Now, the Wheat Ridge Police Department has identified the victim as Howard Benjamin Adler, who celebrated his 26th birthday just two weeks ago. We've also got more details about the killing.
Adler, who lived on Miller Street, where the attack took place, suffered multiple stab wounds, which came as a result of an ambush according to WRPD spokesman Lieutenant Wade Hammond. He added that Fischer and Adler were known to each other but not intimates; according to the Denver Post, the main connection was between Fischer and Adler's girlfriend.
As for Adler, a neighbor told CBS4, "It's a drag because he was a cool guy.... He had a kid, he liked doing stuff outside, he had a dragster. Just an overall good person."Look below to see a CBS4 report, followed by our previous coverage.
Continue to read our previous coverage of Howard Adler's murder. Original post, 11:58 a.m. November 19: It was almost midnight on Saturday when the sound of barking dogs alerted residents of a Wheat Ridge neighborhood that something wasn't quite right. But just how wrong the situation was no doubt came as a shock.
A thus-far-unidentified man was dead -- and authorities in Wheat Ridge believe 25-year-old Nate Fischer killed him. Details below.
At about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, according to the Wheat Ridge Police Department, folks at a residence on the 4600 block of Miller Street dialed 911. Why? They'd gone outside to investigate what had stirred up their dogs and discovered their roommate bleeding and severely wounded in the yard.
Police and paramedics raced to the scene, but they were too late. The 26-year-old man was pronounced dead without being transported to a hospital.
No suspects were contacted at the scene, but detectives quickly reached out to associates of the victim and zeroed in on Fischer, whose arrest on suspicion of first-degree murder was announced this morning.
What do investigators believe happened on Saturday night? WRPD spokesman Lieutenant Wade Hammond can't go into a great deal of detail quite yet, especially with the autopsy of the victim taking place earlier today. However, he says it appears that the killer was laying in wait for the victim and ambushed him.
He adds that the victim and the suspect knew of each other. In other words, this wasn't a random slaying.
At this writing, Fischer is being held in Jefferson County Jail.
Look below to see a larger version of Fischer's mug shot and an interactive graphic of the area near the crime scene; if you have problems seeing the image, click "View Larger Map."
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More from our Mile High Murder archive: "Alfred Flores's chewing gum leads to bust for head-shot murder of Manuel Martinez."
