The father of a doctor found dead in a Brooklyn creek noted Wednesday there’s “so much similarity” between his son’s case and that of the Goldman Sach analyst whose body was pulled from the same body of water this week.
Alexander Clemente, 65, is still searching for answers after losing his 27-year-old son Karl Clemente two months ago — and wondering why it took another young man to die in an eerily similar fashion before the world took notice
“When you lose one person in such circumstances, it’s too much. If you lose a second person, it’s unbearable. Why did we wait?” he told The Post on Wednesday.
Karl Clemente, a psychologist, was turned away from The Brooklyn Mirage concert venue on June 11 because he was too drunk, according to his dad. He hoofed it north to Metropolitan Avenue, where he ran into a nearby lumber yard — and there, the New York night swallowed him whole.
“Why was he running?” his dad wondered. “He could have just waited for a cab.”
Five days later, cops found Clemente floating face-down in the English Kills, a branch of the Newtown Creek.
On Tuesday, the body of financial analyst John Castic — who went missing early Saturday after leaving a rave at the venue — was pulled from the same waters.
Clemente said it might not have happened had his son’s death seized the spotlight at the time.
“If they gave my son the same media attention as this John Castic, Castic could still be alive today,” he said. “Why did you have to wait for a second person to die?
The circumstances surrounding the two men’s deaths are uncannily alike.
Both were 27-year-old white-collar workers with presumably bright futures. They vanished after leaving the same venue — The Brooklyn Mirage on Stewart Ave in East Williamsburg — and ended up in the same watery grave a few blocks away.
And another incident last month involving a Mirage patron could have ended equally as badly.
A 32-year-old doctor from Norwalk, Connecticut, hopped into what he thought was a cab outside the venue at about 5:45 a.m. on July 22. But instead of bringing him home, the driver and another man brought him to an ATM and demanded he make several withdrawals, law enforcement sources said.
They then took him to a hospital in Connecticut, where cops arrested the two alleged kidnappers — Anthony Benjamin, 43, and Steve Daley, 50, according to news12 Connecticut. Authorities charged them both with kidnapping with a firearm, the station said.
Despite the similarities in the deaths of Clemente and Castic, police sources said authorities don’t think they are related. Instead, cops are treating them like an unfortunate coincidence, sources said.
That hasn’t stopped worried Twitter users from assuming the worst.
“To all my followers in the NYC area: Please, please do not go to/from the Brooklyn Mirage alone,” tweeted a user named Hayden Clarkin. “There have been two men found dead in the last 2 months after last being seen walking at night from the venue, and it might very well be connected. Please look out for each other.”
Others took it further — maybe a little too far, claiming without proof that “an active serial killer” was on the loose.
Several people also tweeted that Brooklyn Mirage — which has a well-known problem with patron drug use that’s led to lengthy battles with the New York State Liquor Authority — should try harder to fortify the industrial area around the concert complex.
“More lights outside. More cameras. Better security. And for f–k’s safe [sic], free Wi-Fi,” tweeted user RenegadeMaster. “Many of us no longer get any service here and are forced to walk blocks to be able to call Ubers. Please do something. People are dying and the community is hurting.”
Alexander Clemente might agree.
He said his son went to the show with a dozen others. But a security camera caught Karl’s visage five blocks north, on Metropolitan Avenue, after club security barred him from entering because of his drunkenness.
Now, all that remains for his grief-stricken dad are the endless questions that burden the broken-hearted.
“I will accept that it was an accidental death — OK, he fell in the water,” his dad continued. “But what caused it? Why was he running? It’s like a movie. There’s no such thing as a movie where it’s the beginning and the end. You have to see the whole movie.”
