GRISLY: The killer (above) casually strolls away on 14th Street yesterday after the savage murder of Michael Jones, 25.
Michael Jones (
)
(
)
A beloved youth soccer coach working for the New York Red Bulls was killed yesterday in a sadistic West Village stabbing that left his severed ear in a pool of blood on the sidewalk.
Michael Jones, 25, a Briton living in Westchester, had phoned his girlfriend just before a ponytailed psycho slit his throat, lopped his ear off and stabbed him in the stomach at about 4:17 a.m. on West 14th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, police sources said.
Chilling video footage shows the killer calmly sauntering down the street with his hands in his pockets after the horrific attack.
“It was a frenzy. The guy was chopped multiple times,” a law-enforcement source told The Post. “He cut the guy’s ear off. It doesn’t get any more personal than that.”
Cops said they’re baffled over the motive, although it doesn’t appear to be robbery: Jones, whom they called a “good kid,’’ still had his wallet on him, and what appeared to be his bloody iPhone was recovered nearby.
Police sources said Jones, who helped coach the Armonk United youth soccer team for the Red Bulls Youth Training Programs, had started out the night with his girlfriend at her male buddy’s place on East 14th Street. A pal of the girlfriend said the couple had been dating for about a year.
Jones left them at around 11:30 p.m., saying he was going to meet a friend at a bar in the Meatpacking District, the sources said.
He first went to the bar at The Standard hotel but couldn’t get in. He then went to The Park nightclub on 10th Avenue. Jones texted and phoned his girlfriend several times during the night, source said.
He was on his way back to her friend’s pad when he called his girlfriend at 4:17 a.m. — right before he was murdered — one source said. It’s unclear if they ever spoke or if he left a message.
Minutes earlier, sources said, surveillance video shows Jones walking with his attacker down a leafy stretch of 14th Street near Union Square. The pair can then be seen getting into a beef and the killer attacking.
Jones’ bloodied body was found outside 25 W. 14th St. at 4:26 a.m.
“I ran down to the ambulance [down the block] and said, ‘You’d better get down there. There’s a guy on the ground with his throat cut,’ ” said a passer-by, Malachi Mohamed, 39.
Jones died at Bellevue Hospital.
“He coached two of my three sons and was just a great guy. He cared about what he did, and was very dedicated,” said Mark Fischer, who oversees refs for the Westchester league.
“The kids loved him.”
Detectives covered Jones’ severed ear with a plastic cup as tourists snapped photos.
Cops described Jones’ killer as Hispanic, age 25 to 30.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said cops were canvassing shops looking for more video, but were hampered by the timing of the attack because stores were closed.
“We look at the event, then you look at video in the surrounding area and see if we can better identify the perpetrator,” Kelly said.
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton, Brian Lewis, Rebecca Rosenberg and Jamie Schram