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Hamilton Billy Greene was not a man who made enemies, according to those who knew him. As Greene’s friends and family began planning his memorial service, which was Sunday, they said they couldn’t imagine why anyone – even a robber – would want to murder him at his doorstep.  

Greene, a 33-year-old award-winning animator and filmmaker, was found dead early Monday morning outside his Emeryville apartment entrance. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, police said.  

“He was just a good and gentle person. He was very remarkable in that way,” said his father, San Francisco-based poet and photographer Tinker Greene. 

“(Officers) asked if he had any gambling debts or drug involvement. But Billy wasn’t involved in anything like that.” 

On the night of Sept. 9, Billy Greene had gone to see the movie “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” with several friends, including a couple who also had apartments in the Adeline Street complex, Dylan Nolfi and Ariana Makau. 

They drove separate cars, and Greene was the last to return from the theater. Nolfi said Greene had already gone into his apartment when he heard something that sounded like gunshots.  

“What’s disturbing about it is how often we’ve actually been hearing gunshots, if those were gunshots,” Nolfi said while sitting on the apartment building’s back porch last Thursday evening. He looked exhausted, and said he hadn’t slept much since the shooting. 

Nolfi said he went to the window after hearing shots, saw nothing suspicious, and assumed the noise had been something else. Someone else flagged down a police car to report the shooting, according to Detective Dante Diotalevi of the Emeryville Police Department. He said officers arrived at 12:30 a.m. 

“I can’t go into whether that citizen heard the shots or found the body,” Diotalevi said. “But we are working on possible leads.” 

Greene’s murder is the city’s second killing this year, according to police, who say Emeryville averages at most one homicide each year. Diotalevi said police have no reason to suspect the shooting was gang or drug related, and that they are investigating the murder as a possible robbery attempt. Greene’s wallet had been handled but not taken, according to police. Friends and family don’t describe Greene as the type who would fight an armed robber. “He was artistic, quiet, and sensitive,” Nolfi said. “The kind of kid that got picked on in public school.” 

Nolfi said he was building a pinata in the shape of the handgun for the memorial service, so Greene’s friends could “destroy it.” Greene grew up in Burlington, Vermont, with Nolfi and got involved in filmmaking when he was a kid. After graduating from Hampshire College, Greene began working in “stop motion” film animation, which uses puppets photographed with incremental changes to imitate lifelike movement. Greene’s work has been featured in numerous film festivals, including the 2001 Sundance Film Festival in Utah. His film “Thought Bubble” was scheduled to play this weekend at the postponed New York Film Festival.  

Greene began his career in New York and Portland, Oregon. He moved to Emeryville five weeks ago to begin animating for “Phantom Investigators,” a new production for Warner Brothers television. Octopus Ink, the San Francisco-based production company he founded with two friends, produced a successful short film and a children’s music video for Bob McGrath of Sesame Street. Greene also played drums in numerous bands, including the San Francisco-based Poltroon. Several of Greene’s neighbors said that the murder was a mystery to them, too.  

“I’ve been living here for 30 years, and I was shocked when I read about it. We didn’t even hear anything that night,” neighbor Sylvia Chavez said. “Why would anybody do that unless it was somebody who was after him, somebody who knew him? That just doesn’t happen around here.” 

But the Web site recently set up by his friends and family (http://blackvan.net/billy) hardly portrays him as a man with enemies. In one photograph Greene sits shyly smiling as he overlooks a pair of his puppets. 

Numerous friends have compiled a list of emails on the “Billy Bulletin Board.”  

One posting by former co-worker BobD reads, “I love you Billy and I know you’re sitting quietly somewhere bringing life to puppets.” 

Police urge anyone with information about the shooting to contact them at 596-3774.