EDITOR’S NOTE: The attached video clip is part of the footage captured by Jeff Schaffer on security cameras outside the Mountain Street residence where Russell Plume — Schaffer’s upstairs neighbour — was found trapped inside his apartment on Nov. 30, suffering from injuries that would prove fatal. The footage was recorded on Nov. 29.

Greater Sudbury Police officers have ruled the death of a Flour Mill man an accident, but some friends and acquaintances of the victim are still asking questions.

"I’m curious how they came to that conclusion," said Jeff Schaffer, who lives downstairs from the apartment on Mountain Street where Russell Plume, 53, was found in a state of medical distress on Nov. 30, dying the next day of his injuries.

"Things just don’t add up," said Schaffer. "We don’t have closure."

Efforts were made Sunday to reach a sergeant or detective who worked on the case, but criminal investigations staff were not available.

Plume was a heavy drinker, but generally well-liked and not prone to violence, according to several who knew him.

Police were contacted when Plume, who lived alone, had not been heard from in a couple of days. And no-one could enter his apartment, as the main entrance on the ground floor was dead-bolted from the inside.

Plume did have a visitor in the days before his discovery, though.

Schaffer recorded footage on a set of security cameras outside his apartment of a man arriving on the evening of Nov. 28 at 7:50 p.m., and the same individual leaving the following morning at 10:30 a.m.

The curious part was the method of his departure. Rather than leave by descending a flight of stairs and exiting through the main door, the man climbed through a window of Plume’s second-floor unit and jumped from a porch roof to the hard, frozen ground below.

After collecting himself from the fall, he walked away down the street, carrying something in a plastic bag. Schaffer, who has reviewed his security footage several times, pointed out the visitor wasn’t carrying anything in his hands when he arrived. "He took something out of the house," he said.

Joe Wemigwans, a friend of Plume’s, is just as puzzled by the sequence of events.

Wemigwans said he was in the habit of visiting Plume on a daily basis, usually calling on him in the morning. The two were drinking buddies, but Wemigwans said he also liked to check in just to make sure his friend was OK.

"I was always with him," he said. "Friday morning I didn’t see him but I went over later that day, and he was fine. We had a few beers and played a game of crib."

Wemigwans went back early the next morning, he said, and banged on the door, but didn’t hear directly from Plume and wasn’t let in. "Somebody was in his house, and I knew who it was," he said. "This guy, people call him Andrew or Andy, he said they can’t open the door."

Wemigwans came back a couple of hours later, and again couldn’t get inside. He said before this "Russell never locked the bolt" on his front entrance.

"There’s a little glass window in the door so I could see in," he said. "Andrew came down and said Russell had fallen on the stairs. I asked him is he alright, and he said ‘fine, fine.’ "

That was on the Saturday, a few hours before the visitor, as shown in Schaffer’s surveillance footage, jumped from the second floor and walked away.

When Wemigwans came by yet again on Sunday to see his friend, a police car was there. Not long after, officers were forcing their way into the apartment, and Plume was being taken away by EMS staff on a stretcher.

"I should have called the police or ambulance that Saturday morning," Wemigwans reflected. "But I didn’t think anything of it because I was told he was OK."

While police haven’t provided specifics on Plume’s injuries, other than to say their nature merited investigation, a family member told Schaffer he suffered head trauma.

Wemigwans finds it hard to understand why he couldn’t enter the apartment on the Saturday, after seeing his friend the previous day and never having had an issue being let in before.

But even if the locking device somehow seized shut, forcing the man he calls Andrew to find another way out, Wemigwans can’t understand how he could leave Russell trapped in the apartment — especially if he was that badly injured.

"Why didn’t he bang on buddy’s door downstairs to say Russell’s hurt?" he asked. "Why just leave?"

Schaffer and his partner Julie were home Friday night and Saturday morning, but didn’t hear any commotion. "If somebody fell down the stairs, I would have heard that," Schaffer said. "My dog would have gone nuts."

Wemigwans said the family deserves to know more precisely what happened.

"I hope they do find out what was the cause," he said. "It’s pretty bad, pretty sad what happened to him."

jim.moodie@sunmedia.ca