Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Topless Mom Crushed in Trash Chute of Lux Apartment. Dad: HITMAN DID IT!

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Five years after police rule Lara Prychodko's death as a tragic accident, her father is still pushing for answers. Prychodko died after falling 27 stories down a trash chute. Nicholas Prychodko claims in a lawsuit that his son-in-law carefully planned, and used a hit-man to facilitate her death. The couple was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce at the time.    The chief medical examiner concluded that Prychodko died from multiple blunt force injuries and was extremely intoxicated. Prychodko's father doesn't believe that explanation. He says a hitman hired by her husband was waiting for her on the 27th floor. She was strangled and the body was disposed of down the building's trash chute.    No criminal charges have ever been filed against her husband, David Schlachet. Prychodko’s father is suing for wrongful death.    Joining Nancy Grace Today: Paul Mauro - Attorney, Former NYPD Inspector; Twitter & FB: @TheOpsDesk  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive   Joseph Giacalone  – Former NYPD Sergeant SDS and Author: “ The Cold Case Handbook” and “The Criminal Investigative Function: A Guide for New Investigators 4th Edition;” Twitter: @JoeGiacalone Dr. Michael Baden– Former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City and past Co-Director of the New York State Police Medico-Legal Investigations Unit- Author: “American Autopsy”  Decca Muldowney - Reporter at The Daily Beast; Twitter: @DeccaMuldowney, Threads: @deccamuldowney_    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. At the get-go, this smelled bad. Just smelled bad just smelled bad you ever gone by a dump and it just smells you oh and it's just horrible well that's the way this investigation smelled to me the first time i heard that this gorgeous and i don't know why they just keep calling her a socialite, because I'm pretty sure she was a lot more than that. This gorgeous woman ends up at the bottom of a trash chute. And let me tell you, my trash chute at our New York apartment is, oh gosh, as I was just telling Paul Morrow, the former NYPD inspector, that our trash chute is, I have to fold a pizza box in half.

I have to step on it with one foot and fold it over to shove it down the chute. So how could this grown woman shove herself down a trash chute? It brings to mind many other cases. For instance, Chris Watts, who murdered his beautiful wife, Shanann, and his two little daughters. He shoved their bodies into oil cylinders that were about 12-15 inches wide. And it took the skin off their arms. He was so intent to hide their bodies. I could give you many, many more examples, but I don't think there's any way this woman,

Lara Prohodko, put herself down a trash chute and died. But guess what? That's the theory that she committed suicide by trash chute. Well But guess what? That's the theory that she committed suicide by trash sheet. Well, guess what? In the last hours, a more

rational theory has emerged and that is murder. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Take a listen to our friends at Pixie 11. Police rushed to one Irving place yesterday evening after a maintenance worker made a horrible discovery in the compactor room.

Armed with a shovel, they recovered the remains of Laura Prychenko, described by Dorman as someone who was always pleasant and treated them with respect. She lived on the 27th floor and had arrived back to the building only a few minutes before her body was found. I mean, it's something terrible. It's something shocking. It's not clear to me how, you know, how this would happen. Guys, you're just hearing our friends at PIX11. But now take a listen to our friends at WABC. We don't know the identity of the woman.

Police have not released that information. But we do know that she did live here in the building. Police are still going through surveillance, looking for evidence inside the building. Now, police aren't sure if this was an accident or if it was intentional. A worker at the Zeckendorf Towers on Irving Place found that woman around 5 o'clock yesterday in the building's trash compactor. Police saying she went down the trash chute from more than 20 floors up. 20 floors up. With me in the All-Star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, I want to go to investigative reporter at Daily Beast, Deca Muldowney.

Deca, thanks so much for being with us. I find it really hard to believe that this woman committed suicide in this manner, especially if you look at methods and assessment of homicide and suicide. Very rarely will you see a woman of this level of education, of her, let me just say, social standing, commit suicide in this manner? If she had taken an overdose of pills or died of carbon monoxide death in a car. Yes, I could see that. But not this statistically in, oh, tell me, De Deca Muldowney, Dilly Beast, who is this woman, Lara Predoco?

Hi, Nancy. Well, Lara was a mom. She had, at the time of her death, a 12-year-old son. Oh, wait, wait, wait, right there, right there. Deca, you hit me where it hurts you know we never hear about the then 12 year old son i i would wade through the atlantic and go through hell to stay with my twins that gives us a whole nother angle. Deca, go ahead. I'm sorry. I think so. I led with that. I'm a mom too, but I led with that because she's so often described as a socialite, as you said, as a sort of New York City ick girl. She was very beautiful.

She did have a glamorous social life. She had been celebrating her birthday in Ibiza and Paris shortly before her death but the thing that I come back to is yeah she was a mom she had a 12 year old son and she was going through a acrimonious divorce with her ex-husband at the time of her death and that's always what strikes me as as like you said, the most kind of moving thing about her tragic death. I don't like it when victims are referred

to in that manner. For instance, socialite, sorority girl, sex worker. I mean, it's just so stereotyping. This woman who died a horrible, horrible death. Her last moments hurtling down 20 floors in a filthy trash chute to her death to be discovered by a janitor.

She was living in a really ritzy apartment. I mean, I know when I went apartment looking and hunting, it's really like a hunt in New York. By the time you get to an apartment, you walk and they go, oh, it just sold. Okay, so next. And that happens over and over and over. I would never even look in this area of town because this is really posh, expensive, ritzy. Take a listen to Jim Dolan, ABC7. The building goes by two different names, one Irving Plaza and Zeckendorf Towers, and workers made that grisly discovery

about 4.30 this afternoon. The body of a woman, a resident of the building, found stuffed in the building's trash compactor. If they know how she got there, police aren't yet saying. Crime scene investigators got to Zeckendorf Towers tonight to try and figure out how the body of a woman ended up in a trash compactor in the building. And more.

They had the barricades up around the entrance, and I have never seen 20 detectives wandering around anywhere. So it had to be some serious thing with suspicious circumstances because why else would 20 detectives show up? But police were not giving many details. Some residents believe the garbage chute is big enough to put a body in. And residents did get this email instructing them not to use the chutes for the time being. The chutes are now locked shut. I'm just not seeing it.

Joining me, Paul Amaro, lawyer and former NYPD inspector. You can find him at OpsDesk.org. Paul, I remember fighting with pizza boxes and everything else. I wanted to shove down the trash chute. In fact, a lot of people in our building would just lie things in the little trash chute room because they couldn't get it down the trash chute. And I mean like coat hangers. Some of the residents couldn't get coat hangers down the trash chute because they were too narrow. Decimal Downey, what did you say the size of this trash chute was? I believe 15 by 18. Okay,

Paul Morrow, you tell me this woman got up to the level of a trash chute. Let's see. Ours is about the level of your chest. So somehow, what is she, Nadia Comaneci, the gymnast, and she gets up there and enforces herself into the trash chute? It just doesn't even make any sense. Yeah, it does sound like a very unlikely scenario. And full disclosure, I worked in Midtown for a lot of my career, various parts of Manhattan. You deal with a lot of suicides.

And I can tell you that never once did I ever deal with something like this, where somebody forced their way into a trash chute, generally in a situation like this. And look, you can never tell what's going to lead up to a suicide. I can't actually ever remember having one, responding to one where somebody said, yeah, we saw it coming. People never see it coming. So while that may be the case here, that they didn't see it coming, that's not necessarily this positive. What does strike me, however, is the manner. The idea that she would do something like this, it's not only a very grim way to do what she did, there's this element of concealment.

And very often when people do commit suicide in a situation like this, it's on the outside of the building, obviously, because this is the sort of final act where the suicider talks to the world. It's a very public statement in a lot of ways. It's a statement made to the people around them. It's a statement made to society in general. The idea that somebody would throw themselves down a trash chute, not even sure, by the way, that it's going to work. Okay. And everybody in Manhattan has heard these stories of trash chute incidents that don't end up being fatal, but people lose arms and things like that. Crazy stories. I do find it hard to believe. On the other hand, I am sure from the reporting that it was very heavily investigated. So I don't know what to make of the fact that it was at the time not ruled a homicide,

especially with some of the circumstances around it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, joining me right now, I mean, you've got to know this name if you are even an occasional sleuthy. Dr. Michael Bodden, the former chief medical examiner of New York City, past co-director of New York State Police Medico-Legal Investigations Unit, author of American Autopsy. You can find him at drmichaelboden.com. And it's B-A-D-E-N, although you pronounce it Boden.

Dr. Boden, it's always an honor and a privilege to have you on with us. There's no way this woman committed suicide. I'm just telling you. What did you learn? Let me, again, Nancy. What? Great to talk to you. That introduction sounded like a eulogy.

It made me feel good. Listen, before I do a eulogy for you, make sure your will is correct because i don't want your beautiful wife left out in the cold okay that said what do you think about this i'm just i mean on day one this stunk to high heaven well uh as paul for full disclosure uh the uh Full disclosure, her father did ask me to review the autopsy report some time ago. This occurred in July of 2018, and the father didn't believe it, that she would have committed suicide, which is not uncommon whether it is or isn't a suicide. Well, hold on just a moment. I think that I can crystallize, I've never said this before,

Dr. Michael Bodden's thoughts. I want you to take a listen to our cut 12 from Fox 5. These bizarre circumstances caught the attention of New York City's former medical examiner, Dr. Michael Bodden. But I've never seen a drunk person able to climb into a narrow chute like this and go feet first down 27 stories. That's extremely unusual. Dr. Bodden agreed to take a look at the autopsy report for the Brihadko family pro bono. My opinion is there's enough information that it should be investigated as a homicide.

How do you know it was feet first, Dr. Bodden? Because the autopsy report, I have the autopsy report, there are a lot of fractures of the feet. No injury, no serious injury to the head. Okay, Dr. Bodden, do you know how happy you just made me? And I don't know what it means about me that I'm happy to hear about a dead woman's foot fracture, but that goes to my theory. Deca Muldowney, Dr. Bodden, I'm circling back. Don't get me wrong, but Deca, how is this woman

going to climb up into a trash chute, which is typically a good four feet off the ground for safety reasons, because you don't want a tot to literally fall in there. So how is she going to get up there? Feet first. How? I mean, I think that's the question of the core of this case. And it is what is so mysterious and baffling about this death. Why and how someone would choose to commit suicide in that manner is the real question. Okay, Dr. Bodden, you just threw me for a loop when you confirmed how we know she went feet first. Dr. Bodden, it's impossible. Yeah, Nancy, because

in that shoot, and I went over and I looked at that shoot also, as in most shoots, you go into the, whatever goes in goes down. In like a closet. You go in the hallway. That's right. It's a circular, it's circular, and you can't turn,

the body can't turn. It just goes straight down. So that if she goes in feet first, she lands feet first. And I think what the issue that was brought up by the police and the medical examiner was that she had a high alcohol content. She had been out before she came home. She was from France, and apparently was at a bar celebrating some kind of soccer victory that the French soccer team had that afternoon.

And the toxicological finding at autopsy was 0.29%. You know, 0.08 is the DWI level so she had a lot of alcohol but she walked home and apparently she said hello to the doorman she looked perfectly normal to the doorman when she came home and this happened shortly thereafter. Guys he's absolutely right take a listen to our cut nine, our friends at Pigs 11. Very unfortunate. It's very unsettling, especially that it's coming so close to home. Surveillance video shows her walking the hallways before entering the trash room on the 27th floor. She somehow appears to have gone down the chute into the compactor.

Neighbors familiar with the building setup say they're not really sure how that could have happened. I mean, it's a small shoot. I mean, I don't know how you do it. I mean, it never occurred to me to try to go into the garbage chute. What was her blood alcohol, Dr. Bodden? Did you say 2.9? 2.9, yes. Okay, so she's over three times the legal limit of.08.

So she didn over three times the legal limit of.08. So she didn't drive. She got a ride home with a friend or a cab. She walks in. She's steady on her feet. She speaks to the doorman. She's not committing a crime. Just because this woman has been out and had several drinks, somehow that turns into suicide. I don't get it.

Guys, I want you to take a listen to what Dr. Bethany Marshall has to say. Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst, joining us out of Beverly Hills. And you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, this is total BS, technical legal term. This woman did not commit suicide. She did not. She did not jump down a trash chute. And first of all, I hate the fact that she's just referred to as a socialite. Why are female victims always devalued? They're either a sex worker, they're a socialite. That implies that she had no social value other than just... Why don't they say young mom? Exactly. mom and she's in the middle of a divorce. I mean, I don't, former French beauty, flame-haired mom, blah, blah, blah, could be anything. But why do they peg her that way? I don't get it. And that

started at the beginning. Well, okay, so that leads right to what I wanted to say is, what is it about this social milieu that they discredited her and devalued her from the very beginning? It wasn't just the husband, the child, the people in the building. I mean, I'm a psychoanalyst. I'm not a crime scene investigator, but it tells me that everybody involved in this situation colluded in seeing her bringing about her own demise when, in fact, it was impossible. So what does that mean? Did they envy her because she had money and beauty and status? Did they want to think that she had this sad sack internal life and so she killed herself?

I mean, I think that's what's interesting is that everybody told themselves a lie about this. What is the purpose of the lie? And the fact that they told the lie, I think, really interferes with accurately telling the story of whatever it was that was going on in her life. Was she being stalked by somebody? About a down and dirty acrimonious divorce. And this night, she found something to be happy about. She had been watching the FIFA World Series Cup semifinals. And that night, France beat Belgium.

Her dad said her grandfather is French. And she was ecstatic. And she was out celebrating. When she gets home, as you earlier heard, she greeted the doorman in her building. She high-fived them about the win. They all loved her because they say she was, quote, so friendly and nice. Now, one of Lara's neighbors on the 27th floor told authorities she returned home around 4.20 p.m. and nothing was unusual. Although there is that hallway surveillance video, she's in the hall and we know she's been drinking. But, uh-oh, Dr. Michael Bodden, who is with us right now, has another tiny issue.

Other than the gymnastics Olympic competitor she must have been to get in that trash chute, take a listen to our Cut 15, our friends at Inside Edition. Fame pathologist Michael Bodden volunteered to reevaluate Laura's autopsy. Bodden says she had ligature marks on her neck, leading him to believe she may have been strangled and was then thrown down the trash chute. If it wasn't a homicide, could it have been accidental? How is it even possible for someone to fall into one of these garbage chutes? As you can see, it's designed to snap shut if you don't hold it open.

And could a grown man or woman even fit inside? Now her father is hoping to have the case reopened. Dr. Biden, did you forget to tell me about the ligature marks? Yeah, well, first, she's five foot six inches and 138 pounds. So she's thin enough to go through the opening of the chute. I disagree. Because of my extensive training in autopsies as a law student, I'm just kidding.

I still don't see it. I know she's 5'6 and 138, but the shoulder span. I mean, if I have to fold up a pizza box to get it in that chute, and did you hear, and I forgot this, to mention this, Dr. Bodden, those chutes, again, are, I would say, at least four feet off the ground, so children can't get into them. But as we just heard Les Trent, our friend at Inside Edition, state, and he's right, those chutes snap shut, so children can't get into them. If you open one and you happen to let go of it for whatever reason, it snaps shut. So that adds to the difficulty of her getting into it. Yeah, but Nancy, one way or the other, she did get in.

She went down the chute. And what I was going to get to you is it's one thing for her to bend over. Chasey's intoxicated. She bends over and tries to go down the chute head first. It's another thing. How would you go down feet first? Unless somebody put her down there, you know, lifted her down there. Exactly.

And what about, tell me if this is correct, Decomole Downey, joining us from the Daily Beast. Wasn't her purse found right there on the floor outside the trash chute? Yeah, that's right, Nancy. Her purse was sitting on the floor next to the trash chute. Okay. And Deca, please jump in. You are much closer to this case than we are, except for you, Dr. Bond. Can we talk about potential ligature marks on her neck? Yeah, in the photographs at the scene, the photographs were taken after she's out of the trash compactor or coming out of the trash compactor. And the photographs show the bare feet coming out with the shoe. The sneaker was elsewhere in the trash.

And there's a mark around the neck, a pale white mark that would match a ligature mark. And the idea being that if she goes down the chute, as Nancy is implying, it's one thing after she's dead and can be lifted down the chute. It's another if she's struggling and while alive, it will be difficult to put her down. And it will be very difficult for her to get into the chute feet first. Is it a more likely scenario that she was strangled

and put down the trash chute? Yes. I wrote a letter to the father, and that would be that she was deceased before she goes down the chute. Interesting. Was she cut at all? Was her body, did she suffer abrasions going down the trash chute? And if so, did they bleed? Well that's part of the problem. She has bruises, a lot of bruises on her body which would be rubbing against the chute and fractures and lacerations because she goes through a tread, the compactor before she comes out of the chute so part of the issue is she has various injuries but some many of them would be from the compactor she does have Nancy would appreciate under the skin of the neck there's no there's a little bit of a mark around the outside of the neck. There's a little mark around the outside of the neck, the middle of the neck, this pale area above it's cyanosis, the

blood being unable to move downward and getting a bluish color if that happens in strangulations and a lot of hemorrhage underneath the skin there were no fractures of the windpipe but there was a lot of hemorrhage localized in that area which would go along with supporting some kind of neck compression, causing death. What about petechiae in her eyes? She didn't have petechiae, but she had a bluish color to the skin, which is similarly caused.

A bluish color of where? On the skin of the whole face. Oh, really? On the outside of the face. That's cyanosis, when a person can't breathe. Nancy, may I ask Dr. Barden a question? This is Decimal Downey. Yes. So I understood, Dr. Barden, that the chief medical examiner at the time, Barbara Sampson, concluded that Laura had died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries.

But from what you're saying, having reviewed the autopsy, it sounds to me like you think some of those injuries could have been sustained post-mortem, and it sounds like you don't fully agree with that. Is that right? Well, that's correct. That is, she went through a trash compactor before she was seen, And I think there are cut injuries to the chest and heart and ribs that would be part of the compactor injuries. But she doesn't have any injury. She has very little injuries to the head and scalp, which would be an indication that she didn't go down head first.

She has fractures of the ankles, which would go along with striking the ground after falling 27 stories. However, that all has to be taken into consideration that also compacted before she's seen. Well, I'm not the only one that does not believe Laura's death is a suicide. Take a listen to our Cut 13, our friend Les Trent. Police claimed she was drunk. The New York City medical examiner ruled no suspicion of foul play.

Laura's father, Nicholas, who lives in Toronto, says he strongly disagrees. I don't believe it. I didn't believe it, and I continue not to believe it. Nicholas Prochodko says his daughter and her husband, David Slawhit, were divorcing and fighting over millions of dollars in real estate. And more. Take a listen to our friends at crimeonline.com cut 16. Nicholas Prechodko does not believe his daughter Laura died in a drunken accidental fall 27 stories down a trash chute in the Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square. The father says his daughter was going through a heated divorce with her estranged husband David Slatchett over the

custody of their son as well as real estate that included two homes in Southampton, an apartment in Chelsea, a penthouse in Williamsburg, and a loft in Toronto. Nicholas Prechodko has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, claiming Schlatchett and another man conspired to murder Laura Prechodko. The suit alleges Schlatchett hired the unidentified hitman who tracked Prechotko's movements, waited for her in her building, strangled her, then disposed of her body down the trash chute. The husband strongly denies any involvement. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace joining me right now joseph jacqueline former nypd sergeant author of the cold case handbook and the criminal investigative function a guide for new investigators fourth edition.

That means he's already been through three editions of this book. Highly popular. Joseph Jackelon, thank you for being with us. I wanted you to hear everything up to this point. What is your analysis? Great. Thanks, Nancy, for having me. So this is my first question, and maybe somebody on the panel knows about this.

So we have video surveillance of her going into the compact room and then never leaving. Do we have video surveillance of anybody following behind her going into the compact location and not leaving? Because that would be the person that they would want. So I'm assuming that there are tons of video surveillance that would investigators to be calling over for a long period of time. Does anybody know the answer to that question? I do not. Deca Muldowney, do we know? I believe that there is some video surveillance in the hallway, not the entire hallway, and not obviously inside the trash compactor room.

So I think there is potentially some possibility that she may have been followed. It seems as though there is not quite enough coverage. Right. I think you're right, Deca. Dr. Bodden, question to you. You've seen the trash chute. Is the trash chute in the same area where the stairs are, or stairs beside the trash chute going down or up?

It's not far from the staircase. Not far. It's far from the staircase not far it's it's close to the staircase however the trash chute has a door also I think the confined space and there's no video that surveillance surveys the trash chute area that's the way it is in my hallway. There's a camera and you can see the long hallway and the elevator but the hallway takes a

right angle turn and it's right there in that corner where there is the trash chute and in that little I'll call it a closet, that little area, it's actually also the landing for stairs going down and stairs going up. It's all right there in the same little alcove area.

And the surveillance does not show the trash chute door. It's like a little room, like a closet, like a big closet. And in that room, there's the trash chute and the stairs, which go down and up. So, Dr. Bodden, having seen the trash chute area where Lara met her death, would surveillance have caught her going specifically into that door or anyone coming out? And would that person have had access to the stairs without being caught on surveillance video? My understanding is there was no surveillance of that area involved, whether there was anybody else near there, near to the trash.

And what about the steps? None that I, well, I'm not sure about the stairs itself or the elevator that's nearby. There's no video showing anybody else in that area. So Joseph Giacalone, former NYPD sergeant and author, with the stairs right beside the trash chute and no surveillance of the trash chute door itself, we don't know the answer whether anyone was there or not.

But I can tell you this, if the stairs were close by, a person could have easily gone down the stairs all the way down, all the way to sub B, sub basement, and get out that way. Well, certainly. I mean, and even those locations, we're talking about a very exclusive building. So we're looking at, I was looking online before we got on about $6,500 a month apartments. And you know that there's video surveillance about anywhere with those exits and you have a doorman building too. So if, if this is a homicide, which, you know, I always come from the school where, and Dr. Biden, I think, will agree with me on this.

You treat every death as if it's suspicious and proven otherwise. And what you're dealing with is you have to have somebody that either has access to an exit, which is probably surveilled, or they have to walk to the doorman and the doorman would have to acknowledge their presence so and i would assume that investigators spoke to the door person and pulled all the video surveillance too which if it turns out at the end of the day to be a homicide then a list of everybody who was in that building would be a suspect why has this been brought back into the public eye why is it back as a point of interest take a listen to our Cut 20, our forensic crime online. The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that days after Laura Prechodko's death, Schlatchett and John Doe met in Manhattan, where Schlatchett made a final payment to John Doe for the murder of Laura Prechodko.

The suit claims Schlatchett was financially motivated to kill Prechodko as they were going through an acrimonious divorce at the time, and that his construction firm filed for bankruptcy in 2016 while facing several lawsuits. The wrongful death lawsuit seeks damages in an amount to be determined at trial and the disqualification of Schlatchett as beneficiary of Prechotko's estate. Wow. There is a lot of money at stake. Decimal Downey, explain. Well, this is a wrongful death lawsuit that's been filed by Lara's father. And in that lawsuit,

he outlined an alternative narrative of what could have happened here. And what he's alleging is that facing the possibility of losing millions of dollars in this acrimonious divorce that Laura's ex-husband hired a hitman to kill her. So that's what's alleged in the lawsuit. So it's alleged that he didn't personally kill her, but that he hired someone to do it and offered to pay this person. And that's what Lara's father believes happened here. That is his theory.

Of course, the husband denies any wrongdoing. It's not just about money. Isn't it true that there are now claims that Lara, after having split with her husband and in the middle of the divorce, was having an affair with the married WebMD CEO before her death. His name was also on her lease. That's right. So this is reporting from the New York Post.

But, yes, there was a story that she was having an affair with the CEO of WebMD where she was working, who ultimately ended up getting divorced from his wife. And it's unclear whether this affair may have played a part in that, but he maintained, it appears, another apartment for her in Manhattan and that they were having a romantic relationship

and he held a memorial service for her after she died. And it's not totally clear what role this may have played in an alternative narrative of the case that's being offered by Lara's father. But, you know, it adds another wrinkle to the story here about what could have taken place. Dr. Bethany Marshall, are you still alive? Or has someone killed you in the middle of crime stories? Because I can't believe you haven't jumped in already. Well, I just think there's so many twists and turns to the story. But where my mind goes is a husband, a former husband, who is interested enough in killing his wife to hire a hitman, has a long

history of verbal, if not physical, abuse towards that victim, that this was a domestic situation. And don't you know that her father, that his father-in-law, was a helpless witness to all of this? I mean, he may have seen his daughter suffering in this marriage. So when she goes missing, she goes down the trash chute, all of a sudden he thinks, you know, I'll be damned. It really is not only the tragedy, the loss, but that it may have ended in such a way that he was afraid of it. I think it's remarkable that she was having this other relationship because if it was a domestic situation, women are at the greatest risk of homicide as they're leaving a relationship. We all know this. He may have wanted sole custody of the son. You know,

we know in abusive family dynamics, parents can't share parenting. They should be able to, but they can't. So he may have wanted control of the son all for himself. And then finally, I think the idea that she was inebriated and had been drinking shows that whoever committed this crime, if it was the husband, it sounds like it, hiring a hitman. He knew her patterns. He knew, you know, when she would have fun afternoons, when she would hang out with friends, and when she would be the most vulnerable. Again, the ex-husband denies any involvement or domestic abuse, but I've got another point. Take a listen to our cut 17 from CrimeOnline.com. Nicholas Pricanko alleges that Laura's estranged husband, David Slatchett,

tracked Laura's movements by having software installed on her laptop. And this is how the unidentified hitman was able to know Prechanko's location, allowing him to wait for her, strangle her, before disposing of her body in the trash chute. Police have said when Prechanko's body was discovered in the trash compactor, it was, quote, crushed from multiple angles, unquote. The New York City medical examiner ruled her death an accident. But the family hired former New York City chief medical examiner, Dr. Michael Bodden, who said he found that Prechotko may have been strangled to death. Paul Morrow, attorney and former NYPD inspector, jump in.

So one of the other forensics that they certainly would have looked at here are the digital forensics and that's going to be very important here now by the time of this death we already had encrypted phones so that's not a uh you know very easy thing to surmount but according to the reporting online they do have hold of some at least text messages or emails so they got some stuff even if the phone is encrypted there are other ways to go about it you can dump the cloud you can go to secondary devices which sometimes the phone feeds into which is what happened in the hunter biden situation his texts from his phone were on his laptop these these devices talk to each other it was a large response

to this this is the 17th preccinct. This is a wealthy area on Manhattan's east side. There was no shortage of attention paid to this. The notion, I'm just going to push back a little bit on the notion that this was taken lightly. I can tell you it was not. And in fact, in detective squads these days, unfortunately, this may be changing, but for a good while here, while the murder rate was so low, detectives literally would compete to catch a homicide, to catch a murder case. It's kind of the A-level case in a detective squad. Furthermore, they would get enhancement from Manhattan South Homicide, which is a unit dedicated to investigating homicides who don't really catch the case, but they help, for lack of a better term. It's called enhancing.

My point overall is this. Joe Giacalone was talking about the videos that would have been pulled. Absolutely. Not only within the building, but outside the building. On any relevant time period or ingress or egress to the building, street video would have been pulled. Any video inside the building. If there's a card used to get in and out of the building,

I don't know if it's a key card kind of thing to get into the elevator, but certainly you have a doorman. Everybody would have been interviewed. You would have dropped all of this stuff into the squad, and you would have had a lot of people scraping at it, trying to solve it. Now, that doesn't mean there wasn't foul play here, because admittedly, it's a very odd set of circumstances. And as I said earlier, not something i've encountered in the past but i would say that i think that a lot of stuff was

done here that was not this positive and for even the me to come in and say well we're going to rule that this thing appears to be not a homicide they certainly don't have anything to hang their hats on accidental is hard for me to swallow. The idea that she somehow fell into a chute that's four feet off the ground. I think that defies belief. Especially feet first. Feet first, exactly. She'd have to take a flying leap.

Exactly, and that door slams shut. It's a spring action. It slams shut if you let go of it. So how did she do that? Dr. Michael Bodden, do you believe this was a suicide? Nancy, one thing, though, just to be clear, the initial cause of death

listed in the death certificate on the autopsy report is multiple blunt impact injuries and the manner of death is listed as undetermined. It's odd to say undetermined and then say it's no foul play, because if you're saying which was what was given over to the police, no foul play means it's not homicide. Well, it's certainly not an accident. It's what, all that's left is suicide. And I guess whoever issued the death certificate would have,

unless there's a new death certificate, a second death certificate that says suicide, this is undetermined. And the only reason to do that would be if you're uncertain about it because it's either natural accident, suicide or homicide. Well, it's not natural. You can't accident. This can't

possibly be an accident. You don't accidentally fall into a trash chute. It's either suicide as Paul said or homicide and they rule out homicide by saying no foul play. So normally one would put suicide down, but it was treated as a suicide. And I think once it's treated as a suicide, that would diminish the extent that, in my experience, of the police investigation into possible homicide. Was there a culture of disdain towards wealthy victims in this precinct?

I doubt it because that precinct was full of rich people. Even in that building, you had Anthony Weiner and many other high profile people living there. Decimal Downey with the Daly Beast. Is it true? Is the victim's father's allegation true or do we know if it's true that the ex-husband had placed spyware on her devices that could follow her around and know where she was going that's his allegation and his allegation is that that spyware was used by her ex-husband to inform the hitman of her location. And in his narrative, that's why, you know, she was able to be cornered in this trash shoe room. However,

the lawsuit that he filed doesn't offer any evidence and that doesn't appear to have ever been released by police in this case. So that is the father's claim, Lara's father's claim. I'm sure the ex-husband is denying that as well. We wait as justice unfolds. If you have information

or think you have information, please dial 800-577-TIPS. Goodbye, friend.