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Berkeley police found the body of the year’s second murder, 46-year-old Terrence Marlow Broadnax, shortly after noon Friday in a fourth-floor apartment at University Avenue Homes. 

In a written statement, BPD Lt. Matt Morizono said officers found evidence of “significant blunt force trauma.” 

Officers were called to the 1040 University Ave. scene by a building employee who had discovered the body, Morizono said. 

The employee had gone to the apartment to check on Broadnax’s welfare because he hadn’t been seen for some time before his body was discovered. 

Located at the corner of University and San Pablo avenues, the 75-unit single-room-occupancy hotel opened in 1992 for area residents who lost their dwellings in the Loma Prieta earthquake. 

Remodeled with finances from the city and federal governments, the building was owned by the non-profit University Avenue Housing until 1999, when the building was purchased by Resources for Community Development (RCD). 

A non-profit, RCD owns multiple properties in the East Bay reserved solely for low-income tenants and is presently developing the six-story Oxford Plaza apartment complex at the corner of Fulton Street and Kittredge Way adjacent to the site of the planned David Brower Center. 

Broadnax’s killing comes one month and two days after the city’s first murder of 2007, also the result of a severe beating. 

The body of 19-year-old Augustine Silva of Antioch was discovered about 6:30 a.m. May 6 by an employee arriving for work at Second and Cedar streets. The body was on the ground, sprawled across an abandoned railroad spur. 

He had been slain by multiple blunt force blows, said BPD Sgt. Mary Kusmiss at the time. 

Berkeley police have announced a $15,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Silva’s killer. 

Anyone with information on either crime is requested to call BPD’s Homicide Detail at 981-5741, or the department switchboard at 981-5900.