Ronald Poppo, 65, has been identified as the man whose face was chewed by 31-year-old homeless man Rudy Eugene.
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A drifter with a long criminal record, Poppo is clinging to life at Jackson Memorial Hospital, with only his goatee left intact.
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Gruesome photos circulating on the Internet show wounds so extensive that recovery appears unlikely.
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Poppo, who may have originally been from New York but spent four decades on the streets in South Florida, was a regular under the bridge where he was attacked Saturday by Eugene.
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According to Detective William Moreno:
“We know that there were many people on the MacArthur Causeway and we’re hoping they come forward.”
With his nose, mouth and eyes torn off, he remained in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Wednesday.
Video released yesterday suggests that Eugene stumbled upon Poppo by sheer happenstance.
The footage shows Eugene walking naked on the sidewalk along the Biscayne Boulevard off-ramp of the causeway at around 1:55 p.m. Saturday when he paused in a shady spot under the Metromover Omni loop line. Eugene appeared to twirl as a bicyclist zoomed by. For about two minutes, Eugene bent over a second figure in the shade, though the images are obscured by a rustling palm frond.
Eugene then rolled Poppo out onto the sunny sidewalk, stripping off his clothes while Poppo appeared to kick in resistance. Eugene later appeared to straddle Poppo and hunch over him for several minutes.
Eugene was shot by Miami Police when they rolled up on Eugene and told him to stop feasting on Poppo.
According to the Miami Herald, Eugene was a former high school football player who listed his cell phone as his only asset when he divorced in 2005 after two years of marriage.
He had a half dozen misdemeanor arrests, mostly for smoking pot.
As for Poppo, police records show that he had been arrested 24 times since 1978, mostly for drinking in public and he lived in New York and New Orleans before landing in South Florida.
Cops and the hospital have been unable to locate a next of kin, or even any friends.
Police still don’t have a motive as to why Eugene attacked Poppo, but some have speculated that Eugene was under the influence of some kind of stimulants or other drug that sometimes causes violent episodes. Police said they found no evidence of drugs or paraphernalia at the scene. Toxicology tests of Eugene’s blood will likely take several weeks.
(Rudy Eugene, 31, left, who police shot and killed as he ate the face of Ronald Poppo, 65, right, during a horrific attack in the shadow of the Miami Herald’s headquarters. Poppo was in critical condition Tuesday, with only his goatee intact on his face, the newspaper reported. (AP Photo/Miami-Dade Police Dept.)
