Macabre find in Bronx crate
COPS HAVE arrested a crazed ex-con they say beat a 57-year-old Queens bodega worker into a coma, officials said Friday.
Sherwin Benn, 32, is accused of smashing Abdullah al-Maliki in the head and knocking him to the ground outside the victim’s Far Rockaway home about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
He ran off with the victim’s cell phone but was caught by police late Thursday, officials said.
Al-Maliki remains in critical but stable condition at North Shore Manhasset Hospital.
Benn followed the victim toward his home a few blocks away and jumped him, according to cops.
“He picked out the victim as a target for a robbery,” a police source said.
Benn has at least 33 prior arrests on charges including assault, burglary, gun possession and auto stripping.
Most recently, he served 18 months in prison for burglary after being arrested in November 2012. A DEAD MAN discovered decomposing in a crate at a Bronx marina had been shot in the head, police said Friday.
James Michael Brannon, 60, was found shot, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a 7-by-3-foot box under a drydocked boat at the Hammond Cove Marina in Throggs Neck, police said.
Two employees at the marina told cops they first noticed the crate five to seven years ago but suspected nothing nefarious, assuming it belonged to one of the boat owners, police sources said.