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Update: 77-year-old man beaten up at airport has died

Posted at 11:31 PM, Oct 01, 2012
and last updated 2012-10-25 03:33:36-04

Update: An elderly man died nearly a month after being assaulted by three people.

77-year-old Charles Silva was at work at the Hampton Roads Executive Airport when police say 23-year-old Kyle Langreder and 2 others started hitting him.

Investigators believe Silva was attacked after he confronted the group for trespassing back on September 27th.

Langreder is facing malicious wounding by mob charges and more are on the way.

This case is still under investigation

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A 77-year-old man was knocked unconscious by a couple of teens while working on his tractor.

"He says, 'I don't know he says, I woke up. I was looking straight up in the air'," Ted Kuhlman, a friend of the victim's, said.

The man then drove himself home. He didn't remember anything until he started talking to his wife.

"And she says, 'Did you fall off the tractor or what? And he said 'No, they beat the hell out of me,'" Kuhlman said.

Charles Silva was then rushed to the hospital where he's now in critical condition.
Kuhlman has been his best friend for 40 years. He visited Silva in the hospital Friday morning.

Silva told him it all started last Thursday when some teenagers were trespassing as Silva worked at the Hampton Roads Executive Airport.

"This has gone on for years and years out there. Ever since we've had the property, people would sneak on and we have to run them off," Kuhlman said.

Kuhlman says Silva then confronted them, telling the teens to leave.
That's when Silva told him the teenagers attacked him.

"He talked a little hesitantly and I guess just after that is when he couldn't talk anymore," Kuhlman said. "He's just been kind of out of it since then."

Silva had been a regular at the small airport since the 1970's.
He's a Vietnam vet, and being around planes made him feel at home.

But now the former fighter pilot is in critical condition after being attacked. 

"That's something you're going to have to think the rest of your life, though," Kuhlman said.