Investigators are looking for two men they say used slain Ditmas Park cafe owner Josh Rubin’s credit cards less than 12 hours after the 30-year-old businessman was found dead in Pennsylvania — a duo cops hope will help them crack this cold case wide open.
Police said the two men used the credit cards at the Woodbury Commons Outlet mall in Central Valley, New York on Nov. 1 — more than 100 miles from where Rubin’s body was discovered. The two men, who appear to be in their late teens or early 20s, were captured on surveillance cameras as they made multiple purchases at several stores in the mall, investigators claim.
Josh Rubin went missing from his apartment in Kensington on the night of Oct. 31 — the day before the first rent payment on his new Newkirk Avenue cafe, Whisk, was due. His body was found off the side of a Pennsylvania road the next morning. In the intervening hours, he had been shot and set on fire. Authorities say that Rubin may have been moonlighting as a drug dealer before he disappeared.
The small 36-member S. Whitehall township police department has been investigating the case largely on its own, since Rubin’s body was found in their jurisdiction, although it’s still unclear where Rubin was killed.
The surveillance footage is the first break detectives investigating Rubin’s death have had in months — yet Pennsylvania authorities insist the investigation has never been at a standstill.
“I wouldn’t say there’s any log jam,” said Debbie Garlicki, a spokeswoman for the Lehigh County District Attorney’s office, which is assisting the S. Whitehall police. “It’s been an active investigation the whole time. [Now] we’re asking for the public’s help.”
Anyone with information about the men in the surveillance photos is urged to contact Detective Lou Tallarico of the Lehigh County Homicide Task Force at (610) 437-5252. All calls will be kept confidential.
Reach reporter Eli Rosenberg at erosenberg@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2531. And follow him at twitter.com/emrosenberg.
