Throat slit on a Brooklyn sidewalk
A man was found fatally stabbed on a Brooklyn sidewalk early Sunday.
The 37-year-old victim, whose name has not been released, turned up with a slit, throat about 6:30 a.m. on Stanwix St. near Jefferson St. in Bushwick.
Neighbors and merchants in the area knew him as “Stylez,” and said he struggled with drug addiction and was homeless, sleeping in a baby carriage near the Myrtle Ave.-Broadway subway stop.
“He used to be a garbage man,” pastry chef Michelle Hussey, 44, said. “He fell off the back of a truck and he hurt himself and that’s how he became an addict.”
Hussey, who said she was an addict herself once, said he looked out for her.
“He was the one person that was always very respectful and would keep people away from me that would be a bad influence on me,” she said.
He had an apartment but would sleep on the street, she said.
“The last time we talked it was like a screaming match,” she said. “I told him ‘you’re better than this, you gotta go home.’ ”
Others also remembered him as a gentle soul living hard on the street.
“He kept to himself. Not a fighter, didn’t start trouble, just kept to himself,” said nursing student Lauren V., who lives in the area and wouldn’t give her last name. “He,
unfortunately, had a hard life on the streets and he didn’t bother no one. He would actually be the type of person that if you needed something even though he didn’t have much he would buy you a cup of coffee.”
She said he struggled with drug addiction and recently had an altercation with his brother over some items stolen from their mother’s house.
Lauren V. said despite his troubled life and homelessness, he was always upbeat.
“He was very sweet. His demeanor was ... like a child,” she said.
She said she used to buy him lunch every day.
“He liked the paninis” from a nearby deli, she said. “Such a giving kid. So sweet. Just had a hard freaking life. He really didn’t deserve that.”
Detectives were canvassing the area looking for camera footage of the attacker Sunday afternoon.
Cops made no immediate arrests. “I really want to find the truth,” Lauren V. said. “I’m just sick to my stomach. I’m literally sick to my stomach.”