City homicide detectives are investigating the death of a man whose stabbed and beaten body was found early yesterday in the basement of a Northwest Baltimore house after firefighters extinguished a blaze there.
The man's name was being withheld pending notification of family members.
Reported at 4:45 a.m. in the 2600 block of W. Cold Spring Lane, the fire was confined to a basement apartment and extinguished in less than 30 minutes, said Fire Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the city Fire Department.
Cartwright said a male occupant of a second-floor apartment escaped uninjured.
When firefighters began searching for other occupants, Cartwright said, they found the man's body at the foot of the basement stairs.
Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman, said detectives determined that the man's body bore numerous stab wounds and severe injuries from a beating with an unknown weapon.
Moses said that the body was taken to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy.