Police in Baltimore arrested a man for allegedly beating another man to death in a dispute, then taking the victim’s dog for a walk before taking the dead body into an alley and setting it on fire.

At 1:39 p.m. on Saturday, the Baltimore Police Department tweeted that it had arrested Lawrence Coverdale and charged him with first degree murder in connection with the slaying of 54-year-old Nathaniel Quarterman.

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Around 2:00 a.m. on Friday, according to the Baltimore Sun‘s Justin Fenton, firefighters responded to reports of a fire in an alley in the 4200 block of Shamrock Avenue.

Upon arrival, first responders found a body on fire. Police told Fenton — the crime reporter at the Sun — on Friday they had identified the victim as Quarterman. According to their investigation, Quarterman and another man were involved in a dispute inside Quarterman’s residence.

On Saturday, Fenton posted a partial arrest report on the social medium Twitter describing the moments after Quarterman’s murder.

The report said that, after trying to strangle an unnamed witness, “Lawrence Coverdale went back into the victim’s bedroom and closed the door. While Lawrence Coverdale was in the bedroom, the witness made several attempts to contact police, but was ultimately unsuccessful. After several minutes, Lawrence Coverdale exited the bedroom and proceeded to take the victim’s dog for a walk.”

A coroner’s report determined that Quarterman’s cause of death was “homicide by blunt force trauma.”

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[image of Lawrence Coverdale via Facebook.com]