FLINT, MI -- Gary Nagy's body was treated like a piece of trash.

Thrown away and cast off under a broken-off dumpster lid at an abandoned school. Barely any care put into concealing him. Not even hidden enough to stop a bus driver from spotting the lifeless body while practicing driving maneuvers in the parking lot.

It was as if the killer figured he wasn't worth burying, or even properly hiding. He was, after all, just another homeless man.

Who would notice?

In a city averaging more than one homicide per week -- where elementary school students and mothers are being gunned down -- who would care?

He was just another homeless guy.

Dirty, smelly, unshaven. Occasionally drunk.

Alone.

But he didn't deserve this, said Scott Greer, Nagy's nephew.

"He chose to be homeless," Greer said. "But he didn't choose to be murdered."

David Pattinson wells up with tears when he thinks about his best friend. He gets choked up and his voice shakes behind a thick red-and-gray beard. A grown and weathered man who spent decades living on the streets, crying like a young boy.

"He couldn't weigh 99 pounds. He couldn't whip a fly," said Pattinson, 54, who goes by "Red."

Pattinson served as the de facto mayor of Tent City, a makeshift community on an overgrown former General Motors parking lot in Burton where a close-knit group of homeless men made camp for about 10 years. In 2011, city officials and the property's owner got word of the encampment and kicked the men off.

Pattinson never returned, taking shelter at a friend's nearby home and swearing off his life on the street.

Nagy stayed in the life, bouncing around from place to place before suffering what police are calling a homicide after his body was discovered the morning of Tuesday, July 30.

Pattinson and other men who knew Nagy from his years on the streets say they were shocked to hear what had happened to him. They describe a man small in stature who kept to himself, had no enemies and couldn't hurt anyone even if he'd wanted.

"He talked so mild and quiet," said Darnell Littlejohn, a homeless man who hung around with Nagy.

A group of them -- some Tent City campers, some not -- would drink beers and smoke cigarettes near a liquor store by the school where Nagy's body was found.

"Good, calm, peaceful. Didn't bother anybody," said another member of the group, a thin man in a Los Angeles Kings hat who said he only goes by the name of Jackson.

Few of the men knew much about Nagy's upbringing. What is available on his background is patchy and scattered. Pattinson seems to be the person who knew him best and longest. It's just a part of life on the street, the men say. It's not about how you got here, it's about how you'll get by.

He was 57 when he died.

Life on the street

Nagy was born in Flint in 1955. A time when the American Dream was in full swing and being born in the hometown of General Motors was, more or less, a ticket to the good life.

For so many men, it was the right place at the right time. They would go on to well-paying factory jobs, white picket fences, kids, retirement in Florida.

Nagy seemed headed that way. He and Pattinson attended school at the Bendle district and graduated from there in the early '70s.

In 2011, Nagy told an MLive-Flint Journal reporter that he joined the Army after high school. Pattinson said his friend served in Korea before returning home.

Nagy told the Journal that he came home and worked at the Fisher Body plant for several years before it closed in 1987, leading to years of odd jobs and, eventually, homelessness. He was married for several years -- even his friends don't know how long -- and divorced in 1994, according to court records.

"Gary was a different sort of guy," said Larry Shears, a Flint resident who lives in a house nearby and had become friends with the men at Tent City. "I was sad when I saw the news (of his death)."

Shears used to manage a hotel nearby and let Nagy do some odd jobs for him and sometimes stay in a room there.

Nagy never caused problems, never had enemies, Shears said.

Eventually, Nagy found Tent City. He and Pattinson were among the founders and longest residents there.

“I didn’t have the seniority to move to Buick,” Nagy said in 2011, then 56 years old and sporting a long, white beard. “So, this is where I’m at."

In those conversations with The Journal, he spoke frankly about his desire to drink and be outside and live by his own set of rules.

“If you want to sit down and have a beer, you can’t drink a beer when you’re at a shelter. ... Out of sight, out of mind is the way we look at it. We don’t bother nobody," he had said.

Nagy's only flaw, Pattinson said, is that he would get a little aggressive when he drank. He'd act like he knew everything.

"He got a little hard-headed when he got a drink or two," Shears said. "But outside of that, he was a damn good guy."

At Tent City, they called him Turtle, for the way he poked his head out of his tent.

Nagy couldn't walk very well, Pattinson said, and would often hold down the camp while others went to get food from the nearby Methodist church and buy beer with bottle deposit money. Steel Reserve -- known for its tall silver cans and high alcohol content -- was Nagy's favorite.

Nagy's health was a concern to his camp mates and to Tom Knight, an outreach worker for Resource Genesee who seeks out and tries to direct the area's homeless to resources and help.

"Gary's been very ill," Knight said. "We didn't think he was going to make it through the winter last year."

Knight suspected Nagy may have had cirrhosis of the liver, a consequence of years of heavy drinking.

After getting kicked out of Tent City, Nagy and a few of the other campers found an abandoned house on nearby Allen Street to crash in.

There, they tried something that was unheard of at Tent City. They spent the winter.

Typically, the men would spend winters in a shelter or with a family member or friend. In the old house with no furnace, things turned grim.

Pattinson didn't live at the house on Allen Street, but he stopped by on occasion. One day this last winter, Nagy asked Pattinson to check on Anthony Clark, another former Tent City resident at the house.

He hasn't moved in three days, Pattinson was told.

"I went to check on Tony and Tony was dead," Pattinson said.

He had frozen to death.

Shortly after, police kicked the men out and the house was boarded up.

Homelessness on the rise

It isn't unusual for homeless people to bounce around like this, said Knight, who had known Nagy for a few years.

"He's a pretty quiet guy," Knight said. "Obviously didn't give anybody a bad time, because he was welcome to stay wherever he could put his sleeping bag."

Nagy was one of those homeless men who didn't ask for much, Knight said, wasn't keen on staying in shelters or getting into rehab programs. Still Knight would check in, visiting Nagy to see how he was doing, to talk and maybe bring him a few burgers from McDonald's.

But increasingly, there are more and more people that need the outreach. More people needing burgers and a warm bed.

Homelessness is on the rise in the area, Knight said.

"It's really getting bad again. I don't know all of the causes," he added.

Mary Stevenson, of Catholic Charities of Shiawassee and Genesee Counties, said the annual Warming Center has served many more homeless people in recent years.

In the winter of 2010-11, there were 8,964 homeless who used the center. In 2011-12, that figure jumped up to 9,701. This last winter, it increased again, to 12,674.

That's a 41 percent increase in homeless people seeking help in just two years.

And just in the last week, the organization registered roughly 25 new people each day for a program that provides clothes and supplies for the homeless.

"It's a lot of people," Stevenson said.

Death on the street

Flint police haven't said much about Nagy's case, only that they've ruled it a homicide because of head trauma and are investigating further.

People who knew Nagy don't know why anyone would want to kill him, but they have theories.

"He may have witnessed something that he shouldn't have," Knight said.

It happens to the homeless more than you'd think, he said. They will be minding their own business, out of sight, when they'll see or overhear someone doing something illegal -- a drug deal, for example.

When the criminals notice they're not alone, they'll simply kill the witness, Knight said.

And there are some people who -- placing little value in human life and even less on homeless life -- will, Knight said, simply kill a man for sport.

Like an animal.

"Some individuals just prey on the homeless," Knight added.

Shears has his own theory.

"Probably somebody got in a fight and he fell. Hit his head or something."

Back to Tent City

After being kicked out of the Allen Street house, Nagy spent some time in Hurley Medical Center and a local shelter, said Greer, his nephew.

Eventually, Nagy returned to Tent City.

Today, the site is a shell of its former heyday.

Walking through Tent City this week, Shears said he noticed the lack of tents and tarps that once dotted the grounds.

No makeshift toilets. No drunken laughter around the campfire.

But there are signs, he said, that some people have returned. Like pioneers slowly repopulating an old ghost town.

Shears said he heard a woman's voice back there, but when he returned later that day she was gone.

There was one place, Shears said -- a few busted up sections of concrete making a cave-like formation -- where it looked like someone had been sleeping.

It was a cramped space, he said, tight quarters. If someone was sleeping there, it would have had to be someone small, someone short.

Someone who couldn't whip a fly.

Blake Thorne is a reporter for MLive-The Flint Journal. Contact him at bthorne1@mlive.com or 810-347-8194. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.