Name: Stanina Ignjatovic
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: April 15, 1999
Location Last Seen: Brooklyn, New York City, Kings County, New York
Date of Birth: Circa 1945
Age: 54 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 4'9"
Weight: 135 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Nickname/Alias: Stanica Ignjatovic
Distinguishing Marks/Features: (Serb). Hard of hearing. She speaks poor English.
Dentals: Unknown
Fingerprints: Unknown
DNA: Unknown
Clothing: Unknown
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
On the morning of April 15, Stanica Ignjatovic, a former office cleaning woman who lives alone in an apartment on Conselyea Street in Brooklyn, telephoned a relative to say she was heading to Manhattan to visit her sister. Ignjatovic never got there. Shortly after her phone call, the 54-year-old Serb immigrant vanished without a trace. Police, who searched her apartment after relatives reported her missing, found no clues. No sign of struggle. No forced entry. No note. A check of city hospitals came up empty. Her family and leaders of a local Williamsburg agency, St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Organization, say there were signs for months that someone was out to get Ignjatovic. Her troubles started after an electrical fire in 1997 badly damaged 18 Conselyea Street, where Ignjatovic had lived for 15 years. The fire forced the tenants out. When the landlord was slow to make repairs, Ignjatovic sought help from the St. Nicholas group. The St. Nicholas tenant advocate accompanied her to Housing Court to insure that she'd be able to move back to her $295-a-month rent-stabilized apartment after the landlord repaired the building.
Witnesses say the landlord menaced Ignjatovic after a court appearance. The landlord denies threatening Ignjatovic. The tenant advocate says she, too, witnessed the threats to Ignjatovic. The landlord also threatened to burn the advocate's house down. The morning of March 3, 1998, the day of a scheduled court hearing on Ignjatovic's case, someone set fire to a bunch of benzene-soaked rags at the entrance to the advocate's home. The arson remains unsolved. Once Ignjatovic moved into the temporary place, her life became even more nightmarish. Burglars ransacked the apartment three times. The last two times, on January 31 and March 10, 1999, they slashed all her clothes and furniture and stole her court papers dealing with the case. Family members say Ignjatovic would call them in the middle of the night in tears, saying the landlord was threatening her. The family members said they would call police, But the cops thought she was imagining things. On April 3, the day Ignjatovic was supposed to move back to her old apartment, the landlord demanded a 40% increase in rent, according to her lawyer. On April 5, the lawyer asked the Housing Court to cite the landlord for contempt. A hearing was scheduled for April 20. Five days before the hearing, she disappeared. Her family suspect foul play.
Agency Name: New York City Police Department
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: (212) 694-7781
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: KNMP02908
NamUs Case Number: MP10270
NamUs
New York Daily News
Added: 4-15-2008; Last Updated: 07/06/2022 - By: Htmlcnvtr
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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