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Speaker 1: Novel. Hey listener. In this episode, there are mentions of

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Speaker 1: domestic violence and how it's treated in the justice system.

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Speaker 1: We also take on eighteen Holes of Golf with two

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Speaker 1: poker plane prosecutors. If you do listen and are impacted

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Speaker 1: by any of our themes, you can reach out to

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Speaker 1: No More, a domestic violence charity we've partnered with. They

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Speaker 1: have lots of great resources to help you or your

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Speaker 1: loved ones. You can find them at no More dot org.

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Speaker 1: That's n mor dot org. In the spring of nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety six, Bob had the audacity to call me for advice.

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Speaker 1: It was really strange because I hadn't talked with him

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Speaker 1: in months since our messy breakup. But Bob goes on

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Speaker 1: to tell me that he had met someone in Obgyn

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Speaker 1: named Janet, and in true Bob's style, they were already

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Speaker 1: engaged and due to be married within the next few weeks.

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Speaker 1: He also said that Janet was getting cold feet and

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Speaker 1: he wanted my advice on how to reassure her. I mean, really,

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Speaker 1: a guy dumps you and then calls you up for

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Speaker 1: advice about his new fiance. Anyway, the reason she was

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Speaker 1: getting cold feet is because in order to register their marriage.

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Speaker 1: Bob had to order a copy of Gail's death certificate,

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Speaker 1: and when it showed up in the mail, Janet was

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Speaker 1: really shocked to read the cause of death as undetermined

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Speaker 1: and in brackets torso with homicide written and circled underneath.

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Speaker 1: I'll admit I was a little taken back. I mean, first,

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Speaker 1: I'm hearing that he's marrying a woman that he met

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Speaker 1: only a few months before, and then he wants advice

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Speaker 1: on how to tell her about his missing wife. Bob

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Speaker 1: also tells me in this strange at fuck phone call

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Speaker 1: that he's moving to Mino, North Dakota. He's gotten some

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Speaker 1: lucrative job in a hospital up there, So look, anyway,

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Speaker 1: I tell him, tell her the truth, Bob, whatever that meant.

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Speaker 1: And I hung up and immediately reached out to the club.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, it was really funny, but

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Speaker 1: I also wondered if we needed to tell Janet what

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Speaker 1: we knew.

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Speaker 2: We were around the table at the Mayflower and Stephanie said,

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Speaker 2: do you think that we should warn her? And I

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Speaker 2: think we just sat with that a little bit and

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Speaker 2: unanimously we sut, no.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if that would be different today, I might

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Speaker 1: do it different today.

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Speaker 2: If it was today, I don't know if I'd offer

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Speaker 2: that speculation because it was speculation.

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Speaker 1: Mindy's right. We didn't want to go barging into Bob's

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Speaker 1: fiance's life with our theories. You and I know so

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Speaker 1: much more than we ever did back in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: Back then, we were still a bunch of grown ass

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Speaker 1: women using a code name to discuss our ex over

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Speaker 1: Asian noodles. This was still just a glorified game of clue.

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Speaker 1: But soon we'd find out that we weren't the only

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Speaker 1: ones trying to solve this murder mystery. I'm Carol Fisher

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Speaker 1: and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio. You're listening

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Speaker 1: to The Girlfriends episode five, The best job a lawyer

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Speaker 1: could have.

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Speaker 3: Got you.

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Speaker 1: Bob married Janet on June twenty third, nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: and it couldn't have been more different than his wedding

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Speaker 1: to Gail. This time it was in Ithaca, New York,

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Speaker 1: and instead of the dancing crowds of family and friends,

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Speaker 1: there were less than a dozen people. But since found

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Speaker 1: out that going back to New York for the wedding

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Speaker 1: was a very clever decision because it meant the Gale's

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Speaker 1: death certificate, which had to be filed with the marriage license,

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Speaker 1: was kept in the New York public record, and wouldn't

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Speaker 1: follow him to his new home. Mine, not North Dakota.

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Speaker 4: Now your local weather with the k X new Storm team,

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Speaker 4: welcome back, and it is snowy, snowy, snowy out there.

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Speaker 5: This sure looks like it's going to be a big.

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Speaker 1: One, heavy snow falling thing.

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Speaker 3: Mine.

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Speaker 1: Not to the uninitiated. Mine. Not North Dakota. Couldn't be

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Speaker 1: further from the big lights of New York or Las Vegas.

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Speaker 1: It's a small, agricultural Midwest town close to the Canadian border,

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Speaker 1: and yet it is cold. At the time, I didn't

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Speaker 1: know much about Bob's life in North Dakota back in

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Speaker 1: the nineties. I mean, there weren't all these resources that

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Speaker 1: make it easy to cyber stalk your ex. We couldn't

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Speaker 1: keep tabs on Instagram or Facebook. So my producer Anna

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Speaker 1: reached out to a bunch of local Facebook groups to

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Speaker 1: see if anyone remembered Bob.

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Speaker 6: I expected to get five or so people saying, oh,

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Speaker 6: I've heard about him, but I actually got something crazy,

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Speaker 6: like it was between fifty to one hundred individual comments.

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Speaker 6: There was this big camp of people who thought he

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Speaker 6: was the best doctor that they'd ever worked with or

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Speaker 6: ever been treated by. There was this one woman whose

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Speaker 6: husband had injured his hand in a chainsaw injury, and

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Speaker 6: he was in so much pain that he went back

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Speaker 6: to his German Russian dialect and was starting to speak

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Speaker 6: and like mutter and German because he was obviously very distressed.

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Speaker 6: And the wife said, oh, speak in English so that

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Speaker 6: the doctor can understand you. And Bob goes, He's like,

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Speaker 6: don't worry, I can speak German and then does the

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Speaker 6: rest of the consultation in German.

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Speaker 1: Well, right, he spoke five languages. I mean, it was

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Speaker 1: part of the attraction of how smart he was. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh my gosh. And what do they say about his marriage?

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Speaker 1: Do they mentioned Janet?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 6: I think the only things that people already said about

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Speaker 6: the marriage were how he would bring her these fresh

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Speaker 6: homemade bagels, because that was his whole thing. He baked

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Speaker 6: a lot of bagels in North Dakota, apparently, who's quite

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Speaker 6: known for that.

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Speaker 1: He had to bring the Jewish heritage in North Dakota.

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Speaker 6: He was really establishing himself as the local Jew. Yeah,

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Speaker 6: and he would drop them into her office, and apparently

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Speaker 6: she spoke about him with a lot of affection and

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Speaker 6: he did the same, so they seemed like a real unit.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible.

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Speaker 6: But I did speak to one woman on the phone,

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Speaker 6: and I really want to play you this clip because

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Speaker 6: she had a very specific and unique experience with Bob

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Speaker 6: that I think speaks to what we've heard other people

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Speaker 6: talk about when you're a patient of his, or you're

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Speaker 6: in care of another patient of his and his anger

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Speaker 6: starts to come out.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, I'm interested.

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Speaker 3: He was my son's plastic surgeon. My son was born

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Speaker 3: with a class look in palate. I remember one specific

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Speaker 3: time my son had just had surgery. He was probably

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Speaker 3: six months old. We were in the hospital and came

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Speaker 3: to check on us, and my son was holding his

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Speaker 3: own bottle because he knew when it hurt and I

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Speaker 3: didn't know when it hurt him. And he came in

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Speaker 3: and chewed me out up one side and down the other,

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Speaker 3: yelling at me till I was in tears. Why was

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Speaker 3: he yelling at you? Because my son was supposed to

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Speaker 3: have arm braces on that kept their arms straight so

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Speaker 3: they didn't pull out the stitches or pull at their lip.

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Speaker 3: So I took those arm braces off and let him

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Speaker 3: hold his own bottle, and it was very upsetting to him.

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Speaker 3: One of the nurses was sitting at the nurses station

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Speaker 3: and realized that he was yelling at me and came

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Speaker 3: in and said, that's enough. I think you need to

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Speaker 3: leave now. We'll take care of it from here. And

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Speaker 3: I was eighteen at the time.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like bob to a t highly unpredictable, could

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Speaker 1: go from you know, zero to one hundred in terms

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Speaker 1: of anger, and very judgmental of people, so judgmental.

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Speaker 6: There were quite a few people he said stuff like that,

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Speaker 6: who was going in for I think a breast reduction

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Speaker 6: and he made her cry And I think you know,

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Speaker 6: the way some people rationalized that was that that's what

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Speaker 6: doctors are like, that's what doctors are like. But I

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Speaker 6: don't think that's true.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe that you talked to all these people.

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Speaker 6: So actually I met up with a mine not local,

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Speaker 6: who was visiting London for a theater tour and her

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Speaker 6: name was Harry Epstein.

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Speaker 1: You met her, yeah, I did, and she's Jewish. She

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Speaker 1: is Jewish, yeah, because that last NIW and.

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Speaker 6: She got to know Bob after he started working in

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Speaker 6: the same clinic as her husband, so they hung out

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Speaker 6: a lot because of the medical community and the Jewish community.

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Speaker 1: So here is a clip.

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Speaker 4: He was just smart guy, you know, good doctor, but

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Speaker 4: women found him creepy. I don't know what other adjective

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Speaker 4: to use to describe him. You just got to could

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Speaker 4: be feeling when you would talk to him, and his

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Speaker 4: eyes it was sort of like he would look right

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Speaker 4: through you kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, those purecing eyes. It was as if he could

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Speaker 1: stare at you, but he wasn't connecting with you. He

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Speaker 1: was looking through you.

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Speaker 6: There was another similarity that you had with Harriet that

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Speaker 6: I wanted to play you as something that she said

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Speaker 6: that reminded me of something you said on your first

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Speaker 6: date with Bob Kate.

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Speaker 4: I remember one time we were going to a function

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Speaker 4: at the synagogue and he was helping me unload my car,

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Speaker 4: and I said, oh, Bob, have you ever been married before?

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Speaker 4: Because he was of the right age that maybe this

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Speaker 4: was going to be a second marriage. And he said,

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Speaker 4: why would you say that. It was a very visceral

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Speaker 4: immediate response, and I said, I don't know. I was

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Speaker 4: just curious, and he just didn't respond. If there was

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Speaker 4: nothing questionable about his previous marriage, you would have thought

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Speaker 4: he would have said, yes, but my wife died something

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Speaker 4: like that, but she didn't.

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Speaker 1: Well that's crazy that she had that same experience and

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Speaker 1: he had that same defensive, non committal answer. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: hadn't straightened it out. So did the community of mine

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Speaker 1: not welcome him in with open arms?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 6: He was a big part of the flying community. And

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Speaker 6: he made bagels, which Harry Epstein actually ran the only

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Speaker 6: local bagel shop there. So they're really fulfilling the roles

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Speaker 6: of the only two Jews pretty much.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that it's hysterical. Oh my gosh. Okay,

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Speaker 1: from what I've learned, it seems like Bob really settled

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Speaker 1: into this new stage of his life and mine not.

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Speaker 1: He contributed to the local paper offering articles on how

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Speaker 1: to avoid snowblower injuries. He even became the talk of

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Speaker 1: the town after he performed emergency surgery on a young

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Speaker 1: boy who was attacked by a tiger. Oh yes, you

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Speaker 1: heard me write, a tiger. Apparently it happened when the

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Speaker 1: young boy and his family were posing for a photo

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Speaker 1: with a tiger in a visiting exhibit at the North

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Speaker 1: Dakota State Fair. It was at the end of a

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Speaker 1: long day and the tiger lashed out, clawing the five

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Speaker 1: year old's face. He was fine in the end after

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Speaker 1: Bob patched him up. But that's not the kind of

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Speaker 1: content we were looking for.

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Speaker 2: There was a period where there was a lull where

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Speaker 2: and he was writing snow blower injuries in the minor newspaper,

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Speaker 2: and then there was nothing.

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Speaker 3: For a while.

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Speaker 1: Bob was living that good Midwestern life. He was married,

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Speaker 1: he had a Golden retriever. But back for us in

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Speaker 1: Las Vegas, it felt like an era was over until

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Speaker 1: the actual detectives showed up.

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Speaker 5: Being a homicide prosecutor is probably the best job a

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Speaker 5: lawyer could ever have, in my view.

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Speaker 1: Meet Daniel Bibb and his partner Steven Sirocco.

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Speaker 5: Steve and I we were friends when I first started.

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Speaker 5: We're still friends today, which is a knock around kind

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Speaker 5: of guys.

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Speaker 1: Dan and Steve headed up the Manhattan DA's Cold Case

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Speaker 1: homicide unit together, and they are everything you want two

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Speaker 1: homicide prosecutors to be. Dan is a huge guy, easily

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Speaker 1: six foot seven and built to own it. He's got

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Speaker 1: a thick serious mustache that's designed to strain Italian wedding

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Speaker 1: soup and copp bistros all around the West Village. And Steve, well,

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Speaker 1: he's about as New York as it gets, half Italian,

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Speaker 1: half Irish, but a little smaller than Dan.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a shrimp.

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Speaker 7: I'm like five foot nine.

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Speaker 2: But this guy as the monster.

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Speaker 1: They formed their new cold case unit in nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: which meant that Dan and Steve could come out of

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Speaker 1: the usual grind of active homicide cases around the city.

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Speaker 1: They were living the dream.

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Speaker 5: It was like working with my best friend. We could

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Speaker 5: work with the detectors that we wanted to work with.

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Speaker 5: We could refuse cases if we wanted them. We could

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Speaker 5: pick and choose, and we picked a lot of good

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Speaker 5: ones and picked some lemons too.

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Speaker 1: When you're dealing with old cases, you end up with

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Speaker 1: a lot of witnesses dotted around the country, and so

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Speaker 1: Dan and Steve traveled extensively to interview people on cases,

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Speaker 1: people who'd often aged and retired to warmer states, which

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Speaker 1: must have been really hard.

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Speaker 5: We went in Florida so much that I got to

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Speaker 5: be good friends with the concierge at the Royal Palm

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Speaker 5: Crown plaza in South Beach. We found hotels that eighteen

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Speaker 5: holes of golf was included in a room rate.

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Speaker 8: You know, I'm not staying at Motel six.

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Speaker 5: A pool, a beach, a golf course, a casino to

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Speaker 5: play poker and steaks.

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Speaker 8: We liked to have three hour lunches. We liked to

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Speaker 8: have a cocktailer after work, and we'd like to invest

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Speaker 8: to getting homicides.

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Speaker 1: Dan and Steve were getting a reputation as people who

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Speaker 1: win cold cases, so the DA's chief investigator, Andrew Rosenswig,

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Speaker 1: decided to bring them something personal, a case that had

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Speaker 1: been weighing heavy on his conscience. Gail Katz Beerrenbaum. Andy

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Speaker 1: led the DA's original investigation into Gail's disappearance from nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six to eighty seven, and he had become totally

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Speaker 1: convinced that Bob was responsible for her death. Though we

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Speaker 1: couldn't mount a case against him, he concluded that Bob

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Speaker 1: was the most dangerous man he had ever known. With

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Speaker 1: only a couple years left before retirement, it was now

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Speaker 1: or never.

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Speaker 8: He came into my office one day and put a

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Speaker 8: box on the table well the paperwork of the Burnbaum case,

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Speaker 8: and said, why don't you and Dan take a look

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Speaker 8: at this and see if you can go someplace.

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Speaker 5: He said, it's a missing person's case. There's nobody.

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Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking the torso we'll get to it.

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Speaker 1: Hold tight, And both.

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Speaker 5: Steve and I looked at Andy and said, you know, Andy,

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Speaker 5: those cases are really, really hard to do, and we

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Speaker 5: agreed to review the case. We picked up a file.

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Speaker 8: I took some of the material home that night to review.

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Speaker 8: The thing that struck me, It would struck anybody. You

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Speaker 8: don't have to be a homicide investigator. And there is

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Speaker 8: a what's called the DD five. DD five is a

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Speaker 8: Detective Bureau document that synopsizes an interview, and there's an

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Speaker 8: interview with doctor Birnbaum's psychiatrist, doctor Michael Stone, and doctor

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Speaker 8: Michael Stone was so upset with his session with his patient,

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Speaker 8: doctor Birrenbaum, that he's required to fire off a letter

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Speaker 8: to Gail that she is in danger and should get

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Speaker 8: out of the house. It's called the Tarasov letter.

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Speaker 1: This was the mysterious letter that Gail told Denise and

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Speaker 1: Elaine about the one she was going to use to

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Speaker 1: manipulate Bob in getting a divorce.

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Speaker 8: That evening, I called doctor Stone, fully expecting him to say, well,

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Speaker 8: you know, I can't really discuss this, when I.

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Speaker 9: Said, I've reviewed some documents here, and it appears to

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Speaker 9: me that Gail Cats was murdered and that your patient,

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Speaker 9: doctor Burrenbaum, probably killed her. Yeah, I think i'd say about.

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Speaker 8: That, he said, and I pretty much quote.

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Speaker 9: Of course he killed her. Doctor Birrenbaum is a dangerous cycle.

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Speaker 8: This case has been burning on my skull for the

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Speaker 8: last dozen years. Then I figured, I think we should

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Speaker 8: take a closer.

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Speaker 5: Look at this.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety eight, Gail's sister, Elaine Katz, had become

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Speaker 1: a very successful family lawyer. She had two kids, a husband,

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Speaker 1: and a nice house out in Westchester. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to say she had moved on, but her life just

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Speaker 1: couldn't revolve around Bob anymore. And then she got a call.

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Speaker 10: The phone rang, and my secretary said, it's the District

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Speaker 10: Attorney's office. And I said to myself, oh crap, one

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Speaker 10: of my clients got in trouble. But I answered the

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Speaker 10: phone and it's Andy Rosenswag. Although I might have chosen

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Speaker 10: not to think about these things, it took me a

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Speaker 10: half a second to realize it was on the phone,

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Speaker 10: and I will never forget him saying, we have a

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Speaker 10: cold case bureau in the DA's office and we've had

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Speaker 10: a lot of success, and I'd like to open up

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Speaker 10: Gal's case. And I mentioned, you know, the Torso and

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Speaker 10: I'll never forget him saying what torso. So the body

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Speaker 10: was found in Staten Island. That made it a Staten

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Speaker 10: Island investigation apparently, and this Staaten Island police department, another

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Speaker 10: borough of the City of New York, didn't talk to

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Speaker 10: the Manhattan Police Department, and the medical Examiner of the

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Speaker 10: City of New York didn't talk to the police department

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Speaker 10: or the district Attorneys. No, they didn't. So Andy and

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Speaker 10: his assistant came up to see me. We went through

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Speaker 10: my files. I had the autopsies, I had all of

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Speaker 10: the records, and they began the process of reinvestigation. Andy

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Speaker 10: Rosenswig wouldn't retire without getting him without at least trying.

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Speaker 1: Andy took up the role of investigator again. He was

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Speaker 1: responsible for finding early leads and handing over investigative and

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Speaker 1: to Dan and Steve, who would then build the case

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Speaker 1: towards prosecution. It wasn't going to be easy opening a

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Speaker 1: cold case comes with some really clear obstacles like fading memories,

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Speaker 1: dead witnesses, or a lack of fresh forensic evidence, But

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Speaker 1: there are multiple reasons why Dan and Steve had much

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Speaker 1: better odds solving this case. A decade later, attitudes towards

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Speaker 1: domestic violence and how to police it were changing dramatically,

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Speaker 1: which was making prosecuting domestic violence cases easier, even cold cases.

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Speaker 1: Take that time when Gail went to the police station

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Speaker 1: and reported that Bobbitt strangled her after he caught her smoking.

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Speaker 5: That police report sat in a file cabinet. This is

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Speaker 5: nineteen eighty five. Domestic violence wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 5: if that happened in twenty twenty two, that police report,

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Speaker 5: that complaint report would have made its way to a

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Speaker 5: detective and Barnbaum would have been arrested the next day.

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Speaker 5: But the awareness of domestic violence and the cycle of

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Speaker 5: domestic violence certainly didn't exist in nineteen eighty five.

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Speaker 7: When somebody went into a precinct and made a complaint

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Speaker 7: like that, when there weren't necessarily dedicated domestic bolence police

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Speaker 7: officers who would take the complaint or follow up on it,

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Speaker 7: it would sort of languish there.

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Speaker 1: This is Cindy Kinischer. She joined the Manhattan Die's Office

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Speaker 1: as a prosecutor in nineteen eighty eight, a year after

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Speaker 1: Andy shelved Gale's case.

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Speaker 7: The problem was, domestic bolence cases are not exactly like

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Speaker 7: your run of the mill other cases. The complaining witnesses

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Speaker 7: or the victims that you're working with or dealing with

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Speaker 7: trauma and dealing with history of violence and dealing with

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Speaker 7: so many other things in their lives going on as

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Speaker 7: a result of the abuse that are very different than

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Speaker 7: the average crime victim.

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Speaker 1: I've thought a lot about how you become Gail or

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Speaker 1: someone like her when things are clearly so toxic, so violent,

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Speaker 1: Why don't you just walk away when is enough enough?

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Speaker 1: But I know it's never that easy. You already know

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Speaker 1: that I stayed longer than I should have. And Gail,

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Speaker 1: she did try to alert her situation to the police,

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Speaker 1: but she wasn't listened to, and that is not her fault.

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Speaker 7: I don't think that the cases were getting the attention

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Speaker 7: and being handled the way that was best for the

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Speaker 7: victims and layered on that is. Historically, women who came

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Speaker 7: and made complaints of sexual assault or domestic violence were

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Speaker 7: looked at as women who were scorned or making it

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Speaker 7: up or you know, wanted to get money. And I

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Speaker 7: mean some of that still exists today, right, but I

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Speaker 7: do think it's rooted in that.

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Speaker 1: Then in nineteen ninety four, Congress passed the Violence Against

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Speaker 1: Women Act, putting one point six billion dollars towards the

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Speaker 1: investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women. It was

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Speaker 1: the year Nicole Brown Simpson was violently killed, and the

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Speaker 1: case against her husband, the football player OJ Simpson, riveted

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Speaker 1: the nation. Little by little, the public's understanding of domestic

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Speaker 1: violence was changing. While it wasn't perfect, things also started

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Speaker 1: to improve within the justice system. Police departments got training

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Speaker 1: on how to deal with spousal abuse. DA offices around

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Speaker 1: the country introduced victim impact prosecutors attorneys who were specially

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Speaker 1: trained to deal with domestic violence cases. And with all

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Speaker 1: that going on, there was a feeling in the late

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Speaker 1: nineties that maybe Gail's case would go differently if it

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Speaker 1: was given another go. So Dan and Steve started.

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Speaker 11: With the basics, oh looking over the files in detail,

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Speaker 11: getting in touch with key witnesses from the past, and

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Speaker 11: booking luxury hotels in the gambling capital of America.

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Speaker 1: Next time New York comes to Las Vegas and our

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Speaker 1: investigations collide.

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Speaker 5: When you pick up a cold case, the first thing

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Speaker 5: you do is you redo everything that's been done in

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Speaker 5: the past, and that's what we did.

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Speaker 8: I think he was engaged to like three or four

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Speaker 8: different women in Las Vegas. He dated the entire Jewish

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Speaker 8: professional community.

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Speaker 5: We interviewed every single one of the girlfriends out in

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Speaker 5: Las Vegas.

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Speaker 2: She said there's just something wrong with him.

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Speaker 5: She actually accused him of killing Gail, and he remained silent.

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Speaker 8: He never mentioned that he had rented that plane that afternoon.

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Speaker 10: After a string of curses, I said to them, you

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Speaker 10: have ripped the shred of closure that I have away

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Speaker 10: from me.

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Speaker 1: The Girlfriends is produced by Novel for Iurheart Radio. For

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Speaker 1: more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The series is

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Speaker 1: hosted by me Carol Fisher and produced by Anna Sinfield.

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00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: Our assistant producer is Julian Manyu, Gera Patten, and our

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00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: researcher is Madeline Parr. The editor is Veronica Simmons. Max

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Speaker 1: O'Brien is our executive producer. Our fact checker is Valeria Rocca.

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Speaker 1: Production management from Sharie Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design,

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Speaker 1: mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempsen and Nicholas Alexander. Music

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Speaker 1: supervision by Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Luisa Gerstein.

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Speaker 1: Story development by Isaac Fisher. Willard Foxton is creative director

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Speaker 1: of Development. Special thanks to Shan Glynn, David Waters, might

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Speaker 1: Le Raw, Katrina Norvel, David Wasserman, and beth Ann Mcalouso.

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Speaker 1: We did reach out to Bob and his legal team

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Speaker 1: to ask if he'd like to comment on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: but we never heard back. Novel