PORTAGE | Neighbors of a little boy killed early Tuesday after his father stabbed a man then slammed his car into a police squad with the boy on his lap were shocked and saddened about what happened Tuesday morning.

"I feel sorry for (the) little boy because he called me grandma," said Buakai Goul, who lives on the second floor of 5970 Old Porter Road in Park Place Apartments here.

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Goul said the mother of the boy -- Keahn Hill, 2 -- frantically knocked on her apartment door calling for help early Tuesday morning after her former boyfriend, 40-year-old Lawence K. Hill of Illinois, stabbed and killed Dennis Williams, 29, of Gary, who was visiting the woman.

Williams died in the hallway. Blood spatters remained on the walls and blood soaked the carpeting of the stairway that led from the third to second floor. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area.

Maintenance supervisor Jim Kosmatka and a crew from Aftermath Inc. of Oswego, Ill., were in the building before 8 a.m. assessing the damage.

"We want to get it cleaned up and back to normal as soon as possible," said Kosmatka.

After stabbing Williams, Hill took his son from the apartment and drove off. Police later spotted him near Beverly Shores. With police from several departments following him, Hill accelerated and drove head on into a Porter County Police squad car with his son sitting on his lap. Hill and Keahn were killed in the crash. The county police officer was not inside the squad at the time.

Goul said the 21-year-old woman was from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She, her son and the child's father moved in together over a year ago. Things between the mother and Hill didn't work out and the father moved to Chicago, said Goul.

Goul believed WIlliams was the mother's new boyfriend.

"She was a good mom. She been working a lot. The boy went to daycare," said Goul, adding she often played with Keahn, who particularly liked a hand-held slot machine of Goul's.

Gloria Cruse was shaking as she left for work Tuesday morning. She said the only thing she heard during the night was people running up and down the stairs. She thought it might be people checking their laundry.

"I'm very surprised. These are quiet people who go their own way," said Cruse, adding she didn't know the mother or little boy. "I heard it on the news this morning. I knew it was this complex, but not this building. I'm concerned. I don't like to live around danger."

Ian Prance, who lives on the second floor, came home about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. He said he saw the young mother running through the hallway yelling to call the police. He already had.

"There was a dude laying dead upstairs," said Prance. "You don't see that stuff happening in Portage."

Prance, who has lived in the building since April, said he didn't know the mother well, but she and the her son were always together.