Sitting on benches inside Whalen Park, the concrete-covered corner near the Mosholu Library in Norwood, a group of five friends, most of them homeless, slowly drank beers and speculated about the mysterious death of their compatriot, Billy “Peanut” Murphy.

Days earlier, on Sunday, Aug. 15, Murphy, 47, had succumbed to injuries suffered from what appeared to be a severe beating.

“I believe he was killed,” said Murphy’s best friend, Savcho Sanev, in a thick Bulgarian accent.

As of Tuesday, police had yet to classify Murphy’s death — a spokesman for the Medical Examiner’s Office said they were still awaiting test results before making a determination — but many who knew Peanut believe he was the victim of a savage attack.

“He was so badly beaten that I could hardly recognize him,” said Vicar Bob Rainis of Epiphany Lutheran Church, who read Murphy his last rites at St. Barnabas Hospital hours before he died.

A String of Brutality

Murphy’s death is the latest in a string of violent incidents involving the local homeless population and has sparked concern among residents.

At the end of July, locals say a man named Billy Flynn was beaten so badly that he remains in the hospital and will probably never recover.

In February 2009, a 48-year-old homeless man named Sangh Shingeia died after being found with severe injuries at the East 205th Street D-Train station. Doctors at Montefiore Medical Center said it was the result of a possible assault.

A couple of years ago, Murphy’s friends say a homeless man named Richie was never seen again after being brutally beaten just blocks from Whalen Park.

All were part of the same group that hung around the park peacefully drinking beers. Last week, Sanev called those left, “the last cowboys.” At one point, he stared blankly into the hard concrete. “I’m so [expletive] sad,” he said.

‘Peanut’ Grows Up

Born premature on Aug. 25, 1962, Billy Murphy was a tiny baby who looked like a little peanut, one of his older brothers said at the time. The name stuck.

Murphy grew up in Norwood. After a scaffolding accident as a young adult (that left him permanently hobbled), he received a settlement and became part-owner of Derby Pub on Bainbridge Avenue, one of nearly 20 Irish bars in the area at the time. When the business died, friends say Murphy never recovered, turning to alcohol and the streets.

By all accounts, Murphy was a nice guy who struggled mightily with alcohol. According to friends, he stubbornly refused public assistance aside from the kindness of friends and the congregation at Epiphany Lutheran, where he often slept and helped out with the soup kitchen and thrift shop. Up until the last six months, Murphy tended to the church’s garden, which the congregation called “Billy’s garden.”

“Believe it or not,” Rainis said, “Billy was one of our greatest ambassadors.”

“He’s the sweetest man I ever met,” said Jeanie Brady, one of Murphy’s friends. “He used to help everyone but himself.”  

Cobra for Breakfast

His friends said Murphy could get mouthy when he drank, but had a great sense of humor and was always nice to women and children. “He would tell kids in the neighborhood not to grow up like him,” Rainis said.

For years, Murphy slipped in and out of odd jobs in the neighborhood. He worked as a super at a couple of different buildings and worked at the Family Grocery mini-market on East 206th Street for a time. Anything he would earn went to fuel his addiction. Brady said Murphy arranged it so the mini-market owners would pay him in cigarettes and beer.

He almost solely drank Cobra, a cheap and potent brand of malt liquor. “He never ate,” Brady said. “Breakfast was Cobra, lunch was Cobra, dinner: Cobra.”

Brady and others said Murphy was devastated by his mother’s death in 2003 and took Shingeia’s early-2009 death, which police eventually classified an accident, very badly.

Rainis, a former NYPD homicide detective, said Murphy’s wounds, which included a huge gash on the back of his head and ugly bruises to his face and neck (others said police told them Murphy had 10 broken ribs as well), led him to believe he was murdered.

No Coincidence

The piling up of incidents, he said, appears to be more than coincidental. Rainis said it is either teenagers preying on a vulnerable population for kicks or “there’s some psycho out there targeting these guys.”

Most of Murphy’s friends at Whalen Park say there is a youth population in the area that picks on them because they’re easy targets. They say they’ve had rocks and bottles thrown at them and they point to their dwindling numbers as evidence.

“I believe it was a bunch of young kids, caught him out there,” said a man named Terry, who knew Murphy well.

On Wednesday night, Aug. 11, a woman named Phyllis said she and Murphy left Whalen Park at the same time. She went left, toward her apartment, and Murphy went right, passing Mosholu Library, and walking toward Bainbridge Avenue to get more beer. His friends said Murphy probably got jumped either going to the store or returning from it. 

It was the last time anyone saw him conscious. He died four days later.

At the emotionally-charged funeral service on Aug. 19, arranged and organized by McKeon Funeral Home, locals packed into Epiphany Lutheran to say their final goodbyes.

A couple of hours before the service, a local woman named Mary Ellen said, “When I was down and out, he held me up.” Later, after acknowledging that Murphy was “in a bad way for a while,” she said, “I’m happy for his release, because I loved him.”