BROOKLYN, NY - He died as he lived — sadly.
Yosef ben Mirayum (Jeffrey) Schneider never married or had children. Always in debt, he was forced to sell his house. Bookies followed him trying to collect. For years he had threatened to commit suicide.
Driver Lay Shot Dead in Car, while Parking Tickets Piled
BROOKLYN, NY – He died as he lived — sadly.
Yosef ben Mirayum (Jeffrey) Schneider never married or had children. Always in debt, he was forced to sell his house. Bookies followed him trying to collect. For years he had threatened to commit suicide.
When he finally did after being evicted from a Bensonhurst apartment — shooting himself in the head in the back seat of a car parked on East 17th Street — no one noticed.
Exactly how long his body remained there is unclear — but parking tickets piled up for five weeks, the earliest from Feb. 17.
On Thursday night, cops finally discovered his decomposing corpse beneath a blanket in the back seat of a maroon Lincoln Mercury across from the Midwood HS football field. He was 53 years old.
“He kept saying he was going to kill himself and we tried everything we could,” said a friend who asked not to be identified. “Between his back pain and not having any money, he just decided he didn’t want to live that way anymore.”
The friend said the last anyone heard from Schneider was Feb. 9 — days after he was evicted — when he called to say he was driving upstate.
A relative filed a missing-person report on March 3.
Born in New York, Schneider knocked around much of his life. He once started a company called Doc’s Solutions — although friends couldn’t remember what the business did.
His father, who ran a successful business in the Garment District, died in 2000 at 84. His mother passed away six months later.
The small inheritance wasn’t enough.
In 2004, he was forced to sell his home in Spring Valley to stave off creditors. At the closing, he said, “I’m going to jump off the George Washington Bridge.”
The buyer, Frank Terry, said after Schneider moved out, bookies showed up looking to collect. Apparently he had a penchant for the ponies.
The close friend said despite his dwindling finances, Schneider had expensive tastes — often buying $125 bottles of wine.
“He was quite intellectual. He is the smartest person I know. And he was also the most giving person,” the friend said.
At the time of his death, Schneider owed $3803.33 in parking tickets dating back to 2005.
Anon
so sad. boruch dayen hoemes
tragic
What a sad & tragic end. Who took care of his levaya? And Kaddish. BDE.
anon
do we even say boruch dayan emes for someone who commits suicide? after all it was their free choice?
BEN RACHMONIUS
TO ANON.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE BORUCH DAYON EMES, BUT ONE THING IS FOR SURE, REFUAH SHLAIMA FOR YOU IS DEFINITELY IN ORDER. MAY HASHEM HAVE PITY ON YOUR POOR UNSYMPATHETIC HEART
Ch
I feel his pain, may he rest in peace
baroch Dayan haemt
girl
moshiach now! ad mosai!!!
Zev Stern
I think I knew this fellow. The name sounds familiar from my Bnei Akiva days and he lived in the same neighborhood I did (and still do). We lost touch. Happens all the time. If we hadn’t, maybe I could have kept him from killing himself. And if not, I could at least have attended his levaya, which was handled by the Hebrew Free Burial Ass’n.
Shloimeh
To BEN RACHMONIUS:
No need to knock down “anon” for asking the question. It is a legitimate question. How do we deal with people who commit suicide? A rasha can do a tshuve and become a tzadik, but a person who commits suicide? The answer is that just as we assume that rasha might have done tshuve before death, one who commits suicide could have either done tshuve or he was not in the right state of mind. These assumptions make it halachically permissible for us to sit shiva, bury the dead in the correct place in the cemetery, and yes — say Boruch Dayan HaEmes.