‘He never bothered anybody’: Heartbroken family can’t understand why Bronx man was beaten to death with baseball bat

Jean Civilne’s murder was as violent as it was senseless — and now his heartbroken family is desperate to know why it happened at all.

Jean Civilne’s murder was as violent as it was senseless — and now his heartbroken family is desperate to know why it happened at all.

After not hearing from Jean for weeks, Marie Civilne learned her stepson’s fate in a somber phone call from a hospital administrator: he died at Jacobi Medical Center on Apr. 10 after four men caved his head in with a baseball bat near the corner of 224th St. and White Plains Road, just down the block from his Williamsbridge home.

“We don’t know what happened exactly,” Marie Civilne, 59, told the Daily News from her Queens home. “(The hospital) told me a group of people beat him to death. They said he was beaten on his head and he was bleeding. They did surgery but he didn’t make it. He didn’t have any ID on him so the police had to do fingerprints."

Police said a gang of four jumped Civilne, 44, in the middle of the bustling commercial strip about 3:30 p.m. on Mar. 20. He was struck repeatedly in the back of the head with a baseball bat by one of his assailants.

Medics rushed Civilne to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died three weeks later.

Cops on Tuesday arrested 32-year-old Richard Smith, of Highbridge, and charged him with murder, manslaughter, gang assault and marijuana possession. When he was arrested, Smith had multiple plastic baggies of weed on him, court records show.

A Bronx Criminal Court judge ordered Smith held without bail at his arraignment Wednesday. Police are still searching for three other suspects.

Marie Civilne said her stepson moved to New York from Haiti when he was 21 years old, and had a 9-month-old son back in his home country.

“He was a very nice man. He never bothered anybody. He never smoked, he never drank, he never did drugs,” she said. “He used to work but he always had seizures so sometimes he was on disability. Sometimes he would work at the car wash. He changed jobs a lot. But he was a very good person.”

The family hasn’t been able to hold Civilne’s funeral because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There’s no space at any funeral home," Marie Civilne said. “The detectives said they’re going to turn the body back to Jacobi Hospital until I find space. Every place I checked, they said they’re full because of the coronavirus."

“Every day I feel sad. I miss him," she said. “Why did they do this? He never bothered anybody. Why?”