NY - William Klinger, 42, found murdered in Queens park, 31 Jan 2015

For William Klinger, Queens was the dream. There, life would be free of the frustrations he had known in Italy, where a stalled academic career had left him working in a highway tollbooth.

A job awaited at a college in New York City. So, too, did a new home in Astoria, a neighborhood in the borough that has long been a haven for European immigrants, and for the improbably low price of about $77,000.

All of it, Mr. Klinger’s wife would later say, had been promised to him by a fellow connoisseur of Slavic history named Alexander Bonich.

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Detectives in New York City are tracing $68,000 a European author sent from Slovenia to a Queens bank as part of real estate deal that may have led to his slaying last weekend, according to a law enforcement official.

The money, which may have come from an inheritance, was wired by William Klinger to the bank as a down payment for a cooperative apartment owned by the family of murder suspect Alexander Bonich, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Klinger, 42, an ethnic Italian who was born in Croatia, was found shot twice...

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Police have charged Alexander Bonich, 49, of Astoria, with second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with physical evidence.

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A Metro investigation has found that there’s much more to this story, starting with Klinger’s grieving widow and the alleged killer’s identity, which has changed several times through the years.
After cops arrested Bonich, 50, he is said to have confessed he was mad that Klinger had reneged on a promise to sell him his home in Italy...

In Croatia, some of his fellow countrymen believe something else is afoot.
And it is all connected to the longtime Yugoslav dictator, Marshal Josip Broz Tito...

Klinger was the main force behind “Tito — The Secret Empire,” a series of writings which were to be made into an explosive documentary revealing that Tito’s allies are still very much entwined in the leadership ranks of the various ex-Yugoslav states.

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The rare killing of a European visitor to New York reverberated across the Atlantic, landing on the front pages of Italian and Croatian newspapers. It was a grim twist on a familiar story: immigrant hopes dashed against the reality of city life.

As theories of motive abounded — including suggestions of a mysterious plot linked to Mr. Klinger’s historical study of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito — detectives came to believe that a fraud was at the root of the fatal confrontation.

But, as in nearly every killing where the accused claims self-defense, there is a competing version of events, including what brought Mr. Klinger to the United States, and why Mr. Bonich pulled the trigger on that January afternoon in the park.

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Prosecutors in Queens revoked a plea deal Thursday they had offered to a man charged with killing a noted historian in Astoria Park.

The Queens District Attorney’s office had agreed to give Alexander Bonich, 49, a 24-year-sentence if he copped to manslaughter for the killing of fellow Croatian William Klinger.

But Bonich, who has said he was acting in self-defense, declined to accept the agreement.

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Friday, Jan. 22 9:30 AM Court hearing for man charged with shooting visiting friend - Court conference hearing in the case of Alexander Bonich, charged with second degree murder for allegedly shooting dead a visiting friend.

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