REGINA — The death of a man whose body was discovered in an inner-city home on Wednesday afternoon has been ruled a homicide, the Regina Police Service said Thursday morning.

No other details were released other than that the deceased was a 48-year-old man. His name is being withheld by police pending notification of next of kin. A neighbour said the occupant of the small, stuccoed bungalow was a recent immigrant from Iraq.

An autopsy was to have been done on Thursday, police added.

Police said they were called around 4:20 p.m. Wednesday to the residence in the 1000 block of King Street by a caller who'd gone to check on a friend — and had discovered the body of a man in the residence.

Police and emergency medical personnel confirmed the man was dead, then secured the scene and contacted the coroner's office.

Thursday morning found yellow police tape surrounding a house at 1078 King St. and police officers in two cruisers watching the building.

Another neighbour, Joseph Pelletier, said the house's occupant was a fairly young man who had not been spotted for the last week or so.

On Wednesday, he saw children peering into the house — thus supporting another neighbour's report that the body inside the house had been spotted by three children peering into the kitchen window.

"There was a lot of people going in and out of the house, so that's what made me wonder what was wrong — suddenly, nobody was going in. They'd go knock on the door ... the door wouldn't open. So I figured there was something wrong. I didn't know what the heck was going on."

Another neighbour said the house's occupant was "a good man and a hard worker."

"But in December, a lot of people started showing up — women, partying, partying, partying. Girls fighting in the streets, running around half-naked ... a rough-looking group that were coming to it.

"And then, I didn't see him or talk to him for over a month. But we always saw people coming and going."

The neighbour said "sketchy-looking" visitors' knocks on the front and back doors of the house over the last week or so went unanswered and the house's occupant was "not even shovelling his sidewalk, which he usually does."

Late Wednesday afternoon, "all of a sudden, the police arrived and began putting tape up around the house."

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Regina Police Service at 777-6500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

Police said the death is the second one to have been classified as a homicide this year in Regina.

The first involved a death that occurred during a house party on the 400 block of Montreal Street in mid-January. Police were called around 4:30 a.m. Saturday about a noisy altercation.

As officers were on the way, they received more information that a man had been seriously injured. Pronounced dead at the scene was 21-year-old Colton Lee Quewezance.

William Gary Kaiswatum, 23, was arrested the next night and charged with second-degree murder.