A 29-year-old woman was charged with second-degree murder Thursday afternoon after Serge Levac, 54, was stabbed to death Wednesday evening.

Police rushed to a home on tiny Robillard Ave. south of Ste. Catherine St. E near St. Andre St. after somebody alerted them to a stabbing at a home around 6:55 p.m.

Neighbours described hearing fighting and loud noises. One neighbour said he head banging on the walls. He opened the apartment door and saw Serge Levac, the victim, covered in blood, he said.

When police arrived, Levac was still alive. He died on his way to hospital.

Police say there were three people in the apartment when they showed up, a woman, Daisy Lachance, and two men.

Lachance was formally charged in connection with the incident Thursday afternoon. She is considered to be the only suspect. The two other men in the home at the time are considered witnesses.

Neighbours say the woman was sometimes seen inside the building, but that she didn’t live there. The victim, they say, was a drug dealer who lived in a basement apartment where many people would come and go. One neighbour said that he once counted 43 visits to the apartment within about an hour. He said that neighbours were hoping Levac would be evicted.

In 2009, Levac was tried for raping a woman with Down's Syndrome in Little Burgundy. Levac was acquitted because the victim couldn't identify her attacker with 100 percent certainty. The court was told that he knew that he had HIV at the time of the attack. He also had Hepatitis A, B and C.

Neighbours told CTV Montreal Thursday that Levac could sometimes be violent.

The street around the block is littered with dirty syringes. Tenants say that efforts to clean up nearby Emilie Gamelin Park have pushed drug dealers and users to side streets, including the one where the killing took place.