WEBVTT - The Girlfriends S1/E8: The Girlfriends Vs Bierenbaum 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:16.680 Novel. Hey listener. In this episode, we talk about domestic violence, control, murder, 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.600 and disposing of a body. There's also a group of 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:25.400 fearless women honoring their beloved friend by holding a man accountable. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.440 Once again, be warned to expect some swearing. This episode 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:35.520 really earns it. If you do listen and are impacted 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.400 by any of our themes, you can reach out to 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.919 No More, a domestic violence charity we've partnered with. They 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.760 have lots of great resources to help you or your 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.600 loved ones. You can find them at no More dot org. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:01:02.640 That's no More dot org. It was early in the 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.480 morning on October twelfth, two thousand. I arrived at the 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.720 Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to testify against Bob and I was terrified. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.559 I remember saying to myself, just don't pass out, Carol, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:22.000 don't pass out. And so with that pep talk over, 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:27.200 I entered the building through the revolving door. I emptied 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.319 my pockets into a tray, and I walked through the 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:35.720 metal detectors. Shortly after I was greeted by the prosecutors. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.640 They pointed out a woman with cropped red hair and 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.600 told me it was Gail's sister Elaine. We had spoken 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.440 about her at the Mayflower a few times, but we 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.560 didn't know anything about her. She just seemed like a 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.280 traumatized sister, and that's exactly what she looked like in 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:59.240 the courthouse that day, traumatized but determined. Eventually, after some 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.200 waiting around, it was my turn to testify. I walked 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.920 out into the cavernous courtroom to see press, the judge, jury, 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.440 and Bob's new wife. And there in the chair where 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:18.560 people on trial sit was my ex boyfriend Bob. He 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:24.200 looked different, older, more tired, but he did flash me 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.640 this confusing smirk, a smirk till this day I still 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.720 don't understand. When I got to the witness box, the 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.200 prosecution told me to address the jury, and then came 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.440 the questions, how do you meet Mob? How long did 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:45.160 you date for? What did he tell you about his wife? 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.000 So I told him about the time I asked Bob 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.799 if he killed his wife, and when I explained how 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.000 silent and weird he got, I could see the jury 0:02:55.040 --> 0:03:01.200 nodding along, and that's when I realized Bob was totally fucked. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.560 Carol Fisher from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, you're 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.799 listening to The Girlfriend's Episode eight, The Girlfriends Versus Beerenbaum. 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.120 After I testified, I took the first flight out of 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.160 New York that I could. I was not interested in 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.600 sticking around, So I really knew very little about what 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.200 actually went down at the trial. But my brilliant researcher Maddie, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.680 she got a hold of the transcripts, all one thousand, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.360 five hundred and nineteen pages of them. So let's start 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:15.640 from the beginning. The trial started on October tewod two thousand, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.280 fifteen years after Gale's death. By then the case had 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.600 gone from relative obscurity to one of the most covered 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:29.400 court cases in New York City. Reporter Catherine Eban made 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.640 sure she kept her front row seat. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.159 By then, the courtroom was full, so my colleagues in 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.080 the press corps all showed up. 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.160 Place was packed almost every day. 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.640 That's Prosecutor Daniel Bibb Press took up. 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.320 The first two rows. There was press from all over 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:46.600 the place, not just New York. 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.440 In front of the press in what's called the well, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.760 the attorney sat at two large wooden tables. The prosecution 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.720 closest to the jurors box. 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.960 There's three of us see Sirocco, Adam Kaufman, and me 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.120 sitting at the prosecution table, which is facing the bench. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.920 Then you have the left, probably ten feet away is 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:16.279 the defense table with Scott Greenfield, David Lewis, and Catherine Case. 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.600 Those were Bob's attorneys. In case that's not obvious, you 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.120 won't hear from them because they were not interested in 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.760 appearing on this podcast. Back to the courtroom, we're in 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.360 front of everybody. With a huge American flag behind her 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.920 sat the judge, Leslie Crocker Snyder. 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.880 I don't really use a gabble, except I had a 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:39.719 huge one that was given to me as a joke, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.440 and occasionally I'd use it to get the jury laughing. 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:49.880 I remember her as a blonde haired, no nonsense judge 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.159 with a big reputation. She was not there to play. 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.360 I mean, she was very strict and tough with the attorneys. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.279 And then sitting at the defence table furthest away from 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:03.720 the jury as possible was Bob. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:10.479 I remember Beerenbaum. He had this sort of stitching gloom 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:15.760 that hung over him, reflected in the deep shadows under 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:16.400 his eyes. 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.600 The trial lasted nine long days. During that time, the 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.760 defense and prosecution agreed that Gail died at some point 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.000 on July seventh, nineteen eighty five, but that's where the 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.360 similarities end. The defense argued that there was not enough 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.920 evidence to prove that Bob killed her. Instead, they suggest 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.400 all kinds of things could have happened to her that day. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.680 They painted her as a woman with a lot of problems, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:51.120 very needy, one suicidal, Realdy motivated by money. It was 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.800 quote unquote blaming the victim, which, although was pre days 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.280 of me too, I think was very distasteful. But the 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.400 portrait of both of them emerged as two people who 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.680 should have gotten divorced a long time before, and there 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.440 was an escalation of violent and horrible conduct. 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.680 The defense's second tack was a bit more tangible. In fact, 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:24.200 it was a serious threat. At the beginning of the trial, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.880 they told the jury that they had just one witness 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.440 to call, a star witness that swears he saw Gilcats 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.280 alive and well in the hours that the prosecution alleged 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:36.200 she was dead. 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.800 It's a five minute acquittal if you believe this guy, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.800 because he says he sees her at a time when 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.120 our theory is that she is dead and either in 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.920 a bag in a plane or already in the Atlantic Ocean. 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:56.200 Okay kills, the case dead done. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.120 The prosecution's goal was to do their best to undermine 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.560 the defense's case because, as the judge explained, the burden 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 of proof was on them. They needed to prove that 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.400 the reason Gail was dead was because Bob killed her. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:18.640 In the prosecution's opening statement, Dan argued that Gail wasn't suicidal. 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.080 In fact, multiple friends claimed she was happier than she 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.280 had been in a while. Her psychiatrist, Sybil Baron even 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.200 remembers Gail getting a pedicure just days before she went missing. 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.600 I think the line was suicides don't get pedicures. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.240 Then there was the portrayal of Gail's a drug fiend 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.800 running with the wrong crowd. The prosecution made it clear 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:45.880 that this was a gross exaggeration. Her boyfriend Anthony Sigalis 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.640 said he only did coke with Gail twice, so she 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.959 certainly was not an addict. 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.280 You know, everybody did cocaine in the eighties, it was everywhere. 0:08:55.320 --> 0:09:02.679 She was not this hardcore cocaine. So some beginner coke 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.200 user all of a sudden becomes this died in the 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.200 wool coke head and gets killed by a drug dealer 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.400 who then disposed of her body. Made no sense whatsoever. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.960 People get killed by drug dealers, their body is usually found, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.320 you know. And people who die of drug overdoses, their 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:20.240 bodies are found. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.400 And that was the crux of the prosecution's case. Gail's 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.959 body had never been found. And the reason they theorized 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.120 is because Bob killed Gail and threw her body out 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:38.920 of a plane and into the Atlantic Ocean. They just 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:40.040 had to prove it. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:47.840 This was no easy task. We were facing no body, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:55.000 no forensics, no admissions, an extremely difficult, circumstantial case based 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.840 in large part on things that the defendant had said 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.640 to his friends and his girlfriends. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.520 You've already heard a lot of what's covered throughout the trial, 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.600 our testimonies. But when I read through these transcripts, I 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.480 discovered parts of the story that I've never heard before. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.160 Things it shocked me. I also see what Prosecutor Steve 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.960 meant when he described the trial as a production. The 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.080 prosecution called up thirty seven witnesses to the stand, all 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.240 of us weaving threads of circumstantial evidence together to create 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:37.840 an image of Bob for the jury. First up was 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:39.719 Bob the controlling boyfriend. 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.319 I mean, who makes their wife have to sit on 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:50.920 his lap to eat dinner. It was just so strange. 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:55.960 He had to control everything that they did, what they ate, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:57.600 where they went. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:01.560 And there was violent Bob. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.439 He came running and leaped over the couch, pushed her 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:11.400 down with his hands around her throat, and strangled her. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.720 Sometimes a witness testimony made it seem like he wanted 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.400 to kill Gail, like telling one of his friends that 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.320 he hated Gail so much he could kill her, or 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.040 telling Gail that he would kill her if she left him. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.400 One of the most controversial moments of the trial was 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.240 when various witnesses started bringing up the Pterosov letter from 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.240 doctor Stone, the letter he had written warning Gail that 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.760 Bob might kill her. The judge had disallowed this piece 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.080 of physical evidence in the pretrial hearings, but she did 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.000 not stop people from describing it in great detail. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.400 One of the functions of the judge in any case 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.680 is to try to balance both sides right, and I 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.120 felt that allowing testimony about the nature of a letter, 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.440 which I did with the Tarosoft letter, but not allowing 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.079 it in for the jury to see, was a balancing 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.160 of fairness to both sides. 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.960 I'll never forget the defense arguing that having me testified 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.360 to what the letter said was almost worse than having 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.520 the letter admitted into evidence, and they may have been right. 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.439 At least it wouldn't have been the sister talking about it. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.840 And of course it was that letter that Gail told 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.720 multiple people she was going to use to blackmail Bob, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.720 forcing him into divorcing and continuing to pay her school tuition. 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.080 But there was also something else that came out at trial, 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:47.280 something I had never heard about before. Gail told her 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.800 friend Lee that she had evidence that Bob and his 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.040 father were involved in medicaid fraud and that she was 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.319 planning on using that information as part of her ammunition 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.400 against Bob. Gail had all this information ready to go 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.720 on Saturday, July sixth, the day before she went missing. 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.400 That day, she went to her hairdressers to the Ghana 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.440 cologist for a routine IUD checkup, and she saw friends 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:16.079 even bumping into her fling Anthony. Everyone described her as 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.320 happy and jovial and the reason she was going to 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.400 ask Bob for a divorce that weekend. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.240 She was going to make him dinner and then during 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.480 dinner she was going to talk to Mob about leaving. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.080 We have no idea what happened over that dinner, if 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.480 she told him at all, but we do know that's 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.800 not when she died. The next morning, at around ten 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.319 thirty am on July seventh, Gail picked up a call 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:49.120 from her former boss, Francesca Bial. Francesca wanted a doctor 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:55.160 recommendation from Bob, but Gail was sounding off. And that 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.680 is the last time anyone other than Bob saw or 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:08.680 heard from Gail. As multiple people testified, no one saw 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.600 her leave the apartment building, not the doorman, not the neighbors. 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:18.920 Gail had vanished, leaving all of her possessions, including her wallet, cigarettes, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:26.360 credit cards, address book, and keys. This is the point 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.720 in the prosecution story where they stopped talking about Gail 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:35.520 and instead start talking about Bob, because, as you know, 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.360 he wasn't acting like your typical grieving husband. He was 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.560 constantly missing and not returning phone calls from the police. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.480 He said the police could search his apartment, but when 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.280 the forensics team showed up, his lawyer said they could 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.440 only dust for fingerprints. He tried to avoid all the press. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.040 He avoided putting posters up in his building. He did 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.160 not even interview the doormaan basically never felt to Gaile's 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.880 family and friends like Bob was driving the search. Instead. 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.800 After a couple of weeks, Bob was seen partying in 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.960 the Hampton's, dressing like he was in Saturday Night Fever 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.560 and laughing at a comedy show. And then there were 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:22.080 the romances like ROBERTA. Karnowski, who challenged Bob over dinner 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.640 about killing his wife, and Karen Carojuana his Hampton's fling. 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.800 They all testified to the prosecutors brought on a lot 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.080 of witnesses to show how everyone who interacted with Bob 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.920 after Gail's disappearance seemed to come away with a slightly 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:43.280 different story. I think he just didn't count on us 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.880 remembering everything or talking about it. 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.040 These were all professional women who said, your wife is missing, 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.360 and you did what. My argument was that the women 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.160 here definitely would remember things like this, because again, there 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.840 but for the grace of God, go on. You know 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.160 somebody is telling you how their wife disappeared. Wouldn't that 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:07.880 see her into your brain? 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.840 But, as the defense argued, all our stories were just 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:17.840 a smattering of circumstantial evidence. Witnesses recalling conversations they had 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.280 fifteen years ago. Is that really enough? They asked a 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.680 jury to say, beyond any reasonable doubt that Bob killed Gail, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.040 Even after being presented with all of the evidence from 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.640 the Pterosoft letter, Bob's lawyer argued that the notion that 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:39.000 Bob controlled Gail went against the evidence. Instead, they explained 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.360 that Bob jumped into new relationships fast because why not 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:48.680 his wife cheated, did drugs, and ran off. Finally, the 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.160 defense referred to the moment Roberta challenged Bob over dinner, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.040 saying she believed he threw Gail out of a plane, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.360 a crackpot theory that Bob just did not need to 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:03.600 respond to. But Dan and Steve did have a response 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.399 to that theory, a piece of evidence that shows Roberta's 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.919 idea wasn't so crackpot after all that after the break. 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.280 So we all know the theory by now, where as 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.440 the defense likes to call it the Roberta theory, it's 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.800 something that the prosecution we're running with. But how do 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.280 you prove it? Like, how could he have done that? 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.159 How can you be flying a plane and pushing a 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:46.160 body out of a plane? 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.160 At the same time, we. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.199 Were confident that if we didn't show the jury that 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.440 this could be done, they're going to bring in somebody 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.000 and say that this is impossible. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.879 So we actually found the airplane that he used. It 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.080 was an upstate New York. It was a complete and 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:08.680 total wreck. But we used the exact same model and 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.920 an NYPD helicopter. And what we did is we put 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.880 two fifty pound bags of sand and a ten pound 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.240 bag of rice and a number of Duffel bags and 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.720 put him in the back of the plane and it 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.240 actually took off from Coal Airport, the same airport he used, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.640 and then trailed by an NYPD helicopter. They flew out 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:38.960 over the ocean and they did three demonstrations, one where 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:44.159 he simply just pushed open the passenger side door and 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:50.760 pushed it out, one where he actually banked the plane 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.680 the door opened and it fell out of its own accord. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.000 And then the third one where he's ragged the Duffel 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:03.000 bag across his box and put it out the pilot's 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:03.840 side door. 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.720 And this sergeant is actually on the witness stand describing 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:18.320 this whole thing to the jury using the video of it. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.600 It was very powerful I've seen this video, and for me, 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.960 it's hard to watch these bags of sand and rice 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.159 and think about a woman inside, a woman who just 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.520 the day before had done all the things that I 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.399 would do, had her hair done, laugh with the friend 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.240 in the park, and there she was in an airplane 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.480 with Bob, a place that I had been many times, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.960 a place where I had seen so much beauty. She 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:48.440 was there in a bag. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:20:00.720 The jurors sat there wrapped attention, not an eyeball, wasn't 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.919 on those television screens watching that demonstration. 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.840 It was a moment that everybody paid close attention to 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:13.760 because it was very strange. I mean, to reenact something 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:19.600 that you think happened based on circumstantial evidence and no 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.879 actual proof. But essentially that was their case. That was 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:25.040 how they were going to build it. 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.280 The prosecution then brought out a guy named Charles McKenna 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.800 from the airline rental company, who verified the booking and 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.399 the invoice charged to beer Embaum. He confirmed that Bob 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.280 could have flown at least eighty miles out before turning 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:44.840 around that day. Then New York's chief medical examiner, Charles Hirsch, 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.040 described how easy it would be for a skilled surgeon 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.840 to dismember a body in as little as ten minutes 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.560 with the kitchen knife in order to fit it in 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.200 a duffel bag. If he acted fast enough, he may 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.520 have even been able to fold her in without the 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.399 graphic mutilation. But the real clincher to the flight theory 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:10.800 was when they brought out Roberta Karnofski. She told the 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.400 jury about the moment she and Sharon found his altered 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:18.640 flight lock. At this point in the trial, the prosecution 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.439 brought out a brand new piece of evidence. They had 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.520 subpoenaed Bob and forced him to turn over the original 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.679 flight log, and right there for everyone to see was 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:33.720 the alteration. Just as Roberta was describing it, the seventh 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.040 of July seventh had been crudely changed to an eight. 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.280 It's even in the wrong color ink. 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.480 I'm like Steve, this is a home run. He goes, Yeah, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.280 why the hell didn't Burnbaum just burn the thing? And 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:51.439 I said, because he's anal because he saves everything. He 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:52.680 couldn't let it go. 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.240 But then, just as it was looking like a landslide 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.879 victory for the prosecution, the defense played the ace up 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:19.800 their sleeve. Their star witness oh in the weeks following 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:24.040 gales disappearance, the missing person squad received seven or eight 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.840 calls from people claiming to have seen her. Among them 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:36.080 was a retired textiles manufacturer, Joel Davis. On October eighteenth, 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.199 two thousand, the eighth and last day of testimony, the 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.840 defense called Joel to the stand. 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.240 So Joel Davis walks to the court and says hello 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.920 to us. He's just walking in, So he takes the 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.560 stand and David Lewis takes them through direct. 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.440 Joel described how on the afternoon of July seventh, at 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.200 H and H Bagel on eighty first Street and Second Avenue, 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:03.120 he noticed an attractive woman wearing a distinctive T shirt 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.639 with the complex and colorful print. Three to five weeks later, 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:11.280 he sees Gail's missing poster and recognizes her as the 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.320 woman he saw at the bagel shop. At around five 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.040 in the morning. He calls the missing Person's number to 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:21.600 report it. This was not looking good for the prosecution. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.119 He was pretty strong, and I think everyone in the 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.240 courtroom thought that's the end of the prosecution case. Because 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:32.400 he was absolutely adamant that he had seen Gail late 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:35.119 enough in the day so that the defendant couldn't have 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:35.680 killed her. 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:38.199 Steve's like, oh, this is a problem one. 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:40.879 You're thinks she's alive when we shay she's dead. That 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.280 case is over. Down to tubes. 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:48.320 Steve gets up, and you know, the adage is you 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.160 don't answer a question on cross examination that you don't 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:56.040 know the answer to. That's not one hundred percent true. 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.679 When Steve stepped up to question Joel, he had a 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:04.240 clear tactic spin Joel around enough times that he ends 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.320 up undoing his own testimony. He started by asking Joel 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:12.359 to clarify details like what did this woman actually look like, 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:16.040 to which Joel responded that the woman he saw was 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.640 with another woman carrying a large beach bag. They were 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:22.840 deeply tanned, with a lot of oil all over their bodies. 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:25.879 He said that he was probably in her presence for 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:28.600 between five and ten minutes while they waited in line 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.880 for takeout. But then it all starts getting a bit seedy. 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.000 The first thing that caught Joel's eye was her T shirt. 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:40.760 He was in the print business, and he was impressed 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.480 with the T shirt's European printing style. But then his 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:47.719 eyes drifted to her body, which he found very attractive. 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:51.480 When asked to describe her, he says her face reminded 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:54.199 him of a friend's sister in law, but she was 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:58.000 built like his ex wife. Five't one, well defined and 0:24:58.119 --> 0:24:59.359 a very good body. 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.840 He describes her as voluptuous, like she's really built, you know, 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:06.439 and Gail was as flat as a board. 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:12.199 He'd previously said he was pretty positive, whereas now he 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:16.160 was one hundred percent sure. He'd changed where he'd seen her. 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:19.920 He changed the clothes she was wearing. At one point, 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:23.200 when asked whether he saw photos of Gail, he said, 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:26.119 I didn't see the picture, but I did see the picture. 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:26.560 You know. 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.439 All he's doing is he's basically taking a knife and 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:32.800 he's stabbing himself in the chest with every word that 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:35.719 comes out of his mouth. Stevie is just spinning him 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:36.800 around in circles. 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:40.560 Steve then drilled deeper into Joel's physical description of Gail. 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.080 He pulled out some transcripts of a previous interview where 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:46.520 Joel had described the woman in the bagel shop as 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:50.439 tall and statuesque. He said he'd noticed her because he 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:52.040 was a leg and ass man. 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:58.280 Jesus Christ, he is describing a woman that is completely 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:04.240 opposite of who Gail Barnbaunm was physically. 0:26:04.720 --> 0:26:07.080 It was kind of amusing how he described her as, 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:10.720 you know, so statuesque and what a great body and tall, 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:13.840 and then he withdrew that a little bit. 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:16.800 He gets so flustered and he goes, can I explain. 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.320 Steve leans down to me, he goes, what do you think? 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:26.080 I go one hundred percent, let him explain. He said 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:28.240 he's going to explode. 0:26:30.560 --> 0:26:36.280 He did explode with utter nonsense. Joel started fumbling and 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:38.280 said he did, in fact see a woman in the 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:42.080 bagel shop, but he confused that woman with not only Gail, 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:44.919 but the body of his ex wife, who was small, 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:47.960 and with the face of his friend's ex sister in law, 0:26:48.119 --> 0:26:50.720 who was tall but had a similar face to Gail's. 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.520 If you are confused, don't worry. So is Joel, and 0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:57.640 so is everyone in that courtroom. 0:26:57.960 --> 0:27:02.800 There were audible gasps from the jury, I mean audible. 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:09.560 And he finishes and Steve leaves down. I go sit down. 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:14.399 He goes, like a couple more questions. I said, sit down. 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:22.760 To really put the final nail in Joel's coffin, Dan 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:25.760 and Steve called it Blaine with a huge photo of 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:27.080 Gail in a bikini. 0:27:27.760 --> 0:27:30.720 I went up on the witness stand and I identified 0:27:31.080 --> 0:27:34.800 the photo and it showed a side profile of her 0:27:34.840 --> 0:27:39.280 in the bikini, and the picture depicted her as a 0:27:39.400 --> 0:27:40.399 flat chested woman. 0:27:41.480 --> 0:27:45.119 It was like a television moment, really, that witness had 0:27:45.160 --> 0:27:49.560