NYC man fatally bashed in the head by homeless man after asking for a cigarette: cops

A Manhattan homeless man delivered a fatal whack to another man’s head with a metal cane after his unsuspecting victim asked for a cigarette, police said Tuesday.

Victim John Horton was a “poor, vulnerable soul,” according to his sister.

Police say Horton, 54, asked Vincent Foster for a smoke in Hell’s Kitchen about 3:10 p.m. last Wednesday.

Foster, 36, angrily refused — and used his cane to wallop the victim in the head on Ninth Ave. near W. 44th St. , according to police.

Police arrested Foster at the scene, with an officer taking the metal cane from his hand, according to a criminal complaint.

EMS rushed Horton to Bellevue Hospital. The blow fractured Horton’s skull and left him with swelling in the brain. He never regained consciousness and died last Friday, police and family said.

“He was loved,” his sister, Christine McCarvill, 52, said. “He was a good person, and he came from a good family.”

McCarvill said she had seen Horton the day before the attack. Public records show he had an address in Westchester County.

“He would sometimes go down to the city, he liked the city. Just to walk around, go to the shops. I don’t know, he liked to see the sights,” she said.

She also doubted the police account that he asked Foster for a smoke.

“Some of the reports say he was just walking by the man. I don’t think he asked the guy for a cigarette. He didn’t even smoke, he was as healthy as could be. Two different detectives had two different stories,” she said. “I think they said from the video cameras it was just an unprovoked, senseless attack. He didn’t even speak to the man.”

Horton, who had no children and never married, worked different jobs as a laborer, his sister said.

Foster, who is 5-feet-8 and 260 pounds, was initially charged with felony assault and ordered held on $75,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond.

The suspect, of Alton, Ill., was slapped with an additional assault charge for allegedly punching a man in the face in his holding cell at Manhattan Criminal Court while awaiting arraignment.