MANHATTAN — Neighbors and friends of the 83-year-old Greenwich Village man who died after being assaulted during a home robbery in April are imploring police to find his killer.
West 13th Street resident Joseph Sibilla's death on May 10 after an April 29 attack was recently ruled the Village's first homicide of the year, police said at a community meeting last week.
Sixth Precinct Commanding Officer Brandon del Pozo said that a suspect in the deadly assault was being held on unrelated burglary charges.
Christina Britton Conroy, a Village resident who knew Sibilla for more than a decade, said she was pleased to hear that police have a suspect but isn't reassured just yet.
"If they find out [the suspect] really is the guy, then I'll be relieved," she said.
Conroy described Sibilla as active despite his age.
"He was a guy who was interested in everything and everybody, who was very bright and artistic," she said.
A woman who asked to be identified only as Nancy, and who lived two doors from Sibilla for more than 20 years in the building between Fifth and Sixth avenues, said she wants justice for her friend's death.
"I hope they figure out whether this guy did it, and that he pays for what he did," she said. "[Sibilla] really was such a sincere person. It's unbelievable that this happened."
Nancy noted Sibilla was active at First Presbyterian Church on West 12th Street near Fifth Avenue, which did not respond to requests for comment.
"He was a singer and performed with other senior citizens in the Village, and he wouldn't hurt a fly," she said. "For anyone to want to do what he did to a guy like him just doesn't make sense."
Sibilla, a retired psychologist whose psychotherapist wife died in 2008, lived alone in a first-floor apartment in a building with door buzzers but no doorman, Nancy said. She added that it was unclear whether the couple had children. Sibilla also used a walker, she said.
"He and his wife were just immensely liked," Nancy said. "This whole thing came as a shock to this neighborhood."
Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District ranked the seventh safest neighborhood out of 17 Manhattan neighborhoods for violent crimes, according to DNAinfo's Crime & Safety Report.
The Village and the Meatpacking District ranked second worst in the overall Manhattan safety rankings in the report, which combines NYPD and US Census data from 2010.
Nancy said that five months after the attack, West 13th Street residents still frequently asked each other whether they had heard any updates on Sibilla's case.
"I miss seeing him," she said. "It's really something that, after all this time, people still ask about him."
