Police are searching for a group of teens who beat a 57-year-old homeless man to death leaving his relatives and friends devastated.
Kevin Cullen died Monday morning at Aria Torrsedale Hospital after being viciously attacked and robbed 13 hours before on the 4200 block of Loring Street near the Holmesburg and Mayfair neighborhoods.
Moments before the attack, a surveillance video recorded nearby shows Kevin being followed by the group of teens. But the attack happened out of the camera’s frame.
One resident who witnessed the incident ran to help.
‘They were laughing, like it was funny,’ that resident told WPVI. ‘They hit his head into a wall so hard I felt it in my house on the second floor.’
Tragic: Police are searching for a group of teens who beat Kevin Cullen (above), a 57-year-old homeless man, to death leaving his relatives and friends devastated. He died in a Philadelphia hospital on Monday 13 hours after the horrific attack where police say he was also robbed
Authorities say Kevin was robbed during the deadly incident that took place just around the corner from his childhood home.
The victim’s brothers, Tom Cullen and Mark Cullen, explained that Kevin had struggled with alcohol and battled his internal demons for years while living a transient life around the area after their father passed away 11 years ago.
‘We didn’t get to see him too often. He would come in and out of our lives,’ Tom told WPVI.
‘He was not abandoned, he was not unloved. He was loved deeply.’
‘It’s going to haunt me for a long time,’ his heartbroken brother Mark told The Inquirer of the shocking incident.
The victim’s brothers, Tom Cullen and Mark Cullen, explained that Kevin(above) had struggled with alcohol and battled his internal demons for years while living a transient life around the area after their father passed away 11 years ago
‘He’d be somebody you’d see on the street all the time, and maybe you’d help him out, maybe you wouldn’t. But he wasn’t aggressive or mean or any of those things.’
Tom also said their family is devastated by what happened.
‘He was viciously assaulted by a pack of youths,’ Tom told WPVI. ‘They beat him into unconsciousness, from which he never recovered.’
A vigil for Kevin, who graduated from Father Judge High School in 1979, is being planned for Wednesday at 6pm.
No arrests have been made as of Tuesday and authorities did not say how many teens were involved in the attack.
Anyone with any information is asked to call police at 215-686-TIPS.