{"id":787644,"date":"2026-05-11T00:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/787644\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T00:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:30:19","slug":"family-of-man-stabbed-to-death-in-times-square-hope-to-carry-his-ashes-across-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/787644\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of man stabbed to death in Times Square hope to carry his ashes across country"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heartbroken family of the man cops say was stabbed to death<\/a> in Times Square by a deranged teenager inspired by a TikTok trend<\/a> hopes to carry his ashes across the country \u2014 in honor of the wandering lifestyle the free-spirited victim led.<\/p>\n

Leonides Baez was slain outside Burger & Lobster restaurant on W. 43rd St. near Seventh Ave. about 11:30 p.m. May 4. A 17-year-old boy who told cops he was following a \u201cmess-with-a-crackhead\u201d TikTok trend woke and harassed the sleeping stranger with his friends, at one point urinating in a cup and throwing it on Baez, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother was a loving and caring father of two. He was an amazing, charismatic person who lived each day enjoying the sun and appreciating life to the fullest,\u201d Baez\u2019s sister Catalina Baez wrote on a GoFundMe<\/a> to cover her brother\u2019s funeral expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family is trying to pick up the pieces and understand how this could happen, but we will never be able to fill the hole this has left in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sister said her 39-year-old brother, who was homeless by choice<\/a>, loved riding his bike \u201canywhere he possibly could\u201d and once biked from his home state of Massachusetts all the way to Florida \u201cjust so he could put his feet in the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s \u201cultimate goal\u201d was to bike across the country to California, a state he\u2019d never visited.<\/p>\n

His family is trying to raise $12,000 to bring his remains back to Massachusetts where he will be laid to rest next to his mother who passed away several years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also hope to carry his ashes across the country to the places he always dreamed of being,\u201d Catalina, 36, said.<\/p>\n

Video obtained by police shows the teen suspect drawing a knife from his vest pocket and chasing the victim into a breezeway, where he stabbed him in the chest, court documents say.<\/p>\n

Medics rushed Leonides to Bellevue Hospital<\/a> but he could not be saved.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s sister said he was \u201cnot a crack head\u201d but a \u201cfully functional\u201d person who led an unconventional life.<\/p>\n

The teen suspect, who was arrested after jumping a turnstile at a subway station in Coney Island on Thursday, admitted to stabbing Leonides but claimed to reporters it was \u201cself-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was charged with murder and ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty at his arraignment.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s sister, who viewed the surveillance footage obtained by police, said his self-defense claim is a blatant lie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis savage attack on someone who would not hurt a fly is completely unjust,\u201d the sibling wrote. \u201cThere was no provocation and no reason behind it other than a senseless act of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina described her brother as \u201ca traveler\u201d who wandered up and down the East Coast, from Florida to Massachusetts, where his teenage son and daughter live with their mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just wanted to travel the world and experience life,\u201d the sister previously told the News in an exclusive interview. \u201cHe walked, hiked, took trains. That\u2019s the type of life that he had his mind set on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonides was heading south after visiting his family in Massachusetts when he decided to stop in Manhattan, his sister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was mostly attracted [to New York City] because there\u2019s just always something to do,\u201d Catalina told The News last week. \u201cThere\u2019s always sightseeing. He was attracted to the ongoing things out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leonides<\/p>\n

Julian Roberts-Grmela \/ New York Daily News<\/p>\n

Leonides Baez was fatally stabbed outside the Burger & Lobster restaurant on W. 43rd St. near Seventh Ave. in Manhattan on May 4. (Julian Roberts-Grmela \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

She described Leonides as a \u201cgreat dad\u201d who worked odd jobs to fund his lifestyle, including driving for Uber and DoorDash and helping an elderly community with landscaping work in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always had work,\u201d his sister said. \u201cHe always had money in his pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

He enjoyed not having a permanent home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the lifestyle he chose to live. He loved his life,\u201d Catalina said. \u201cHe was always schooling you on something. Survival skills are at a thousand \u2014 so if the apocalypse happened, that\u2019s who I\u2019m following.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was smart,\u201d she added. \u201cHe loved to draw, study history. He loved to read. Politics, things that are going on in other countries, pretty much just freaking everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina last spoke to her brother over Facebook Messenger in early April.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was perfectly fine,\u201d she said of the conversation. \u201cHe was always happy. He didn\u2019t let life get to him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heartbroken family of the man cops say was stabbed to death in Times Square by a deranged…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":781831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2451,3059,5295,1370,728,5249,405,403,5294,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5293,5321,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-787644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-county","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-manhattan","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-new-york-county","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkcity","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-nyc","23":"tag-nyc-crime","24":"tag-sub-county-region","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116553123899303305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}