Man Found Dead with 'I Touch Little Girls' Written on His Chest: Report
In what appears to be a case of vigilante justice, an 80-year-old Staten Island man was found dead Monday in a hallway outside the apartment where he lived.
The body of Robert Raynor was found at about 9:30 a.m. Monday, police said.
But it was the writing on his body that made this case stand out, according to the New York Post.
The victim had “I touch little girls” written across his chest, police said.
The Post said that the words “I take dolls in my room for girls age 1-5” were scrawled across Raynor’s stomach. “I touch” was reportedly written on his right foot.
Isaac Williams, 40, who lived upstairs from Raynor, said a commotion took place in the apartment beneath him on Monday morning.
“It was so loud, I could hear it over the air conditioner,” he said. “I said, ‘What the hell are they doing down there?’ It was loud banging, like ‘boom, boom, boom.’ Like people were wrestling or someone was throwing somebody around.”
Williams did not investigate, but on Tuesday morning realized what had been going on while he dozed unawares above.
“The next morning I was coming down to get some cigarettes, and I just happened to look back in the hallway and I saw him laying there,” Williams said. “My first instinct was he was drunk and he’d just fallen — even though I’d never seen him drunk.
“But then I just looked. I didn’t get too close and I was looking at his stomach and chest to see if they were moving,” he said.
Williams said that the 80-year-old was clothed only in pants that were well below his waist. He thought the man had been dragged to the spot where he was found because Raynor’s arms were above his head.
Williams said he saw the messages written on the body and that they appeared to have been written in “black magic marker.”
Police said Raynor’s corpse was battered, with cuts on his forehead and two black eyes. Williams said Raynor’s nose had been injured as well.
“The man hardly ever came outside,” said Williams. “He could barely walk. He could barely lift his arms up. When he’d go to the store to buy beer, he had to put a backpack on for two little cans because he couldn’t carry them. That’s how pitiful his state was. The man looked like he was 110.”
According to the Post’s sources, Raynor had been arrested 24 times, but none of the charges were connected with child sex abuse.
Raynor’s unsealed record reportedly included three charges for assault and one for drug possession.
No one with Raynor’s name appears in the state’s sex offender registry.
The Post said it contacted Thayer Raynor, 53, the victim’s son.
“He had been flighty and not around in the early part of my life as well,” the younger Raynor said. “There’s no real relationship. I might have spoken to him twice in the last 35 years.”
“It’s still shocking and upsetting to hear the circumstances by which he met his demise,” he said.
Police said they will investigate the death. The city’s medical examiner will determine how Raynor died.
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