Rob vic grief
Rites for man, 91; ‘close’ to finding killer
MOURNERS FILLED a Brooklyn church Thursday to honor a 91-year-old man who died after being tied up in a heartless home invasion, as investigators said they were closing in on his killer.
Waldiman Thompson suffered a heart attack and died Oct. 11 after thieves broke into the Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone he shared with his 100-yearold wife Ethlin Thompson and made off with a lock box containing $5,000, police said.
The husband and wife were both tied up, but she managed to escape and call for help after the thieves got away.
Cops said the investigation moving in the right direction.
“I am very pleased with the progress of the case,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. “We have detectives working almost nonstop since this happened. We are getting close.”
Up to four suspects might have been involved.
The NYPD on Tuesday released photos of a man wanted for questioning. He was wearing dark clothing and carrying a backpack and what appears to be a lockbox.
The progress was some comfort to friends and family who filled the Hanson Place Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Fort Greene.
Mourners said silent prayers over the open brown casket, where Thompson’s body was laid out in a black suit with a red rose in the lapel.
The elderly widow was escorted down an aisle on the arms of a police detail before she stood at the flower-draped casket and touched her husband’s chest. is
“I love you,” she whispered to man she married nearly 30 years ago. “But God loves you more.”
A program from the funeral detailed Thompson’s life as a railroad operator in Jamaica before he immigrated to the U.S., and featured photos of the dapper dance lover with his wife and smiling grandchildren.
“She met Mr. Thompson walking on the street one day,” said Senado Anderson, 66, a nephew of the widow. “They crossed paths and they were inseparable from then on. He was the love of her life.”
Anderson urged the men who broke into the Decatur St. home to own up to their crimes.
“Turn yourself in,” Anderson said, “and it will free your mind of the evil you have done.”