Stabbing Death in Prospect Park

The Times tells the story, in today's Metro section

April 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/nyregion/24stabbing.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

An Avid Walker, 61, Is Stabbed to Death in Prospect Park
By ANDREW JACOBS and ANN FARMER

William Oliver was a housecleaner, a gardener, a patient uncle and a reliable jack-of-all-trades. But more than anything, Mr. Oliver, 61, was known by those who loved him as a walker.

His tireless amblings across the city were almost always accompanied by the music that, wearing oversized headphones, he played on a portable CD player.

On Saturday afternoon, police officers responding to a 911 call from a passer-by found Mr. Oliver's rain-drenched body in a thickly wooded corner of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Mr. Oliver, who lived with relatives in Brooklyn, was killed by a knife plunged into his chest, the police said.

Yesterday, the authorities said they had no suspects in Mr. Oliver's killing, which took place about 4 p.m. in the Vale of Cashmere, a lush, hilly swath near Grand Army Plaza, which draws bird-watchers and, in good weather, gay men looking for sexual encounters.

Reared in rural Virginia, one of seven children born to a tobacco-farming couple, Mr. Oliver was a quiet, courtly man who, according to family members, held a variety of jobs after moving to New York in the 1970's: as a worker in a handbag factory, a salesman at a jewelry store and, in recent years, a housecleaner for affluent clients in Manhattan.

Wilson Oliver, 67, said he could not imagine why anyone would want to harm his brother, a pacific soul who mostly kept to himself.

Although he worked when he could, his brother said, William Oliver did not earn enough money to rent his own place so he alternated between his older brother's apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant and his sister's house in Flatbush. Mr. Oliver would get a bed and home-cooked meals, and his siblings would enjoy his good-natured company and the benefits of his industriousness.

In the winter, Mr. Oliver shoveled snow, and in the spring, he prepared his sister's backyard vegetable garden. Not long ago, he painted her living room robin's-egg blue.

"You didn't have to ask him to do anything," said the sister, Shirley Puryear, 69. "He just did it."

Walking and listening to music, family members said, seemed to be his solace. He would regularly stroll the 3½ miles between his brother's and sister's homes. Sometimes, he would hike all the way into Manhattan. "He'd just walk and walk and walk," said a niece, Evelyn Puryear.

Prospect Park is near the route he usually took between the homes of his brother and his sister. Last night, investigators said they were exploring whether Mr. Oliver was the victim of a robbery, a random act of brutality or perhaps an attack motivated by homophobia. When asked, Mr. Oliver's brother and sister said they did not know whether he was gay.

Over the years, the Vale of Cashmere has often been the site of attacks on gay men. Last October, two men were shot and wounded there; in 2000, a man dressed as a ninja slashed and beat five men there. No arrests were made in those attacks.

Clarence Patton, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said he was consulted yesterday by an investigator from the Police Department's hate crimes unit, who was trying to determine whether the victim was gay.

Though Mr. Patton said he did not know, he said at least 10 percent of victims of anti-gay violence are not gay, but rather are targeted in places thought to be gathering spots for gay men or lesbians. "It's hard to say whether you hope it was a robbery or an anti-gay attack," he said. "At the end of the day, a man is dead, and it doesn't really matter."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

(EDIT: adding the Daily News article)
http://www.nydailynews.com/04-24-2006/news/crime_file/story/411542p-348098c.html

Park slaying renews fears
By RICHARD WEIR, TONY SCLAFANI and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Cops were hunting yesterday for a cold-blooded killer who stabbed a 61-year-old man to death in Prospect Park - rocking the Brooklyn oasis.

William Oliver was knifed once in the chest and may have been robbed Saturday afternoon in a section of the park that's known as a gay pickup spot, cops said.

"I still have trouble getting over his death," said Wilson Oliver, 67, the slain man's brother.

The attack raised fears that the so-called ninja who prowled the same area of the park more than five years ago, preying on gay men, had returned. Cops said they did not believe the slaying was related to the ninja attacks.

William Oliver, a bachelor who bounced around between relatives' houses, had called his brother at 3:11 p.m. Saturday to say he was on his way to his house in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

But he never made it.

Two parkgoers stumbled onto his bloody body on a path in the lush Vale of Cashmere area of the park about an hour later. "Everything was fine, he was going to come by," said Oliver's brother. "He said, 'See you later.'"

Cops said they found William Oliver's wallet nearby and found some cash in his pockets.

The murder weapon was not recovered. Investigators were searching a nearby man-made pond for clues.

Relatives said Oliver kept to himself and never talked about his sexual preference, although his brother said it was "a good possibility" he was gay. "He was a good person, a kind person," said Willa Oliver, his sister-in-law. "If he could do something to help you, he did it."

The secluded Vale of Cashmere and the nearby Rose Garden are popular hangouts for gay men near Grand Army Plaza.

In 2000, a man dressed in a black ninja outfit stabbed, clubbed or slashed at least four gay men during a two-week crime spree. Another man was stabbed on Jan. 17, 2001, by a man dressed in black.

Oliver's murder was even more worrisome because it came in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, when the park was fairly crowded, even on a rainy day. "It's spooky," said William Davis, 42, sitting in the Rose Garden. "It's really scary because it's daytime."

Even though police said the killing wasn't linked to the ninja attacks, just the mention of the spree was enough to frighten one man, who said he once came face-to-face with the black-clad attacker.

"I hope they catch him," said a 48-year-old man who didn't want his name used because his family doesn't know he is gay. "I won't be coming over here by myself."

Originally published on April 24, 2006

so sad.