The worried family of Jose Miranda, the man knifed in the back as he dozed in a Bronx laundromat, had been desperately trying to track him down in recent months.
But hopes for the reunion the family longed for were dashed by the caught-on-video unprovoked slaying of the 45-year-old victim.
“He passed away in a bad way,” the victim’s father, Jimmy Miranda, 62, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview. “But he wasn’t a bad kid. He didn’t hurt nobody. He wasn’t a bad guy at all.”
Jose had fallen on hard times amid a long struggle with heroin addiction and would often sleep the night inside the 24-hour laundromat where he was killed Aug. 8, according to the victim’s relatives and Bronx locals.
His family was hoping he would eventually return to their longtime home in Haverstraw, N.Y., about 30 miles north of the Bronx.
“We didn’t know what was going on with him. He went missing for 16 months. That’s what broke my mom’s heart,” said the victim’s brother, Ismael Miranda, 46. “He chose to be over there — when he really had this here.”
On June 18, a family friend even posted a desperate plea on Facebook asking for information on Jose’s whereabouts.
“His mom Marisol is looking for him and hasn’t heard from him in two years and is extremely worried,” the post reads.
The whole family was concerned.
“We didn’t know where he was,” Jose’s father said. “We were just about to tell police he’s missing … We held on because a friend of the family saw him in the city four or five months ago. He told my wife, ‘He’s alright.’”
Miranda was dozing, slumped over in a chair inside 303 Laundromat on E. 170th St. near College Ave. when his killer walked up with a bundle of clothes on his arm about 2:40 a.m., shocking video shows.
The killer pulled a knife and plunged it three times into Jose’s back and once into his thigh, the video shows. Jose stood up, trailing blood behind him as he tried to walk around then crouched down and pointed in his attacker’s direction. The killer stepped over a pool of Jose’s blood making his way out of the laundromat.
In a final act of defiance, Jose stood back up and threw his chair out the door in his killer’s direction.
Jose was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, along with a 47-year-old man stabbed one time in the back by the killer.
While the other victim is expected to recover, Jose died at the hospital, his family soon learned.
“The detective called my wife,” the victim’s father said. “They asked about him. They said we have to go and see you. But they didn’t tell her. They didn’t say what it was. I told her, ‘Mari, I know he’s gone.’ I already knew it. I was already prepared.”
Still Jimmy was shocked to learn the details of how his son died.
“It makes me mad,” he said. “[It was] for no reason at all. For nothing. For what? Why? It’s stupid.”
Born in Chicago, Jose grew up in Haverstraw and had a special talent for drawing.
“Since he was little he put something on a canvas and he just brought it to life,” his brother recalled. “He drew a lot of characters. He was into the samurai. I couldn’t beat him at that. He used to get me mad. He was just damn good.”
In Haverstraw, locals knew Jose by his nickname “Bichin,” a gifted and charismatic on-the-go barber.
“I showed him how to cut hair. He learned it and took it to the next level,” Ismael recalled. “He used to walk around with barber clippers. Everybody wanted a Bichin haircut because it came with a lot of stories. They wanted to see what would come out of his mouth. He was f—ing hilarious.”
Jose held jobs at different barber shops through the years and at one point had hopes of working at a particular Manhattan salon.
“Everybody wanted him. His haircuts would take long but oh God, it was a Picasso,” Ismael said. “Everybody loved him. Everybody knew him.”
But Jose’s father found needles in the bathroom of the family’s Haverstraw home and kicked Jose out several years ago.
“He went to a [rehab] program in the city and he was doing good,” the father said. “We put him in programs many times.”
Jose got a place in New York City with two friends he met in rehab and would regularly trek back to Haverstraw to see Eli, one of his two sons.
“He would come and see him and spend time. Take him out, walk with him,” Jimmy recalled, noting that the visits stopped two years ago. “When [Eli] was little he pushed him on the bicycle.”
Jose’s drug habit began when he was a teenager and worsened over time. He was even incarcerated for a time, his father said.
Despite the addiction, Jimmy remembered his son as a calm, quiet man.
“Everybody tells me he never even bothered nobody or nothing. He would get a little drugs and be cool,” the father said. “I never saw him argue with nobody. He was the best kid. He just did his thing. You didn’t even hear him. He barely talks.”
Jimmy can understand his son’s addiction battle all too well.
“I went through it. I used to live sitting down in the bodega door in the wintertime. I started doing drugs when they were babies,” he said of his children.
“I got caught up in the game. My wife raised them up. I was out in the street and in jail. It’s my fault. A big part of it is my fault. Very few times I take him to the park. I was in the street, drinking, f—ing around.”
On the Bronx block where he was killed, people knew Jose by the nickname “Jeezy”, a nod to his Jesus-esque features, residents said.
“God bless him,” said a 57-year-old man who lives nearby the laundromat. “When I met him he was nice to me. He wasn’t disrespectful. He didn’t bother nobody. He was always in his own world.”
The shocking slaying sparked an NYPD manhunt and hours later cops nabbed 39-year-old homeless parolee Clarence Woodward. Cops recovered two meat cleavers inside the laundromat as they investigated the slaying.
Woodward’s 2017 Facebook profile picture shows him inside the laundromat. Neighbors say homeless people would sleep there and there is drug dealing on the block.
A Bronx Criminal Court judge ordered Woodward held without bail on charges of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and assault at his arraignment Aug. 9.
Woodward, who had been staying at a Brooklyn homeless shelter, served three stints in state prison, all for Bronx convictions, on charges including attempted robbery and felony assault. He has a history of 27 prior arrests, cops say.
A relative of Woodward’s said she was sorry to hear what he had allegedly done, noting she had not seen him in years.
“He killed someone? That’s terrible,” the woman who wished to stay anonymous said. “He has a mental problem. We don’t have contact with him.”
With Ellen Moynihan
