Margate victim is called a Good Samaritan
He was intervening in a fight when he was stabbed to death Sunday on a street at the Shore, Atlantic County investigators said.
MARGATE, N.J. - British tourist Lavern Paul Ritch spent the day Saturday in Margate the way many visitors do: lounging on the beach, dining in a restaurant, and then hitting a few nightclubs to round out the evening.
By the next morning, the 37-year-old fitness trainer from Wales was dead, and authorities in this Jersey Shore town yesterday continued to search for the man who stabbed him in the heart.
Police said Ritch, who was on vacation in the United States for two weeks and had been staying with friends from Cherry Hill, was killed early Sunday trying to intervene in a fight near the intersection of North Washington and Monmouth Avenues.
Witnesses reported that a fight between people Ritch didn't know apparently had broken out at Maynard's, a nearby bar, and spilled into the street, ending about a block away. A Maynard's spokesman has denied the fight began in that establishment.
Ritch, who had been walking near the intersection with friends, apparently got involved when he saw a man running after another man.
Ritch, described as "a good Samaritan" by Atlantic County Prosecutor Theodore Housel, apparently tried to stop the pursuer when he was stabbed, witnesses said.
No suspects or weapon had been found, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor's Office said yesterday.
Housel on Monday released pictures taken from surveillance video shot at the intersection showing a man police believe may have been involved in the stabbing.
Housel said the "person of interest" was believed to be a white man 35 to 45 years old and 5-foot-10, with a medium or heavy build and dark, collar-length hair. He may have been wearing shorts and a flat-topped Army fatigue-type green hat, witnesses said.
Ritch was taken to an Atlantic City hospital after the 2 a.m. stabbing and pronounced dead about an hour later.
The cause of death was a single wound that penetrated his heart, according to Atlantic County Medical Examiner Hydow Park.
In Britain, news of the popular fitness coach's death prompted an outpouring of grief and sympathy for his family, who live in Fairwater, Cardiff.
"It was typical of him that he would have had a go, and he would have done anything to help anyone. I'm absolutely devastated to hear about his death," Sue Evans, whose four children had been taught by Ritch to swim, told a British newspaper.
A statement released by Ritch's family through British authorities said he was "our sunshine, our ray of light and meant the world to us."
"We miss you so much already, and words cannot begin to describe our pain. We want to bring you home to rest and be close to everyone that meant so much to you and that love you so much. We understand what you had to do, we understand, so don't worry, we'll be fine, see you soon, Lavern," the statement reads.
Two leading British publications in 2002 short-listed Ritch among Britain's most eligible bachelors.
When he competed on the British television game show Gladiators, he won his first-round heat but was knocked out in the quarterfinals.
He had worked for the exclusive David Lloyd health club in Cardiff for about 13 years, and was a well-known fixture at London and Cardiff dance clubs, the BBC reported.