SAVAGE: The man who cops say killed the coach is caught on video walking from the grisly scene.
MYSTERY CALL: Michael Jones placed a call to his girlfriend, Bryeanna Murphy, just before his murder. (
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The devastated father of Michael Jones, the young soccer coach killed in the West Village in an incredibly brutal knife attack, said yesterday that his son had wanted to permanently move to New York from England.
“He loved New York and he loved the lifestyle and he was working and hoping to get a visa so he could stay there full time,” Perry Jones told the BBC.
The handsome soccer coach had been in a good mood partying with his girlfriend and other pals in the East Village when he bailed to meet a buddy for drinks just before midnight Saturday. Five hours later, passers-by on W 14th Street found his body in a pool of blood — his throat slashed and his severed ear on the ground.
The Medical Examiner today ruled Michael Jones’ death a homicide, citing “stab wounds to the torso and penetration of heart,” a spokeswoman for the office said.
“We just cannot believe it,” said Perry Jones of the 25-year-old man affectionately called “Jonesy.’’
The dad who lives with his family just north of Liverpool, said he and his heartbroken wife, Carole, learned something bad had happened to their son when a buddy of the young man sent them a Facebook message Sunday to call the NYPD.
“I contacted the police and I was totally shocked,’’ he said. “I was expecting to hear he had been injured in an accident.
“I just cannot believe it.’’
He said his son spent 10 months a year in the United States and had just gotten an apartment with two friends.
In New York, detectives spent a second day painstakingly trying to piece together what Jones — who worked with the New York Red Bulls helping to coach young soccer players in Westchester — did in the five hours between leaving the party and encountering the savage who killed him at 4:17 a.m.
A law-enforcement source said detectives “went to recanvass the neighborhood looking for witnesses and surveillance video, trying to retrace [Jones’] last steps, going through his wallet for his last MetroCard and credit-card charges.”
They had already seized one chilling video from a shop that showed the killer — 25 to 30 years old, wearing a long ponytail — walking next to Jones seconds before the murder on West 14th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
The video shows the pair apparently exchanging words and an argument breaking out. Then the attacker whirls around and shoves Jones against a building. He whips out a knife and wildly slashes the unarmed coach six times, on the neck, head and stomach.
Jones, blood pouring from his wounds, stumbles and collapses as his killer calmly walks away.
Passers-by — including some who thought the gory scene was an early Halloween prank — called 911, but Jones was DOA at Bellevue.
Police sources have said Jones placed a phone call to his girlfriend, Bryeanna Murphy, before the attack, but it’s unclear whether they spoke.
Cops all but ruled out robbery, noting Jones’ wallet was still on him.
Joe Gomez, 53, a sales manager at the nearby Guitar Center, said the sadistic slaying stunned the neighborhood, where one mourner wrapped a red soccer jersey to a tree at the scene.
“There are some homeless kids doing meth around here, so I thought it might be something involving them,” Gomez said.
Jones, of West Harrison in Westchester, and his pretty girlfriend, Murphy, 23, of Mamaroneck, had attended a housewarming party Saturday for three friends who’d just moved into a pad on East 14th Street near Second Avenue, sources said.
Jones left about 11:30 p.m. to meet a pal in the Meatpacking District. “He didn’t seem too drunk,” said one of the party’s hosts.
Murphy’s Facebook page features a photo of her smiling with her boyfriend.
Additional reporting by Bob Fredericks, Rebecca Rosenberg and Laurel Babcock