While there were many outlandish theories about why Menachem Stark, a Hasidic real-estate developer, was killed during a January snowstorm, it appears it was just a botched robbery. Earlier this week, police were questioning three suspects about the crime, and on Thursday, Kendal Felix, a 26-year-old Brooklyn construction worker, was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping.
According to the criminal complaint, Felix told investigators that he and another person forced Stark into a minivan outside his office, and Stark died during the abduction. His charred body was found the next day in a dumpster outside a Long Island gas station. A police official told the New York Times that it appears Felix and his accomplice had no business dealings with Stark, but they had probably heard of his wealth from colleagues. “This was simply an individual…who knew [Stark] had money on him,” Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind said after Thursday’s court hearing. “It was a robbery. That’s all it was.”
