nearby 7-Eleven who reported that a man matching Flores's description had stolen a box of "torch" lighters and other merchandise. Flores was then arrested for shoplifting.
Then, around 12:35 a.m., officers received a report of a trailer fire, located behind 47 Blackstone River Rd., not far from Flores' home. After the fire was extinguished, a resident of the building said an intoxicated man had been knocking on the door prior to the fire.
Police said they have confirmed Flores knew the man found dead on Halmstad Street, but at this point, he is not charged with any crime connected to that.
The medical examiner will determine if the death on Halmstad was a homicide. Worcester Fire is investigating the cause and origin of the fire.