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GREENSBORO — Nine months ago, in a beautiful stone house called “The Castle,’’ Hobo Billy was beaten to death before his body was burned in a fire.

No one has been arrested.

People who knew and loved Hobo Billy still ache and get angry every time they think of something so violent, so senseless, so cruel.

Especially to someone like Hobo Billy.

He was a kind, gentle soul. For nearly four decades, he played music in and around Greensboro. He stepped on stage, became a one-man band and shared tales of his trips from Thailand to New Orleans.

That was Hobo Billy, also known as Billy Hobo, Billy The Chair, Ransom, Ransom Notes and the Grassroots Buddha.

He was just a country boy from Clinton, the son of a pipefitter, who could flat-out play at least a half-dozen instruments.

On Saturday, we’ll remember him that way — not for how he died, but how he lived, playing music and giving back through music to our city, his home since the early 1970s.

The Triad Youth Jazz Society will honor William Ransom Hobbs Jr. in its annual fundraiser by establishing a music scholarship in his name to help a musician or music student from Guilford County.

Hobbs’ family will be there. They’ll accept a portrait of Hobbs by Winston-Salem artist Leo Rucker and hear a musical tribute performed by Bruce Piephoff and Scott Sawyer, two of Hobbs’ longtime friends.

It’ll be the third local tribute for Hobo Billy since his death Sept. 13.

For many, it’s been tough. Hobbs’ death sounds like something out of a John Hart novel. But it’s true, horribly true.

It was a Saturday, hours before daybreak. At the corner of Summit and Charter, Hobbs was staying with his friend, Deborah Moy, when someone beat them and torched Moy’s first-floor apartment.

Hobbs was in the wrong place at the wrong time, his family says. Police won’t publicly disclose a motive.

Hobbs was 58; at the time, Moy was 36. All the police will say today about Moy is this: She survived. Her family has requested that no information be released.

On his desk, Greensboro Detective Tim Parrish keeps the investigation file within arm’s length. It’s tattered, at least 6 inches thick. Parrish sifts through it at least three times a week, looking for something, anything.

It’s not as easy as TV. The fire damaged evidence, leads from

several dozen interviews have gone nowhere, and the state lab has yet to return results on evidence collected inside Moy’s charred apartment.

So, Parrish reviews notes, reinterviews people and takes calls on the case at all hours. And he waits.

“No one is more frustrated than me,’’ he says. “I may have a feeling who did this, but I want to make sure I get it right and not jump the gun and get it dismissed for whatever reason. There are a lot of things to think about.’’

So sets the stage for Saturday’s fundraiser and tribute.

It’s to remember someone who, nearly 40 years ago, helped make Greensboro feel as eclectic and hip as Seattle. And someone who had so many best friends.

As Piephoff likes to say, Hobbs never tried all that hard to make the main stage. He was too busy backstage, making friends, sharing experiences, and hitchhiking across America with music in his mind.

Hobo Billy. Greensboro’s real free spirit. They’ll remember that Saturday.

“He would be so proud to know that that many people cared about his music as much as he did and wanted it to live on,’’ says Hobbs’ sister, Linda Kirven. “That was his main thing. He always tried to help other people willing to learn.’’

A few months ago, Kathy Harrelson with the Triad Youth Jazz Society raised the idea of starting a scholarship to honor a local musician who died too young.

The reason: Her brother, a minister and gospel singer, was killed nearly 16 years ago in Iowa. He was 45.

Stan Montgomery immediately thought of Hobbs. He had met Hobbs two years ago and remembers the shock that he and others felt when he heard what happened a block from his business, Coffee at the Summit.

So, Montgomery called Hobbs’ family, and they all met. When Hobbs’ 27-year-old son introduced himself, Harrelson could hardly talk.

His name is Nathan. Her brother’s name was Nathan, too.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com