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New York City 2014. 2 days after New
00:00:09
Year's, a picturesque snowstorm turns
00:00:12
into a dangerous white out.
00:00:16
There's basically a blizzard in uh New
00:00:18
York. A local Jewish businessman was
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kidnapped less than a month from
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Hanukkah. What happened to this father
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of seven?
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Why would he have been kidnapped? Was it
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his family? Was it something
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personal? To say it created a firestorm
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would be an understatement.
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As a community grows angry, they turn
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their frustration toward police. The
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holidays present a lot of issues for
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police in general. There's a lot of
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anti-semitism events that actually do
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happen.
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We end up getting notified by the Nassau
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County police that they found a body.
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It's one of New York's first homicides
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of the year. Detectives are overwhelmed
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with leads. Why? What did he do? This
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looked like a targeted
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attack. 40 million is a lot of money.
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And what occurred on on this video was
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horrifying.
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[Music]
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[Music]
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Hello, I'm Nancy Grace. New Year's in
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New York City. It conjures up visions of
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the beautiful glittering ball dropping
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in Time Square, bustling bars, crowded
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restaurants, and streets filled with
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merry
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makers. 2014, the city and its burrows
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are still dealing with the New Year's
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Eve hangover when they're hit with a
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crippling snowstorm. Monakam Stark, a
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committed family man, is at the office
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in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
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He's not concerned by the weather. He
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plans to work late, then head home.
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[Music]
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Right after New Year's, people start to
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come back to work. They start to get
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back into their normal routine. And
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January 2nd, again, day after New
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Year's, the city got hit with the first
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big blizzard that day. 2014 has begun
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with an extreme blast of winter weather.
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A huge storm has been moving across much
00:02:52
of the country, bringing with it
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freezing temperatures and lots of snow.
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It was snowing pretty hard. I mean,
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people couldn't see it. There was no
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visibility if you were driving in the
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streets. It was coming down hard. There
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weren't a lot of people out on the
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streets. Well, Monakam Stark was working
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in his
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office. He always came home the same
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time every
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night. In fact, when he spoke to his
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wife earlier in the day, he mentioned
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that he would be home around 11:30. Now,
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it's
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11:40. His wife doesn't hear from him.
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She's very nervous. She calls the phone
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and somebody hangs
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up. Now, she's very nervous. It's close
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to midnight when Monakam Stark's
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brother-in-law checks his office.
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There's no sign of the reliable family
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man. Then they make the phone call to
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911. They report he hasn't shown up
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home. This is out of character for him.
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His office is not far from home. So,
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we're not thinking an accident, you
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know, ran off the road somewhere,
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doesn't have his cell phone. were
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thinking there could be more to this
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than just a missing person's case.
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Detectives went to his office and the
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office seemed to be, you know, closed
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[Music]
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up, but they did notice that his car was
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outside and that was very strange that
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he wasn't there and the car was.
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It's bitterly cold January 3, 2014.
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Detectives from the 90th precinct canvas
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the neighborhood around Monakam Stark's
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office building. There was a video
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camera positioned right in front of the
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building and we found the video footage
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and what occurred on on this video was
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[Music]
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horrifying. We noticed him locking up
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the office and he was walking to his car
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when a very large male grabbed him and
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Manakam started fighting with him.
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Manakam Stark put up a very big uh
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fight. I don't think these guys expected
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to him to put a fight like that. They
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were struggling for 3, four, five
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minutes and another male came from the
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car and helped
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him and they threw him in the back of a
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light colored
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minivan and he was still fighting as
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they put him in the van and then they
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drove away.
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When police watch the footage, they
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realize their missing person's case is
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now a kidnapping. The weather makes
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leads hard to come
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by because of the snow, because of the
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the brightness, I guess, of the snow, it
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blurred the videotape itself. So, we
00:05:48
were having trouble. We couldn't even
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identify at the time the type of minivan
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it was. We couldn't identify the race of
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any of these two abductors. All we had
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was one of them looked like a larger
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male. The other looked like he was
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smaller. We could absolutely see that
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there was a struggle, but there was no
00:06:08
way to get a license plate. There was no
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way to do a facial recognition to
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identify either one of the people we
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were going to end up looking for.
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The NYPD releases the surveillance video
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to the media. The case quickly grabs the
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attention of the public.
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[Music]
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I received a phone call that said a
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local Jewish businessman was kidnapped
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as he left his office shortly before
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midnight. And I remembered this was less
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than a month from
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Hanukkah. The holidays present a lot of
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issues for police in general. There is
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normally an uptick in crime. It's
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robberies. It's shootings um right
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before the holidays. Whether it's
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because of a lack of money, whether it's
00:06:57
family issues, family disputes. Thank
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God people aren't abducted off the
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streets of New York City. That's a
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strange event no matter who. But when
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somebody's taken off the street, an
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acidic male in that tightknit community,
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it doesn't happen. I actually reached
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out to a couple of people who lived and
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work in Williamsburg to see what they
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heard.
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there. Everything spreads like wildfire
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within the community. So, everybody in
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the community had heard what happened
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that night. You had to then start
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digging in to see who this person
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was. You have to find what the next
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layer. You have to dig what the next
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layer is. Why was who who is who is this
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person that was kidnapped? So, you have
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to find out who he is before you could
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find out why. When we investigated uh
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Manakam Stark's background, we knew that
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he was a loving husband and a loving
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father. He had seven kids. We knew he
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was in the real estate business. The
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neighbors we spoke with, um the people
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from the temples we spoke with, you
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know, reinforced that he was a good
00:08:03
person. He was a family man. Everybody
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that came out publicly said, uh what a
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great guy he was. Uh he always were
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helping the down and out. that rarely do
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you find
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individuals who give away their money.
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And if they don't have their money, they
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go out there to ensure to knock on some
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people's door who has money in order to
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respond to a person in need.
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Approximately 400 p.m. January 3, police
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get a phone call from a gas station
00:08:40
attendant out on Long Island. In a
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kidnapping investigation, you're always
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waiting on whether somebody's going to
00:08:48
ask for ransom or is somebody going to
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just drive him around, have him take
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money out of
00:08:55
ATMs. We don't know what their
00:08:58
intentions were when they took Monakam
00:08:59
Stark. That's what creates angst for the
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family. And then we end up getting
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notified by the Nassau County police
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that they found a
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body of a male dressed in traditional
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acidic garb half burnt in a uh dumpster
00:09:21
at a Getty gas station in Great Neck,
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Long Island.
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The gas station attendant when he
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arrived for work that morning saw the
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smoke coming out of the dumpster.
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Approached the dumpster said it was a
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foul smell coming out of the dumpster.
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Called the police and called the fire
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department. Started smelling a burning
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like like a like you know a burning
00:09:43
flesh kind of smell and he just saw
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smoke coming out of the dumpster because
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the lower half of the body had been
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burned and the upper half hadn't been
00:09:52
burned as badly. Nassau County
00:09:54
detectives that responded realized that
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this was somebody that belonged to the
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hetic community.
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That's some 30 miles away from the scene
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where Manakam was taken and put into a
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van and driven away. Monakam Stark's
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family praying for a miracle. They head
00:10:15
to Long Island hoping the body in the
00:10:17
Moore belongs to somebody, anybody else.
00:10:20
The body that was found in the dumpster
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was in fact Monakam
00:10:31
Stark. Welcome back. The 90th precinct
00:10:34
in Brooklyn rings in the new year 2014
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with a grizzly homicide investigation.
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The half burnt body of a man dressed in
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traditional hidic clothing found over 30
00:10:48
miles from his office in Brooklyn. He is
00:10:51
identified as the kidnap victim. Manakam
00:10:54
Stark, a well-known businessman in his
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community and a beloved family
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man. when you're trying to celebrate and
00:11:04
now all of a sudden you get like a
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heinous crime like this senseless
00:11:10
murder, you know, it just makes people
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stop and say like like we were just
00:11:15
celebrating, we were just having a good
00:11:16
time and then all of a sudden you get
00:11:19
hit, you're back to reality. Saturday,
00:11:22
Nassau County police found the
00:11:23
39-year-old ultraorththodox man's body
00:11:26
in a dumpster at a Great Neck gas
00:11:29
station. Now, we know we're dealing with
00:11:31
a homicide. And one of the confusing
00:11:34
points of the case initially was that
00:11:37
the body was found in Long Island.
00:11:40
Normally, if something happens in
00:11:42
Brooklyn, it doesn't wander out to Long
00:11:44
Island. It doesn't wander too far out of
00:11:46
the burrow. Because of the blizzard,
00:11:49
many of the roads were closed. And uh
00:11:51
one of the major thoroughares over in
00:11:53
that area is the 495, the Long Island
00:11:56
Expressway. and that night was closed to
00:11:59
any traffic. So, it was a little unusual
00:12:02
how Mr. Stark was in one location and
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then his body discovered in a dumpster
00:12:07
in uh Great
00:12:09
Neck with all this weather related road
00:12:12
issues. It was a little curious how he
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got
00:12:19
there. I mean, if you were looking to
00:12:21
dump a body, there are many places in
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Brooklyn,
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Queens, you know, is a bigger story now.
00:12:30
You know, you go from a kidnapping to a
00:12:33
[Music]
00:12:36
murder. According to Jewish religious
00:12:39
law, a body must be buried within 24
00:12:43
hours after the person dies. So in this
00:12:46
case, the pressure is on the medical
00:12:48
examiner to quickly perform that autopsy
00:12:51
and release Monakam Stark's body to his
00:12:55
family. The autopsy is basically done.
00:12:58
They find out that it was a chest
00:13:00
compression and
00:13:02
asphyxiation, which basically means that
00:13:04
uh you couldn't breathe because somebody
00:13:06
was sitting on your chest. Just imagine
00:13:08
you're laying on the floor and
00:13:10
somebody's sitting on your chest and it
00:13:12
can't expand and you're basically
00:13:15
suffocating. It shows a sign of a, you
00:13:18
know, a violent
00:13:19
[Music]
00:13:24
struggle. It's a horrible way to die.
00:13:30
Manakam Stark's brutal murder frightens
00:13:33
the community. But that community pulls
00:13:36
together and a show of support for
00:13:38
Monakam's family.
00:13:41
The community came out in mass to mourn
00:13:44
his death. There were thousands of
00:13:46
people that came. I mean, the hesetic
00:13:48
community is a very tight community, but
00:13:50
I hadn't seen anything like that before.
00:13:56
the murder of Manakam Stark. Uh it
00:13:59
shocked the community. People were, you
00:14:01
know, uh very upset and very nervous and
00:14:04
and rightly so.
00:14:09
You know, everybody's guessing, but they
00:14:11
had no idea why he was killed.
00:14:14
It seems nearly
00:14:16
incomprehensible anyone within the Hidic
00:14:19
community could commit such violence on
00:14:22
one of their own. Investigators turned
00:14:25
their attention to where Monakam Stark's
00:14:27
life intersected outside that close-knit
00:14:32
community.
00:14:33
We went to the family to try and find
00:14:36
out is anything going on with the
00:14:39
business? Is anything going on with the
00:14:40
neighbors? Is anything anything unusual
00:14:43
that might have happened just prior to
00:14:46
to the night he was kidnapped? They
00:14:48
basically said no. And then we uh were
00:14:51
directed to go out and interview the
00:14:53
tenants in the buildings that he
00:14:58
owned. Well, Stark was actually a a
00:15:02
landlord on quite a few
00:15:03
buildings. Real estate, it would appear,
00:15:06
was his primary source of
00:15:09
income. We looked into his real estate
00:15:11
holdings. We found out that he started
00:15:13
buying buildings in the area around
00:15:18
2000. And by 2008, he had spent uh over
00:15:23
$61 million on 37 buildings, which is a
00:15:27
significant real estate
00:15:33
portfolio. Nakamark owned
00:15:37
17 vacant or druginfested buildings in
00:15:41
Brooklyn, Queens. those buildings had
00:15:43
racked up 233 complaints and 148
00:15:48
violations. So while detectives were
00:15:51
doing a canvas, you know, talking to
00:15:53
people in the neighborhood, especially
00:15:54
people who live in his buildings, they
00:15:57
came across more than their share of
00:15:59
tenants who were not happy with Monakum
00:16:02
Stalker as a landlord. Talking to the
00:16:05
tenants, we're finding out that uh I
00:16:07
don't have hot water, my ceiling's
00:16:09
leaking, I don't have heat.
00:16:12
When you hear about that, it would be,
00:16:14
you know, an obvious motivation for
00:16:16
somebody to harm Mr. Stark. A guy that
00:16:19
had over a thousand tenants that you're
00:16:21
not going to have a few unsatisfied
00:16:22
parents. There's no such a thing.
00:16:26
Police wonder if a resentful or unhinged
00:16:29
tenant could be responsible for Monakam
00:16:32
Stark's murder. Passions run high in New
00:16:35
York's tough rental market. But could
00:16:38
those passions actually add up to
00:16:41
murder? When you're in the real estate
00:16:43
business, there's always tenants that
00:16:45
are going to love you, and then they're
00:16:46
going to be tenants that hate
00:16:49
you. Some of the tenants had withheld
00:16:52
rent, but again, it didn't get us to the
00:16:55
point where we were thinking a tenant
00:16:57
possibly did this. It that to us didn't
00:16:59
make sense to the detectives
00:17:01
investigating the case. There was no
00:17:03
clear-cut person that stuck out that,
00:17:06
you know, wouldn't want to do harm to
00:17:07
this guy. We kind of came to the
00:17:09
conclusion that we this wasn't where we
00:17:11
were going with the case.
00:17:14
On the surface, Monakam Stark appears to
00:17:16
be a successful, wealthy real estate
00:17:18
owner. When investigators dig deeper
00:17:21
into finances, they are shocked by what
00:17:24
they find.
00:17:26
There were a lot of outstanding loans.
00:17:28
There was a lot of money that he owed.
00:17:31
We found out that his company was in
00:17:35
debt for almost $40
00:17:38
million. The name of Monakam Stark's
00:17:41
company was Southside
00:17:44
Associates. Southside Associates was
00:17:46
going south. We found out that Southside
00:17:49
Associates was facing foreclosure on
00:17:52
almost half of their buildings. 40
00:17:55
million is a lot of money. And if it's
00:17:57
owed out to the wrong
00:17:59
people and the Russian mob was
00:18:03
involved, now we're kind of getting to
00:18:05
where there might have been a
00:18:13
motive. New York 2014. During a bitter
00:18:16
snowstorm two days into the new year, a
00:18:19
citic businessman Monakam Stark is
00:18:22
kidnapped outside his office and then
00:18:24
brutally murdered. His body is set a
00:18:29
fire and left in a Long Island dumpster.
00:18:34
Detectives from the 90th precinct are
00:18:36
deep into the investigation of their
00:18:38
first murder of the new year and they're
00:18:40
examining the finances of the victim.
00:18:43
Once the financial stuff came back, we
00:18:47
kind of went in a different direction.
00:18:49
It's kind of like, okay, wait a minute,
00:18:51
maybe there is something here. We
00:18:53
started doing different interviews. We
00:18:55
were interviewing business
00:18:58
partners. Once we got into the finance
00:19:00
end of this, um, his wife lawyered up.
00:19:03
They were very guarded on the finance
00:19:05
end of it. We probably did one or two
00:19:08
interviews, but after that, it was talk
00:19:11
to my attorney. Manakam Stark's company,
00:19:14
Southside Associates, is deeply in debt.
00:19:18
It's facing foreclosure on half of its
00:19:21
buildings. In the days before his
00:19:23
murder, Stark argues with his partner,
00:19:26
Israel Pearl, who is also known as Sam.
00:19:31
When Sam found out that Monakam was
00:19:34
taking large sums of money out of the
00:19:36
count, he confronted him. He was not
00:19:40
happy during those times. Their
00:19:43
relationship became
00:19:45
tense. They had joint accounts. They
00:19:48
both had access to the
00:19:50
accounts. Initially, we thought that
00:19:52
they didn't really have to talk too much
00:19:54
about removing money, but interviewing
00:19:56
his partner Sam, we found out, well, not
00:19:58
exactly. They had had a loud
00:20:01
confrontation. They had argued days
00:20:04
before the homicide.
00:20:08
There was a joint account that Monakam
00:20:11
Stark took $300,000 out of without
00:20:14
letting him know. When he went to look
00:20:16
at the account, he thought there was a
00:20:17
lot of money in it and there was no
00:20:19
money left in there. And of course, he
00:20:21
was I rate like anybody would be I
00:20:24
rateate if they saw that much money was
00:20:25
gone. Does business partner Sam
00:20:28
Pearlmutter have a motive for murder?
00:20:31
The murder of Monakam Stark? Speaking
00:20:34
with Mr. promoter. Initially, I got a
00:20:37
little bit of a sense that I wasn't
00:20:38
getting
00:20:39
that full cooperation that I was looking
00:20:42
for. He wasn't being, I don't think, as
00:20:45
forthcoming as
00:20:47
he should have been, knowing that Mr. uh
00:20:50
Stark was murdered.
00:20:52
Sam Pearlmutter's reluctance to
00:20:54
cooperate also makes police suspicious.
00:20:59
Money is kind of a motive in a lot of
00:21:02
homicides. was definitely something that
00:21:04
had to be looked at.
00:21:07
Although he didn't fit the profile or
00:21:09
the stature of the guy that abducted
00:21:12
him, could he in theory have hired some
00:21:14
big goons to kill him? Yes. Police soon
00:21:19
determined Sam Pearlmutter's behavior
00:21:22
seems like someone who is also afraid
00:21:25
for his own life.
00:21:27
He was afraid for his life. He hired
00:21:30
bodyguards. He had people sit outside
00:21:32
his house. He avoided the social events.
00:21:36
He was keeping pretty low key, not being
00:21:39
seen too much in the
00:21:41
area. We asked him where his whereabouts
00:21:43
were that night and his alibi checked
00:21:45
out. His real pearl mutter. He was a he
00:21:48
was a real estate businessman. He wasn't
00:21:50
a killer. So after I believe it was two
00:21:52
interviews, we kind of said, "All right,
00:21:54
this isn't who we're looking for."
00:21:57
Police cannot link Monakam Stark's
00:22:00
financial problems to his murder. So for
00:22:03
now, they must consider Manakum Stark is
00:22:06
targeted solely because of his faith.
00:22:12
There's a lot of anti-semitism events
00:22:15
that actually do happen in the Hidic
00:22:17
neighborhood. You know, rare, but it
00:22:19
does happen. They came to pray and hate
00:22:22
greeted them at the synagogue door early
00:22:24
Friday morning. People in this
00:22:25
tight-knit hidic community saw these
00:22:28
symbols of hate spray painted all over
00:22:30
the neighborhood. But it didn't seem to
00:22:32
be a hate crime. It wasn't like somebody
00:22:35
was walking by somebody and then just,
00:22:38
you know, punched them for no reason or
00:22:40
said something in regards to their
00:22:43
religion. This looked like a targeted
00:22:46
attack. It it it appeared to be a
00:22:49
planned event.
00:22:51
Investigators dig deeper into Monakam
00:22:53
Stark's financial affairs. They discover
00:22:56
he was having trouble borrowing money
00:22:58
from legitimate banks. It got to the
00:23:01
point where he had to go and borrow
00:23:03
money from the Broadway bank in Chicago,
00:23:07
which everybody knew was a mob run bank.
00:23:10
But that's how desperate he got. He
00:23:12
ended up owing the bank $1.5 million,
00:23:16
which he never paid. and that $ 1.5
00:23:19
million contributed to the bank closing
00:23:22
and going out of business.
00:23:24
The intense press coverage generates
00:23:27
many, many tips. It turns out it's not
00:23:31
just a mobbacked bank to which Monakam
00:23:35
Stark owes money. We received something
00:23:38
on Reddit. Somebody posted that the
00:23:41
Russian mob killed Monakam Stark. What
00:23:45
we had found out from sources in the
00:23:48
community is that the Russian mob had
00:23:51
made loans to the Hida community. There
00:23:53
was deals made between the
00:23:57
two. But once the Russian mob was
00:24:00
mentioned, now it's kind of like, okay,
00:24:03
wait a minute, maybe there is something
00:24:05
here. The Russian mob, they're going to
00:24:07
come and break a couple of legs. They're
00:24:09
going to break an arm. They're going to
00:24:10
threaten. They want their money.
00:24:14
Manakov Stark's downward financial
00:24:16
spiral does not end with the Russian
00:24:19
mob.
00:24:21
We know that he borrowed money from
00:24:24
Russian mob members and then he also
00:24:26
borrowed money from Lone Shark in the
00:24:29
Hidic community that apparently he lent
00:24:32
money to Monakam to pay back the Russian
00:24:35
gangster. Angry tenants, underworld
00:24:38
bankers, Russian mobsters, a lone shark.
00:24:43
The list of people who have potential
00:24:46
issues with Monakam Stark keeps getting
00:24:50
longer. And it's all summed up in an
00:24:53
outrageous headline from our friends at
00:24:56
the New York Post. Who didn't want him
00:24:59
dead? Well, when that paper hit the
00:25:02
stands, to say it created a firestorm
00:25:04
would be an understatement. The Hidic
00:25:07
community was up in arms. They were
00:25:09
calling the switchboard at the New York
00:25:11
Post. They were complaining, "How could
00:25:14
you write such a thing?" Jewish
00:25:15
community leaders and elected officials
00:25:17
are outraged after the New York Post
00:25:20
controversial coverage of a man's
00:25:22
murder. In America, if you are a bad
00:25:26
landlord, you go to housing court, not
00:25:29
the mall. None of the tenants would say
00:25:31
that I would have killed him. No, they
00:25:33
would have not have killed him. You
00:25:35
know, most of the times uh you know, we
00:25:38
have a case, it's one little article and
00:25:41
something else happens and that case
00:25:43
sort of goes to the back burner. This
00:25:45
case, it seems like it was, you know, it
00:25:47
was coming out of a fire
00:25:49
hose. The detectives in Brooklyn North
00:25:52
homicide, the bosses are yelling at
00:25:54
them, "When are we going to solve this?
00:25:56
When are we going to solve it?" and they
00:25:58
just put their head down and they just
00:25:59
continue to to grind and grind and
00:26:02
grind. The suspect pool expands because
00:26:06
of the financial investigation.
00:26:08
Detectives begin zeroing in on Manakam
00:26:11
Stark's dubious lenders. Starting with
00:26:15
the Russian mob,
00:26:19
we actually located that Russian mobster
00:26:21
and first of all, he wasn't in the
00:26:23
country at the time of the murder. And
00:26:25
then when we did interview him, he says
00:26:26
that he did lend money to Monakam Stark,
00:26:29
but it was paid back. And then in
00:26:32
further investigation, there was another
00:26:34
male, Abe Hoffman, who was a lone shark
00:26:38
in the acidic
00:26:40
community. Then obviously we looked at
00:26:42
Abe Hoffman, and he just recently lent
00:26:46
the money to Monakam, and he's like,
00:26:49
he's not even defaulted on the loan yet.
00:26:51
like why would I kill him if he hasn't
00:26:53
passed the due date yet? We quickly
00:26:55
dismissed him as a subject in the
00:27:01
homicide. Pretty much everywhere we're
00:27:04
going, we're coming up with nothing. So,
00:27:07
we are under pressure from the police
00:27:10
department. We're under pressure from
00:27:11
city hall. We're under pressure from the
00:27:14
DA's
00:27:15
office. And we're just we're not coming
00:27:18
up with anything solid. We had
00:27:21
eliminated the tenants. We had
00:27:23
eliminated the business partner. We had
00:27:25
eliminated the Russian mob. So now it's
00:27:28
becoming
00:27:30
frustrating. The detectives
00:27:32
investigating the case when we started
00:27:35
to say, you know, we got to rethink this
00:27:36
a little bit. Police return to the scene
00:27:40
of the kidnap. They canvas the area
00:27:42
around Monakam Stark's office once
00:27:45
again. It's routine investigative work,
00:27:48
but it's about to pay off. We send out
00:27:52
people that do verbal canvases where you
00:27:54
know, did anybody see anything? Did
00:27:56
anybody hear anything? Also video
00:27:58
canvases. And that's when we found that
00:28:00
piece of video. Now it's game on.
00:28:09
In 2014, New Yorkers demand justice.
00:28:13
They are mesmerized when a hidic
00:28:16
businessman is kidnapped during a New
00:28:19
Year's blizzard and then violently
00:28:22
murdered. The investigation leads police
00:28:25
on a wild goose chase of low lives. From
00:28:29
Russian mobsters to notorious lone
00:28:32
sharks, detectives are stuck with a real
00:28:35
life who done it. That's until they take
00:28:38
another look, a careful look at the
00:28:41
surveillance cameras that were operating
00:28:43
the night of the murder. There's a lot
00:28:46
of video that's available to us from all
00:28:49
different places. It's a matter of just
00:28:51
going out there and looking for it.
00:28:54
We received video from down the block
00:28:57
from NAM Stark's office and what it
00:29:00
showed was a light colored minivan.
00:29:05
They look very similar to the minivan
00:29:08
that abducted Manakam
00:29:13
Stark. By
00:29:15
bringing some of the stills to
00:29:19
Autoprime, they were able to make the
00:29:21
model year of the minivan. So now that
00:29:25
really kind of gives us something else
00:29:27
to explore. That's solid. We know it's
00:29:29
that van. It's a 2002 light colored
00:29:33
Dodge Caravan and it's been parked near
00:29:36
Monakam Stark's workplace for 6 hours
00:29:39
before the kidnap. We needed to figure
00:29:42
out how they were keeping track of
00:29:44
Monakam's movements and how they would
00:29:47
have known on a snowy night at 11:30 at
00:29:49
night he was going to be in his office.
00:29:52
They're wondering there's something more
00:29:55
whoever kidnapped Monakam did he have
00:29:57
another way of tracking him?
00:30:02
We theorized that there was a tracking
00:30:04
device in Manakam Stark's car.
00:30:08
January 10, 7 days after the murder,
00:30:11
detective Sam Monakam Stark's vehicle to
00:30:14
their lab for
00:30:16
analysis. They put it up on a lift and
00:30:19
there it was. There was a cell phone
00:30:21
that was uh taped to the gas tank of the
00:30:24
car. That's where the investigation
00:30:26
really, really took off. The cell phone
00:30:28
planted on Monakam Stark's car is a
00:30:31
gamecher.
00:30:34
[Music]
00:30:36
And now we do subpoenas on the cell
00:30:38
phone. We find out the owner of the cell
00:30:40
phone is a man named Jeff Cely. This
00:30:43
guy's got to be
00:30:46
interviewed. And when we went to speak
00:30:48
to Jeff Cely and he's like, "Yeah, it's
00:30:51
a phone that's on my family plan." I'm
00:30:53
like, "Well, any idea why it was stuck
00:30:56
to a murder victim's gas
00:31:01
tank?" The story that he tells us is
00:31:04
that one of the guys that work for him
00:31:07
asks him to get him a cell phone. The
00:31:10
reason he needs a cell phone is because
00:31:11
he feels that the girl he's dating is
00:31:13
cheating on him and he wants to be able
00:31:16
to track her through the Sprint family
00:31:19
tracking plan through the phone. It was
00:31:22
too good of a story to to make up. He's
00:31:24
like, "Oh, last time I gave that phone,
00:31:26
I gave it to a friend of mine, Erkstein,
00:31:29
Felix." So once we have Erkstein,
00:31:32
Felix's name, does anybody in his family
00:31:35
or does he own a white van that's
00:31:38
similar to the one that was used in the
00:31:41
abduction?
00:31:43
And it turns out that his father, Philip
00:31:45
Felix, was the one who was registered to
00:31:48
a van that looked just like the car that
00:31:50
was used in the Manakam Starks
00:31:52
abduction. That's a solid piece of
00:31:54
evidence. We know that that van was
00:31:56
involved. If we can find the van, then
00:31:59
that's going to help us out.
00:32:02
So then when we ran the van, we noticed
00:32:05
the numerous tickets on it. We impounded
00:32:07
it for tickets.
00:32:09
The van is impounded. NYPD forensics
00:32:12
examined the vehicle for evidence and
00:32:14
it's a gold mine. We found cash check
00:32:18
duct tape and we found zip ties and we
00:32:22
also found a substantial amount of blood
00:32:24
in there. And ultimately after a DNA
00:32:26
analysis we found out that it's Monakum
00:32:29
Snarks. So now we know we have the van,
00:32:32
we have the cell phone, and now we got
00:32:35
kind of a good idea where we're going
00:32:37
with this.
00:32:38
Philip Felix actually came in looking
00:32:40
for the van. And he wanted to know, you
00:32:42
know, why did you take the van and can I
00:32:44
get it back? And he's like, I don't use
00:32:47
the van. My sons use the van. They use
00:32:50
it for construction. We need the van
00:32:52
back because that's how they make their
00:32:54
money. During the course of the
00:32:57
interview, Mr. Felix explained to me
00:32:59
that he did have some type of dealings
00:33:01
with Manakam
00:33:03
Stark, that he was involved in
00:33:06
construction himself as well as his son,
00:33:10
and they in fact had worked for Monakum
00:33:13
at some point. Police obtain a subpoena
00:33:15
for Erskin Felix's phone records and
00:33:18
they discover he contacted his brother
00:33:21
Kendall and his two cousins, Kendall
00:33:25
Felix and Irvin Henry. Police subpoena
00:33:29
their phone records as well. We were
00:33:31
able to pinpoint where those phones were
00:33:34
at that particular night of the Monakam
00:33:37
Stark murder. We were able to put them
00:33:40
in the vicinity of the crime on those
00:33:42
specific night.
00:33:44
Phones are very big when it comes to
00:33:46
homicide because everybody has their
00:33:48
phones now. Like it's the new smoking
00:33:50
gun. The decisions made that we're going
00:33:52
to pick them up individually and take
00:33:54
them into different
00:33:58
precincts. So this way there's no chance
00:34:01
of putting a story together. There's no
00:34:03
chance of listen, this is what I'm going
00:34:06
to say, this is what you should say.
00:34:08
We're we're going to get a story from
00:34:09
each one of them and then we'll compare
00:34:12
the stories and try and figure out who's
00:34:14
possibly telling us the truth and who's
00:34:15
not.
00:34:17
Two suspects brought into the 90th
00:34:19
precinct in Brooklyn. Two are brought
00:34:22
into the 79th precinct.
00:34:27
Stein Felix, he denied everything. We
00:34:30
confronted him with the phone. We said
00:34:32
to him, "Oh, do you know Manakam Stark?"
00:34:36
And he's like, "Yeah, I love Monaco. You
00:34:38
know, I I treat him like a dad. In fact,
00:34:42
I protect him from people that are
00:34:45
trying to hurt him because he's got a
00:34:47
lot of money and tenants don't like
00:34:49
him." Stein said he was with his
00:34:52
girlfriend all all night. There's no way
00:34:54
he could have killed Monakam Stark. His
00:34:56
phone wasn't with his girlfriend. It was
00:34:58
pinging right where the abduction took
00:35:01
place.
00:35:05
We know that it was [ __ ] but he
00:35:07
kept with his story that he had nothing
00:35:08
to do with it.
00:35:11
Erskin Felix's brother Kendall and his
00:35:14
cousins Irvin and Kandell are just as
00:35:17
tight lipped. Detectives know they don't
00:35:20
have enough evidence to make arrests.
00:35:22
It's all circumstantial at this point.
00:35:25
They need one of the suspects to crack.
00:35:28
Kendelle is the youngest of the four.
00:35:31
from experienced detectives. Usually the
00:35:33
youngest of the four might be the
00:35:36
weakest
00:35:37
link. We spent probably an hour just
00:35:41
talking to him about his background,
00:35:44
sports, just to kind of break the ice to
00:35:46
get him to feel comfortable with
00:35:48
us. So it was about 6:30 and we knew
00:35:52
that Kendall hadn't had dinner. And he
00:35:55
looked at me, he said, "You know, I
00:35:56
really just want to go home and eat my
00:35:58
mother's cooking." And I kind of looked
00:36:01
back at him and I said, "Uh, I don't
00:36:03
think that's going to happen anytime
00:36:05
soon." And from his facial expression
00:36:08
and his body language, I knew I I had
00:36:11
hit a nerve. I knew something was up.
00:36:14
Kendall, uh, he was the driver of the
00:36:17
the van that night. He actually he
00:36:20
broke. He said, "Listen, it was all
00:36:23
Erkstein's plan. He owed us
00:36:26
$20,000."
00:36:27
Erskin was having problems with Mr.
00:36:30
Stark. Erskin had not been paid for a
00:36:34
job or some type of construction
00:36:37
work. The night of when this kidnapping
00:36:40
took place that he told Kendall,
00:36:42
"Tonight is the night that we're getting
00:36:45
paid." He gave us everything.
00:36:57
Christmas 2013 places too much financial
00:37:01
pressure on construction worker Erskin
00:37:04
Felix. He doesn't want to be broke over
00:37:07
the
00:37:08
holidays. During a New Year's snowstorm,
00:37:11
Felix thinks he can safely shake down
00:37:15
businessman and landlord Manakam Stark,
00:37:18
who owes him money. When Stark's half
00:37:22
burned body is found in a Long Island
00:37:24
dumpster, it's a grim sign of a New
00:37:27
Year's gone very wrong.
00:37:30
Kendall laid the whole thing out.
00:37:33
Appeared to be a robbery that went
00:37:37
wrong. The dispute started to escalate
00:37:40
sometime in
00:37:43
November. The phone was placed on the
00:37:46
car sometime in late November. At that
00:37:49
point they were tracking him.
00:37:52
Monakam had owed Erskin the money for
00:37:54
some time and Erskin was getting
00:37:57
frustrated uh to the point of he was now
00:38:00
actually getting mad. Erskin needed
00:38:03
money to have a Christmas for his
00:38:06
family. Finally, right after New Year's,
00:38:08
Erskin had reached a boiling point.
00:38:13
So Manakob Stark was behind in paying
00:38:16
these guys about $20,000 for their work.
00:38:19
And they came up with a plan. If he's
00:38:21
not going to give him the money, we're
00:38:22
going to take it from him. They decide
00:38:24
to do it on a snowy night right after
00:38:26
New Year's. They thought, you know, with
00:38:28
all the snow, the cops weren't going to
00:38:29
be out. It would have been a good night
00:38:31
to get away with something like that.
00:38:33
They didn't expect him to fight as
00:38:35
violently as as he did, and the plan
00:38:39
just went really bad from there.
00:38:42
Kendall said that he was the driver.
00:38:45
Erskin was out in the snow with him
00:38:46
fighting. Erskin told him, "You got to
00:38:48
put hands on him, too. Let's let's go."
00:38:50
They were able to get him into the van.
00:38:53
At that point, Mr. Stark was still
00:38:55
fighting Erskin in the back of the van.
00:38:57
As they pulled away from the office, at
00:39:01
some point, Stark stopped fighting.
00:39:03
Stark stopped breathing. There was panic
00:39:06
in the van. Kendall didn't know what to
00:39:09
do. Erskin and Kendell Felix are also
00:39:13
part of a close-knit family who are
00:39:15
immigrants from St. Lucia. When they
00:39:18
panic, they recruit Erskin's brother
00:39:21
Kendall and cousin Irvin Henry.
00:39:27
Henry at the time said that he opened up
00:39:30
the van and saw the body in there. He's
00:39:34
like, I, you know, I want no part of
00:39:35
this. And and he left. The three of them
00:39:39
along with Mr. Stark drove back near the
00:39:43
location of uh Mr. Stark's office and uh
00:39:47
Kendall indicated at that point uh the
00:39:50
block was uh closed off and there was uh
00:39:53
police activity over by Mr. Stark's uh
00:39:56
office at that time. The Felix family is
00:40:00
desperate to remove evidence at the
00:40:02
scene. The cell phone they used as a
00:40:04
tracker on Monocus Stark's car. Erstein
00:40:08
ordered them to stop a couple blocks
00:40:10
away from the murder scene. That's when
00:40:13
he got out of the car and he tried to go
00:40:15
see if he could retrieve the phone from
00:40:16
underneath Monakam Stark's car. He said
00:40:20
it was too hot, too many cops around. So
00:40:23
then he never got back to the van. He
00:40:24
called up Kendall and told him to drive
00:40:27
the body out to Long Island and dispose
00:40:29
of it.
00:40:32
It was never really explained why uh
00:40:35
that location was picked, but they they
00:40:38
drove uh Mr. Stark's body and it seems
00:40:42
that they just picked this gas station
00:40:44
and deposited Mr. uh uh Stark's body in
00:40:48
that dumpster and they were able to
00:40:51
obtain some gasoline and then uh took
00:40:54
that gasoline that they purchased and
00:40:56
went back to the location and ignited
00:40:59
the dumpster on
00:41:01
fire and drove back to Brooklyn that
00:41:03
night.
00:41:05
Kendell Felix is arrested on murder
00:41:07
charges. He says he'll never testify
00:41:10
against family in court. Without that
00:41:14
testimony, detectives won't have a case
00:41:16
against Erskin, Kendall, and Henry
00:41:19
Irvin. Although he implicated other
00:41:22
people, um you can't just arrest people
00:41:25
based on what they call a co-conspirator
00:41:29
statement. So, unfortunately, we had to
00:41:32
let uh everybody go except for Kendall.
00:41:39
It was an empty feeling, but you know
00:41:41
that happens sometimes when you're
00:41:43
investigating murders. Like you have to
00:41:45
have patience. You can't just throw
00:41:47
somebody in jail because you think they
00:41:49
did the murder. You have to have a
00:41:51
prosecutable case against them. So you
00:41:53
sometimes it takes a little longer to
00:41:56
gather that evidence to put those people
00:41:58
on trial.
00:42:00
Kandell Felix spends 11 months in jail,
00:42:04
but then he finally decides to testify
00:42:07
against the others in exchange for a
00:42:10
lenient sentence.
00:42:12
Originally, Kendelle, he told them what
00:42:14
had happened that night. He said he
00:42:16
would not testify against his relatives.
00:42:19
when he was getting ready to go to
00:42:21
trial, his lawyer told him like uh if
00:42:24
he's convicted of murder, he would be
00:42:27
facing 25 years to life. At that point,
00:42:30
he decided to cooperate police and uh
00:42:34
testify against his
00:42:41
relatives, but he did give us a good
00:42:43
story of who was involved and who went
00:42:46
where. And everything that Kendall told
00:42:49
us was corroborated through other means
00:42:53
uh electronically and forensically to
00:42:56
piece together this crime to make it a
00:42:58
solid case. Erskin Felix is charged with
00:43:00
murder and kidnapping. Kendall is
00:43:03
charged with hindering prosecution and
00:43:05
tampering with physical evidence. Their
00:43:07
arrest come nearly 3 years after the
00:43:10
crime. Kendall Felix and Erskin Felix
00:43:13
are both convicted of Manakam Stark's
00:43:16
murder. Erskin sentenced to 24 years to
00:43:19
life behind bars. His brother Kendall
00:43:23
pleads guilty to conspiracy and
00:43:25
hindering prosecution. He's sentenced to
00:43:28
2 and 12 to 7 years. Cousin Kandell
00:43:32
given a reduced sentence of 15 years to
00:43:35
life. Irvin Henry pleads guilty to
00:43:39
tampering with physical evidence and a
00:43:41
sentence to just 3 months in jail. We
00:43:45
cannot bring you back. Well, definitely
00:43:47
the family will always be broken and our
00:43:50
family will never be the same as it was
00:43:52
in the past. Whether it's Hanukkah,
00:43:54
Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, you
00:43:56
know, whatever holiday it is, if you
00:43:58
lost a family member right before any
00:44:01
holiday, I don't think it's something
00:44:02
you forget. It's something that you're
00:44:04
going to be reminded of every year. In
00:44:06
the end, the murder of family man and
00:44:09
businessman Stark is supposed to be a
00:44:13
smaller crime which goes horribly wrong.
00:44:16
Its lurid details captivate the city of
00:44:20
New York with its real life drama of
00:44:23
crime and a tragic way to ring in the
00:44:27
new
00:44:28
year. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for
00:44:31
joining us here on the Christmas
00:44:33
killings.
00:44:49
[Music]
00:44:56
Heat. Heat.
