Cops: Man may have killed brother during spat after TV bout

UPDATE, 12:10 p.m. Monday: Philadelphia police said Monday that 50-year-old Anthony McGriff has been charged with murder and possessing an instrument of a crime. Police said the motive was listed as an argument.

ORIGINAL STORY: LAUGHING and smiling, John "J.R." McGriff was surrounded by friends and family late Saturday on a neighbor's stoop in West Philly as they sang "Happy Birthday."

It was the 35th time the tune was performed for him.

There won't be a 36th.

Hours later, apparently after watching Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeat Manny Pacquiao in the welterweight world boxing championship on pay-per-view TV, McGriff was fatally stabbed in his home on Christian Street near 58th, authorities said.

And the man suspected of stabbing him was his 50-year-old brother, with whom he shared the home. Last night, police confirmed that the brother was in custody. The Daily News is withholding his name because he had not been charged as of last night.

Family members told investigators at the scene that the brothers had been arguing about the boxing match, a police source said last night.

Yesterday, as Christian Street baked under an intense sun, those who know the McGriff brothers wrestled with disbelief.

"They're a close-knit family," said Herb Nutter, who watched McGriff grow up and saw the brothers play with his own kids. "This goes way beyond anything we'd ever expect."

Nutter - who's not related to the mayor but said he "sat in front of him" in school - chalked the slaying up to a "sibling rivalry gone bad."

A police spokeswoman said officers arrived at the house at 12:37 a.m. yesterday, not long after Mayweather's victory. They found McGriff in a second-floor hallway, bleeding from several stab wounds. Medics pronounced him dead at the house about 30 minutes later.

"This makes no sense," Nutter, 57, told the Daily News yesterday. He last had spoken with McGriff on Friday, when the younger man checked in on Nutter's wife, who's battling an illness, he said. McGriff offered to help him, asked him if he needed anything.

"Sisters and brothers argue, but you'd never think things would get so volatile where one would pick something up and hurt his own brother," Nutter said.

Especially brothers who have been through so much together. Five years ago, the two men buried their mother after her long battle with cancer, neighbor Natalie Carroll said.

The two brothers had spent their entire lives in that house on Christian Street, devoting the past few months to renovating it, Nutter said.

They were raising their kids in that house: McGriff leaves behind a son and a daughter, and his brother has four girls of his own, neighbors said.

But it wasn't always pleasant between the two men.

One neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, said he sometimes heard the two men arguing at night. But the neighbor said he never expected it to turn fatal.

Neither did Carroll.

"It's just sad that anger could escalate so much," she said yesterday. "They're such a loving family . . . it really is a shock."

Carroll said McGriff was "always around," and always offered to help her.

Last night, the McGriff family, including the men's sister Tina, gathered at a small memorial placed outside the home on Christian Street. They declined to comment for this story.

This was not the family's first brush with law enforcement.

McGriff was completing a diversionary program for first-time offenders, according to court records. He was charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, resisting arrest and related offenses stemming from an incident in December 2013.

His brother has several arrests on his criminal record, which includes two guilty pleas for robbery, court records show.

Neighbors said Rudolph McGriff, who has beaten five murder charges, is a relative who once lived in the house. He is awaiting a June 15 trial in a sixth murder case, the shooting death of his girlfriend in April 2013.