A young father who vanished without a trace more than 11 weeks ago has been found dead - hanged in a wooded area near his ex-wife's hom...
A young father who vanished without a trace more than 11 weeks ago has been found dead - hanged in a wooded area near his ex-wife's home, police said.
A flashlight-wielding NYPD detective found the severely decomposed body of Moshe Nudelman, 34, while searching a small patch of forest along Paerdegat Basin in Bergen Beach Friday night, police said Monday.
Nudelman disappeared after dropping off presents for his children at his ex-wife's Bergen Beach home on New Year's Eve.
He was identified through fingerprints and dental records, police said. An autopsy was performed, and his death was ruled a suicide by hanging, according to a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
But police said his death remains under investigation, though detectives do not believe foul play is involved. A suicide note has not been found.
"I don't really know what to say," his ex-wife, Marina Shulkina, 32, said Monday, sobbing. "It's unbelievable."
The wooded area where his body was found is just across the street, and about one block to the south, of Shulkina's home.
The area, which was covered in snow when Nudelman first went missing, was searched previously by police and a private investigative agency hired by his family.
The NYPD even had a helicopter fly over the forested area - but all those searches proved fruitless. "This was an exhaustive search," a police source said.
All that turned up was Nudelman's car, which his family found a few days after his disappearance. It had been illegally parked on a side-street near Shulkina's home.
But as the NYPD recanvassed the wooded area on Friday night, they encountered a person who directed them to the spot where Nudelman's body was found.
A police official refused to disclose Monday why the person was in the area or how they knew about the location of the corpse.
Nudelman and Shulkina have 4-year-old twins, Benjamin and Arielle. As their marriage unraveled, he moved into his parents' Coney Island apartment.
He struggled with depression for the last four years of his life and on several occasions had to take a leave of absence from his job as a computer programmer in Manhattan.
Before his body was found, his parents told the Daily News they suspected their son was the victim of foul play. They said he was supposed to return home for a New Year's Eve party, and had bought presents for them that he left in bags in his room. They doubted he would have taken his life without giving his presents to them, as he did for his children.
Nudelman's parents declined comment Monday.
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