John Laubach found murdered in ransacked NY apartment

By Lena Sullivan / Dailymail 03/04/2012 10:18:00

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Victim: Police are investigating the possibility that Mr Laubach died in a sex game gone wrong

A man was found dead in his New York City home on Friday night, with his hands and feet bound and duct tape over his mouth in what may have been a sexual tryst gone wrong.

John Laubach, 57, known in the Chelsea neighbourhood for carrying his parrot Bolo on his shoulder, was tied to a bedpost with an electrical cord.

The home had been ransacked, but police found no signs of forced entry.

John Laubach, 57, who was well known for carrying a parrot on his shoulder, was found bound and gagged in his apartment on Friday

Sources told the New York Post that Mr Laubach often met young men for sex and cops are investigating whether his death was part of a sex game gone wrong.

Mr Laubach, who had been running his own floral design business since 2000, was wearing just a white undershirt and his face was covered with a towel.

A female friend had gone to Laubach’s fourth floor apartment in West 22nd Street to check on him after he failed to answer her calls.

She called 911 just before 8pm after making the grim discovery.

'I always saw him walking around with a parrot on his shoulder,' a neighbor told the Post. 'He looked like Mel Brooks - just better looking.'

His parrot was heard squawking in his apartment for several hours before the discovery of his body.

Sources said the Maryland native, who moved to the building after selling his Fifth Avenue apartment in 2010 for $650,000, was formerly a company CEO and had business interests overseas, according to the Post.

He was in poor health, having suffered two strokes in the past.

Laubach was a committed churchgoer, according to those who knew him, and often volunteered to help out at services.

The fourth floor apartment in Chelsea, Manhattan, pictured, had been ransacked but police found no signs of forced entry

Bob Clemens, 57, who lived in the same building, told the Post that Laubach and a female friend had a close relationship.

'They went to church every Sunday. They came to my Christmas party. They were totally cool and fun,' he said.

Other locals recall him sitting on a bench near his apartment with the parrot on his shoulder.

Laubach’s former neighbors on Fifth Avenue described him as an outgoing person who had frequent male visitors, and regularly attended a nearby church.

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