As life slipped from his body, Michael Cocomello spent his last moments cradled in his mother’s arms.

“I just heard him crying for mommy,” his mother, Sandra Cocomello, told reporters through a crack in the door outside the apartment she shared with her son. “I held him until the cops got here.”

Michael Cocomello, 20, died early Tuesday after being stabbed multiple times in the back and torso the night before.

Toronto police suspect he was lured Monday evening from his apartment on Nairn Ave., south of Eglinton Ave. W. He was attacked a few blocks away, on Dufferin St., at about 9 p.m.

Cocomello was taken to Sunnybrook hospital where he underwent surgery but later succumbed to his injuries. An autopsy was performed Tuesday.

Police have yet to establish a motive for the attack and would not say whether the slaying is gang-related but indicated that Cocomello — who also went by Michael Mandino — was targeted.

“This is not a random incident,” Insp. Ken Taylor told reporters.

Cocomello was known to police but his contact with them was dated and has no relation to his killing, Taylor said.

The young man stumbled home before eventually collapsing outside his apartment, according to the police report.

His mother was the first to find him.

The victim’s mother is distraught, said Taylor.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to come out and find your son or anybody in that state,” he said.

Family members, clearly agitated by the media attention, gathered at the apartment to mourn.

A woman who introduced herself as Cocomello’s aunt spoke with the Staron the behalf of the family.

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“You want a statement? Well how about that somebody just randomly stabbed my nephew or that no mother should ever have to bury their child or that the killer is a blankin’ coward. How’s that for a statement?”

Police are urging anyone with information to contact investigators. The case is the city’s 10th homicide of the year.