Police are investigating the death of a 90-year-old man whose beaten and bound body was found in his apartment on East 65th Street near York Avenue. NY1 says "the man had trauma to the head, and his hands were tied behind his head." And WCBS 2 reports that the super had checked on the apartment of Felix Brinkmann, because " someone, possibly a neighbor, called to say he hadn't seen the elderly gentleman who lived alone there for days."
Investigator apparently believe that Brinkman, a Holocaust survivor who had owned a popular disco in the 1970s and a real estate agency in the Bronx, knew his killer: The building has a 24-hour doorman and the apartment did not look broken into—but it was ransacked. Brinkman's Honda Accord is also missing. Cops are looking at the building's surveillance tapes and logbooks. The Post reports, "Cops would like to talk to a cleaning woman and a 50-year-old woman who had recently been seen in Brinkmann's company. The elderly man was recently in trouble, arrested in April for allegedly menacing someone with a gun, according to sources."
A building resident told WCBS 2, "I'm very surprised because this building is a fairly safe building. Everyone pretty much knows each other," while an area resident told NY1, "I'm a little concerned. We haven't had any problems in our neighborhood for many years. We're on the Upper East Side, it's pretty quiet over here. We have New York Hospital up the street and it's always a concern when we don't know who's done what to whom." Another said, "It's always surprising when it's in your own backyard. But things like this happen in New York."
