A cape-wearing Soho art dealer described as \u201cthe real Auntie Mame\u2019\u2019 was fatally strangled in 2024 by a sick hobo \u2014 who was only nailed Sunday when he shoplifted from a TJ Maxx, cops and sources said Monday.<\/p>\n
Suspected homeless killer Larry Powlis \u2014 a 60-year-old convicted sex offender who just served 30 years in Texas for a violent rape \u2014 was done in when he tried to lift $25 in art supplies around 1:10 p.m. from the retail store near West 57th Street in Midtown, cops and law-enforcement sources said.<\/p>\n
Powlis \u2014 who tried to throw off Sunday\u2019s cops by giving the fake name Larry Davis, only to be foiled when they ran his fingerprints through the system \u2014 was charged Monday with Egizio Panetti\u2019s murder, police and sources said. <\/p>\n
Police have arrested a suspect in connection to the killing of Egizio Panetti (pictured) in 2024. NBC<\/p>\n
Larry Powlis appears in court on Nov. 2, 2026. Steven Hirsch for NY Post<\/p>\n
Powlis had met Panetti, an eccentric legally blind 67-year-old with cancer, on the street while the doomed beloved art dealer and decorator was out to dinner with a friend in Greenwich Village in September 2024, authorities said.<\/p>\n
The suspect and victim eventually went to a nearby ATM before Panetti invited the vagrant back to his posh pad on Spring Street near West Broadway at around 2 a.m. \u2014 where Powlis fatally choked him, prosecutors and sources said.<\/p>\n
Powlis was then caught on surveillance video six hours later leaving Panetti\u2019s apartment\u00a0with a duffle bag full of the victim\u2019s stuff, said Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Anthony Giliberti at the suspect\u2019s arraignment Monday.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Powlis\u2019s DNA was on Panetti\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
A friend found the victim \u201cface down on his bed and half naked with a pillow over his head\u201d when he didn\u2019t return an earlier phone call, Giliberti told Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Elizabeth Shamahs.<\/p>\n
Powlis allegedly admitted to cops that he stole items from Panetti\u2019s home \u2014 but he didn\u2019t admit to the murder, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Larry Powlis was arrested after he got busted for shoplifting from a Midtown TJ Maxx on Sunday. NY State Sex Offender Registry<\/p>\n