This July marks two years since a Recent York girl used to be found pointless at the bottom of a luxury Manhattan constructing’s trash chute, and while officers acquire found no indicators of spoiled play in her loss of life, her distraught family believes she used to be murdered.
Lara Prychodko, 48, died decrease than a month after she smartly-known her birthday in Paris and Ibiza with chums. Her body used to be found at the bottom of the trash chute after plummeting from the 27th floor of the Zeckendorf Towers in Union Sq., the set up she used to be living at the time.
NYPD considered safety photographs that confirmed Lara entering the constructing at 4: 10 p.m. on July 10, 2018, and getting on the elevator by herself.
Lara’s father, Nicholas Prychodko, instructed Dateline that earlier that day, Lara had long gone to a nearby bar to see the World Cup semi-finals.
“Her grandfather is French and he or she speaks French,” Prychodko said. “So she used to be a mountainous fan.”
France beat Belgium in the semi-finals match that day, and Prychodko said his daughter used to be overjoyed.
“The doorman said she used to be contented. She used to be high-fiving them,” Prychodko said. “All of them loved her because, you know, she used to be actual so friendly and nice.”
A neighbor on the 27th floor later instructed police that she received dwelling around 4: 20 p.m. and observed nothing amiss in the hallway, which had no safety digital camera, as she walked to her acquire condominium. Ten minutes later, the identical neighbor said she heard loud noises in the hallway and stepped out to evaluate.
She said she didn’t leer anybody, but saw a purse on the ground outdoor the trash compactor entrance. Police later known the purse as belonging to Lara.
Comely minutes later, at 4: 40 p.m., a upkeep employee checked the trash compactor, which had change into jammed. That’s when he found Lara’s overwhelmed body.
After a rapid investigation, the NYPD definite no criminal process used to be enthusiastic. Lara had a blood alcohol level of .29 at the time of her loss of life, and the NYC Space of industrial of Chief Scientific Examiner concluded that “the conditions across the loss of life are unclear; on the opposite hand there’s rarely this form of thing as a suspicion of spoiled play.” The form of loss of life used to be listed as “undetermined.”
Lara’s father, on the opposite hand, refuses to mediate her loss of life used to be a drunken mistake and maintains his perception that she used to be murdered.
“What may perchance perchance acquire happened to her?” Prychodko asked. “Used to be it a suicide? It’s now not doubtless. That’s now not Lara. Used to be it an accident? I very rapid grew to alter into convinced that there used to be most efficient one plausible clarification for what took region. And that’s homicide.”
He defined that the trash chute at Zeckendorf Towers used to be about 15” by 18” with a door, and that his daughter used to be 5’10,” wide, which he believed would accumulate it very now not actually for her to actual fall in and even are trying suicide.
In 2019, Prychodko sought relief from dilapidated Recent York Metropolis Chief Scientific Examiner Michael Baden. Baden these days made headlines after concluding that Jeffrey Epstein’s accidents were “extra indicative” of homicide than the suicide resolution made in the respectable autopsy document.
Dateline considered a letter that Baden sent to the Prychodko family after he had reviewed autopsy notes, lab assessments, crime scene photos and x-rays.
In the July 15, 2019 document, Baden definite that Lara Prychodko “may perchance impartial acquire died attributable to homicidal ligature strangulation and used to be then positioned in the rubbish chute.”
The document furthermore acknowledged that the strangulation “may perchance impartial furthermore bid why there used to be exiguous bleeding from the lacerated viscera and torn blood vessels notorious at autopsy.”
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Nicholas Prychodko instructed Dateline that Baden furthermore talked just a few photo from the scene that confirmed Lara without her shirt.
“Lara’s shirt is torn from her body,” Prychodko said. “And that to him is a signal that there may perchance perchance were a battle against the assailant.”
Lara’s father submitted Baden’s findings to the Recent York County District Attorney’s Space of industrial and the NYC Space of industrial of the Scientific Examiner and requested that her case be reopened.
Despite Baden’s findings, the metropolis’s Space of industrial of the Chief Scientific Examiner instructed Prychodko in a letter considered by Dateline, that the medical examiner “found no indicators of spoiled play on your daughter’s loss of life,” and has definite to face by its earlier findings and never reopen the investigation.
Lara’s father instructed Dateline that ahead of her loss of life, she used to be going by an acrimonious divorce with estranged husband David Schlachet, who owns a Manhattan constructing firm. The couple fought over hundreds of thousands of bucks in property, together with a dwelling in the Hamptons and two residences in Manhattan, he said.
They’ve a son together, who is now 14 years aged. Lara had lost custody of her son attributable to a DUI build, her father said. He added that ahead of her loss of life, Lara had been granted visitation rights and used to be scheduled to explore her son the day after she died.
In an e-mail sent to Dateline, Schlachet acknowledged “I will be succesful to most efficient advise that my divorce -contend with so many- used to be a painful and unhappy ride to battle by with any individual I had loved so deeply. But that would now not diminish the peril and trauma our son and I acquire skilled by the tragic
loss of our wife and mother, Lara. It is a distress that we’re both aloof finding out to contend with and which we can both carry with us eternally.”
Lara’s father instructed Dateline that he’s definite to build up justice for his daughter and talks about the impact she had on so many other folk.
“She shaped both the foundation of my formative adult existence and now she’s shaping how I utilize the remaining years of my existence,” he said. “She has made a wide impact in my existence, and furthermore in so many other lives by the route of her acquire, all-too-rapid existence.”
Lara grew up in Toronto, Canada the set up she attended the Etobicoke Faculty for the Arts and then went on to the University of Toronto. Her father said she used to be very protective of her younger siblings.
“Even though you may imagine that she may perchance perchance furthermore be a exiguous bit bossy at instances,” Prychodko said, laughing. “She had this contented childhood. I keep in mind spending summers at the lake — renting cottages by the lake going fishing, canoeing, swimming.”
Correct kind after faculty, Lara moved to Recent York Metropolis. Lara held many roles as she worked against success in the metropolis. She grew to alter into an tournament organizer and worked with company organizations, together with WebMD, the set up she met CEO Wayne Gattinella, whom she used to be relationship at the time of her loss of life, in accordance to her chums and family.
“Lara used to be extremely sociable,” her father said. “She had wide interpersonal expertise and networking expertise, which is what helped to build up her so successful.”
Lara’s sister, Talya, who aloof lives in Toronto, instructed Dateline the two were extremely conclude.
“She used to be my most efficient buddy,” Talya said. “She used to be kind and beneficiant and found the excellent kind in everyone. She used to be a excellent making an attempt soul.”
If Lara were aloof alive, she would acquire became 50 on June 23. Talya instructed Dateline she has linked Lara’s chums from all the draw in which by the world to share reports of Lara and to acquire a excellent time her existence.
“She touched so many other folk’s lives in the heart of her time right here,” Talya said. “She used to be a social person and he or she strived to encompass herself with folk of influence, now not affluence.”
Talya said she remaining spoke to Lara on her birthday at the end of June, actual ahead of she died.
“I will be succesful to’t mediate that’s the remaining time I heard her train,” Talya said. “I don’t know are living without her. There’s a gap in my heart now that can by no manner be stuffed.”
Talya said she would contend with justice for her sister’s loss of life and closure for the family, especially Lara’s son.
“It’s haunting to mediate my sister’s closing moments,” Talya said. “You don’t actual lumber and fall into a trash chute. Something genuinely unpleasant happened to her that day. And right here is what the family is left with – these remaining moments of her existence.”
Vesna Todorov instructed Dateline she is aloof heartbroken, and puzzled, over the unheard of loss of life of 1 of her closest chums in Recent York.
“It’s in fact tragic, but it’s now not a tragic accident,” Vesna said. “That’s what puzzles me. If she fell down the steps, OK, but now not a trash chute. That’s now not an accident. Someone did that to her.”
Vesna added that even now she struggles with taking the rubbish out.
“I mediate her remaining moments and I actual can’t carry out it,” Vesna said. “I actual don’t stamp why anybody would carry out this to such extra special person. But whoever killed her is aloof accessible.”
Dateline spoke to the Prychodko family criminal expert, but there were no choices on what the subsequent step in Lara’s case will likely be.
Lara’s father said he will proceed to push for justice as he pleads for anybody with recordsdata that may perchance impartial relief the case rush forward.
“Someone accessible may perchance impartial know something about what took region, even in the event that they were now not in fact a participant,” Prychodko said. “And for no matter reason, out of the goodness of your heart or out of a feeling of remorse, please step forward and share that with the police and the district attorney’s region of industrial so as that they may be able to pursue that investigation extra.”
