Tuesday, Jan. 27

Philip Piuma, 47, left his home on Jan. 26 around 1:30 p.m. to pick up a prescription for his uncle at CVS. The next morning, he was found dead on a bench outside a Key Food supermarket a mile away.

Mr. Piuma’s stepfather, John Sandrowsky, said detectives told him that Mr. Piuma had fallen twice, possibly from the bench outside Key Food, broken his nose and injured his eye socket.

At around 6 p.m. on Jan. 26, Mr. Piuma entered the store and lurched unsteadily in the aisles, said a manager, Luis Polanco, who assumed he was drunk. Mr. Piuma bought two jars of peanut butter, went outside and sat on the bench.

At 9 p.m. when Mr. Polanco was closing up, Mr. Piuma was still there. “I asked, ‘Everything OK?’ He said ‘yes,’” Mr. Polanco said.

Security footage shows that sometime after 10 p.m., Mr. Piuma toppled over, sprawling across the bench. When Mr. Polanco arrived around 6 a.m. to open the store, Mr. Piuma did not stir when he greeted him. He called 911.

Mr. Sandrowsky said detectives told him that someone had given his stepson tissues for his bleeding face at some point. “You offered some help, that’s great,” he said. “But if you’re bleeding out there and it’s that cold, I would question whether or not you’re OK.”

Mr. Piuma, who worked two jobs — as a dispatcher for an alarm company and an ambulette service — was a devoted volunteer at a nearby church, Mr. Sandrowsky said. “He had a good heart,” he said.