It is clear to us that a finding other than guilt would not have been reasonable. O'Malley that they argued on July 6 and continued on the morning of July 7. We disagree. At 9:00 P.M. the next night (July 8), he finally spoke to Detective Vergilio Dalsass, telling him that his wife left their apartment at 11:00 A.M. on July 7 to sunbathe in Central Park wearing pink shorts and a white t-shirt. Notwithstanding defendant's argument, this limitation was, under these circumstances, an exercise of discretion which was fair to both sides for the following important reason. Her body has never On another occasion, while the couple was watching a television program about the Von Bulow murder case, defendant told the victim that the problem with Claus Von Bulow is that he left evidence and [defendant] would not leave evidence. The testimony revealed that the victim perceived this statement as a threat. Instead, he consistently told the police and others that he remained in the marital apartment from the time the victim had left at 11:00 A.M., until 5:30 P.M., then going directly to his nephew's birthday party at his sister's New Jersey home; 6. They could find no proof, however, that he had harmed his wife. The Washington State Department of Corrections manages all state-operated adult prisons and supervises adult incarcerated individuals who live in the community. By July, it was against this backdrop that a divorce was virtually inevitable-a situation exacerbated further by defendant's knowledge of his wife's adultery. Contested are the way and reason her life ended, the way her killer disposed of her body immediately thereafter, and her killer's identity and state of mind. Furthermore, when defendant spoke to Det. Robert Bierenbaum admitted he threw his wife's body out of an airplane and into the ocean nearly three decades ago during a parole hearing in December 2020, ABC We note further that the court exercised its discretion appropriately by rulings which significantly and thoughtfully limited the People. Exposing these transgressions, if it did not disgrace him, would most certainly compromise his professional standing, damage his personal reputation, and injure his short- and long-term career plans and income potential. Defendant described differently to different people the items the victim took and the clothes she wore when she purportedly left to sunbathe in Central Park, and whether she was then wearing shoes and her engagement ring; 3. Stream next day on Hulu. Her body was never found and the great weight of the evidence shows that she was anything but desperate or depressed so that one might reasonably fear she was contemplating suicide. In the summer of 1985, in his exclusive Upper East Side Manhattan apartment, Robert Bierenbaum, a prominent surgeon and certified genius, strangled his wife Gail to death. He faces 25 years to life and is to be sentenced on Nov. 20. Arcturus: New COVID-19 variant spreading in the U.S with new symptom, Accused Florida serial killer accepts plea deal, will serve 4 consecutive life terms, Gov. After he hung up and she asked him whether under the circumstances she should pack her things and vacate the apartment, he told her not to worry because he doubt[s] it is Gail. Although he had expressed some apparent frustration because the police were insisting he come to the terminal at that hour, he complied. When a few months later he received an early morning telephone call from the police indicating they may have had his lost wife at the precinct, he was less than anxious to accede to their request that he immediately leave his bed to possibly identify his inexplicably missing wife. Days turned to months, and months to years with no sign of Katz. Furthermore, the statements were made mostly to those close to her, in contexts completely devoid of coercion, not in response to anyone's questioning, nor under circumstances at all suggestive of any attempt to curry anyone's favor. He said the day ended with a Saturday evening, candlelight dinner in their apartment, but he again declined to discuss whether this interlude, described by him as romantic, helped resolve the argument. That was the overwhelming opinion of those closest to her, including her gynecologist, her therapist of three years, and her sister, three confidantes in the best position to know. During the trial, the jury saw a video of an NYPD pilot loading two 50-pound bags of sand and a 10-pound bag of rice into a black duffel bag, meant to serve as a simulation for the 110-body of Katz Bierenbaum. @MKazColdCase from @PIFortheMissing explains the case of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum in part two of investigating and prosecuting homicide cases without the victim's body. The court said (at 603, 721 N.Y.S.2d 593, 744 N.E.2d 128): Reliability is the sum of the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement that render the declarant worthy of belief. To begin with, the court, on a number of occasions during trial and at its conclusion, gave the jury cautionary instructions about the victim's statements and other related evidence, evidence the People had introduced to explain two critical factors, i.e., the state of this marriage and both parties' state of mind. As for now, Robert was sent back to prison. He also gave inconsistent statements about his wifes disappearance to various women he dated after Katz vanished. denied 78 N.Y.2d 974, 574 N.Y.S.2d 954, 580 N.E.2d 426). Accordingly, this claim is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice (CPL 470.05[2]; People v. Luperon, 85 N.Y.2d 71, 623 N.Y.S.2d 735, 647 N.E.2d 1243). One of the prosecution's key assertions was that defendant was motivated to kill his wife because she threatened to destroy him by exposing the letter's contents should he fail to meet her divorce demands. Bierenbaum, an experienced pilot who had been convicted on circumstantial evidence, was serving his 20 years-to-life prison sentence when he made the chilling However, the trial justice specifically stated her ruling did not apply to preclude the letter's existence and nature. ABC News reports that Robert Bierenbaum, who is serving 20 years-to-life in prison for murdering his wife Gail Katz, confessed to the crime during a Dec. 2020 parole Defendant also suggested to others that his wife was depressed and thus may have killed herself, disclosing also that she had tried to commit suicide years earlier. His medical license was revoked During that meeting he told O'Malley that he drove his father's Cadillac to his sister's New Jersey home on July 7, instead of his own [smaller] Datsun, as his car allegedly had mechanical problems. At a parole hearing in December 2020, he confessed to killing his wife and dumping her body from a plane, according to the New York Daily News. of Cal., supra, at p. 442, 131 Cal.Rptr. Former NY surgeon admits killing wife, throwing body from airplane in 1985 (NCD). Bierenbaum, a former plastic surgeon, was convicted of killing his first wife, Gail Katz, in 1985. Dalsass' approximately eight telephone answering machine messages. They also manifest his motives to abuse and control her, to quickly end a miserable marriage, and ultimately to keep her from using the Tarasoff letter in a divorce proceeding to humiliate him, damage his reputation, imperil his career and jeopardize his financial future. Gail Katz Bierenbaum Murder: Her Cause of Death, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. However, Dr. Baran unequivocally denied she had ever said anything like that to defendant or that she ever discussed anything with him on that subject. Finally, the victim chose to call an attorney, rather than a lay person, one with whom she did not have an especially close, personal and confidential relationship. However, defendant said he would not be home until later, as he had plans to dine out-after an interview which had focused on his wife's sudden disappearance just 34 hours earlier. Psychiatrist's Warning Letter and Other Hearsay. denied 75 N.Y.2d 924, 555 N.Y.S.2d 43, 554 N.E.2d 80 as follows: [w]hen reviewing a case based exclusively upon circumstantial evidence, the facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the People [citations omitted], and it must be assumed that the jury credited the People's witnesses and gave the People's evidence the full weight that might reasonably be accorded it [People v. Benzinger, supra; other citations omitted].. For the entire week immediately following the victim's disappearance, defendant failed to return Det. The trial record also makes it clear-notwithstanding the victim occasionally vacillated about terminating her marriage-this couple was on the verge of divorce in July 1985. This couple had a history of angry words and deeds, of threats, and of violence; they harbored a wide range of feelings ranging from ambivalence to profound hostility toward each other, and, beyond their generalized resentment, defendant had evident motives to kill the decedent. Early in that period, before they began dating, and therefore significantly before the end of September, he falsely told her the police had searched his apartment and car and found him to be clean. Furthermore, she testified that, during that early period, he expressed no concern about his wife's disappearance. Gail Katz is pictured in a family photo. DNA tests showed the body was not Katz-Bierenbaum, the missing persons website reported. https://t.co/RWuaARMIay pic.twitter.com/6FoU3ze3wU, Uncovered (@uncovered) December 16, 2020. First, the court prohibited the People from showing the letter to the jury and, second, they were not permitted to adduce anything other than oral testimony describing only the type of letter the victim had received from defendant's psychiatrist. He told her friend, Dr. Feis, that they had a severe argument the day of her disappearance, more severe than he had originally described to her and to various other people. She was also determined to make it clear to defendant that she would use a letter, written to her by his psychiatrist warning her of the danger he posed to her, in order to humiliate him with his professional peers should he refuse to meet her divorce settlement demands. He stated he had remained behind in their apartment until 5:30 P.M. before leaving for his sister's New Jersey home. The former plastic surgeon, who is in prison for the killing, admitted to the parole board in December 2020 that he strangled Katz, 29, before loading her body onto a Cessna 172 and tossing it into the Atlantic Ocean. To begin with, Wiese was unable to reliably estimate how long before his cousin called him that the choking incident occurred. In considering whether this defendant's behavior and statements show evidence of his consciousness of guilt, we find that they unquestionably do. He therefore contends it was inadmissible under Nucci v. Proper, 95 N.Y.2d 597, 721 N.Y.S.2d 593, 744 N.E.2d 128 even if it were deemed otherwise allowable. On one occasion a co-worker overheard defendant in a common work area arguing loudly with his wife over the telephone. Powered by. However, in a strange turn of events, Robert decided to confess during a 2020 parole hearing and claimed that he had strangled Gail to death before flying out with her body and dumping it into the Atlantic Ocean. According to the Times, she had talked Bierenbaum into seeking psychiatric help for his violent streak. Nevertheless, he contradicted himself among various versions and aspects of those statements. It is on the basis of that history and its relevance to proving an element of the crime charged-and, as well, after the court balances probative value against potential prejudice-that a court may determine the admissibility of prior evidence of aggressiveness, be it acts of domestic violence, threats or otherwise. Indeed, defendant himself told his father in 1983 that their strife had reached the point of some physical contact, and there is credible testimony that in 1985 defendant was so filled with hostility that he was tempted toward violence against his wife. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Encouraging that type of qualitative analysis is the common theme of this State's settled law on this subject (see People v. Pena, 251 A.D.2d 66, 673 N.Y.S.2d 688, affd. Defendant contends: 1) that the trial justice improperly allowed the People to adduce opinion testimony that he was able, as a trained surgical resident, to dismember the victim's body within ten minutes, and also capable of packing it into a flight bag, whether or not the body had been disarticulated; and 2) that the court improperly permitted the jury to watch a videotaped demonstration depicting how a pilot can, without any assistance, load a 110 pound body, so packaged, onto a Cessna 172 airplane, fly it over the ocean, and discard it overboard. Although defendant would not allow any police officers to view or inspect his apartment until September 30, 1985-and then only with severe restrictions-he, long before that day, falsely stated to others that the police had searched his home and car and found him to be clean; and. Defendant's lies, misstatements and omissions powerfully bespeak his consciousness of guilt. 1. A jury convicted Robert Bierenbaum of second-degree murder based on circumstantial evidence that on July 7, 1985 he intentionally killed his wife, Gail Katz Bierenbaum, in their Manhattan apartment; transported her body to a New Jersey airport the same day; loaded it onto a small private plane; and piloted it over the Atlantic Ocean where he discarded her remains. This abundant array of damning circumstantial evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt that defendant intentionally killed this victim, that he did it on the date, at the time and for the reason the People offered; and that he disposed of her body as the People contend. Defendant misstated that the doorman told him he saw the victim on the afternoon of July 7, when in fact the doorman made it clear he saw her last on July 6 and he could not remember whether he saw either the victim or defendant at all on July 7; 2. Apart from the fact that there is no reliable evidence that anyone else saw or heard from her thereafter, defendant repeatedly admitted to several people, including his father, that he last saw her then. Inmate Name BIERENBAUM, ROBERT Sex MALE Date of Birth 07/22/1955 Race / Ethnicity WHITE Custody Status IN CUSTODY Housing / Releasing Facility ATTICA Date Received (Original) 12/22/2000 Date Received (Current) 12/22/2000 Admission Type NEW COMMITMENT County of Commitment NEW YORK Crimes of Conviction Crime: Moreover, his behavior with other women so soon after July 7 is inconsistent with behavior one would reasonably anticipate from a husband whose wife had mysteriously disappeared, notwithstanding that their marriage was stormy. An accomplished pilot, he took her body onto a four-passenger Cessna 172 Nighthawk and, as the plane flew over the Atlantic, tossed it out the aircraft door. In late July or early August, defendant asked her out, and they became intimate on their first date. He was convicted in October 2000 of having murdered his estranged wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum 15 years earlier in their Manhattan apartment on July 7, 1985. O'Malley that he and his wife had argued the night before she disappeared and continued arguing on the morning of July 7, prompting her to go to Central Park at 11:00 A.M. to cool off.. Doheny v. Lacy, 168 N.Y. 213, 223-224, 61 N.E. However, on July 10, he called Det. Shes not with me, and shes not with my parents, and at that moment I know that my sisters dead, Katz said. Defendant correctly argues that the victim's statements during her telephone call to Hillard Wiese do not constitute excited utterances. As the Court of Appeals recently wrote in People v. Vasquez, 88 N.Y.2d 561, 579, 647 N.Y.S.2d 697, 670 N.E.2d 1328: An excited utterance is one made under the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses, and during the brief period when consideration of self-interest could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection (People v. Brown, 70 N.Y.2d [513] at 518, 522 N.Y.S.2d 837, 517 N.E.2d 515). When one applies the appropriate legal principles, these conclusions become most compelling for a rational, dispassionate and attentive fact finder. We recognize that as a general proposition false statements are a relevant but weak form of evidence. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. The call came from the police who insisted that he immediately come in to view a woman they had found at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, someone they thought might be his missing wife. ). Thinking for a Change: Encouraging Positive Change in Incarcerated Individuals, News Spotlight: Cultural Programming at DOC, News Spotlight: DOC Transgender Housing Policy, Jill Getty Appointed to the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, Reentry Matters Celebrating Second Chance Month, Copyright 2023 Washington State Department of Corrections. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with the Indigenous populations and communities, and strive to work with our Tribal partners to improve the lives of Indigenous People and non-Indigenous neighbors throughout the state. 14, 551 P.2d 334; Berry v. Moench, 8 Utah 2d 191, 331 P.2d 814; Simonsen v. Swenson, 104 Neb. 831), a physician is required to disclose to the extent necessary to protect a threatened interest. He thus claims that those cases do not apply to permit such evidence under these facts because this case involves evidence of only one prior assault. In fact, defendant even misstated to Det. In Nucci, the Court set forth the factors relevant to a trial justice's assessment of the reliability of out-of-court-statements which the People proffer as hearsay exceptions. Therefore, the trial justice's ruling was a careful and completely reasonable exercise of judicial discretion. Of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. One of the biggest challenges, the former prosecutor said, was to convince a jury that Bierenbaum could fly a plane and push Katzs body from the aircraft at the same time. Illustrative-but not exhaustive-are the following examples: 1. Surely, killing her would not only end their miserable and loveless marriage, and end it without the expenses and financial burdens of divorce, but it would also stop her from carrying out her threats to expose his violence and his alleged fraud. 3in. He was inconsistent about his purported knowledge of his wife's post-July 7 whereabouts, alluding to different theories and purported sightings to different people. I went flying. However, the court, while prohibiting publication of its specific factual contents to the jury, did allow the jury to know that the letter warned the victim of the danger defendant posed to her. We disagree. There he told his father that he and his wife had an argument earlier that day, that she left for Central Park, and she had not returned by the time he left Manhattan. This Court has reviewed these various instructions given during trial and at its end. A few weeks after his wife disappeared, defendant began dating a nurse whom he knew from Maimonides Hospital where they were employed. Furthermore, defense counsel's earlier language on October 11, 2000 purporting to object was premature and, in any event, legally inadequate to constitute an objection (id.). In our role of reviewing the sufficiency of trial evidence as an appellate court in a purely circumstantial evidence case, we must decide whether a guilty verdict is based on legally sufficient evidence by determin [ing] whether any valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the fact finder on the basis of the evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the People [citations omitted] (People v. Williams, 84 N.Y.2d 925, 926, 620 N.Y.S.2d 811, 644 N.E.2d 1367). Defendant responded to none of them. 79 N.Y.2d 673, 584 N.Y.S.2d 770, 595 N.E.2d 845 [uncharged evidence of prior assaultive acts may be admissible as background to support testimony that otherwise might be unbelievable or suspect]). I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her, Bierenbaum said, according to a hearing transcript obtained by the network. Dalsass asked defendant for a list of the names and phone numbers of the victim's friends, relatives and others to facilitate the search efforts. His next parole hearing is slated for next month. Her stated intentions, should defendant refuse to accede to those demands, were plain. Corrections is thankful to the Tribes for caring for these lands since time immemorial and honors its ongoing connection to these communities past, present and future. 576 ratings36 reviews. In addition, he made contradictory statements to the police and others about whether he cleaned his living room rug shortly after July 7, telling the police he did not, but telling the victim's friend, Dr. Feis, and others that he had. We therefore reject as unpreserved defendant's present position regarding the video's admissibility, not because we revere form over substance, but, rather, out of our recognition of the indisputable need during a trial for clear language announcing candid and specific positions, after which judges may issue fitting rulings. In 1989, while Bierenbaum relocated from Manhattan to Las Vegas, Nevada, to set up a new medical practice, a partial female body washed ashore in Staten Island, New York, near the area where authorities believed Bierenbaum dumped his wifes remains, according to The Charley Project. Moreover, the testimony of the only defense witness, Joel Davis, suggesting that he saw the deceased on the afternoon of July 7, was extremely weak. 2. I went flying. All three subsequently contacted Katz and warned her that her life could be in danger, the newspaper reported. However, the evidence also conclusively establishes that he rented and flew a Cessna 172 airplane beginning at 4:30 P.M. that day from Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey and returned two hours later at 6:30 P.M. That was not always the case. https://t.co/WMwMXq1BzA, Gail Beth, beloved daughter, granddaughter and sister, her headstone says. Bierenbaum has been eligible for parole since October 2020. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Because defendant did not have a list with him, Dalsass said he would call defendant's home for it that evening. Robert Bierenbaum, who is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, revealed the details of the 1985 murder during a December 2020 parole hearing whose ABC 20/20 is revealing new details in the case in its episode tonight. Mar 15, 1999. I opened the door and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean, he said, according to the Daily News. Any friends, relatives, anything that could assist me would certainly be very beneficial in locating her as quickly as possible. Perhaps defendant's most damning omission was his repeated, false claim to the police and to others that he remained in the apartment all afternoon on July 7 and then went directly to his nephew's birthday party in New Jersey. Miller, supra, 291 N.Y. 55, 62, 50 N.E.2d 542 [other citations omitted]), that this jury failed to give the evidence the weight it should be accorded (People v. Bleakley, 69 N.Y.2d 490, 495, 515 N.Y.S.2d 761, 508 N.E.2d 672). He returned it after one hour and fifty-six minutes, giving him time enough to fly round trip approximately 165 miles over a part of the Atlantic Ocean. Gail Katz Bierenbaum was murdered at age 29 in 1985, and the case went unsolved for years as her husband, Robert Bierenbaum, started a new life. It is, simply put, not a ruling in response to an actual objection based on then existing circumstances (see People v. Luperon, supra, at 78, 623 N.Y.S.2d 735, 647 N.E.2d 1243; cf. He urges now-as he did at trial-that the court could have served the People's purpose adequately by only allowing the People to use the letter to inform the jury that the letter existed, and stipulating that its unspecified contents would embarrass defendant. To reject any notion that the victim intended to use the letter a second time simply because she may have already used it once before would unreasonably ignore her various statements, her reasons for wanting a divorce, and her state of mind as that fateful weekend approached. Rather, it should be, and is, a process whereby trial attorneys announce an unambiguous objection, in praesenti, based on an articulated or otherwise known rationale involving logic, legal principles, and/or common sense, a protest which gives an adversary notice sufficient to frame a response, and affords the court an opportunity to issue a ruling. It is this inappropriate and distracting inference which the Molineux ruling and its progeny aim to bar. He hasnt changed. Although her body was never found, Katz-Bierenbaum has a grave at Mount Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens, New York, according to Find a Grave. We reject the notion that in a case where an alleged homicide is the second alleged violent act against a spouse-instead of, for example, the third, fourth or ninth-the case may not be treated as a domestic violence homicide for purposes of evidentiary rulings. Katz, 29, of New York, was murdered in July 1985 by her husband, Dr. Robert Bierenbaum. The victim, whom Wiese occasionally saw at family gatherings, telephoned him at his office one afternoon in the fall of 1983. WebThe Washington State Department of Corrections manages all state-operated adult prisons and supervises adult inmates who live in the community. Finally, the court's cautionary instructions to the jury were more than adequate to assure a relevant and fair consideration of this evidence and avoid prejudicial impact. As a part of that contention, defendant also asserts that the trial justice erred in allowing Hillard Wiese, an attorney and the victim's cousin, to testify about the victim's purported excited utterances describing the choking event. They further established that it was possible for defendant, also alone, to pilot the Cessna 172 over the Atlantic Ocean as much as 85 miles east of the shoreline, maintain sufficient control of this relatively easy-to-operate plane so as to singlehandedly throw these human remains from the air into the ocean, and then land back at the same airport, all in less than two hours of flight time. Bierenbaum, now 66, convicted of the murder in 2000 under circumstantial evidence, had continually denied any involvement in her death, told parole that he killed his wife Gail Bierenbaum, a former plastic surgeon, was convicted of killing his first wife, Gail Katz, in 1985. Defendant falsely attributed to Dr. Baran the opinion that the victim was depressed and might have committed suicide. He also failed to mention to both Det. Like his wife, he was 29 years old when she vanished. Often, evidence of prior assaults and threats manifests general aggressiveness, i.e., a general propensity to act aggressively against other people. However, this faint expression, on its face, is nothing more than a prediction that defendant might-or probably will in futuro-object to the video. However minor it might be it was very important. However, in the July 8 interview, he had specifically denied that the reason she left the apartment at 11:00 A.M. to sunbathe in Central Park was related to an argument that morning. at 184). O'Malley that the building doorman said he last saw her leave the building shortly after 11 o'clock on July 7. MacCracken v. Miller, 291 N.Y. 55, 62, 50 N.E.2d 542 [other citations omitted]). In addition to the foregoing powerful circumstantial evidence, the People contend that the interplay between certain items of evidence also supports the verdict. Copyright 2023, Thomson Reuters. The trial justice rejected the People's pre-trial request to call defendant's treating psychiatrists and psychologist as witnesses to testify about factual matters and opinions connected to their treatment of defendant, including the conversations they had with the victim and defendant's parents, after defendant's consent was procured.
