Murder victim Menachem Stark
Murder victim Menachem StarkCourtesy of the family

The reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers of Menachem Stark, a 39-year-old father of seven who was kidnapped and killed this weekend in Brooklyn, has been raised to $72,000.

The prominent hassidic businessman from Williamsburg had gone missing last Thursday night. The New York Police Department subsequently released CCTV footage appearing to to show suspects forcing Stark into a light-colored Dodge Caravan after he had left the real estate offices of Southside Associates on Rutledge Street near Broadway. 

His family had pledged a $100,000 reward for his safe return, but his badly-burned body was found in a dumpster in Great Neck, New York on Friday afternoon. 

Police recently said they believed he may have been killed during a struggle with his captors. "It might be that they sat on him to get him under control and that they wound up killing him that way," a police source stated Monday, according to New York Daily News.

Shortly after his death was announced, the Stark family offered $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of his killers.

Now, the family has raised their total contribution to $50,000, whilst at a press conference yesterday Police Commissioner William Bratton announced that the NYPD was offering an additional $20,000. NYPD Crime Stoppers program offered to contribute an additional $2,000.

"We have increased the reward in the hopes that anyone and everyone who knows anything comes forward," announced Rabbi David Niederman, Executive Director of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg.

"There are 7 orphans in Brooklyn, and a loving grieving wife," he said of Stark's family, "and we hope and pray there will be justice."

"We thank the law enforcement community for their hard work, and echo Commissioner Bratton’s call for the public’s assistance in solving this case. The community is pained that that the case has not yet been solved and urge anyone with information to come forward immediately."

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.