Octogenarian songwriter Joe Sherman, who composed Nat King Cole’s 1962 hit “Ramblin’ Rose,” better start looking over his shoulder.
That’s because an ex-con — who did 26 years in prison for offing the man he believed to be his father over a hefty inheritance — is now suing the Grammy-nominated Manhattan composer seeking a DNA test after the killer’s mom told him that his real dad was Sherman.
The convicted murderer, Richard Winkler, of E. 84th Street, says he wants to confirm the paternity so he can learn about any half-siblings, his heritage and whether he’s predisposed to any illnesses.
But Sherman, 87, who still lives in the Riverside Drive building at W. 74th Street where Winkler believes he was conceived, wants nothing to do with his “son.”
Winkler says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that when he called Sherman on the telephone the elderly musician responded “in a scared, shriek-like voice, ‘I really don’t know how to handle this,’ ” and then hung up.
Winkler was arrested in 1980 and sentenced to 25 years-to-life for blowing away Irving Winkler with a rifle in Westchester County.
He was released from prison in 2007. In late 2011, when he was 50, Winkler’s mom revealed her long-held secret — his murder victim was not his biological father.
Instead she said her son was the product of an alleged tryst at age 20 with Joe Sherman.
Winkler is suing Sherman to force him to submit to a DNA test.
A woman who answered the phone at Sherman’s apartment said he was not at home. She claimed to know nothing about Winkler.