The New York man whose subway chokehold death sparked outcry this week was remembered by family and friends as a loving entertainer with a “beautiful smile” who spiraled into mental illness after his mother’s brutal murder over 10 years ago.
Jordan Neely, 30, died on May 1 when a Marine held him in a chokehold for several minutes after he allegedly started ranting aggressively on the F train.
At the time of his death, Jordan was known to New York City police as a troubled drifter who frequently complained of mental illness, telling cops he was schizophrenic and sometimes even suicidal.
Natural talent
Close family friend Nedra Guaba, of Washington Heights, told The Post that Jordan was a born entertainer who loved to perform Michael Jackson impressions of the subway.
“He liked to hang out at train stations,” she explained.
“He wasn’t aggressive. That’s not who he is. He loved to dance and that was his outlet.”
In a GoFundMe to pay for funeral expenses, Jordan’s aunt Carolyn Neely described her nephew as a “talented black man who loves to dance.”
“Performance was his thing,” she wrote under a cheerful selfie of the pair in happier times.
Describing their last conversation to The Post, Carolyn recalled her nephew’s contagious grin.
“He was smiling. He had a beautiful smile,” she remembered.
Teenage tragedy
Those closest to Jordan, however, also acknowledged his years-long struggle with mental illness, which they say began after the death of his mother, Christie Neely.
Christie, 36, was murdered in April 2007 by her partner, Shawn Southerland, who allegedly strangled her before stuffing her body into a suitcase and tossing it onto the shoulder of the Henry Hudson Parkway, NJ.com reported in 2012.
Jordan, who was only a teenager at the time, was called to testify against Southerland.
“The relationship had been crazy … a fight every day,” he said of the pair.
During the trial, Jordan also recalled the heartbreaking moment he tried to say goodbye to his mother before school for the last time, only to be blocked by Southerland.
Southerland was eventually found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison in March 2012.
‘Never the same’
Carolyn told The Post that Jordan had understandably “never been the same” after his mother’s killing.
“It had a big impact on him. He developed depression and it grew and became more serious. He was schizophrenic, PTSD. Doctors knew his condition and he needed to be treated for that,” she lamented.
In the years immediately following his mother’s death, neighbor James Berry said Jordan stayed off and on with his grandparents.
In 2009, however, his grandmother complained that Neely wouldn’t listen to them, and cut school to hang out with an older crowd.
“Jordan is a sweet kid, but he is very hard-headed,” she told authorities.
“He will not listen to me or his grandfather … We don’t want him to get in trouble. He’s not a bad person … we hope Jordan can be helped in some way and start acting responsible.”
In 2010, he threatened to kill his grandfather, according to sources.
Jordan’s father, Andre Zachary, 60, abandoned him when he was a baby, Carolyn said. Guaba told The Post that he sometimes stayed with his father, but the two did not get along.
Struggling to get help
Carolyn said Neely was in and out of Bellevue Hospital for several years.
Sources told The Post that he occasionally accepted help from the Bowery Residents’ Committee, via the NYC Department of Homeless Services, through at least 2020.
Carolyn explained that her efforts to get her nephew more intensive care were thwarted by doctors and the medical system.
“As his aunt, as his blood, I was crying out for medical help for my nephew — but everything was about insurance,” she said.
“He just needed better help from doctors who did not give him help when I asked.
“I was really frustrated. I didn’t know what to do anymore.”
Jordan also shared his lingering trauma with his friend Moses Harper, an artist.
“He told me about how much his mother’s passing impacted him. He disclosed that she was murdered, and her body was put in a suitcase,” Harper told CNN this week.
“It traumatized him. He was not expecting that, the brutal way she was taken. That had a big impact on him. The brutality behind that, that traumatized him.
“This kid has cried in front of me. That hurt him in his heart.”
A history with police
Jordan started regularly crossing paths with police around 2013, sources told The Post.
He was known for hanging around parts of Lower Manhattan, as well as Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn.
On Jan. 24, 2013, for example, officers found Jordan on West 145th Street complaining that his body was numb and he was hearing voices. He was voluntarily committed to Mount Sinai Morningside.
Three years later, in January 2016, cops again brought him to the hospital after he said he was suicidal. He was admitted a third time eight months later, after police got complaints of an angry, drunk man threatening people around West 168th Street.
Harper said she last saw Jordan in 2016, when she bumped into him on the subway while he was begging passengers for food.
“I had never seen him like that before,” she told CNN.
Jordan’s police run-ins continued over the next few years. Sometimes he was admitted for medical treatment, or else brought to a shelter.
By February 2019, he was telling cops he wanted psychiatric help because he was hearing voices, sources said.
In March 2020, he was admitted to Bellevue for a psychiatric evaluation after a member of the Citywide Mobile Crisis Outreach Team saw him wandering aimlessly on a train platform around Norfolk Street.
He was disheveled and smelled, police sources said, and he’d been off his meds for months.
It is unclear what happened after Jordan’s evaluation — or if he even received one.
The crisis team located him four more times during the height of COVID, once in April and three times in May.
By the time of his death, Jordan had about 43 “aided case” calls in his name, meaning he was likely known to the city’s Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD).
The unit does not operate in Manhattan yet.
Several arrests
Jordan had also racked up numerous arrests, including a 2021 incident in which he hit an older woman on the head and landed himself in jail for over a year.
The victim, 67, fell when Jordan punched her on Nov. 12, 2021, and broke her nose, fractured her orbital bone and suffered serious bruising and swelling, charging documents said.
Records indicate that Neely was subsequently locked up at Rikers Island from Nov. 17, 2021, through Feb. 9 of this year, and he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault.
A warrant was issued for his arrest on Feb. 23, though details on the ongoing case were not immediately available.
A tragic end
On May 3, the city medical examiner ruled that Jordan’s cause of death was “compression of neck (chokehold)” and the manner constituted a homicide.
Eyewitnesses previously described looking on in horror as a wannabe vigilante — identified as a 24-year-old Marine from Queens — pounced on Jordan from behind and held him in a chokehold for about 15 minutes.
Jordan passed out at the scene, and EMTs were unable to revive him.
The encounter was filmed by freelance journalist Alberto Vazquez, who told The Post that Jordan was screaming at passengers that he did not have any food or drink and “doesn’t care if he goes to jail.”
“None of us were thinking that [he would die],” Vazquez said.
“He was moving and he was defending himself.”
‘Didn’t deserve to die’
The Marine who choked Jordan was initially taken into custody, but was released without charges.
He declined to comment to The Post the day after the incident.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office later confirmed that it was investigating Jordan’s death — including whether to pursue charges against the man.
“As part of our rigorous ongoing investigation, we will review the Medical Examiner’s report, assess all available video and photo footage, identify and interview as many witnesses as possible, and obtain additional medical records,” a spokesperson said.
The public, however, is already rallying for justice.
“The city poured millions of dollars into subway police and instead of actually stopping crime, they let the murderer go. No charges,” said James, a 28-year-old Queens resident who declined to provide his last name.
“There’s been no charges. There’s been no type of accountability and with the overtime pay police are getting, this should never have happened,” Williamsburg florist Robert Jeffery added.
City officials are also chiming in, with Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine sharing that he had seen Jordan’s Michael Jackson routine “many times.”
“Our broken mental health system failed him,” Levine wrote.
“He deserved help, not to die in a chokehold on the floor of the subway.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander also decried the fatal incident.
“We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence. Or where the killer is justified & cheered,” he tweeted.
Amid their shock and grief, those who knew Jordan are also holding out hope for justice.
“My wife would fix him a plate of food sometimes, and I’d give him a couple dollars. There was something a little mentally off about him, but we all knew what happened to his mother. It’s a sad situation,” Berry told The Post.
“Jordan didn’t deserve to die. I hope some justice comes out of this situation.”
