Police tape at 851 Nassau St. S., where the body of stabbing victim Mike Allan was found. (CBC)Police arrived about four hours after a neighbour reported a disturbance at a house where a Winnipeg man was found slain on the weekend.

Amanda Gravadorz lives next door to the Nassau Street home where Michael Allan, 62, was found stabbed to death early Saturday.

Mary Ellen Thomas, 30, has been charged with second-degree murder. She is also charged with aggravated assault in connection with another stabbing incident that occurred around 2:15 a.m. the same day, at a convenience store in the same neighbourhood.

Gravadorz said a woman who appeared to be drunk wandered from the house next door and snatched a cigarette from her boyfriend's mouth while he sat on the front porch of their home.

Michael Allan, in this undated photo, (Family photo)The drunken woman suggested she had been in a confrontation with Allan.

"This girl came outside ... She was really drunk and said she had knocked him out."

Gravadorz said she and her boyfriend later heard crashing and banging from the house next door and eventually called police around 1 a.m.

"I called the non-emergency line. I didn't know it was going to be such an emergency.

"It just sounded like she was throwing things around," said Gravadorz.

"[She was] really drunk. Just out of it. I don't know if she was on other drugs, but I think she is because I found a crack pipe by my fence.

"It's scary. My boyfriend was talking to her. It could've been him."

'Night hopping with bad things'

Mervin Forbister, Allan's brother-in-law, said he was told that police arrived at the scene around 5 a.m., a delay police told him was caused by violence in other parts of the city.

"The neighbour called because the fight was going on around midnight," Forbister told CBC News earlier. "The police didn't arrive at the house until five in the morning ... that's what the [homicide detective] said, anyways. Because the night was just hopping with bad things."

The aggravated assault charged against Thomas was laid after an 18-year-old girl was stabbed on Osborne Street. She was arrested after returning to Allan's home.