Soccer-playing straphanger’s final words in Penn Station stabbing: ‘Don’t let me die!’
A down-on-his-luck soccer player pleaded, “Don’t let me die!” after he was mortally wounded in an unprovoked stabbing on a train at Penn Station, Manhattan prosecutors revealed Tuesday.
“Somebody hit me!” victim Akeem Loney cried out after the Nov. 21 attack, said Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Carfagno in court.
“Don’t let me die! I want to live!” the man gasped.
Carfagno provided graphic detail of the attack as accused killer Jamoy Phillip, 26, was arraigned on second-degree murder charges in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Law enforcement sources told The Post that the two men knew each other and had been involved in a prior dispute but could not provide details.
“The defendant walked up to a sleeping straphanger on an uptown 2 express and plunged the knife directly into his neck,” the prosecutor told Judge Laurie Peterson.
“The victim, stunned and startled, ran onto the subway platform while blood squirted from his neck,” Carfagno added, calling the crime “heinous, unprovoked murder.”
He said cops on patrol at the station heard “multiple witnesses screaming about the incident and came rushing to help.”
Loney was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Carfagno said two knives were recovered at the scene, “one of which was a utility knife that had blood on it and was on top of a garbage bag.”
According to a criminal complaint in the case, surveillance footage at the station showed the suspect to be a slim man “wearing a grey coat with a fur hood trim and dark pants,” who was seen using an ATM nearby about one hour after the fatal attack.
Cops said Bank of America confirmed the account belonged to Phillip.
Police said Phillip fled to Pennsylvania but was arrested there by US Marshals.
On Tuesday, Peterson ordered him held without bail pending a return to court Friday.
Loney, 32, was a “gifted” soccer player who played and coached youngsters through Manhattan-based Street Soccer USA.
Reed Fox, a former coach with the program, told The Post after the attack that Loney was “just a great guy” who had struggled with homelessness in recent years.
