Three weeks after he was murdered, hotel heir Ben Novack Jr.'s body lies unclaimed in the morgue of the Westchester County, N.Y., medical examiner.

His autopsy was completed 18 days ago, and Novack has been ready since then to be transported to a funeral home, said Westchester County Deputy Medical Examiner Kunjlata Ashar, who performed the autopsy.

``Nobody has claimed it,'' she said of his body. ``It's up to the family members to claim . . . We are done with whatever we had to do.''

His widow, Narcy Novack, 52, was not available for comment. But her lawyer, Howard Tanner, said the delay had to do with ``estate issues that are beyond her control.'' He declined to elaborate.

Sources close to the case say that Ben Novack's wish was to be buried in the family mausoleum at Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Queens, N.Y. His father, Fontainebleau hotel founder Ben Novack Sr., was interred there in 1985, and crypts containing seven other family members, including Novack Sr.'s brother and sisters, are there.

TRADITION WAITING

Jewish tradition calls for burial or interment as soon as possible. Even though Ben Novack was not a practicing Jew, he did celebrate Jewish holidays, family members said.

``Here is the son, the Prince of the Fontainebleau, and he is being treated no better than a homeless person in the street,'' said his aunt, Maxine Fiel. ``Here's a man who had all the things lined up for him to be buried, and his body hasn't been claimed.''

Tanner declined to say whether money issues were preventing the body from being moved to a funeral home, when it can be embalmed.

Novack's estate attorney, Carl Schuster of Fort Lauderdale, declined to comment.

Sources said the family mausoleum is no longer owned by the Novacks, but another branch of the family whose descendants are in Europe. His widow would need the permission of the owner to follow through with the burial.

Broward County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said though refrigeration helps slow decomposition, the body will nevertheless begin to decay the longer it is stored.

UNSOLVED

Novack, 53, was bludgeoned to death July 12 in his room at the Hilton Rye Town hotel in Westchester County, about 30 minutes from Manhattan. He owned Convention Concepts Unlimited, a Fort Lauderdale-based convention planning business that claimed to do $50 million in business annually.

He was raised in the fabled Fontainebleau, and as a boy, had his own penthouse. By all accounts, he grew to be wealthy and successful. His will is in probate and has not yet been made public.

No one has been charged in his murder, which is under investigation by police in Rye Brook, N.Y. Police chief Gregory Austin said Friday police no longer have a hold on Novack's body.

His mother, Bernice Novack, died four months earlier, after her body was found bloodied at her Fort Lauderdale home. She died of head trauma. Perper ruled her death was accidental, as a result of a series of falls.

The rabbi who performed her services, Alan Litwak of Temple Sinai in North Miami Beach, remembered meeting Ben Novack at the time of his mother's death.

Neither Ben Novack Jr., nor his mother, were congregants of the temple, Litwak said. But he recalled her service at Beth David Memorial Gardens in Hollywood.

``The tradition in Judaism is we bury as soon following a death as possible,'' Litwak said. ``It is a sign of respect that we complete the burial. We don't leave a body untended; we believe we came from dust and return to dust, and that means going back into the ground.''

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