95-Year-Old Man Murdered in Salvation Army Senior Home

By Leslie Albrecht, Murray Weiss and Shayna Jacobs

DNAinfo Staff

UPPER WEST SIDE — More than six weeks after the brutal murder of a 95-year-old man inside his apartment at an Upper West Side senior home, police have yet to arrest his killer.

Peter Lisi, a resident of the Salvation Army’s Williams Memorial Residence on West End Avenue and 95th Street, was found dead in his apartment on Dec. 23, 2011. He had been beaten to the head, neck and body and strangled, according to the city's medical examiner's office.

His death sent shock waves through the close-knit Williams Memorial Residence. Residents were deeply troubled when officials at the home offered no explanation for Lisi's death, said a source at the senior facility.

The murder came as residents were already unsettled over a rash of at least four burglaries in recent weeks at the home, a source at the senior home said.

"It's horrible — it's past horrible," said Williams Memorial Residence administrator Salvation Army Major Bill Townsend, of Lisi's murder.

In response to the murder and the string of burglaries, the Salvation Army is making a series of security upgrades, Townsend said. Chain locks will be installed on residents’ apartment doors and surveillance cameras will be placed on every floor, Townsend said.

The source described Lisi as a warm, friendly man with a ready smile who was well-liked by his neighbors. He used a walker to get around, but had been an avid horseback rider and theater-goer in his younger years.

"We're heartbroken over [his death]," said a person who knew Lisi. "This was a really decent guy."

An NYPD spokeswoman said the murder and the burglaries are not linked.

Investigators believe Lisi interrupted a thief as he was stealing something, probably prescription drugs, from his apartment, a police source said. Lisi was known to regularly leave his room at night to visit a nearby McDonald's for dinner, a source at the home said.

A week after the murder, a maintenance worker at Williams Memorial Residence was arrested when a detective spotted him using a senior citizen's MetroCard at the West 96th Street subway station, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

When the worker, Wilfred Matthews, 43, was taken into custody, police discovered the MetroCard belonged to Lisi.

Matthews told investigators a supervisor ordered him to go into Lisi's room in the early morning hours of either Dec. 20 or Dec. 21 to assist Lisi, according to the complaint. The supervisor denied that claim, and said there was no record in the residence's desk log of Matthews making an authorized entry into Lisi's room, the complaint stated.

Matthews told police he found Lisi's MetroCard on the street near the Williams Memorial Residence, according to the criminal complaint.

Matthews denied any connection to Lisi's murder, Matthews' Legal Aid attorney Joseph Zablocki said.

Zablocki said he's not sure whether Matthews was working the night of the murder, but if he had been in the room it would not have been unusual. Staff members often rush into resident apartments in the case of an emergency because there is an "all hands on deck" way of operating at Williams Memorial Residence, Zablocki said.

"It wouldn't be out of the ordinary, the way the building operates, for any of the staff members working that night to be in any of the apartments, depending on what's going on," Zablocki said.

Matthews was initially held on $30,000 bail by a Manhattan judge who was informed that the employee was a suspect in the murder. But after his indictment on only a low-level felony for possession of a stolen MetroCard was returned from the grand jury, his bail was reduced to $2,500 on Jan. 31.

His family has since posted bail for him and he's currently only facing the stolen MetroCard charge.

Matthews was terminated from his position at Williams Memorial Residence after his arrest, Townsend said. He said he wasn't sure how long Matthews had worked at the senior home, where he performed a variety of maintenance tasks throughout the building, including in residents' rooms.

All employees at the home undergo a criminal background check, Townsend said.

A source at the home said Lisi's death has been a constant topic of conversation at Williams Memorial Residence, home to about 300 seniors ranging in age from 50 to more than 100-years-old.

"He was a really sweet man," said a resident who asked to remain anonymous. "Any time we pass the table where he ate, we miss him."

Lisi told neighbors he worked as a very young man at the New York Times, where a drama critic befriended him an introduced him to notables like Tennessee Williams.

Before moving into the Williams Residence, Lisi lived for years in the West Village on Carmine Street, where he attended Saturday evening Mass each week at Our Lady of Pompei, a church employee said.

After he left the neighborhood to move into the Williams Memorial Residence, Lisi, who never mentioned a wife or children, returned in an Access-a-Ride van to attend Easter and Christmas services, the church employee said.

Lisi was a generous contributor to Our Lady of Pompei, the employee said, and his name is engraved on a metal plaque on the church’s inner doors, as well as on a wall inside the church’s foyer.

"He was a very kind, gentle soul," the church employee said. "He wouldn't hurt a fly. He was always smiling. He told me, 'As long as I can, I'll come (to church) here.'"

When Lisi didn't show this past Christmas, church officials grew concerned. Days later, they were asked to hold a memorial Mass for him.