SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — For the second time this month, police are investigating a deadly stabbing at a west Sioux Falls apartment complex.
It’s happened again at Meadowland Apartments near 41st and Marion, where a 43-year-old man died in an early morning stabbing.
It comes just two weeks after a 45-year-old man was stabbed to death at a different building in the same complex.
Suspects are in custody in both cases.
Police responded to the Meadowland apartments just before 1:30 in the morning where they found the stabbing victim.
“He was inside an apartment. Lifesaving measures were given. But he was pronounced deceased on the scene,” Sioux Falls Police spokesman Sam Clemens said.
Clemens says several people were at the apartment at the time of the stabbing and they helped lead police to a suspect who’s from Nebraska.
“The suspect had been in Sioux Falls just for a short amount of time. But the suspect and victim knew each other,” Clemens said.
Police say there’s no connection between this stabbing and another deadly stabbing that happened two weeks earlier at a nearby building in the same apartment complex.
“If you look at the specifics of this, each case is similar because it was between two men, but that’s really the only similarities we have,” Clemens said.
People in the neighborhood were rattled by the earlier stabbing.
“This area right here, it’s bad. For Sioux Falls its bad, I’ve even seen when I pick my kids up the cops come here, walking and going in and stuff this is a bad area right here bad… bad,” Billy Joe Pettibone said on April 4th.
“I can’t give you an explanation why there’s been more calls in that apartment complex. It could be any number of different reasons. But it’s not uncommon for officers to take that initiative and just kind of keep an eye on things,” Clemens said.
Clemens says both stabbings were isolated incidents and there’s no danger to the public. But he says the crimes do serve as reminders for everyone to be aware of their surroundings.
The suspect, 25-year-old Kaleb Daniel Martin of Alliance, Nebraska, was booked into the Minnehaha County Jail this morning.
He’s was arrested for Second-Degree Murder and First Degree Manslaughter.
Clemens says an autopsy was scheduled for Friday on the stabbing victim.
This is the city’s fourth homicide of the year.
