Missing Queens Man Found Dead in Basement

A man was found beaten to death in his basement Saturday. Fifty-seven year old John Canora had been missing for the past few weeks, and on Saturday, a friend or relative went to his 96th Street Howard Beach home to check on him. A side door was unlocked, and the police were called when blood was found on the walls. When they looked at the basement, Canora's body was found in a drainage ditch.

A neighbor told the NY Times what she heard from the police:

“They killed him upstairs and continued beating him downstairs and put his body in the furnace room,” she said they told her. “They ransacked the house and took the car.

“They found a hammer upstairs under a pillow, and a trail of blood leading downstairs,” she added. “I understand from police that more than one person did this.”

Canora, who owned an apartment building in Staten Island and commercial property in Queens, also owned three cars, two of which neighbors noticed were gone. In fact, the police had stopped some people in one of Canora's cars last week, but let them go because they couldn't reach the victim.

The Post reports that the police suspect it was a "gay liaison gone bad" because there were no signs of forced entry to the doors.