TORONTO

A 64-year-old woman was found dead with “obvious injuries” in her 17th-floor north Scarborough apartment late Thursday.

Toronto Police now say the death at the 80 Alton Towers Circle highrise, south of McCowan Rd. and Steeles Ave., is the city’s 56th homicide of the year.

The slaying has spooked neighbours, who said they heard screaming in the hallway around 11:30 p.m.

When next-door neighbour Vincent Mak ventured out to see what was going on, he said he saw a woman “freaking out.”

“We heard screaming, we weren’t sure what was happening,” Mak said Friday. “So I went out, she was screaming, she was in panic saying that someone murdered her mother.”

Down the hall, James Wong, 60, was watching a late-night movie when he heard the screams.

When he went out, he said a woman — who identified herself as the female resident’s daughter-in-law — was screaming “and the son kept saying that it’s horrible in there, it’s horrible in there. ‘Don’t look, don’t look, it’s horrible in there.’”

“She said, ‘Someone murdered my mother-in-law, someone murdered my mother-in-law! She’s gone, she’s gone!’ And she starts crying,” Wong said.

He said the son told the police “that he got an urgent notice that to come and check up on her, or something like that.”

He only knew the woman — who he believes lived by herself — as a neighbour who occasionally discussed weather with him.

“I feel very shocked because this has been a very nice neighbourhood, peaceful and nothing much happens here,” he said. “And I am really surprised that this kind of thing would just happen next to my doorstep.”

Mak said his family had never heard of trouble from the woman’s unit.

A covered body was removed and taken away in an unmarked black van Friday. An officer sat guarding the unit after evidence was collected.

A forensics identification unit was seen in front of the building as well.