Lara Prychenkod (48) Found Dead In Trash Compactor of High-End Union Square Condo

[blighted star]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...710-story.html

By KERRY BURKE and ADAM SHRIER
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
JUL 10, 2018 | 10:00 PM

Woman found dead in trash compactor of high-end Union Square condo

Members of the NYPD crime scene unit investigate after a woman was discovered in trash compactor of the Zeckendorf Towers in Manhattan today. (Howard Simmons / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

A woman was found dead inside the trash compactor of her high-end Union Square apartment building Tuesday, cops said.

The body of the 48-year-old resident was discovered by a building maintenance worker inside the garbage chute of the Zeckendorf Towers, a luxury condo complex at the corner of Irving Place and E. 15th St., around 4:55 p.m., according to police.

She went "down the chute and slid down like garbage," said a co-worker of the man who found the victim.

"She fell from the 27th floor," he said.

It was not immediately clear how the woman died.

Her name was withheld as police worked to notify her family.

Surveillance footage shows the woman walking alone in the hallway a short time before the fatal plunge "like there's nothing wrong,"sources said.

"She was very pleasant. She was happy," said the building?s doorman, who declined to give his name. "She went up to her apartment and then she jumped into the chute."

The victim's purse was found discarded by the building's elevator, according to sources.

The 29-story luxury development a block from Union Square Park was once home to disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin.

[Lily Rivers]

I went to read the article bcuz sometimes y'all "snip" it and it's about the same women but a different shorter article. :)
Kind of an odd way for her to commit suicide. What's at the bottom of those? Is it a trash bin or just ground, do you know?

[blighted star]

Whoops. I had 4 articles open & added the wrong link. I'll fix it in a sec



Edit : all fixed now.


We had a really high profile trash chute case down here that was a suspected domestic violence murder - which is probably why this one caught my attention.

I could've sworn we had a thread on Phoebe but I can't find one

https://www.marieclaire.com.au/what-...hoebe-handsjuk

[blighted star]

I'm leaning towards a terrible accident on this one - based on the info available so far anyway.



Either way though, I hope she was knocked out because doing that terrifying descent fully conscious & unintentionally would be a fucking awful way to go.


https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/07...ash-compactor/

Police Investigating After Woman Found Dead In Trash Compactor
July 11, 2018 at 2:20 pmFiled Under:Janelle Burrell, Local TV, Union Square


NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Police are investigating the death of a woman after they say her body was found in a trash compactor at a Manhattan apartment building.

Investigators say it’s not clear if the woman’s death was intentional or an accident, but they do say that she was seen on surveillance video entering the compactor room alone, CBS2’s Janelle Burrell reported.

She has been identified as 48-year-old Lara Prychenko.

It all unfolded around 5 p.m. Tuesday at 1 Irving Place near Union Square. That’s when police said the 48-year-old woman, a resident of the building, was found in the trash compactor chute by a member of the building staff.

They alerted authorities and soon after, a swarm of police were on the scene.

Residents said they had no idea what was going on. They got an email from building management, telling them not use the trash chute. The building has housed several high profile residents, including Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin.

“It’s scary,” said resident Nicki Leitner. “In fact, when I texted my boyfriend about this he told me to get out of the building cause he was worried, as was I. But it was so hush-hush.”

[raisedbywolves]

Oh Anthony Weiner's....he's off the hook for this event though because he's still in prison. What a tool!

I've never had or used a garbage chute. Everytime I have seen them on a sitcom or something the opening looks small. How could a woman climb into it?

[Olivia]

This is like the Phoebe Handsjuk case (kind of)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...prompts-change

[Olivia]

The Daily Mail is reporting her name as Lara Prychodko

Maybe? https://www.facebook.com/larapryce

I think that FB is her

[Lily Rivers]

Thank you for fixing that. :)
I'm glad you said that bc I didn't think it was suicide either but I thought that's what the residents were alluding to esp when the guy said "She went up to her apartment and then she jumped into the chute."

[blighted star]

Possible alcohol-related accident if this article below is accurate.

& she left an 11 yr old son, which really sux


If you're petite, stay away from trash chutes if you've been on the piss, I guess

https://nypost.com/2018/07/11/woman-...ed-drunk-cops/

[Lily Rivers]

How in the hell did she manage to do that? I wish they had shown a picture of the trash compactor, Im wondering how big it was.
That's a horrible way to go. I really hope she was too numbed out to feel.
I feel so bad for her son. :(

[blighted star]

Her dad thinks she was murdered, & taking Sophie's case into account it's certainly possible, but in this case police insist the security vids show no-one else entering or leaving the room where the chute entrance is located.

So unless he has experts who can show the vid's been altered, I don't see how it's possible.

It's still pretty early in the investigation though, so maybe there will turn out to be evidence that backs up what he's saying



https://nypost.com/2018/07/13/woman-...tious-divorce/

Woman who fell to death down trash chute was in middle of contentious divorce
By Sara Dorn July 13, 2018 | 12:03am | Updated



Lara Prychodko PatrickMcMullan/PatrickMcMullan.


The woman who drunkenly fell to her death down her luxury Union Square building?s trash chute was in the middle of a contentious divorce ? and forced to undergo regular drug and alcohol tests, her lawyer told The Post on Thursday.

Lara Prychodko, 48, and her construction-boss husband were battling over homes in Southampton, an apartment in Chelsea and a residence in Williamsburg, among other assets, when she died.

She had already lost custody of her son, attorney Eric A. Seiff said, and was required to undergo drug and alcohol testing as part of the settlement.

?So here you have two parents with different points of view seeking a common result, which is a settlement, so one party gives here and the other party gives there,? Seiff said.

He said she had a 2012 conviction for driving while intoxicated and had been battling a drinking issue brought on by a ?growing brain tumor.?

?I know she was absolutely convinced the pain and dependency she was experiencing that had her drinking was directly related to the growing brain tumor,? Seiff said.

He would not discuss her health at the time of her death, but said he spoke with her Monday and she sounded ?upbeat.?


Multiple sources at the Union Square apartment building where Prychodko was found and what Seiff said was the couple?s primary marital residence on 10th Avenue in Chelsea said they also believed Prychodko was suffering from health issues.

Seiff said his client ? who cops believe was intoxicated when she fell 27 floors to her death ? had turned her life around and regularly passed ?professionally monitored? drug and alcohol tests.

?I have not been aware of a single test that she failed the last year. For the last six months [the tests] have been professionally supervised,? Seiff said.

He said Prychodko and David Christopher Schlachet were in mediation that had been postponed for a month.

?I?m kind of uncomfortable talking about the litigation, as difficult and contentious as it was,? he said. ?There is a young child, a father and an estranged husband who must be going through their own turmoil.?

Schlachet could not be reached; neither could Prychodko?s family.

A friend of Prychodko?s, who was seen crying at an apartment building on East 16th Street, less than two blocks from the Zeckendorf Towers, told a Post reporter she was ?fiercely loyal? and ?fantastic.?

?She was just starting to get back into work,? said the friend, who did not want to reveal her name. ?She was a great mom. She loved her son.?

https://nypost.com/2018/07/13/dad-of...-was-murdered/

Dad of woman found dead in trash chute thinks daughter was ?murdered?
By Sara Dorn July 13, 2018 | 6:59pm | Updated



Nicholas Prychodko, father of Lisa Prychodko, leaves the medical examiner's office following his daughter's death. Erik Thomas/NY Post


The father of the woman who fell 27 floors to her death down her luxury building?s trash chute doesn?t believe the police theory that it was a drunken accident ? and is convinced that someone killed her.


?She was brutally murdered in a sadistic way. She would have never done this to herself,? said Nicholas Prychodko, whose daughter Lara, 48, was found dead Tuesday evening in the basement compactor.

Prychodko was last seen alive on video surveillance stumbling drunkenly from an elevator on the 27th floor of the Zeckendorf Towers around 4:20 p.m., police said.

Thirty minutes later a maintenance man found her body ?crushed from multiple angles? in the compactor, police said. The only other clue about her fate was her purse, which was found abandoned back up on the building?s 27th floor, according to police.

Police sources told the Post on Wednesday they believe she either jumped or fell down the trash chute.

But Prychodko thinks that theory is ?inconceivable. It?s incredulous. It?s preposterous.

?She had no reason to go into that area. She had just gotten off the elevator.?

Prychodko, who is in New York from the family?s native Canada with his other daughter, Lara?s sister, to visit the medical examiner?s office, said he is in contact with police and ?they have asked us not to talk about the details of what they know.?

?I can?t get into the details of why circumstantially I?m convinced it wasn?t possible, because it?s part of an active investigation.?

NYPD spokesman Lt. John Grimpel said Friday that ?detectives are actively investigating her death.?

He said there is ?no evidence at this time that she was murdered.?


Prychodko also dismissed the possibility that her death was a suicide.

?In our family in Canada . . . nobody believes Lara could ever do anything like this to herself, either by accident or suicide,? he said. ?My daughter never spoke of suicide. She is a great believer in self-help.?

Prychodko said he last spoke to his daughter on the phone the day before she was found dead to finalize plans for the family vacation they planned to take to Canada.

An attorney for Prychodko, Eric Seiff, who was representing her during her contentious divorce battle with her construction boss husband, David Christopher Schlachet, also spoke to Prychodko the day before she died and said she sounded ?upbeat.?

Schlachet could not be reached for comment.

[up2trouble]

Woman found in trash chute had an affair with a wealthy CEO before her death

https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/woman-...ore-her-death/

In the weeks before she died, Lara Prychodko spewed her anger at her married lover.

'I just woke up missing my beautiful amazing son whom I've lost because of my love of you,' wrote the tragic redhead in a 6:05 am email to Wayne Gattinella, a 'flashy' executive and former CEO of WebMD, on Memorial Day, 2018.

Prychodko, 48, had lost custody of her young son during messy divorce negotiations with her estranged husband, and wanted her millionaire boyfriend to help with her bills, an exclusive Post investigation into the last few weeks of Prychodko's life found.

'You said you would take care of private school,' the email continued. 'But you are not. My child deserves the same privilege yours do.'

Prychodko was also putting pressure on Gattinella, a father of four, to leave his wife of 40 years, a friend told The Post.

Gattinella owned a sprawling six-bedroom, nine-bathroom home in Greenwich, Conn., worth $4.5 million, a vacation property in East Hampton worth more than $2 million, and two condos in Manhattan worth more than $2 million each, according to public records. He also rented a two-bedroom apartment with Prychodko on the 27th floor of a Union Square high-rise, according to a Jan. 2018 rental agreement viewed by The Post.

Seven months after he signed the lease on the $6,500-a-month rental at Zeckendorf Towers, Prychodko would be found dead in the building's garbage room.

Although cops ruled the July 10, 2018 death an accident, recent bombshell findings from New York City's former chief medical examiner Michael Baden suggest Prychodko may have been strangled to death before being stuffed down the trash chute next to the 27th-floor flat she shared with Gattinella, 67.

'There's no way she threw herself down that chute,' said a friend of Prychodko's, who stayed with her a month before she died, adding that she remains 'haunted' by her death.

'I used that chute many times to take out the garbage, and there's no way she could have physically placed herself in there. I'm sure she was murdered.'

The friend, who refused to be identified, said that despite 'a toxic' atmosphere at the apartment where the friend said Prychodko was 'constantly' drinking and fighting with Gattinella about his marriage, Prychodko was full of plans for the future.

The troubled socialite, who friends say struggled with an addiction to drugs and alcohol, was poised to launch a line of skin care products that she had developed, and was determined to finalize her divorce from her builder husband David Schlachet and regain custody of their beloved young son, the friend said.

'She told me she was going to have one last big party and then get sober,' said the friend. 'All she wanted was to get her life back.'

The last party took place in Ibiza and Paris, where Prychodko traveled with Gattinella to celebrate her 48th birthday a month before she died, said Amanda Armstrong, another friend and former roommate, who now lives in upstate New York.

But before their trip, Gattinella's wife, Valerie, had learned of their relationship when she found a charge for a gym membership on her husband's credit card statement, Armstrong, 36, told The Post.

'She hit the roof,' said Armstrong, adding that the Equinox membership was for Prychodko. 'Wayne was very flashy and was always buying her expensive things.'

When they were together, Prychodko and Gattinella lived well, friends told The Post. Gattinella owned four luxury vehicles, two of them Porsches, records show. 'They had the best and most expensive clothes,' said Armstrong. The refrigerator at the Zeckendorf flat was stocked with take-out delicacies from Eataly, she said. 'They ate at the best restaurants in Manhattan.'

But friends also described tension between the couple in the weeks before Lara's death.

'Lara said he [Gattinella] was very rude to her after his wife discovered the Equinox membership, and refused to call her,' said Armstrong, a former office manager now working towards a law degree. Armstrong told The Post that she often stayed with Prychodko at the Zeckendorf Towers flat when Gattinella was away. 'Lara was sick of being the mistress. That's what she had been for many years.' Friends say that the relationship went on for nearly a decade.

On that Memorial Day Monday ' May 28, 2018 ' when she sent the early morning missive to Gattinella, Lara sent a separate email complaining about how she could not reach him. She chastised him for continuing to hide their relationship. 'I can never get to you, so I'm so over this system,' she wrote. 'You either stop having me blocked (everyone knows it's just you who can't admit) or go back to a hidden phone. Your choice, but if you were honest now I don't think it would be as dramatic, they all know.'

According to Armstrong, Prychodko met Gattinella at WebMD, an online publisher of medical information, where she began work as a project manager in the marketing and communications department in 2002. Gattinella became the company's CEO in 2005, and the affair began four years later, a source told The Post.

In 2012, Gattinella suddenly resigned. The company gave no explanation for the CEO's abrupt exit at the time.

A spokeswoman for WebMD refused to comment last week. 'WebMD does not comment on former employees,' said Patricia Garrison.

In an email to The Post, Gattinella, now CEO at tech company DoubleVerify, described Prychodko as 'a former colleague and friend' and accused The Post of making 'factually false and defamatory statements' but refused to elaborate.

Gattinella, who was interviewed by the NYPD shortly after cops discovered Prychodko's remains, said Armstrong, was never named as a suspect in her death. Armstrong told The Post she was also questioned by police on the day Prychodko died.

The NYPD determined there is 'no criminality' suspected in Prychodko's death but refused to say if the investigation is still open or if Gattinella was questioned.

Famed forensic pathologist Baden, however, believes Prychodko 'may have died because of homicidal ligature strangulation and was then placed in the garbage chute,' according to a letter he wrote to her family in Canada. Baden reviewed autopsy notes, X-rays, lab tests and crime scene photos, according to his letter, which The Post viewed.

Despite Baden's findings, the ME's office told The Post earlier this month that it had no plans to reopen the case.

'There is no further information from investigators or others that would prompt reopening it,' a spokeswoman said earlier this month. 'We stand by our determination.'

Months after Prychodko died, Valerie Gattinella filed for divorce from her husband, according to documents filed in Connecticut State Superior Court.

While it's not clear if Gattinella's relationship with Prychodko figured into the couple's divorce, the negotiations were protracted for the couple, who had married in Pennsylvania in 1978. After more than a year of negotiations, the divorce was finalized only last month.

The couple is currently selling their sprawling home in Greenwich, and Valerie Gattinella is keeping their house in tony East Hampton as well as the couple's 2019 Porsche Macan, according to court papers. Gattinella hung on to a 1997 Porsche and the couple's properties in Manhattan.

Calls to Valerie Gattinella were not returned last week.


Lara Prychodko and her estranged husband David Schlachet

[Boston Babe 73]

Hmmmm...... I tend to believe Baden. People with lots of money can do lots of things to create a cover up

[Pidge]

Rich people garbage chutes must be a lot bigger than regular folk garbage chutes.
You couldn't even fit a pizza box in any of mine. And people would try and it would just block the opening.

[KimTisha]

Suicide, for a variety of reasons but mostly because her life was a feckin' train wreck.

Substance abuse issues,
court ordered weekly drug/alcohol testing, yet
after weeks of sobriety, staggering drunk on the night she died, and
lost custody of her child,
still fighting a 4yr divorce battle,
unemployed (unless you count "getting ready to launch her own skincare line"),
financially dependent on her married lover - a TEN YEAR affair! - with whom...
she is currently fighting because he has made it clear he isn't leaving his wife, and
they are arguing over money.
Her entire life was falling apart.

Jeezus, I want to kill myself just reading about it.
Plus, the video. She's alone. If it looks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck....

Also, I found these photos of the chute. I'm old, fat, and out of shape now, but well into my forties I could have easily fit into this trash chute. Lara doesn't look very big, and not to state the obvious, but clearly she DID fit into it. I think she put herself there.