BEVERLY — Two homeless men will be arraigned today on murder charges following the death of another homeless man at a shuttered rooming house near the post office downtown.
The 52-year-old man died at Beverly Hospital around 6 p.m., the Essex County district attorney's office said. The victim was found by police and EMTs, who performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Eric Roberts, 33, and Michael Bryson, 49, were arrested shortly after police received the report. They will be arraigned today in Salem District Court.
No word on a possible motive or what led police to the two men.
Police learned of the crime when a friend of the victim went to the police station at 5:40 p.m. to report a possible homicide at the closed rooming house at 45 Broadway, said Stephen O'Connell, spokesman for the district attorney's office.
Neighbors said the rooming house, which has 16 units, closed within the past month.
Access to the former dwelling was blocked by police tape as state police investigators waited outside for a warrant in order to begin processing the evidence.
Earlier in the evening, police and investigators began their operations around a public park directly across the street from the post office. None would speak about the investigation or the incident that prompted it.
Questions about what happened in the area were on the minds of many people last night, especially commuters getting off the commuter rail.
Taxi driver Ollie Marley said people had been asking him for hours what happened.
"I don't know what's going on," Marley would tell them.
Alexander Sharrett, 26, who lives near the crime scene, said he was walking home from work when he saw two men sitting on the bench that police investigators were so interested in last night.
Hours later when he came from the grocery store, the entire park was cordoned off with police tape.
"I didn't think anything of it because I see the people sitting there all day," Sharrett said.
Neighbors who knew the victim would always see him around the park area pushing a shopping carriage and collecting cans.
"He was harmless," Sharrett said.
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