RESIDENTS and traders close to the scene where a 24-year-old was murdered in Cromwell Road, West Croydon, have told the Advertiser what they saw in the moments before and after the fatal stabbing.
The victim, believed to be 24-year-old Adrian Young, is understood to have eaten at a cafe in Whitehorse Road yesterday afternoon with his partner Lisa Stanley and their baby shortly before his death.
The Advertiser has been told that Mr Young was seen eating at Dooglebud's West Indian Bistro and Lounge Bar.
"They were sat behind me in the window of the cafe," said a customer.
"They had some food and then they left. They seemed happy enough."
A shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, said he saw a man stagger out of Cromwell Road clutching his chest before collapsing outside his business in Whitehorse Road.
"He was badly bleeding," he explained. "It looked like the paramedics performed emergency surgery on him by the side of the road to try and save him."
Several others described an argument in a children's playground involving a group of young men.
Police cordoned off an alleyway between two blocks of flats in Berney Road - behind the playground. One resident was told by a police officer that a length of wood, potentially used during the fight, had been found.
Officers were called to Cromwell Road at 4.30pm yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon after receiving reports that a group of men, one armed with a knife, were attacking someone.
When they and paramedics arrived at the scene they found a man in Whitehorse Road, believed to be Mr Young, suffering from stab wounds.
He was taken to a south London hospital but was pronounced dead at 6.42pm.
Pastor Ted Brown, of AFB Church in nearby Johnson Road, went to the scene of the stabbing yesterday evening.
Although they do not know the Young family, Ruth Brown, the pastor's wife, said the church would be there to support the community in the coming days.
She said: "If anyone needs our help then we will give it to them."
