Police are looking for the person who killed a Portland man whose body was found in his apartment on Cumberland Avenue.

The body of Freddie Akoa, 49, was found Tuesday in his apartment at 457 Cumberland Ave. at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday. Police Chief Michael Sauschuck said the state Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy Wednesday morning and ruled Akoa’s death a homicide.

Residents of 457 Cumberland Ave. in Portland, where Freddy Akoa lived, say it is the kind of place where tenants keep to themselves. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Edward Keeley, a resident of 457 Cumberland Ave., says disturbances in the building are rare. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Sauschuck would not release the cause of death, citing the ongoing investigation. Police often withhold details of an investigation so they can evaluate the information they receive.

The initial investigation indicates that the death was not the result of a random attack and police do not believe there is a threat to the public, Sauschuck said.

Akoa’s body was discovered by members of the building management company after his family had asked that he be checked on because they hadn’t been able to contact him, Sauschuck said. He would not say when police believe Akoa died.

The apartment building is a four-story brick structure with 43 apartments. Akoa lived in a unit on the second floor toward the rear of the building.

A relative of Akoa’s, Benoit Akoa, who was contacted by phone, declined to speak about the death on Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re just trying to catch the person,” he said.

Several people coming in and out of the building Wednesday afternoon said they didn’t know Akoa personally, and that residents of the apartments there tend to keep to themselves.

Tammy McKenney, who has lived in her third-floor apartment for a little over a year, said she didn’t know Akoa well.

“I knew him in passing. I knew who he was,” McKenney said. “He always had a lot of company” and it was usually the same group of visitors, she added.

McKenney said no one she’s talked to in the building heard anything unusual over the past few days. She said it is usually a secure building, which is why she wanted to move there. Tenants do not allow strangers in, she said.

Another tenant, Edward Keeley, said he lives in the apartment directly above Akoa’s but didn’t know him.

“I’ve heard some disturbances (from below his apartment) in the past that alarmed me a bit,” said Keeley, who has lived in the building for three years.

But Keeley said disturbances in the building are rare and tenants who move there tend to stay.

“It’s an extremely secure building,” Keeley said.

Wilder Shafter, who lives in the building next door to where Akoa was killed, said he was not especially surprised to hear what happened.

Shafter lives on the first floor of 443 Cumberland Ave. and said he is awakened nightly by sirens and yelling from the street.

“There’s constantly police and ambulances, but it’s usually not the crime scene unit,” Shafter said. “I guess because it’s only the sirens that wake you up, it feels like all night.”

Shafter, 27, said he has lived in his building for most of his life and thought the number of disturbances in Akoa’s building had declined in recent years.

Related Stories