What to Know
- A dead man was found beaten and slashed inside an Algon Street home early Tuesday.
- Police say Al Chernoff was also partially tied to a bed.
- Homicide detectives are investigating the death.
A beaten body of a man was discovered partially tied to a bed inside a Northeast Philadelphia home early Tuesday.
A neighbor along the 8400 block of Algon Avenue in the city's Rhawnhurst section called police shortly before 3 a.m. to report a man in distress, Philadelphia police said.
Police entered the home and found a 59-year-old man “partially tied to the bed with a massive head wound and several slashes to his chest,” police said in a news release.
The man, identified by friends and later police as Al Chernoff, was pronounced dead at the scene.
"He loved people. He loved cats," Chernoff's friend Francine Strick told NBC10. "He was too good of a man to have someone do something like this to him."
A person, possibly a woman, was seen on surveillance video leaving the home before police arrived, investigators said. Sources told NBC10 the person is a suspected prostitute who also may have been involved in Chernoff's murder. Police have not confirmed this however.
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No arrests have been made.
ACCT Philly also showed up to take some animals from the home. Chernoff, well-known in the animal care community, had 11 cats as well as pet turtles and frogs. Each of the animals were placed in a local rescue group.
"Al was literally like one of the best people I've ever met," Chernoff's friend, Angelo Ruffo, told NBC10. "Anything you needed he would do. He was known for building shelters for all the feral and stray cats in the city. He was a good man."
Chernoff's family said he talked about retiring from his job as a city worker at the airport. Those who knew him remembered him as a giving and loving man.
"If you have interacted with a cat rescue or helped trap in Philadelphia you've probably met him," Blake Martin of ACCT Philly told NBC10. "He was an old Army veteran who loved his motorcycles and loved his cats."
If you have any information on Chernoff's death, please call Philadelphia Police.
