The 66-year-old man who was found deceased in Norwood with a knife wound to the neck on Sunday has been identified as José Cruz of 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, police said.

 

The NYPD said that on Sunday, June 9, at around 5.25 a.m., officers from the 52nd Precinct responded to a 911 call regarding an aided male who was inside the Williamsbridge Oval park [in front of the entrance to the park located in front of 3400 Reservoir Oval East].

“The 66-year-old male aided was discovered unconscious and unresponsive with multiple puncture wounds to the body while on a park bench in the vicinity of Putnam Place and Reservoir Oval East,” a police spokesperson said.

 

“EMS transported the male to NYC Health and Hospitals/Jacobi where he was pronounced deceased. There are no arrests, and the investigation remains ongoing.”

 

The area had been cordoned off by police on Sunday while the Crime Scene Unit carried out an investigation. However, police said the incident has not [for the time being] been classified a homicide.

Norwood News spoke to one male resident later on Sunday, who we are not naming for security reasons, who said he believed he knew the victim, based on a photo he said he was shown by police. He said he had been in the man’s company, along with a group of others, at the location of the discovery of the body the previous evening.

 

However, the name of the person he shared was the not ultimately the name of the victim later released by the NYPD.

 

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on Twitter @NYPDTips.

All calls are strictly confidential.