The NYPD is still searching for a career criminal who allegedly beat a beloved Bronx DJ to death after the victim took something out of his housemate’s fridge.
Mark Gocul, 50, was allegedly attacked by the housemate on June 23 after Gocul — a DJ locally known as “Mr. Cool” — “apparently took something out of [the killer’s] refrigerator,” according to Joseph Kenny, the NYPD’s chief of detectives.
The 7:30 a.m. assault wasn’t reported until much later that day, when Gocul went to Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital for treatment.
But the severity of his injuries — which included several orbital fractures, a brain bleed and brain swelling — led medical professionals to transfer him to Westchester County Medical Center, where cops met him at about 5 p.m., Kenny said.
Gocul told patrol officers that another tenant attacked him after claiming Gocul was “touching his s–t,” the chief added.
“This was due to multiple punches and kicks to the head and face,” Kenny said of the victim’s injuries. “He was injured so severely [that] at one point, he goes into cardiac arrest. His cause of death is blunt force trauma.”
The wounded man lingered for nearly two weeks before dying of his injuries on Saturday, July 6, the chief said.
The medical examiner deemed the death a homicide, according to the NYPD.
Kenny named Gocul’s alleged killer as Robert Hector, a 34-year-old man from the Bronx who lives at the same address and has a violent history that includes attempted murder charges stemming from a hammer attack in 2015.
It’s not clear how that case was resolved.
But Hector has also spent time in jail for a number of robberies and burglaries, according to the chief and online jail records.
He was still on the loose Thursday.
Neighbors at the house where the pair lived described Gocul as a “good guy.”
“He was really sweet. He was nice,” said the neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous. “He always says hi to everybody.”
