VIRGINIA BEACH — Police are investigating the death of a man found bloodied and bruised in an apartment complex for homeless residents.

Police found 59-year-old Tyrone Hicks dead on the floor of a Cloverleaf Apartments unit around 11:30 a.m. on May 12, according to documents filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court.

According to court records, Hicks had a bruise and blood on his right eye and bruises across his body. Police also found blood on the floor and on a chair in the apartment.

Although Hicks was a Cloverleaf Apartments resident, he wasn’t in his apartment when he died. His body was found in the apartment leased to a resident neighbors identified as Hicks’ girlfriend, according to court documents.

According to police, a woman who also lives in the building was at the girlfriend’s apartment on May 11 around 10 p.m. when she saw the couple get into a fight.

The neighbor reported watching Hicks’ girlfriend grab him by the shirt and throw him down onto the hard floor where he hit his head. She said Hicks was unconscious for some time, and that she’d witnessed a “pattern of abuse” in their relationship, court documents state.

When interviewed by police, Hicks’ girlfriend said they’d used illegal drugs in the apartment the night before he died. When police searched the unit, they found medication, a spoon with residue on it and remnants of marijuana.

Cloverleaf Apartments is a 60-unit building located at 964 S. Military Highway. It is run by Virginia Supportive Housing, a government-funded agency that helps homeless people rent permanent housing, according to VSH Executive Director Allison Bogdanovíc.

People pay $50 or 30 percent of their wages or disability to lease apartments. People usually lease the apartments for four years on average, Bogdanovíc said.

In 2015, VSH helped more than 1,500 homeless Virginians get housing in 15 properties and scattered locations across the state. Twenty-three percent of those people were from Hampton Roads, according to the VSH 2015 annual report.

Although Bogdanovíc declined to comment on the status of any particular resident, she said that VSH has a zero tolerance policy on drug use in apartments and that those caught with illegal substances could be evicted.

“Any illegal substances are illegal in the buildings, too,” Bogdanovíc said.

Bogdanovíc said that the building’s do not have security guards, but there is always a VSH employee in the complex. During the day there are desk clerks who buzz people inside, and a third-shift employee lives in an apartment in the building and monitor’s activity at night.

No one has been arrested in connection to Hicks’ death, according to the Virginia Beach Police Department.

Southside Daily is not publishing the names of Cloverleaf Apartments residents who are involved in this incident because it is part of an ongoing investigation by the Virginia Beach Police Department.

Mayfield can be reached at adrienne.m@southsidedaily.com.