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HAMILTON, Ont. — A man is dead after he dove head first through three glass windows in two homes, including one where he was confronted by an 86-year-old woman, Hamilton police said.

The 23-year-old man smashed through the elderly woman’s front glass window early Tuesday wielding a knife and she defended herself, said Const. Debbie McGreal-Dinning.

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“This is an 86-year-old woman that walks with the assistance of a cane,” she said. “A guy jumps through her house, her initial reaction was to whack him with the cane. Then he holds a knife to her and cuts her.”

Police got a call from the woman’s neighbours, who heard loud noises and shouting.

The man then escaped by diving head-first again through her back window before hopping over a fence, McGreal-Dinning said.

The woman was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Ten minutes later, police received another call after a 15-year-old boy was startled by a man smashing through a ground-floor apartment window where the teen lived.

Officers and EMS workers who arrived at the scene found a 23-year-old man in medical distress and transported him to a hospital, where he later died.

The elderly woman’s cane strike had nothing to do with the man’s wounds, McGreal-Dinning said.

“Obviously putting your body through three different windows, you’re going to come out of that with some injuries,” she said.

The man’s name is being withheld at the request of his family.

The incident is still under investigation but McGreal-Dinning said there’s no indication the man had any prior history of break-and-enter offences.