The suspicious death of a man in the north end of Halifax has been ruled a homicide.
Police say the 32-year-old man's body was inside his home at 5529 Bilby Street for three to four weeks before it was discovered.
The man who discovered the body was a neighbour. He has asked to be identified only as "Rick" because he's worried about his security, and police have asked him not to talk about the gruesome discovery he found Monday morning.
He did say that he felt something was wrong at the residence when he noticed hundreds of flies buzzing around the windows at the victim's flat Sunday night.
"There was that many flies in there, it looked like a horror movie," he says.
He decided to walk up the flight of outside stairs to the man's residence to check on him Monday morning.
"As I got to the top of the stairwell, I could see his feet sticking out," he describes. "It was pretty damn gross. There was blood from one end of the place to the other in the kitchen."
Halifax Regional Police have identified the victim as Shawn Andrew Mead of Halifax.
Most of his neighbours say they didn't even know the victim's name, and one described him as a "loner."
Police say they also found a dead dog inside the home and they believe it died in the past few weeks.
"We're interested in speaking with anyone that can provide information about Shawn's activities in and around that time period," Const. Brian Palmeter tells CTV Atlantic.
Officers aren't saying how he died but neighbours say they heard gunshots awhile back.
"My roommate stuck his head out the window," says Rick. "I had a look a little after that, and we didn't see anything, so nobody suspected anything."
This is the eleventh homicide to occur in Halifax in 2011.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell
