A 60-year-old man was beaten to death on a Manhattan street outside a Chelsea sex shop by a younger attacker who ran off but was arrested when he returned to the scene to retrieve his cell phone, police said Monday.

Imani McColley, 25, who is already facing an array of charges across the city, was hit early Monday with murder and robbery charges in the fatal beating on 8th Ave. near W. 21st St.

The victim, identified late Monday as Lawrence Parente of Pocono Summit, Pa., was bashed in the head after getting into an argument with McColley about 11 p.m. Sunday at the Rainbow Station sex store, which specializes in adult sexual paraphernalia, sources said.

The argument spilled out onto the street. Medics responding to the assault rushed the victim to Bellevue Hospital but he could not be saved.

Police say McColley ran off with the victim’s wallet, then returned to the scene about 30 minutes later to retrieve his cell phone, at which point at least one witness pointed him out to officers. A witness told the News cops chased McColley down Eighth Avenue before taking him into custody.

McColley has seven priors arrests – including an assault charge in the same spot as Sunday’s homicide. Court papers in the Sept. 20, 2025 arrest say McColley “with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten and alarm another person, struck, shoved, kicked and otherwise subjected another person to physical contact thereby causing physical injury to such person.”

There was no detail on what led to that attack, for which McColley faces misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment. He was let go on supervised release.

Records show he has three open cases — including a Bronx assault and weapons cases for which he is due in court Tuesday.

Following the fight at Rainbow Station Sunday, neighborhood resident Camryn Leclair came outside after hearing sirens t and saw medics remove the victim from the store on a stretcher and perform chest compressions.

“There were still police cars here and then they found [the suspect] like 30 minutes later,” Leclair said. “He must have left and returned to the scene,” Leclair said.

When he noticed the cops swarming the area, McColley took off “fast” down Eighth Ave., Leclair said.

“From here, I saw him run down the street and the police chased him on foot and then brought him back here.”

After cops caught McColley they put him on a stretcher and loaded him into an ambulance, Leclair said. “Once they got him on the stretcher, he was just screaming, ‘I didn’t do nothing. I did nothing. Get me out of this f—ing cop car. Get me out of this stretcher,” Leclair recalled. “There was like 10 cops all around him restraining him.”

Disturbances in and around Rainbow Station are “not out of the ordinary at all,” according to Leclair, who has lived next door to the shop for about a month. “We’re terrified. We tried to go to the police and have this place shut down or at least investigated,” Leclair said.

“We just moved in and we’re considering finding a new place to live,” she added.

Rainbow Station, which is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, has been a magnet for controversy in the neighborhood, with residents complaining about its clientele and in 2014 llnking its presence to a perceived increase in crime. That connection was disputed at the time by NYPD crime prevention officer George Triantis.

In July 2022, a  29-year-old patron was found dead inside one of the private pornography viewing booths in the shop’s basement, according to local news reports. That same month two people were arrested for brutally beating a man in front of the shop.

And in 2023, a shop security guard was slashed across the arm by a man with a knife, ABC 7 New York reported.