Family members and friends are trying to come to grips with the death of a Barrie man over the weekend.

Tonight, tributes are being planned even as the police investigation continues.

Police forensic teams were back at the rooming house today looking for clues. Saturday night 52-year-old Mike Baker of Barrie was found dead inside his unit.

Ernie Bruce Richards, 51, has been charged with first-degree murder in his death. Police say Baker was strangled.

“It's very hard to fathom. It's, it's not something you ever think will happen to you,” says Angela Baker, one of Mike Baker’s two adult children. She says her dad had to stop working as a tiller because of a back injury. She says he lived in the rooming house for six years and was looked up to and respected by many of the residents.

“Even though he was kind of down-and-out himself he got so much pleasure from just making somebody else happy,” she says.

Baker, who loved to fish, also loved to cook. He would put on special dinners for the residents of the rooming house twice a year.

“He would cook up a meal for all the people at 26 North Street,” says his older sister Lorrie French. “And so everybody got to have a turkey dinner with potatoes and the whole fixings and everything. He loved to do that. And, that's one of the great, was one of the great things about him.

“He preferred to do that for them rather than come and spend Thanksgiving with us.”

Baker was close with his family, French says. H was also close with strangers. She says Baker often volunteered at the Salvation Army in Barrie. And would just do what he could even for total strangers.

“He knew a lot of street people. So, and they knew him. You know?” she says. “I was with him downtown sometimes and he would be like, “Hey how ya doing?’ ya know? He knew a lot of people.”

To honor Mike Baker, his family plans on holding a Christmas dinner for all of the residents of his rooming house next month. They are hoping to celebrate his life and everything he did as a dad and a friend.

Richards is expected to make a brief court appearance by video first thing tomorrow morning.