CLEVELAND -- An investigation is under way after a man is found dead under a pile of clothes in a closet.

Cleveland police are calling the man's death suspicious.

Jose Santiago-Rivera was found dead in his East 13th Street apartment, and the crime has some neighbors living in fear.

Deloris Strode has lived for several years at the St. Clair Place Apartments. She was shocked to learn a neighbor had been found dead.

"The hallway was smelly. He'd been there for a while," Strode said.

Rivera hadn't been seen since Sept. 1., so staff at the apartment building contacted family members who discovered the 78-year-old man Friday dead in his closet.

Ron Stefanik was home when the police arrived.

"From my apartment porch, I just saw the police interviewing the maintenance men outside and going through the garbage," Stefanik said.

Rivera was discovered under bags of clothing in the closet, but police aren't releasing many other details about what may have happened to him.

Most of the residents who live at St. Clair Place are elderly and many of them live alone. Residents like Strode are afraid and she hopes something is done to make their building safer.

"I have never seen security. I don't know when they come in," Strode said.

She said she won't feel secure until police are able to find out what happened.

Cleveland police are asking anyone with information to contact them.