Chelsea Tattoo Artist Missing For Six Months Found Dead Behind His Workplace
| 10 Apr 2023 | 01:27
Drexyll Tolstoy, 27, who was reported missing six months ago, was found dead behind his workplace. Photo: GoFundMe.
The six-month-long search for missing tattoo artist Drexyll Tolstoy, 27, ended in tragedy the first week of April when his body was found behind the building where he worked.
NYPD described the body found at 39 West 32 Street, Tolstoy’s workplace, as “an unconscious 27-year-old male with injuries indicative of falling from an elevated position,” and confirmed that it was that of Drexyll Tolstoy.
Tolstoy went missing on the night of September 25, 2022. He never returned from work that night to his apartment on West 107th Street.
Kellie Tolstoy, Drexyll’s mother and a Persian Gulf War veteran from the Detroit metro area, raised money, led search trips and threw enormous energy into finding her son over the past months. She raised money on a GoFundMe to travel with a group to New York City and launch her own search. But it ended in heartbreak.
“Im sorry, everyone,” Kellie Tolstoy posted on April 7th on the GoFundMe she set up to help find Drexyll. “Drexylls body was found a few days ago. They had to use dental records to identify my son. He was found behind his work building.”
Kellie Tolstoy also slammed the NYPD in her posts on the GoFundMe, saying their incompetence dragged out the search for him much longer than necessary. “The NYPD is shockingly imcompetent, as well as incredible rude,” she said. “They didn’t watch the surveillance cameras that wouldve shown him walking back in that night. They NEVER WATCHED THE TAPES AT HIS WORK.”
She had previously posted after the search trip, “Our February search trip didn’t lead to us finding Drexyll, but we did turn up information that the NYPD hadn’t found. Seven of us, including 3 of Drexyll’s childhood buddies, and one of my fellow veterans, packed into a rental mini van and drove straight through to NYC....Our team of 8, split into 3 groups, was able to cover so much ground! We were able to canvass hundreds of blocks, and speak with hundreds of people...We are not giving up on the NYPD, but we have almost no confidence in their Missing Persons detectives, based on their performance over the past 5+ months. We wont stop searching for Drexyll.”