He died trying to be a hero.

The wife of a man beaten to death outside his Astoria home in 2008 while trying to protect a neighbor from a crazed drifter yesterday told a Queens jury she begged him not to get involved. “I told him, ‘Please, please, don’t go,’ ” Dora Nowillo said of her husband Nicolas, 65.

His alleged attacker, Eric Cherry, 47, faces manslaughter and assault charges.