PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Detectives are searching for the person or people who attacked an 83-year-old man inside his Hunting Park home on New Year’s Eve.
While alone in his home along Fairhill Street, near Fifth and Luzerne streets, Mauricio Gesmundo Sr. was getting ready to eat dinner around 9:30 on New Year’s Eve. Suddenly, he heard some rustling and got up to check it out.
“All he remembers is whoever it was covered his face and then beat him,” said his son, Geo Gesmundo, “and then he fell to the ground and they dragged him, and that’s when they tied him.”
Geo Gesmundo said his sister and brother-in-law returned to the home, which they all share, around 3 a.m. and found the 83-year-old bound, duct-taped and bleeding. They called 911.
“Whoever did this is very inhumane,” he said. “His legs were zip-tied and duct-taped over them. His hands were in front of him, zip-tied as well and duct-taped. And then his mouth was duct-taped around his head several times.”
Two safes were stolen from the house.
Gesmundo Sr., meanwhile, remains unconscious in the hospital. He has been unresponsive, said his son, due to severe brain bleeding.
“They did another CAT scan and they found a third brain bleed, which is causing him to decline,” he said.
The family is begging for answers. Anyone with information is urged to call the police.
“For anyone to do this to any human, it’s absolutely sick,” said Geo Gesmundo, “and because he is my father, at 83, it hits very close to home, and I just want justice for my father.”