Brooklyn real estate developer Menachem Stark went missing during a blizzard in January of 2014.

Responding to a call from his worried family at around 2 a.m. on January 3, officers went to his office to check on him. Surveillance cameras showed Stark leaving his Williamsburg office building and walking toward his car at 11:48 p.m. on January 2.

“This large male grabbed him in a bear hug. A violent struggle ensued,” said John Tennant, a now-retired detective lieutenant with the New York City Police Department’s Brooklyn North Homicide Squad.  

Footage also showed a second man help to subdue Stark, who was wrestled into a light-colored minivan. Police searched the scene, where they turned up duct tape and zip ties. 

“It was a targeted attack,” Tennant added in the “Abducted in Williamsburg” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen. 

Stark’s car was impounded and processed and no evidence was found at that time. But the vehicle would later become key to the case.

Stark had a heated exchange with his business partner Israel Perlmutter, who’d learned that Stark withdrew $300,000 from their business account. 

But detectives looked into the argument and corroborated Perlmutter’s alibi. “We needed to find different avenues to look into,” Fahrbach told New York Homicide.

Menachem Stark’s burned body found  

At 4 p.m. on January 4, NYPD investigators were called by the Nassau County Police Department. A burned body had been found in a gas station dumpster in Great Neck, Long Island. 

The male victim was dressed in Hasidic garb. Since Stark’s disappearance had been widely circulated, police on Long Island “put two and two together,” said Christopher Scarry, now retired as a detective with the NYPD’s 90th Precinct in Brooklyn.

The body was determined to be Stark’s, and the autopsy showed that he was dead before being incinerated. “The medical examiner found he died of compression asphyxiation,” Tennant said. “It’s like somebody is sitting on your chest, and then you can’t breathe.”

In observance of Jewish tradition, Stark was buried immediately. Otherwise, “the soul cannot ascend to heaven,” said Ezra Friedlander, CEO of the Friedlander Group, which provides government and public relations counsel to non-profit organizations.

Menachem Stark’s business found to be in debt

Investigators intensified their focus on Stark’s finances to learn why he withdrew $300,000 from his business account. They discovered that his business was $40 million in debt.

“There were loans that he took out that he defaulted on, yet he was still seeking out new loans for his business to purchase new buildings,” Tennant said.

Perlmutter acknowledged that the loans had come from a loan shark in the Russian mafia, according to Fonrouge. When investigators questioned the Russian mobster involved, he acknowledged lending Stark money. He also had an alibi for the time that Stark vanished, as he was in Russia.

Menachem Stark’s case becomes media sensation

On January 5, the New York Post covered the homicide with a provocative front-page headline suggesting that Stark had many enemies. It read: “Who Didn’t Want Him Dead?”

The paper’s sources “said that Stark was like a slumlord and tenants hated him,” Tennant said.

The reports put detectives in the hot seat with higher-ups who were demanding answers, according to Fonrouge. “We explained that we did interview the tenants,” Scarry said.

“What we found was that many of the tenants were incredibly dissatisfied with their living conditions in his buildings,” Fahrbach said.

But after an exhaustive look into a landlord-tenant dispute as a motive for the murder, police moved on from this line of investigation.

Detectives turn focus to Long Island

Security footage taken from a gas station near the dumpster where Stark’s burned body was found on Long Island showed a silver minivan like the one he’d had been thrown into on January 2. 

It was determined to be a 1994 Dodge Caravan with Pennsylvania plates. But detailed information couldn’t be obtained from the grainy recording. 

Detectives questioned how Stark’s murderers knew his whereabouts on the night he was killed. He may have been tracked, an investigator suggested.

Stark’s car was processed again, and a cell phone was found taped to the underside of the vehicle. 

Investigators determined that the phone subscriber was in the construction business. The subscriber told police that he had a family plan and had given the phone to a friend. That man, Erskine Felix, claimed that he’d wanted the phone to track his girlfriend, Fahrbach said.

Erskine Felix emerges as mastermind of the crime

Using the phone’s history, police tied Erskine Felix to three other men — his brother, Kendall Felix, and his cousins, Kendel Felix and Irvine Henry.

“They all do construction, and they all work for Menachem Stark,” Tennant said.

Erskine Felix, police discovered, had a silver minivan registered in his name with Pennsylvania plates. “This was a eureka moment,” said Fahrbach.

Detectives impounded Erskine Felix’s vehicle. Bloody carpet patches, zip ties, duct tape and a check made out to Menachem Stark were all collected from the vehicle. 

Two weeks later, forensics analysis matched the blood from the van to Stark. On April 30, police questioned the four suspects.

Police believed that Erskine Felix was the mastermind. He denied any wrongdoing and instead expressed his fondness for Stark, according to New York Homicide. Kendall Felix and Henry didn’t reveal anything either. 

One suspect spills details of the crime 

But Kendel Felix, the youngest suspect at age 26, broke under pressure. “What Kendel tells them is that these four individuals had done business with Menachem,” Fonrouge said. “There was a $20,000 bill that hadn’t gotten paid.”

The plan was to rough up Stark and intimidate him into paying them back, Kendel Felix told investigators. “He tells us his cousin, Erskine, is, like, ‘We’re going over there and getting my money,’” said Scarry. 

Erskine Felix and Kendel Felix abducted Stark, according to Kendel Felix’s account. Kendel Felix said he drove while Erskine Felix pinned Stark down by sitting on his chest. When they reached Henry’s house, Stark was dead due to Erskine Felix restraining him. Erskine Felix enlisted his brother, Kendall Felix, and cousin Kendel Felix, to drive the body to Long Island and dispose of it, said Tennant.

Arrests made in Menachem Stark’s abduction and murder

Police arrested Kendel Felix on the spot but needed more evidence to charge the other suspects. Using cellphone histories, police tied the pieces together. 

“We were able to put Erskine and Kendel at the abduction site,” said Tennant. “Then we were able to put Kendel and Kendall at the dump site.”

In September of 2016, Kendel Felix was tried and convicted of kidnapping and second-degree murder. In exchange for a 15-year sentence, he agreed to testify against Erskine Felix, Kendall Felix, and Herny. 

The other three co-conspirators were arrested. In March of 2019, Kendall Felix and Henry pleaded guilty for their roles in the crime and took plea deals. Henry was sentenced to three months, and Kendall to two to seven years.

When Erskine Felix stood trial later in March of 2019, his three accomplices testified against him. He was found guilty of Stark’s murder and was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

To learn more about the case, watch the “Abducted in Williamsburg” episode of New York Homicide. The series airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.