A woman known for years as one of Central Park’s most recognizable artists has been identified as the 63-year-old victim found beaten to death inside a gazebo near the park’s boathouse.
Lee Rogers, who also went by Elise Bainbridge Hill and Francis Lee Rogers, had spent years painting the birds and wildlife of Central Park while living on and off the streets.
Police said she was found unconscious and suffering from severe head trauma Sunday morning inside a gazebo near East Drive and East 74th Street.
Emergency crews pronounced her dead at the scene.
Investigators believe Rogers was attacked with a wooden stick. Early reports also mentioned possible stab wounds, but later police accounts have focused on blunt-force injuries to her head.
A suspect, 36-year-old Jonathan Robles, was arrested later Sunday and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Authorities have not publicly detailed exactly what led to the fatal confrontation, though law-enforcement sources said Rogers and Robles apparently knew each other and became involved in an argument before the violence erupted.
For many Central Park regulars, the news was devastating.
Rogers had become a familiar figure among birdwatchers, nature lovers and people who spent time around the park.
She was known for creating detailed watercolor paintings of cardinals, owls, raccoons, hawks, loons and other wildlife she observed around Manhattan.
Robert DeCandido, a longtime birding guide known as “Birding Bob,” compared her to famed folk artist Grandma Moses and said birdwatchers often bought her artwork in the park.
One of Rogers’ friends, Joe Lopez, said he first met her after purchasing one of her paintings of Pale Male, the famous red-tailed hawk that lived around Central Park for decades.
Lopez remembered Rogers as kind, soft-spoken and deeply knowledgeable about animals.
He said she did far more than simply paint what she saw. Rogers understood bird behavior and the wildlife living around the park, which made her work especially meaningful to people who knew her.
Her life before Central Park was complicated and often painful.
Rogers was also known as Elise Bainbridge Hill, the subject of the 2007 documentary “Begging Naked.”
The film, directed by her friend Karen Gehres, followed Hill’s life over nearly a decade.
According to descriptions of the documentary, she ran away from home as a teenager and came to New York City, where she became involved in prostitution before later working as a stripper and pursuing art.
The documentary also chronicled her eventual eviction and descent into homelessness.
Over the years, Rogers increasingly made Central Park part of her everyday life.
She painted near the boathouse, camped in different areas and sometimes stayed in shelters or churches near the park.
“For many years I was homeless,” she once wrote on her website. “I worked on my paintings at the Central Park boathouse.”
Her unusual story eventually attracted wider attention.
The New York Times profiled Rogers in 2012 and compared aspects of her work to naturalist painter John James Audubon.
Despite the attention, Rogers remained private about many details of her life.
Friends said she could be warm, funny and compassionate, but also fiercely independent.
In later years, people close to her said her health appeared to decline and she became increasingly withdrawn.
DeCandido said Rogers lost weight and became more reclusive over the last several years.
At times, he said, she would sit under a makeshift covering near one of the benches she frequented and stare off quietly.
Other homeless people who knew Rogers said she and Robles were both regulars in the park.
One man, Moje Ramirez, said the two knew each other but did not get along particularly well.
Police have not confirmed a motive.
Robles was expected to face arraignment on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Rogers’ killing has stunned people who knew her and added a grim chapter to the history of a woman who had already lived through homelessness, addiction, instability and years on the margins of New York City.
For the people who encountered her in Central Park, however, she will also be remembered for something much simpler.
She was the woman with a sketchbook, a walking stick and an extraordinary eye for the birds and animals around her.
And now, the gazebo where she often spent time has become a makeshift memorial, with candles and some of her artwork left behind by people who knew and admired her.
Beat him to death with a BIG STICK!