November 28, 2024 • 31 mins
A young EMT responded to a call at his home. Inside he found his mother, Carol Neulander, brutally murdered. Carol was the wife of Rabbi Fred Neulander. The investigation reveals startling details about Rabbi Fred and Carol’s marriage and a mysterious suspect known as “the bathroom man”.
Reach out to the American Homicide team by emailing us at AmericanHomicidePod@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
A young emt answered a call to his home that
had fatal consequences.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Matthew Newlander he heard on his radio that a woman
was injured a two oh four high gate. There's only
one woman a two oh four highgate. That's his mother.
She was unconscious and not breathing. Matthew instantly knew that
his mother was dead. How did my mom get beaten
to death in the living room of her house? Who
(00:29):
would ever kill Carol Newlander? They all loved Carol Newlander.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The answer would leave Matthew questioning everything and everyone he knew.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
This is such a convoluted, perplexing, disturbing, troubling case, and
I wish to God that this had never happened.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Today, we're jumping across the country to the Garden State,
New Jersey. Specifically, we're in the suburb of Cherry Hill
for the tragic story of a mother of three who
was found beaten to death in her home. This is
a case of who done it that's shocked a community.
We'll explore from the beginning until the very end, when
a panel of twelve jurors had to meet the most
(01:12):
difficult decision of their lives. I'm slung glass and this
is part one of Who Killed Carol on American Homicide.
Just to note that some of this content is graphic,
Please take care well listening. Consider the town of Cherry Hill,
New Jersey. It's the perfect spot for people who want
(01:33):
to live close enough yet far enough away from two
major cities.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Philadelphia to the south, New York City to the north.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Arthur mcgeita authored a book about one of Cherry Hill's
most revered and respected couples, Fred and Carol Newlander. The
two moved there in the nineteen sixties when Fred took
a job as a junior rabbi.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He was young, he was up to date. Lots of
lots of people were happy that Fred and Carol had arrived.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Only about two percent of Americans practiced Judaism, but with
a community of over twenty five thousand, Cherry Hill has
one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, making
it the perfect place for Rabbi Newlander to start his
own synagogue.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
In nineteen seventy four, Fred and seventeen eighteen members of
the earlier Congregation for Micorshalom. Fred shows that term micorshalom
because it means source of peace.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And that peaceful Synegague grew to nearly one thousand congregants
in Cherry Hill, and Rabbi Fred and Carroll Newlander were
looked at like royalty.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
They were committed to this congregation. They were committed to
developing something new that had not existed in Cherry Hill before.
And that's what so many people have found attractive about
Micorschloam and about Fred and Carol.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
While Rabbi Newlander worked day and night to his congregation,
his wife Carol raised their three children.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
They were almost like a unit, separate and apart from
their father because they knew that many evenings their father might,
if they were lucky, be home for dinner.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And Carol wasn't your typical rabbi's wife. She also ran
a popular bakery called Classic Cakes.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
This was amazingly successful. It was perhaps the finest bakery
in South Jersey. Members of the congregation came there, of.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Course, everyone came for their red velvet cupcakes, breakfast pastries,
and assortment of elaborate cakes.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was also very very profitable, but she was very,
very careless with some of the money that was coming
into the bakery. She would just stuff it into her
purse and come home at night with five thousand, ten
thoy fifteen thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
All that cash played into Carrol's demy.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
On November first, nineteen ninety four, Fred put in his
usual work day at Macoorsechalon.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And on that afternoon, Carol had volunteered with pediatric AIDS
patients and returned home while her husband was still at
the synagogue.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
About nine o'clock he went back home. He opened the door,
glanced into the living room on his right, Sure Carol
Nolander lying on the floor of the living room in
a pool of blood.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Just imagine the scene. Fred found Carol face down and
badly beaten. It was horrific. This was his wife. Her
blood was everywhere. So he ran to the kitchen, grabbed
his cordless landline phone and called nine on one.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I want one STAFY emergency.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I just came home.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
My wife had on the floor and they'd fulln all over.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I don't know what to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How does she appear to be breathing? They asked if
she was alive. He said he didn't know. I don't
wanted to say to her.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Should I not touch her?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Just leave everything away it is here and stay on
the phone with me until the first police officer getshured.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's when the rabbi remembered his son, Matthew was working
as an emt that evening.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Cool, so I had to send somebody down, Sir, calm down,
hold on a second.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Tragically, Matthew Newlander did hear that call and quickly drove
his ambulance to his house, nearly colliding with another emergency
vehicle when he arrived. But before he got inside to
see his mother, a friend grabbed him and carried him
away from the house.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Matthew instantly knew that his mother was dead, because if
she was not, somebody would have said something comforting to him.
Don't worry, she's barely injured. Don't worry, she's being treated
right now. Nobody said anything like that.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's when his dad, Rabbi Fred Newlander, walked up to him.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
He was still holding his cord, was still aphone, wasn't
using it, wasn't talking to anybody, but his manner was
completely composed.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
The Rabbi was still dressed in his tailored suit. He
wore a temple. He was in shock. He stood on
the driveway with their two story home, listening as Matthew
frantically asked him question after question about his mother. Each
time the Rabbi offered the same answer.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Don't worry, everything will be fine. He was always buttoned up,
and he was buttoned up November one, nineteen ninety four,
when he saw Carol lying in the living room, when
he called nine one one, when he did his version
of trying to comfort his son Matthew.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
By then all of Highgate Lane and Cherry Hill was
a dizzy sea of red and white from the lights
of the emergency vehicles parked in front of the Newlanders.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
My name is Richard Bumber. November one, nineteen ninety four.
I was working as a patrolman for the Cherry Hill
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Officer Bumbar was one of the first responders that night.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's a middle upper middle class community, beautiful homes. It's
the type of community where everyone had their law and nice,
everyone knew each other. Neighbors were very close and very friendly.
So when I walked up the driveway of the residence,
I noticed a man dressed in his suit, probably in
his fifties or so.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
That man was, of course, Rabbi Fred Newlander.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
He had a portable phone in his hand, and immediately
I asked him what was going on. He raised his
left hand and pointed with the phone, said she's in there,
and I was like, oh, okay. So I entered the
house and immediately noticed Carol laying on the floor in
(08:06):
the room right to my right. It was a white room,
didn't look like it was a room that was used
or used commonly. White carpets, white furniture, white walls, and
there was just this bright red blood spattered everywhere in
that room. When I examined the body, I noticed that
there were several indentations to her skull, her fingers were
(08:29):
all broken back and opened from defensive wounds. There was
a tremendous amount of pulled blood. She was cold. It
was obvious to me that somebody had bludgeontered to death,
like repeated strikes to her head.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So now the complicated work of trying to figure out
what happened began. There was no sign of force entry
and no other victims in the house. Just Carol.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Carol Newlander. She was business partners and very prominent bakery
and she got into the habit of taking the till
home where there was a significant amount of money ten
fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The police wondered if someone was after Carol's money, why
did they leave other valuables behind, and how did they
get into the house.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
They had a lot of expensive items in the house.
None of it was gone through. Dressers weren't gone through
looking for money or jewelry. Everything was neat and tidy.
So the idea of that it was a robbery or
a home invasion that went bad didn't seem to line
up for what I saw.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It wasn't like the police saw many homicides in Cherry Hill.
This was the first homicide in two years, and it
involved the beloved wife of Rabbi Fred Newlantern.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
The mayor's pulling off, and there's a lot of people
showing up at that house. That just seemed like, Wow,
this person certainly wasn't just an average citizen.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So the question on everyone's mind that night was why.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
There weren't any suspects. There weren't any leads, so the
community just thought it was a random act of violence.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So no one could believe Carol Newlander, successful small business owner,
mother of three, who just spent her day volunteering with
pediatric AIDS patients, had been robbed and beaten to death.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Not only are we dealing with a homicide of a
prominent family in Cherry Hill, but Carol's son, Matthew, was
working as an EMT that night and he was responding
to the house.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Matthew was a young EMT who just wanted to be
with his mother to say goodbye, but heartbreakingly, protocol.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Did allow it.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And that was that was difficult. It was unfortunate. I
would have wanted to say goodbye to my mom, you know.
And that's a situation and it's difficult. It's a part
of the job, unfortunately, and you know, you have to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
His mother was dead and the lives of the Newlander
family would never be the same again.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
They were an all American family in a sense. It
had everything and now they have nothing. Now it's a shame.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
On a cold night in November nineteen ninety four, Carol
Newlander was murdered in her Cherry Hill, New Jersey home.
She was a mother of three who ran a successful
bakery business and was the wife of South Jersey's most
prominent Rabbi, Fred Newlander.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
People are sympathizing with Fred and whispering words of consolation
in his ear.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Arthur Macgida wrote a book about Carol Newlander's murder.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Carol's funeral was one of the largest in South Jersey.
Dignitaries came, politicians came.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
As part of the Jewish tradition, people offer their condolences
to the rabbi by saying, may her memory be a
blessing to you.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then they whispered among each other, who would ever
kill Carol Newlander? They all loved Carol Neulander, and everybody
is sad, and still Fred Neulander is showing virtually no emotion.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
There is a Jewish tradition called Shibba. It's the week
long period of mourning after a death. During Shiva, your friends, family,
and neighbors come by and take care of you. They
bring you food, provide you comfort, and run your errands
so you can mourn.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
How he comported himself that evening and in some of
the days that followed, very much flowed from his experience
as a rabbi. Fred Neulander dealt with death and birth
over and over again. In the course of his professor.
(13:00):
He was in to some degree acculturated to death, not
to murder, but to.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Death by the time they were sitting Shiva for Carol Newlander,
Cherry Hill police officers had already questioned Fred Newlander and
two of his children, Rebecca and Matthew. If you remember,
Matthew was one of the EMTs who came to the
house on the night of his mother's murder.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Matthew told the police about a very, very severe argument
that he witnessed between his parents two days before Carol
was killed, Carol telling Matthew that Fred didn't want to
work on this marriage any longer, that Fred wanted to
divorce Carol. And Matthew told the police that Carol had
(13:50):
then dashed down to the basement, grabbed some suitcases and
threw them at Fred Newlander told him to get out.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
But Rabbi Newlander gave to detectives a different take.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
He said it was just honky dorry. Everything was fine. Yeah,
they had their little bickerings occasionally, whose turn is it
to clean out the dishwasher? But theirs was a rock
solid marriage.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So there was something else. The police began to focus on.
The Newlander's daughter, Rebecca lived out of town and talked
with her mom every day. She told the police about
two strange conversations she had with her mother. The first
happened two weeks before Carol's murder.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Carol pulled up to her driveway after working late at
Classic Cakes when a total stranger tapped on her window,
rolled the window down, said that the Rabbi had sent
him over to deliver some mail, and he handed Carol
(14:52):
an ovelope and then he asked if he could use
the bathroom. Carol said, of course, and she led him
into the house use the bathroom. He left, and shortly
after that, Carol's daughter Rebecca called. She said, Mom, what
are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I just got home. Somebody came to see Daddy. He
isn't there, but he gave me something male that Daddy
had been waiting for. And Carol told Rebecca, What's the
strange thing is that I opened this envelope but wasn't
sealed and there wasn't anything in it. Well, neither Caroll
nor Rebecca knew what to make of that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It was pretty weird, and two weeks later, on the
day of Carol's murder, they were on the phone again
when the mysterious man returned.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Carol opens the door and Rebecca wants to know who
it is, and she says, oh, that's the bathroom man
from last week. Rebecca says, well, what does he want?
Says oh, Dad told him to come over, and Carol
looks out. She sees that the bathroom man is with
(15:59):
somebody else. It's cold. She encourages both of them to
come in be warm. Rebecca's very concerned that her mother
is inviting these two essentials strangers into the house. Carol says,
there's nothing to worry about. The door is closed, and
that was the last that anyone in Carroll's family heard
(16:22):
from her.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Detectives asked Rabbi Newlander if he knew who this mysterious
visitor was.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
He claimed to have no idea what the police were
talking about. He had never sent anybody over to the
house with a message for him. He had never told
Carol that somebody would be coming either of those evenings.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Detectives came to believe the bathroom man and his accomplice
knew the rabbi schedule and had been casing the house
in order to rob and murder Carol.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Fred very soon was telling people the Colombians did this
to Carol. The Colombians who worked at Classic Cakes and
knew that Carol came home with loads of cash that
never panned out. There were rumors that the Russian Jewish
mafia was behind this, so there was theory after theory
(17:20):
after theory.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Rabbi Newlander told detectives he was at Micorsia Lome when
Carol was murdered. They interviewed a dozen or so people
at the synagogue and his alibi checked out.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yes, he was at the temple in fact, the moment
that Carol was killed, and that's why when he came
back home the blood in the living room was still very,
very fresh.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This put detectives back at square one. So the weeks
dragged on without any updates about the investigation, until finally,
just a couple of days before the Christmas holiday, the
police called a press conference, but the new Landers were
nowhere to be found. One reporter asked the prosecutor if
Rabbi Newlander was considered a suspect. He paused for a
(18:03):
moment and said, we don't rule in, we don't rule out.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
They didn't know what to make of that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well, Rabbi Newlander did. He was furious he had an
alibi and questioned why the police hadn't cleared him, so
he hired a PI named len Jenoff with an impressive
resume that included a stint with the FBI, and Cia.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Jenof seemed like the right person to turn to.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Rabbi Newlander knew len Jenoff, he met him a couple
of years earlier and helped him turn his life around.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Leonard Jenoff was a difficult person to define.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Back in the nineteen eighties, len Jenoff accidentally struck and
killed someone who was pushing their stalled vehicle on the highway.
Although Jenoff was never charged, he fell into a deep
depression and turned to booze. Years later, he was introduced
to Rabbi Newlander, who offered to help him and get
back on his feet.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Len Jenoff left Fred Newlander's office that day, fully committed
to doing almost anything that Fred wanted him to do,
because he saw the Rabbi as his savior, as the
next best thing to his Messiah.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
So now you had the police and a very motivated
len Jenoff working to find Carol Newlander's killer. Those investigations
would uncover secrets that would shake Cherry Hill to its soul.
Rabbi Fred Newlander had a rock solid alibi on the
(19:45):
night of his wife Carol's murder, So why didn't the
police rule him out as a suspect.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
For years there were rumors that Fred was a little
bit too much of a lady's man.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Arthur mcgeita wrote a book about the Newlanders.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
He made a habit of going from woman to woman
to woman and touching her and giving them compliments. And
they always just happened to be the prettiest woman in
the congregation that evening.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So it turned out the leader of the community was
not so pious. And back in nineteen ninety two, one
particular woman called Rabbi Fred Newlander's eye. Don't let the
broadcasters see that I have all this makeup over here.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
It's filming it for convention.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
When is the convention?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
September? Oh, thanks a lot, here, let me hide my mirror.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Elaine Sensini was a prominent radio personality in Philadelphia, and
so was her husband, Ken Garland. Elaine met Rabbi Newlander
when her husband Ken was dying of leukemia, and.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
A day or two after that, Fred Newlander called Ewaine
Suncini asked how she was. She said, I'm fine, I'm coping.
Fred asked if he could come over to her house.
She agreed. They had lunch together. He asked if he
could return soon, She said he couldn't, and they engaged
(21:08):
in what the police would soon called intimacy.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
He moves in on a widow a couple days after
her husband's death, and then despite Rabbi Newlander's eighteen hour
work day and Elaine's early morning radio schedule, the two
managed to carry on an affair for nearly two years.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
They would meet at Olaine's house two, three, four times
a week. Fred often towed her that she satisfied him
sexually in a way that Carol never did. He alluded
to the possibility that he might get divorced from Carol furrowing,
(21:55):
but sometimes he would hedge on that because he wasn't
certain how that would affect his career.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So with all this secrecy, how did detectives learn about Elaine. Well,
they obtained a copy of Rabbi Newlander's phone records, and
something in those phone records from the morning after Carol's
murder stood out.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
One of the first people Fred called was Awayne Sonciney.
Why would he possibly do that?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Detectives questioned Elaine, and they shared some information. She did
not know about Fred Newland.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
She's not the only girlfriend that Fred hadn't and they
named the others one, two, three, and perhaps four.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Elaine was shocked and pissed, and that's when the gloves
came off.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
She tells the police they've had a long standing romance.
When she returns home that night, she calls Fred. It
says Fred I told the police everything. You're on your.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Own noun news of Rabbi Newlander's affairs Rock Cherry Hill
and mccorchelone. These were women he had been counseling.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
How could Fred Newlander, the stalwart of the community, the
founder of Macorse alone, this charismatic, well educated, enlightened individual
who had this wonderful family and terrific wife, be playing
around on the side. Who could possibly have time to
do that anyway? Seems that Fred Newlander didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Fred admitted to behaviors he was not proud of and
stepped away from m course alone. In his letter to
his congregants, Ye added that he had nothing to do
with his wife's death. It was the same message he
gave Elaine Sensini in the days after Carol's murder. Being
an adulter didn't make him a murderer.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Fred invited Elaine into his office at the temple and
said he loves her, said he wanted to marry her
when the time would be appropriate.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The police didn't confirm or denial ing as a suspecting
Carol Newlander's murder. It was much like the situation with
the rabbi.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
After one's spouse he is murdered, the surviving spouse always
becomes the first suspect.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Attorney Jeff Zucker represented Rabbi Newlander. His client had a
lot of explaining to do. Here's Jeff Zucker.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
And once things started to come out about the affairs
that he had, and the fact that the affairs involved
congregants that he was counseling, then I think the tide
started to change.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And as you can imagine, the local press was having
a field day with stories of the adulterous man of God.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
We thought the media attention was so horribly profuse and
horribly against him.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
As reporters hounded the Rabbi and Elaine sin Seemi for comment,
Elaine asked the Cherry Hill Police Department for protection. Two
officers were then dispatched to keep an eye on her.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
The interesting thing about Elaine Suncini is that she also
had an involvement with one of the police officers in
this case, Larry Leaf.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Okay, so get this. Larry Leaf was one of the
officers assigned to watch her, and in another twist to
this story, Elaynin Officer Leif became romantically involved and that
created a serious conflict of interest, especially when he was
caught rummaging through police files related to the case.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
We believe that Larry Leaf gave her access to certain
of the investigative files in the cherryhol Police Department. Elaine
Soncceni she incidentally ended up marrying Larry Leaf.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
So internal affairs investigated Officer Leaf and later cleared him
of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
That was another strange twist in this whole case. This
is one of the most bizarre cases I've been involved
in in my forty five years of legal experience.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
With reporters constantly hounding her. Elaine Sansini used her radio
show to come clean about her affair with Rabbi Newland
in the summer of nineteen ninety five. She tearfully apologized
on the air for what she called some errors in judgment.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Sonny Now in seventy eight degrees. I apologize to you
for these guys.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But lost in the juicy stories of love, lust and
adultery were the Newlander children.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I felt bad for the family I did. I felt
bad for the kids.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Their mother's murder was still unsolved, and the only thing
they're hearing is story after story of their father's infidelity.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Every day something else would come out in the local papers.
Because of the horrible negative publicity he was getting, we
thought it was time for him to speak out to
say I had nothing to do with this. So we
called in the local television stations let him read a
prepared statement.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I categorically deny that I murdered my wife or arranged
in any way to have her killed.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It was brief, but we thought it would be good
for the public to hear him speak and to have
him deny the charges.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The town of Cherry Hill struggled with their beloved rabbis
meteoric fall from grace. First they had to process news
of his affairs, and now there are rumbles about him
also being a murderer.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
A person who is having an affair maybe morally at fault,
but it's a huge jump from someone having an affair
to become a murderer.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And it didn't help that the police remained mum about
potential suspects and shared very little about their investigation.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
They were looking into Leeds for years and he came
up with a bunch of dead ends.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
At the same time, the rabbi's private investigator, len Jenoff,
used his FBI and CIA background to do his own research.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
He one time came into our office with a sketch
of what he said was a composite drawing of who
the person who killed Carol Newlander would be. And we
told the Rabbi, please, have nothing more to do with
len Jenoff. He's a wild card. He's running up all
(28:33):
kinds of blind alleys and making no sense. If you're
going to continue working with this guy, we can't represent
you anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You can't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's because around that time some bizarre news about len
Jenoff surfaced.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Len got married and asked the Rabbi to perform the
ceremony at the Rabbi's home, and.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Their wedding pictures of them arm in arm holding each other.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
That seems nice, But when the police looked closely at
these pictures of the Rabbi with lenn On his wedding day,
they noticed something shocking, like.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Oh my god. They took the pictures right where Carol
was laying and.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
She was murdered.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
The ceremony was performed at the exact spot where they
found Carol Newlander's body. It's bizarre, but that's that's where
it was. Which was also another very strange twist.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
In this whole case.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
If a picture is worth a thousand words, well that
scene doesn't work here, because this one left the police speechless.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
It was hard for me to believe that this really
could have happened.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That was the first twist of many to come. In
part two of Who Killed Carol, the police get an
unexpected confession from someone no one suspected. I'm Smoan Glass.
That's next time. On American Homicide. You can contact the
(30:08):
American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod
at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail
dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me
Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
(30:31):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans.
The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our
associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart heap is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
(30:52):
Additional editing support from Nika Ruga, Tannor Robbins, Britt Robashow,
and Patrick Walsh. American Homicides' theme song was composed by
Oliver Baines of Noisier Music Library provided by my Music.
Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts and please rate and
review American Homicide. Your five star review goes a long
(31:16):
way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts
from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts
A young emt answered a call to his home that
had fatal consequences.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Matthew Newlander he heard on his radio that a woman
was injured a two oh four high gate. There's only
one woman a two oh four highgate. That's his mother.
She was unconscious and not breathing. Matthew instantly knew that
his mother was dead. How did my mom get beaten
to death in the living room of her house? Who
(00:29):
would ever kill Carol Newlander? They all loved Carol Newlander.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The answer would leave Matthew questioning everything and everyone he knew.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
This is such a convoluted, perplexing, disturbing, troubling case, and
I wish to God that this had never happened.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Today, we're jumping across the country to the Garden State,
New Jersey. Specifically, we're in the suburb of Cherry Hill
for the tragic story of a mother of three who
was found beaten to death in her home. This is
a case of who done it that's shocked a community.
We'll explore from the beginning until the very end, when
a panel of twelve jurors had to meet the most
(01:12):
difficult decision of their lives. I'm slung glass and this
is part one of Who Killed Carol on American Homicide.
Just to note that some of this content is graphic,
Please take care well listening. Consider the town of Cherry Hill,
New Jersey. It's the perfect spot for people who want
(01:33):
to live close enough yet far enough away from two
major cities.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Philadelphia to the south, New York City to the north.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Arthur mcgeita authored a book about one of Cherry Hill's
most revered and respected couples, Fred and Carol Newlander. The
two moved there in the nineteen sixties when Fred took
a job as a junior rabbi.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He was young, he was up to date. Lots of
lots of people were happy that Fred and Carol had arrived.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Only about two percent of Americans practiced Judaism, but with
a community of over twenty five thousand, Cherry Hill has
one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, making
it the perfect place for Rabbi Newlander to start his
own synagogue.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
In nineteen seventy four, Fred and seventeen eighteen members of
the earlier Congregation for Micorshalom. Fred shows that term micorshalom
because it means source of peace.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And that peaceful Synegague grew to nearly one thousand congregants
in Cherry Hill, and Rabbi Fred and Carroll Newlander were
looked at like royalty.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
They were committed to this congregation. They were committed to
developing something new that had not existed in Cherry Hill before.
And that's what so many people have found attractive about
Micorschloam and about Fred and Carol.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
While Rabbi Newlander worked day and night to his congregation,
his wife Carol raised their three children.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
They were almost like a unit, separate and apart from
their father because they knew that many evenings their father might,
if they were lucky, be home for dinner.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And Carol wasn't your typical rabbi's wife. She also ran
a popular bakery called Classic Cakes.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
This was amazingly successful. It was perhaps the finest bakery
in South Jersey. Members of the congregation came there, of.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Course, everyone came for their red velvet cupcakes, breakfast pastries,
and assortment of elaborate cakes.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was also very very profitable, but she was very,
very careless with some of the money that was coming
into the bakery. She would just stuff it into her
purse and come home at night with five thousand, ten
thoy fifteen thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
All that cash played into Carrol's demy.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
On November first, nineteen ninety four, Fred put in his
usual work day at Macoorsechalon.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And on that afternoon, Carol had volunteered with pediatric AIDS
patients and returned home while her husband was still at
the synagogue.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
About nine o'clock he went back home. He opened the door,
glanced into the living room on his right, Sure Carol
Nolander lying on the floor of the living room in
a pool of blood.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Just imagine the scene. Fred found Carol face down and
badly beaten. It was horrific. This was his wife. Her
blood was everywhere. So he ran to the kitchen, grabbed
his cordless landline phone and called nine on one.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I want one STAFY emergency.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I just came home.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
My wife had on the floor and they'd fulln all over.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I don't know what to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How does she appear to be breathing? They asked if
she was alive. He said he didn't know. I don't
wanted to say to her.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Should I not touch her?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Just leave everything away it is here and stay on
the phone with me until the first police officer getshured.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's when the rabbi remembered his son, Matthew was working
as an emt that evening.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Cool, so I had to send somebody down, Sir, calm down,
hold on a second.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Tragically, Matthew Newlander did hear that call and quickly drove
his ambulance to his house, nearly colliding with another emergency
vehicle when he arrived. But before he got inside to
see his mother, a friend grabbed him and carried him
away from the house.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Matthew instantly knew that his mother was dead, because if
she was not, somebody would have said something comforting to him.
Don't worry, she's barely injured. Don't worry, she's being treated
right now. Nobody said anything like that.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's when his dad, Rabbi Fred Newlander, walked up to him.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
He was still holding his cord, was still aphone, wasn't
using it, wasn't talking to anybody, but his manner was
completely composed.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
The Rabbi was still dressed in his tailored suit. He
wore a temple. He was in shock. He stood on
the driveway with their two story home, listening as Matthew
frantically asked him question after question about his mother. Each
time the Rabbi offered the same answer.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Don't worry, everything will be fine. He was always buttoned up,
and he was buttoned up November one, nineteen ninety four,
when he saw Carol lying in the living room, when
he called nine one one, when he did his version
of trying to comfort his son Matthew.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
By then all of Highgate Lane and Cherry Hill was
a dizzy sea of red and white from the lights
of the emergency vehicles parked in front of the Newlanders.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
My name is Richard Bumber. November one, nineteen ninety four.
I was working as a patrolman for the Cherry Hill
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Officer Bumbar was one of the first responders that night.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's a middle upper middle class community, beautiful homes. It's
the type of community where everyone had their law and nice,
everyone knew each other. Neighbors were very close and very friendly.
So when I walked up the driveway of the residence,
I noticed a man dressed in his suit, probably in
his fifties or so.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
That man was, of course, Rabbi Fred Newlander.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
He had a portable phone in his hand, and immediately
I asked him what was going on. He raised his
left hand and pointed with the phone, said she's in there,
and I was like, oh, okay. So I entered the
house and immediately noticed Carol laying on the floor in
(08:06):
the room right to my right. It was a white room,
didn't look like it was a room that was used
or used commonly. White carpets, white furniture, white walls, and
there was just this bright red blood spattered everywhere in
that room. When I examined the body, I noticed that
there were several indentations to her skull, her fingers were
(08:29):
all broken back and opened from defensive wounds. There was
a tremendous amount of pulled blood. She was cold. It
was obvious to me that somebody had bludgeontered to death,
like repeated strikes to her head.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So now the complicated work of trying to figure out
what happened began. There was no sign of force entry
and no other victims in the house. Just Carol.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Carol Newlander. She was business partners and very prominent bakery
and she got into the habit of taking the till
home where there was a significant amount of money ten
fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The police wondered if someone was after Carol's money, why
did they leave other valuables behind, and how did they
get into the house.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
They had a lot of expensive items in the house.
None of it was gone through. Dressers weren't gone through
looking for money or jewelry. Everything was neat and tidy.
So the idea of that it was a robbery or
a home invasion that went bad didn't seem to line
up for what I saw.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It wasn't like the police saw many homicides in Cherry Hill.
This was the first homicide in two years, and it
involved the beloved wife of Rabbi Fred Newlantern.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
The mayor's pulling off, and there's a lot of people
showing up at that house. That just seemed like, Wow,
this person certainly wasn't just an average citizen.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So the question on everyone's mind that night was why.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
There weren't any suspects. There weren't any leads, so the
community just thought it was a random act of violence.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So no one could believe Carol Newlander, successful small business owner,
mother of three, who just spent her day volunteering with
pediatric AIDS patients, had been robbed and beaten to death.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Not only are we dealing with a homicide of a
prominent family in Cherry Hill, but Carol's son, Matthew, was
working as an EMT that night and he was responding
to the house.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Matthew was a young EMT who just wanted to be
with his mother to say goodbye, but heartbreakingly, protocol.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Did allow it.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And that was that was difficult. It was unfortunate. I
would have wanted to say goodbye to my mom, you know.
And that's a situation and it's difficult. It's a part
of the job, unfortunately, and you know, you have to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
His mother was dead and the lives of the Newlander
family would never be the same again.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
They were an all American family in a sense. It
had everything and now they have nothing. Now it's a shame.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
On a cold night in November nineteen ninety four, Carol
Newlander was murdered in her Cherry Hill, New Jersey home.
She was a mother of three who ran a successful
bakery business and was the wife of South Jersey's most
prominent Rabbi, Fred Newlander.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
People are sympathizing with Fred and whispering words of consolation
in his ear.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Arthur Macgida wrote a book about Carol Newlander's murder.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Carol's funeral was one of the largest in South Jersey.
Dignitaries came, politicians came.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
As part of the Jewish tradition, people offer their condolences
to the rabbi by saying, may her memory be a
blessing to you.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then they whispered among each other, who would ever
kill Carol Newlander? They all loved Carol Neulander, and everybody
is sad, and still Fred Neulander is showing virtually no emotion.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
There is a Jewish tradition called Shibba. It's the week
long period of mourning after a death. During Shiva, your friends, family,
and neighbors come by and take care of you. They
bring you food, provide you comfort, and run your errands
so you can mourn.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
How he comported himself that evening and in some of
the days that followed, very much flowed from his experience
as a rabbi. Fred Neulander dealt with death and birth
over and over again. In the course of his professor.
(13:00):
He was in to some degree acculturated to death, not
to murder, but to.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Death by the time they were sitting Shiva for Carol Newlander,
Cherry Hill police officers had already questioned Fred Newlander and
two of his children, Rebecca and Matthew. If you remember,
Matthew was one of the EMTs who came to the
house on the night of his mother's murder.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Matthew told the police about a very, very severe argument
that he witnessed between his parents two days before Carol
was killed, Carol telling Matthew that Fred didn't want to
work on this marriage any longer, that Fred wanted to
divorce Carol. And Matthew told the police that Carol had
(13:50):
then dashed down to the basement, grabbed some suitcases and
threw them at Fred Newlander told him to get out.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
But Rabbi Newlander gave to detectives a different take.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
He said it was just honky dorry. Everything was fine. Yeah,
they had their little bickerings occasionally, whose turn is it
to clean out the dishwasher? But theirs was a rock
solid marriage.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So there was something else. The police began to focus on.
The Newlander's daughter, Rebecca lived out of town and talked
with her mom every day. She told the police about
two strange conversations she had with her mother. The first
happened two weeks before Carol's murder.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Carol pulled up to her driveway after working late at
Classic Cakes when a total stranger tapped on her window,
rolled the window down, said that the Rabbi had sent
him over to deliver some mail, and he handed Carol
(14:52):
an ovelope and then he asked if he could use
the bathroom. Carol said, of course, and she led him
into the house use the bathroom. He left, and shortly
after that, Carol's daughter Rebecca called. She said, Mom, what
are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I just got home. Somebody came to see Daddy. He
isn't there, but he gave me something male that Daddy
had been waiting for. And Carol told Rebecca, What's the
strange thing is that I opened this envelope but wasn't
sealed and there wasn't anything in it. Well, neither Caroll
nor Rebecca knew what to make of that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It was pretty weird, and two weeks later, on the
day of Carol's murder, they were on the phone again
when the mysterious man returned.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Carol opens the door and Rebecca wants to know who
it is, and she says, oh, that's the bathroom man
from last week. Rebecca says, well, what does he want?
Says oh, Dad told him to come over, and Carol
looks out. She sees that the bathroom man is with
(15:59):
somebody else. It's cold. She encourages both of them to
come in be warm. Rebecca's very concerned that her mother
is inviting these two essentials strangers into the house. Carol says,
there's nothing to worry about. The door is closed, and
that was the last that anyone in Carroll's family heard
(16:22):
from her.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Detectives asked Rabbi Newlander if he knew who this mysterious
visitor was.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
He claimed to have no idea what the police were
talking about. He had never sent anybody over to the
house with a message for him. He had never told
Carol that somebody would be coming either of those evenings.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Detectives came to believe the bathroom man and his accomplice
knew the rabbi schedule and had been casing the house
in order to rob and murder Carol.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Fred very soon was telling people the Colombians did this
to Carol. The Colombians who worked at Classic Cakes and
knew that Carol came home with loads of cash that
never panned out. There were rumors that the Russian Jewish
mafia was behind this, so there was theory after theory
(17:20):
after theory.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Rabbi Newlander told detectives he was at Micorsia Lome when
Carol was murdered. They interviewed a dozen or so people
at the synagogue and his alibi checked out.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yes, he was at the temple in fact, the moment
that Carol was killed, and that's why when he came
back home the blood in the living room was still very,
very fresh.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
This put detectives back at square one. So the weeks
dragged on without any updates about the investigation, until finally,
just a couple of days before the Christmas holiday, the
police called a press conference, but the new Landers were
nowhere to be found. One reporter asked the prosecutor if
Rabbi Newlander was considered a suspect. He paused for a
(18:03):
moment and said, we don't rule in, we don't rule out.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
They didn't know what to make of that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well, Rabbi Newlander did. He was furious he had an
alibi and questioned why the police hadn't cleared him, so
he hired a PI named len Jenoff with an impressive
resume that included a stint with the FBI, and Cia.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Jenof seemed like the right person to turn to.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Rabbi Newlander knew len Jenoff, he met him a couple
of years earlier and helped him turn his life around.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Leonard Jenoff was a difficult person to define.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Back in the nineteen eighties, len Jenoff accidentally struck and
killed someone who was pushing their stalled vehicle on the highway.
Although Jenoff was never charged, he fell into a deep
depression and turned to booze. Years later, he was introduced
to Rabbi Newlander, who offered to help him and get
back on his feet.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Len Jenoff left Fred Newlander's office that day, fully committed
to doing almost anything that Fred wanted him to do,
because he saw the Rabbi as his savior, as the
next best thing to his Messiah.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
So now you had the police and a very motivated
len Jenoff working to find Carol Newlander's killer. Those investigations
would uncover secrets that would shake Cherry Hill to its soul.
Rabbi Fred Newlander had a rock solid alibi on the
(19:45):
night of his wife Carol's murder, So why didn't the
police rule him out as a suspect.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
For years there were rumors that Fred was a little
bit too much of a lady's man.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Arthur mcgeita wrote a book about the Newlanders.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
He made a habit of going from woman to woman
to woman and touching her and giving them compliments. And
they always just happened to be the prettiest woman in
the congregation that evening.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So it turned out the leader of the community was
not so pious. And back in nineteen ninety two, one
particular woman called Rabbi Fred Newlander's eye. Don't let the
broadcasters see that I have all this makeup over here.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
It's filming it for convention.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
When is the convention?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
September? Oh, thanks a lot, here, let me hide my mirror.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Elaine Sensini was a prominent radio personality in Philadelphia, and
so was her husband, Ken Garland. Elaine met Rabbi Newlander
when her husband Ken was dying of leukemia, and.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
A day or two after that, Fred Newlander called Ewaine
Suncini asked how she was. She said, I'm fine, I'm coping.
Fred asked if he could come over to her house.
She agreed. They had lunch together. He asked if he
could return soon, She said he couldn't, and they engaged
(21:08):
in what the police would soon called intimacy.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
He moves in on a widow a couple days after
her husband's death, and then despite Rabbi Newlander's eighteen hour
work day and Elaine's early morning radio schedule, the two
managed to carry on an affair for nearly two years.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
They would meet at Olaine's house two, three, four times
a week. Fred often towed her that she satisfied him
sexually in a way that Carol never did. He alluded
to the possibility that he might get divorced from Carol furrowing,
(21:55):
but sometimes he would hedge on that because he wasn't
certain how that would affect his career.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So with all this secrecy, how did detectives learn about Elaine. Well,
they obtained a copy of Rabbi Newlander's phone records, and
something in those phone records from the morning after Carol's
murder stood out.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
One of the first people Fred called was Awayne Sonciney.
Why would he possibly do that?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Detectives questioned Elaine, and they shared some information. She did
not know about Fred Newland.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
She's not the only girlfriend that Fred hadn't and they
named the others one, two, three, and perhaps four.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Elaine was shocked and pissed, and that's when the gloves
came off.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
She tells the police they've had a long standing romance.
When she returns home that night, she calls Fred. It
says Fred I told the police everything. You're on your.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Own noun news of Rabbi Newlander's affairs Rock Cherry Hill
and mccorchelone. These were women he had been counseling.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
How could Fred Newlander, the stalwart of the community, the
founder of Macorse alone, this charismatic, well educated, enlightened individual
who had this wonderful family and terrific wife, be playing
around on the side. Who could possibly have time to
do that anyway? Seems that Fred Newlander didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Fred admitted to behaviors he was not proud of and
stepped away from m course alone. In his letter to
his congregants, Ye added that he had nothing to do
with his wife's death. It was the same message he
gave Elaine Sensini in the days after Carol's murder. Being
an adulter didn't make him a murderer.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Fred invited Elaine into his office at the temple and
said he loves her, said he wanted to marry her
when the time would be appropriate.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The police didn't confirm or denial ing as a suspecting
Carol Newlander's murder. It was much like the situation with
the rabbi.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
After one's spouse he is murdered, the surviving spouse always
becomes the first suspect.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Attorney Jeff Zucker represented Rabbi Newlander. His client had a
lot of explaining to do. Here's Jeff Zucker.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
And once things started to come out about the affairs
that he had, and the fact that the affairs involved
congregants that he was counseling, then I think the tide
started to change.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And as you can imagine, the local press was having
a field day with stories of the adulterous man of God.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
We thought the media attention was so horribly profuse and
horribly against him.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
As reporters hounded the Rabbi and Elaine sin Seemi for comment,
Elaine asked the Cherry Hill Police Department for protection. Two
officers were then dispatched to keep an eye on her.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
The interesting thing about Elaine Suncini is that she also
had an involvement with one of the police officers in
this case, Larry Leaf.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Okay, so get this. Larry Leaf was one of the
officers assigned to watch her, and in another twist to
this story, Elaynin Officer Leif became romantically involved and that
created a serious conflict of interest, especially when he was
caught rummaging through police files related to the case.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
We believe that Larry Leaf gave her access to certain
of the investigative files in the cherryhol Police Department. Elaine
Soncceni she incidentally ended up marrying Larry Leaf.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
So internal affairs investigated Officer Leaf and later cleared him
of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
That was another strange twist in this whole case. This
is one of the most bizarre cases I've been involved
in in my forty five years of legal experience.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
With reporters constantly hounding her. Elaine Sansini used her radio
show to come clean about her affair with Rabbi Newland
in the summer of nineteen ninety five. She tearfully apologized
on the air for what she called some errors in judgment.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Sonny Now in seventy eight degrees. I apologize to you
for these guys.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But lost in the juicy stories of love, lust and
adultery were the Newlander children.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
I felt bad for the family I did. I felt
bad for the kids.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Their mother's murder was still unsolved, and the only thing
they're hearing is story after story of their father's infidelity.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Every day something else would come out in the local papers.
Because of the horrible negative publicity he was getting, we
thought it was time for him to speak out to
say I had nothing to do with this. So we
called in the local television stations let him read a
prepared statement.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I categorically deny that I murdered my wife or arranged
in any way to have her killed.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It was brief, but we thought it would be good
for the public to hear him speak and to have
him deny the charges.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The town of Cherry Hill struggled with their beloved rabbis
meteoric fall from grace. First they had to process news
of his affairs, and now there are rumbles about him
also being a murderer.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
A person who is having an affair maybe morally at fault,
but it's a huge jump from someone having an affair
to become a murderer.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And it didn't help that the police remained mum about
potential suspects and shared very little about their investigation.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
They were looking into Leeds for years and he came
up with a bunch of dead ends.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
At the same time, the rabbi's private investigator, len Jenoff,
used his FBI and CIA background to do his own research.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
He one time came into our office with a sketch
of what he said was a composite drawing of who
the person who killed Carol Newlander would be. And we
told the Rabbi, please, have nothing more to do with
len Jenoff. He's a wild card. He's running up all
(28:33):
kinds of blind alleys and making no sense. If you're
going to continue working with this guy, we can't represent
you anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You can't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's because around that time some bizarre news about len
Jenoff surfaced.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Len got married and asked the Rabbi to perform the
ceremony at the Rabbi's home, and.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Their wedding pictures of them arm in arm holding each other.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
That seems nice, But when the police looked closely at
these pictures of the Rabbi with lenn On his wedding day,
they noticed something shocking, like.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Oh my god. They took the pictures right where Carol
was laying and.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
She was murdered.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
The ceremony was performed at the exact spot where they
found Carol Newlander's body. It's bizarre, but that's that's where
it was. Which was also another very strange twist.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
In this whole case.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
If a picture is worth a thousand words, well that
scene doesn't work here, because this one left the police speechless.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
It was hard for me to believe that this really
could have happened.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That was the first twist of many to come. In
part two of Who Killed Carol, the police get an
unexpected confession from someone no one suspected. I'm Smoan Glass.
That's next time. On American Homicide. You can contact the
(30:08):
American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod
at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail
dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me
Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
(30:31):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans.
The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our
associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart heap is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
(30:52):
Additional editing support from Nika Ruga, Tannor Robbins, Britt Robashow,
and Patrick Walsh. American Homicides' theme song was composed by
Oliver Baines of Noisier Music Library provided by my Music.
Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts and please rate and
review American Homicide. Your five star review goes a long
(31:16):
way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts
from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.