While most of the city slept, the killer went up the stairs to the third floor and opened the wrong door.

Brooke Miles was asleep when she heard footsteps inside her downtown Edmonton apartment.

"I got really freaked out and screamed," she said, "and hit him with the umbrella and he went running out."

However, she didn't call police. And the man simply went down the hall and opened another door.

When police arrived about a day and a half later, inside that second apartment they found one of the most horrible crime scenes in the city's recent history.

"The scene is probably one of the most horrific I've seen in my career as a police officer," Staff Sgt. Bill Clark said Wednesday. "And I've been to a few hundred murder scenes. It was gruesome what was done to her."

'A little bit of moaning'

Whatever was done in that apartment early Monday, Miles and her boyfriend heard some of it.

Nadine Skow's body wasn't discovered until Tuesday, after co-workers became concerned she hadn't showed up at her job. (Facebook) Later, when the worst of the noise was over, Miles crept down the hall and put her head against the door.

"It was a little bit of moaning," she said, describing what she heard. "Like her last breaths or something. It was like she wasn't screaming anymore. It was like she was dying."

Still, no one called police.

Clark said he had no explanation for why people who lived in that walk-up building near 106th Avenue and 104th Street didn't dial 911 that morning.

"[Miles] confronted an intruder in her home," he said. "She actually went after him. They could have called the police then, when someone's basically broken in. Or they could have called police when they heard the other noises coming from the other apartment suite. So there were a couple of opportunities there. Unfortunately it didn't happen.

"There's a possibility, if police had been called, this might not have happened."

Nadine Skow, 38, died from multiple stab wounds. Her body wasn't discovered until Tuesday, after co-workers became concerned she hadn't showed up at her job.

Suspect arrested, charged

Silva Koshwal, also 38, was arrested Tuesday without incident and has now been charged with second-degree murder and indignity to a human body.

He was convicted of assault and sexual assault in 2010.

Clark said Skow and Koshwal were once a couple, but broke up about a year ago.

"Definitely our victim had no issues with drugs or anything like that," he said. "By all accounts, just was a great lady, had a great job and everybody liked her."

Skow is the city's 13 homicide victim of the year, and one of five women.

Last week, the remains of Lan (Lana) Cam Kasjaniuk, 51, were found in a yard near 108th Street and 108th Avenue, only a few blocks from where Skow died.

Staff Sgt. Bill Clark says the murder scene was one of the worst he's ever investigated. (CBC) An autopsy has been completed in that case, but police haven't called it a homicide, only that it is considered suspicious. They say determining the cause of death will have to await further testing.

In June, Claudia Mary Iron-Howard, 29, died from a stab wound after she was attacked near 106th Avenue and 103rd Street.

Cases not related

None of the cases were related, Clark said. Police have now laid charges in two of the killings, have made an arrest in a third, and have suspects in the other two.

Homicide detectives expect all five murders will be solved by the end of the year, Clark said.

The part of the city where the latest killing happened is a high-crime area, Clark said, but that had nothing to do with the latest killing.

Residents of the building where Skow died, he said, "hear a lot of things. And I hate to say it, but they almost get used to it."