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Brooklyn Family Man Kidnapped, Brutally Murdered

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The charred, burned body of a Brooklyn landlord who had been kidnapped earlier in the week was found in a commercial trash bin in Great Neck, less than one day after he was abducted, authorities said on Saturday, January 4, 2014.

Police in Nassau County identified the victim as Menachem “Max” Stark, 39. Stark had owned real estate, mainly rental properties, in Brooklyn, authorities said.

New York Newsday reported that Stark’s body was found shortly before 4 p.m. on Friday, January 3, 2014. The grim discovery was made after a Getty gas station owner at Cutter Mill Road detected a foul smell and called police, who made the discovery, according to sources.

The remains had been partially burned, according to one law enforcement source. To date, the motive for the crime remains unclear.

According to police, grainy surveillance video shows kidnappers wrestling Stark into a minivan during the blizzard this past Thursday night, January 2, 2014. This occurred near Stark’s business office at 331 Rutledge St. The video captures the minivan driving away.

The NYPD said Stark may have been carrying a large amount of cash. Initially it was reported that he had as much as $4,000 in cash on him at the time of his abduction.

When Stark’s family didn’t hear from him, the Hasidic Jewish family residing in Williamsburg first notified the Shomrim, a volunteer patrol in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and then called the NYPD about 2:30 a.m. Friday, Newsday reported.

The NYPD and Nassau police will likely conduct a joint investigation into the kidnapping and homicide, according to a New York City law enforcement official.

Stark was married and is survived by seven children, the youngest of which is two years old. His brother-in-law, Abraham Buxbaum,  who is married to Stark’s sister,  told Algemeiner.com that while he and other family members would help take care of the children, “life will never be the same without Menachem.”

“We will all be helping out, we will do our best, but no-one can replace a husband and father,” he said.

Buxbaum also remembered Stark as generous. People came to Stark who needed help buying food, paying their rent, marrying off children, paying medical bills and more, he told Algemeiner.com. “The one and only thing that everyone said, is that his answer was always ‘no problem,’ no-one ever got a no from him,” Buxbaum said, adding that Stark himself would never talk about his charitable activities.

Marcos Masri, 30, of Williamsburg, told Newsday that he has known the family his entire life. Stark’s father is a teacher at a local Hebrew school, Masri reportedly said, and he’s known Stark and his brothers and sisters for years.

Masri described Stark’s family as friendly and generous, saying they would go out of their way to help people in need.

The owner of the Getty gas station where Stark’s body was found, Fernando Cerff, told Newsday that he and his workers were plowing snow Friday morning when they saw smoke rising from a steel trash container outside.

Cerff told Newsday that they initially disregarded the smoke because they had assumed that it was a burning cigarette. Workers tossed snow into the bin to extinguish it, Cerff reportedly said.

But Cerff said that the smell in the bin grew increasingly worse and that is what led him to call police by Friday afternoon.

Because of strict Sabbath observances, many in Stark’s neighborhood didn’t know he’d been found dead until after sundown on Saturday, January 4, 2013.

Members of the Satmar Hasidic sect to which Stark belonged then flocked to the family home on Rutledge Street. Inside, a woman on the second floor cried and rocked back and forth, head in her hands.

Isaac Abraham, a community leader in the Satmar Hasidic sect that Stark belonged to, told Newsday that the religious community was in shock. “We have full trust and faith in NYC law enforcement to bring these murderers to justice,” he reportedly said in a statement.

Joseph Kohn, of Williamsburg, who attended synagogue with Stark, described him as a “family man, generous, nice” with a “captivating presence.”

A funeral service for Stark began shortly before 9 pm on Saturday in Williamsburg with hundreds of mourners gathered outside in the cold, filling a portion of Marcy Avenue near Hooper Street.

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