The death of a middle-aged homeless man on the street in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood on Sunday night is now being investigated as a homicide, according to police.
Around 1 a.m. Monday, police responded to a 911 call about an unconscious man on the sidewalk in front of 221 East 33rd St. He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with injuries to his face, and pronounced dead.
On Tuesday, the city’s medical examiner deemed the man’s death a homicide, due to injuries he sustained that seemed like he had been kicked or punched in the face repeatedly, according to police.
NYPD officials pieced together that the victim had been assaulted sometime on Sunday night, just hours before he was discovered.
Police did not identify the man but described him as white and in his 50s or 60s with salt and pepper hair. His name has not yet been released.
His description matches that of a man whom neighbors said they often saw sleeping or sitting in front of their building.
“There was an older gentleman. We usually gave him food,” said neighbor Ry Pepper, who added that he usually wore a hoodie and sometimes slept in the vestibule of her building. “He didn’t want to talk … but he always ate the food after we gave it to him.”
Pepper said it’s not unusual to see homeless men on the block.
“There’s all kinds of fellas out here,” she said.
Neighbor Stevano Gayle said he recalled seeing the man wandering up and down the sidewalk, wearing a hoodie and black Converse sneakers.
“He didn’t bother nobody, just talked to himself,” Gayle said.
Rupen Maharjan, the superintendent of one of the buildings the man frequented, said detectives told him what had happened when they came in to analyze surveillance video.
“It’s really sad … I was shocked it happened. The detectives came in, and they said something happened and it could be a homicide. I helped them however I could,” Maharjan recalled.
“We looked into the cameras and I think they found something … it was not…
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