NYC man found in shopping cart never got chance to meet long

A man wrapped in plastic and dumped on a desolate corner of the Bronx in a shopping cart had reunited with his biological family online during the pandemic, but never got a chance to meet them in person before his death, according to a friend.

Paul Bernardon, 40, was found the morning of Aug. 19 at the intersection of Aldus St. and Whitlock Ave. in Longwood after a 911 call about an unconscious man. The location is near a service road for the Bruckner Expressway and a block from the Lyons Square Playground.

“I can’t believe it. I got home Sunday to hear the news,” said longtime friend Ray Bolorin, 58, who thought of Paul as a nephew.

The two met when Bernardon was 17 or 18.

“I met Paul in the Bronx on Longfellow Ave. around the corner from where they found him,” said Bolorin. “I met him through my niece.”

Police responding to a 911 call about an unconscious man found the unidenified victim dead at the corner of Whitlock Ave. and Aldus St., just a block away from the Lyons Square playground, at about 11:15 a.m. (Mark Steamy)

“She said, you know, he’s homeless, he sleeps in a staircase. We went back and we took him home,” said the older man. “That one day turned out to be, he stayed with us for a good 15 years.”

Bernardon had previously been in foster care in Long Island or upstate and run away at 12 after he was separated from his sister, according to Bolorin. He had been on the streets ever since.

“Paul was a beautiful person, very smart. He watched ‘Jeopardy!’ and he would know the answers. He had his good ways and his bad ways,” said Bolorin.

He added that Bernardon recently moved in with a friend of the Bolorin family, calling it was a good living situation for his friend.

“He came here about a month ago to check up on us,” Bolorin said. “That was the last time I saw him.”

“I come home Sunday and two detectives come to my door,” he continued. “I said, ‘Is there a problem? Where’s Paul?’ They didn’t want to tell me. He broke down and told me they found him dead. It was shocking.

“He always looked for family. He found them through social media, but he was on parole at the time and he couldn’t visit — they were in Louisiana.”

Police responding to a 911 call about an unconscious man found the unidenified victim dead at the corner of Whitlock Ave. and Aldus St., just a block away from the Lyons Square playground, at about 11:15 a.m. (Mark Steamy)

Bernardon would FaceTime with his family, planning to someday meet them in person. Not having seen his mother since he was a few years old, he wasn’t always sure how to go about nurturing his new relationships.

“He said, ‘I don’t know how to tell my mother Happy Mother’s Day, I never had a mother,’” Bolorin recalled.

The friend said he was surprised that Bernardon was found where he was, remarking, “When I heard he was found near Longfellow, I thought everyone knows him there.”

Bernardon died from a cocaine overdose, according to police, and was also wrapped in a blanket, “which shows that they actually cared for the guy a little bit,” said NYPD Assistant Chief Joseph Kenny.

The day before Bernardon was found, a woman claiming to be a social worker called 911 and said a client of hers had been in an apartment buying drugs and “saw this decedent being placed in a shopping cart,” according to Kenny.

However, the woman could not provide a location, and the body couldn’t be found that day.

“Now that we have an idea of what happened we’ll be able to back track. We’re going to start where the body was found and work our way back,” said the assistant chief.

"We’ll be able to reach out to family members, friends, do interviews to see where does he buy his drugs, who does he hang out with, who were his co-defendants, who were his associates. We’ll be able to see if he has social media, things of that nature.”

Bernardon’s mother is very ill — and desperate to get her son’s remains — according to Bolorin.

“They can’t afford it,” he said of a burial. “It’s breaking my heart. I’m not going to leave him in Potter’s Field. I’m trying to find somewhere to get help, I promised the family.

“I’ll get the ashes one way or another,” he added.