Newfoundland police are searching for three "armed and dangerous" individuals one day after a violent home invasion and suspicious death shocked people in the town of Conception Bay South, N.L.

The smell of smoke was still in the air Sunday as police investigated a fire at a home in the Seal Cove area of the town, which is near the capital, St. John's. That's where the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary believe a series of crimes began.

RNC Const. Geoff Higdon said police responded to a 911 hang-up at a home in Seal Cove at around 4:10 a.m. on Saturday.

"When we arrived on scene we found that the home was engulfed in flames," Higdon said, adding that a female outside the home when they arrived had sustained minor injuries because of the fire.

After a preliminary investigation, Higdon said police now believe that three masked individuals armed with weapons entered the home, assaulted and then abducted a man who lived there.

The Conception Bay South man, aged 25, was found dead approximately four hours later in the Bayview Heights subdivision.

Higdon said the assailants may have known the victim.

"We do believe that the home invasion, the fire, the death and of course the kidnapping are all connected in the same incident," said Higdon.

Higdon said police are also investigating an apparent stabbing in the nearby town of Paradise that occurred early Saturday morning as a separate incident, but are not "ruling out the possibility that they [the two incidents] may be connected."

Two witnesses, who wished not to be identified, told CBC News they saw a bloodied and bald man wearing only a pair of black shorts lying in a driveway in Bayview Heights on Saturday morning at around 8 a.m.

Higdon said police do not believe the home invasion was a random act of violence and that they have not established a link between the dead man and the home where his body was found.

​Police said they are awaiting an autopsy and still investigating the incident.

Anyone with information on the crime is urged to come forward and contact the police force.