East Harlem man found with feet bound and towel wrapped around neck

EAST HARLEM, N.Y. (WABC) -- Crime scene technicians worked Thursday night to figure out what happened to 59-year-old Milton Ortiz whose lifeless body was found in his bed in a Harlem walk-up with a phone cord binding his hands and feet, and a towel wrapped around his neck.

Police said Ortiz was found by his home health care attendant in his East Harlem home Thursday morning. Sources said there was no sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle.

The victim's younger brother, Edwin, rushed to the scene from his home in North Carolina. Detectives were still interviewing him as part of their investigation Thursday night. They are hopeful a network of security cameras at the MTA bus depot across the street might have caught the suspect.

"There's no reason for whatever happened to him," said Edwin Ortiz. "(It's) something that shouldn't have happened. Not to him."

For decades, Ortiz lived on the first floor of this Brownstone on 126th between First and Second avenues. Most people on his block said they knew him well.

"Everybody knew him. People back to the 60s, everybody knows him; he was one of the old guys here on the block," said Ortiz.

Longtime friend Richard Thomas Taylor can't imagine who would hurt someone like Ortiz, describing him as "very quiet."

"I don't know who would do that," said Taylor. "Somebody that just didn't care, somebody that was a monster, somebody that was a devil. That's who would do it."

The medical examiner will determine the cause of death.