When he wasn't biking around Pittsburgh, Frank Ogiri-Little could be found walking the city streets at all hours. He paid for it Wednesday with his life.

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"That's what Frank did, he walked around at night. That's how we met one night. Neither of us are good sleepers," his roommate and longtime friend, Joshua Murphy, 29, said yesterday.

"Frank and I walked every street in this town at 3 in the morning. And then he gets shot in Squirrel Hill."

Ogiri-Little, a 27-year-old college student, was the man gunned down at 1:08 a.m. Wednesday on South Negley Avenue at Fair Oaks Street, a normally placid neighborhood of expensive homes.

Pittsburgh police did not release information yesterday on progress in the case. Detectives have been searching for a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee with black trim seen leaving the scene.

The motive for the killing is not known, but if it started as robbery, it did not end that way. Ogiri-Little still had cash and identification in his wallet as well as in his backpack.

Murphy described Ogiri-Little as a poet, abstract painter and rock climber who studied part time at the University of Pittsburgh. He said carabiners probably hung from his friend's North Face backpack, which Ogiri-Little had fished out of the trash.

Ogiri-Little could be candid with people, Murphy said, but he also had a joyous laughter.

Murphy said Ogiri-Little's mother, Titi Ogiri, is from Nigeria. His father, Frank Little, is a former Pittsburgh attorney. Authorities have not been able to contact either parent.

"Frank was the kind of person that total strangers would invite into their homes. He would walk down the street and smile, and people would become enamored of him," Murphy said. "He was a mysterious guy. Nobody really knew what was going on in his head. He just seemed to exude an air of peace."

On Tuesday, Ogiri-Little worked at Free Ride!, a nonprofit shop in Point Breeze that recycles bicycles, until about 11 p.m.

"He was the nicest, most genuine person I knew. He was really helpful at Free Ride! and always came and always wanted to help out," said shop co-founder Andalusia Knoll, 22, of Uptown.

"On that night, he was really excited. We had these homemade bike stands made from recycled bike parts and he wanted to build one. That's what he was working on."

After leaving Free Ride!, Ogiri-Little stopped in at the Squirrel Hill Cafe, Murphy said. He had a beer or two, chatted with another roommate, and then left about 12:50 a.m. He was headed on foot to his home in Lawrenceville and made it about six blocks before he was killed.

Ogiri-Little was a regular at the Quiet Storm Coffee House on Penn Avenue in Friendship. He had worked there for a time last year and then became a regular customer when he got jobs elsewhere doing manual labor and performing prep work at a pizzeria, Murphy said.

Yesterday, more than a dozen friends of Ogiri-Little gathered at the coffee shop, some stopping to hug Murphy.

Murphy said his friend was born in Pittsburgh but moved to Nigeria at an early age and lived there for a number of years. He returned to Pennsylvania, living first in Mercer County and then moving to Point Breeze. Murphy said Ogiri-Little graduated from Allderdice High School in 1994.

Ogiri-Little studied full time for a while at Pitt, then changed to part time, Murphy said. The university confirmed that a student with that name was enrolled in global studies.

Jessica McPherson, who knew Ogiri-Little from Free Ride!, recalled how he would accompany people as they biked to different areas around the city, even if it was out of his way. She described him as gentle, thoughtful and considerate.

"It's like a light went out or something," said McPherson, 24, of Wilkinsburg. "He walked a lot of places. It's just very strange to think about not seeing him around town, not seeing him walking, saying 'hi.' "