Father of woman who died in Zeckendorf Towers’ trash compactor says it was murder

UPDATED: Lara Prychodko fell 27 stories down her building’s trash chute where she was crushed in the compactor on Tuesday. Police believe it was an accident or suicide, but Prychodko’s father isn’t buying it.

“She was brutally murdered in a sadistic way. She would have never done this to herself,” Nicholas Prychodko told the New York Post.

Lara Prychodko was reportedly last seen alive on Tuesday afternoon around 4:20 p.m. A surveillance camera on the 27th floor of her luxury building in Union Square shows her unsteadily walking out of the elevator. Her purse was later found on the same floor as her unit while her body was found by a maintenance worker about half an hour later in the compactor.

The next day, the Post reported the police’s theory was Prychodko either jumped or fell into the trash chute.

Prychodko’s father believes such theories are “inconceivable. It’s incredulous. It’s preposterous… She had no reason to go into that area. She had just gotten off the elevator,” he told the Post.

The police investigation is still ongoing but NYPD spokesman Lt. John Grimpel reportedly said Friday there was “no evidence at this time that she was murdered.”

Before she died, Prychodko was in the midst of divorcing her husband of 13 years David Christopher Schlachet, the owner of Manhattan-based construction company Taocon.

Schlachet and his partners filed for bankruptcy in 2016 on the heels of billionaire Joseph Bae accusing Taocon of running a Ponzi scheme in relation to the $20 million renovation of his town house at 45 E. 65th St.

Prychodko filed for divorce from Schlachet in 2014. [NYP]—Erin Hudson
This story was updated on July 15, 2018 to reflect new information about Taocon.