91-Year-Old Bronx Man Bound, Beaten To Death In Storage Shed Behind His Home

A 91-year-old retiree in New York City was found bound and apparently beaten to death behind his Bronx home this week, police sources said.

Nicolo Rappa was found bound by the hands and unconscious in a garage-turned-storage shed behind his home located between Wickham and Waring avenues, New York Daily News reported, citing officials and unnamed sources.

Police had responded to a 911 call of a robbery at the Pelham Gardens residence at around 12:30 p.m. when they discovered the elderly victim, who also had a towel placed over his head, according to authorities.

A neighbor said he found the body after Rappa's tenant ran over saying his landlord had been robbed, a report by the New York Post said.

"His tenant found him in the garage. His tenant came out and saw the garage open... He started calling, 'Nick! Nick!' And he saw him in the rear, tied up and dead," 64-year-old neighbor Robert D'Alessandro was quoted as saying by the New York Daily News.

A relative of the downstairs tenant interrupted the suspect and confronted the unidentified man, who ran to a parked white Ford pick-up truck and drove off, police sources said. Witnesses described the attacker as a Black man wearing an orange and white construction vest, according to police.

Rappa had several fresh bruises to his face and suffered a deep cut to his right arm.

Emergency medical services pronounced Rappa dead at 12:41 a.m. Authorities are now looking for the man in the construction vest who fled the scene.

Residents said Rappa had been mugged of $300 outside his home sometime in the last year, which police on the scene confirmed.

The veteran construction worker had been living out his retirement caring for his 96-year-old wife, Anna, neighbors told the New York Daily News.

"He built Co-op City. He used to tell us stories about working there. He took care of his wife... He was a good man," construction worker Paul Dock, 46, said.

When asked who would want to kill Rappa, 74-year-old neighbor Juan Vasquez was quoted by the New York Post as saying, "That's the million-dollar question - because he wouldn't do no harm to nobody."

NYPD Deputy Inspector Andrew Natiw, commanding officer of the 49th Precinct, assured residents that they will catch Rappa's killer.

"We're gonna get this guy," Natiw said. "This should not happen to a 91-old-guy, where some scumbag takes his life."

No arrests have been made in connection to Rappa’s death as of this writing.