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True Crime Vault: Do No Harm

1h 24m 12s

True Crime Vault: Do No Harm

The true story behind the disappearance of Gale Katz, wife of plastic surgeon Robert Berenbaum, reveals a deeply troubling case of domestic abuse and murder masked by a facade of perfect love. From their initial marriage on the Upper East Side to Gale’s sudden disappearance in 1985, the relationship was marked by control, violence, and emotional manipulation. Gale faced repeated physical threats, including a near-strangulation in 1983 and attacks on her cat, while a warning letter from her therapist detailed the danger she faced. Despite these red flags, she stayed with Berenbaum, believing in his love. After her vanishing, investigators uncovered flight records showing Berenbaum had flown his private plane that day, leading to a theory that he had dumped her body at sea. A torso found in 1989 was initially believed to be hers, but DNA testing later invalidated the match, casting doubt on the case. Years later, a renewed investigation by Manhattan’s DA’s office, fueled by new evidence and witness accounts, rekindled suspicion. Berenbaum relocated to Las Vegas and then North Dakota, where he became a community hero, but was confronted by investigators in 1998–1999. In 1999, he was indicted on second-degree murder charges, and in 2000 faced trial with no physical evidence, relying instead on abuse history, flight records, and psychological evidence. The prosecution struggled to prove the murder due to legal hurdles, including the doctor-patient privilege, but the case remained one of the most compelling examples of hidden violence and domestic abuse. Ultimately, the story underscores how a seemingly perfect life can conceal a brutal truth, and how justice can be delayed, even when evidence points to a clear perpetrator.

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The next chapter is here, the Hulu Original Series, the secret lives of Mormon wives, Orange County, is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus on November 12th. We've all been shaped by Mormonism in one way or another, but there are moral divides that are pushing everyone to opposite directions. I am here to be a good example of the church. I think it's a cool, we're gonna have a problem. Watch the Hulu Original Series, a secret lives of Mormon wives, Orange County, November 12th, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bum subscribers, turns apply. Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault where each story is unforgettable. How big was flying in the life of Robert Bambam? About two, my main thing went over two, three, zero. Flying was his passion. He loved flying. The airplane was a key part of his life. Flying me to the moon. One of the first days he took out was a fight around Manhattan in the evening of the skylight. So romantic. Bob fits the tall, dark, and handsome. This perfect Renaissance man. Folks have the languages. The first day. He said, "Do you want to get high tonight?" We flew around the lights of Las Vegas. It was sparkling. The highlight, surgeon, brilliant guy. The grimace chef. An expert skier. Top of his class. A big catch. Or hate for any young lady. Yeah, you can look so good on paper and have a whole other side that you can just erase it all in a heartbeat. Flying is the crux of the story. It's the method that he tries to cover up his crime. Her disappearance made headlines in New York in 1985. I get a phone call. Turn on the TV. They've arrested Robert Berenbaum. I started screaming. It's so shocked. They dropped to my knees. You must have been blown away. I was shocked. Gayle Berenbaum vanished from the apartment. She shared with her husband Robert, a Manhattan plastic surgeon. Bob tells police that they had an argument and she came here to the park. Yes. Never in a million years, you think? You'd be using cold, calculated murder. In the same description, it's Dr. Berenbaum. It's just no way. No body. No forensics. No eyewitnesses. The investigative theory was that he wrapped the body up, drove it to his plane in New Jersey. Blue the plane out over the ocean. You know, they've charged that you took her in an airplane. Yes, no problem. And threw her out. Displeased switch to a good God. This guy was a psychopath. My God. You gotta think it's a movie. A crime and punishment. That's the story. I mean, that's what you see on TV. That's not real. Haha, right. The Berenbaum story, when you get right down to it, is Dr. Checkle and Mr. Hyde. As physicians, we all take that ol' to a bubble. Dunor. Hello. You. In the 1980s, New York City was a very different place. It was a grittier place. It was a dirtier place. There was graffiti everywhere covering all parts of every subway car. The homicide rate in the 80s was astronomical. I mean, there was thousands of blood of drug gangs. It was a very violent time in New York, the 80s. Throughout the city, there were bubbles of safety. On the upper east side, that was one of them. The upper east side was the place where you wanted to live. The upper east side was the music to the beginning of the Jefferson's when it was on TV. And on East 85th Street, in that iconic high-rise featured on the Jefferson's, there lived a handsome doctor and his beautiful wife, a young couple with their whole lives ahead of them. From the outside looking in, Robert and Gale Burn Mountain should have been the perfect couple. Tell me about your sister, what was she like? Gale was a very gentle soul. She was sensitive. She was loving. She was creative. And we're just in that damsel and distress way. My sister, Gale Beth Katz, was the first child in our family of three children. Born on March 8th, 1956. We were all living in Brooklyn. I was one year behind Gale in school. We were best friends. We lived that idyllic, carefree life. We walked to the penny store. We could chalk the street and play hopscotch. When she was in fourth grade, my parents moved to Long Island. It was really exciting for us. All of a sudden, Gale and I were going further than the candy store into the city. To Broadway shows, it seemed to us to be a very normal childhood. This is my yearbook from high school. It's me on the same page. Gale was on an honor roll. She was so smart, so bright. She was soft-spoken and yet very powerful presence at the same time. She was a very special person. She was beautiful, smart and unfortunately anxious. There was a little bit of a depression early in life. She never thought she was good enough. She never knew how good she was. After high school, she went to the State University of New York in Albany. While she was there, she fell in love with a musician in a rock band. I don't think I've ever seen Gale so happy. Gale fell head over heels. She was going to design the costumes for the band. Gale moved to Manhattan to pursue a degree in dance at New York University. And to try to help her boyfriend land a record deal. Gales and a single gorgeous woman in Manhattan. A bartending meeting, rich and famous musicians, record executives and the relationship ends. Elaine says things went downhill for Gale from there. She has an arm injury, drops out of school and is drifting without a purpose. It all comes to a head on a traumatic night in 1979. On a night that I'm supposed to meet her, I get a call. She's in the hospital. She's tried to commit suicide. In my heart of hearts, I believe it was more of a really, really big cry for help than a true suicide attempt. How did Gale recover from that experience? She didn't. Over time, Elaine says Gale appeared to bounce back, landing a job at an ad company and building her way back up. And that's when one of her friends decides that she's got to introduce Gale to Dr. Robert Beer Bell. Robert Beer Bell grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. It is upper middle class, very nice area. His father was a physician. Attended local high school, where he was brilliant. He was always interested in flying and in high school, he got a pilot's license and was allowed to fly out of a number of small airports dotting northern New Jersey. But he decided to pursue a career in medicine, following in his father's footsteps. He graduated from Albany Medical College and was a surgical resident at the time he was introduced to Gale. He's close to her age, Jewish, classical guitar player. He spoke several languages. He was a gourmet cook, an expert skier. He was in just a pilot. He had mastered instructor level piloting. He loved to fly and one of the first dates that he took Gale on was a flight around Manhattan, you know, in the evening or the skylight and everything. She was so enamored with this. It was magical. It was romantic. They could go anywhere. You know, they'd hop on a plane, go to a beach someplace. She had a private pilot chauffeur and Bob loved being in control, so this was a place where Bob really got to shine. However, in spite of all of his pluses, there were problems with the relationship and it was obvious early on. There were red flags when we would be together with them as a couple. He would be very controlling of her. Even if she had to go to the bathroom, he would be like, where are you going and when are you coming back? The first time I went on a double date with the two of them, the four of us are in a sushi restaurant. And Bob started using chopsticks and picking up food and shoving it in my stomach. It was so odd, I was so embarrassed. And then he starts doing the same thing to me. He starts feeding you. He starts feeding me. It was so uncomfortable. He was such a weirdo. But Gail had made up her mind. Bob was marrying material, and the two get engaged. But then all of a sudden, those red flags about Gail seemingly perfectly on say, become for alarm science. When I get the hysterical call from my sister, she gets into the car holding her little cat in her arms, crying, "Fuck, try to kill the cat." What do you mean? By August of 1982, Gail Katz was flying high engaged to her pilot boyfriend, Dr. Robert Berenbaum. Her mother couldn't have been happier. Well, here it is. Young Jewish doctor from New Jersey is marrying her. What could be better? That's how he seemed on paper. In reality, the more I got to know him, the more I realized he was very awkward, very controlling. During the summer of '82, I get the hysterical call from my sister. I must come into the city. I must pick her up. She gets into the car, holding her little cat in her arms, crying, "What happened, Gail?" Bob tried to kill the cat. He had the cat in the toilet, choking it with its head, submerged underwater. He was offended because she seemed to love the cat more than she loved Bob. And so he wanted the cat dead. No, no, no, Elaine. We're going to get rid of the cat, and then everything's going to be fine, because he's going to believe that I love him. And I'm like, "No, not really. You really have to give it to Bob." It turns out that this wasn't the first cat that Bob had attacked. Earlier in their relationship, he had told a story about having accidentally, in his words, strangled, a prior girlfriend's cat. Her cat got loose in the car, and he said he strangled and killed that cat in the car. This is not scary. And I'm like, "You know, he's done this before. It's not about loving a cat. It's not about you loving the cat. No, no, no, no. She had two years of a psyched degree. She knows better. I'm like, "I can't believe you're marrying this guy." And I was sworn to secrecy. I never told my parents. In spite of this extremely upsetting incident, and warnings, Gail and Bob were married August 29, 1982, in Manhattan, synagogue. She was wearing a white dress. She was gorgeous. She was happy. We had great champagne. We had, you know, a great band. But Bob was awkward. Bob couldn't dance. Bob doesn't drink. My sister told me, "I'm smart. I'm loving. My love will cure. This is going to work out." The newlyweds enjoy an idyllic honeymoon on the island of Crete. When they get back to New York, they continue trying to live in an upper-class lifestyle. They are doing ski trips. Beach vacations in the Caribbean with other couples that are doctors and their wives. She enjoys that. He also has still involved heavily with his passion of flying during that time. Whenever he could get a chance, he would head over to Jersey. That's where we went to the plane. They, in January of '83, moved into a two-bedroom, twelfth floor apartment, at 185 East 85th Street. A building actually that American knew from the Jefferson's sitcom. This was making it for them. He was a resident doctor. He didn't have a lot of money. How could they afford this? Bob's parents pay the rent. After they got married, he was at a residency at my minorities. He was working very long hours with the intention of opening some day his own plastic surgeon practice. Back in the '80s, I worked in my monodies medical center in Brooklyn, where I met Bob Burma. Bob was socially awkward. He was socially awkward with the patients as well. He did not have a connection with the patients. I think he was very into himself. And I don't think he was really interested in his appearance all that much. He would have his pants halfway down in the back. Very wrinkled shirt on. Gail was an undergraduate finishing her B.A. taking classes at Hunter College. Money was tight. And Gail decided that one way to make it was to try to be a personal assistant to women living on the upper east side. And so she put out an ad. I responded and, you know, in no time she was working for us. Francesca Biel was a high-powered attorney at CBS TV at the time. And she puts Gail to work as her assistant. She was beautiful. She was delightful. Everyone had made her sit her wonderful. She was, she bloated with happiness at that point. Did she ever talk much about her husband? Not much, but when she did, it was in terms that I would say we're affectionate and she was proud of him. To people on the outside, it might have looked like the perfect couple had the perfect life and the perfect spot. But the reality was a lot bumpier than that. They were fighting a lot. Dr. Bernbaum's controlling nature was the prime move which caused the tension and the marriage. He wanted to control every aspect of her life. There was always screaming and fighting going on in the apartment. She came to my apartment to study because she didn't feel comfortable staying around the house. She complained that he was verbally abusive. That he would put it down under minor all the time. Tell her she wasn't any good. She lived by these laws he set up. She had to be home by a certain time. She had to dress a certain way. My sister would go to turn on a light. He would literally hold her hand as she's moving for the light. And with his other hand, turn the light switch on. There wasn't a thing that was too small for Bob to control. I had a 30th birthday party in a restaurant and Bob and Gare were there. Bob insisted that she sit on his lap through the dinner. And at some point I think that she was feeding him his food. I said, "Okay, why don't you sit down in your own seat?" And she seemed intimidated. She said, "No, no, this is okay. It's okay." I just got the feeling she didn't want to cross him. By the end of the year, she is certainly complaining to others. Bob is never home. She's lonely. This is not a happy marriage. And then it was like a house of cards. That house of cards would soon start to collapse following a shocking outbreak of violence. Bob sees her smoking, leaps over a couch to get at her as quickly as possible. And it would all lead to an alarming letter warning of imminent danger. I wish I hadn't known about that letter so way before. I think I would have scooped her up in my arms and take it her home. On the surface, Robert Berenbaum and his wife Gale seemed to be the perfect couple, young, attractive, with a bright future. But behind the walls of their Upper East Side Man had an apartment. The relationship had turned toxic. Their marriage went into a downward spiral of constant arguing, fighting over just about anything. Like a neighbor told us like cats and dogs, and it was constant. She definitely told me she was not happy. Keep paying attention to her. But more in the way of watching her. Watching what she was doing, who she was talking to. He really was a cold guy. Bob had rules, and you better follow those rules. Bob had this thing about smoking. Nobody should smoke because it's bad for their health. Back in November 1983, my sister was studying for a graduate record exam. She thought Bob had left to go to work that day. She was feeling nervous, and as she tells it, she went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. The door opens, and he smells the smoke, and he literally leaps over the living room furniture. Strangles her to the point of unconsciousness, then revives her, and apologizes, saying that it would never happen again. Gill would have gone into the 19th precinct, and she reported the incident to a police administrative aide. If this had happened in 2021, Robert Burmban would have been in handcuffs immediately. The fact that this was 1983, nothing was done about it. This time, she doesn't say, "Oh, he just loves me." This time she says you're a sick bastard go get help I am not staying in this marriage unless you get help And Bob goes to see a therapist Michael stone after Gail charged that her husband dr. Robert Birrenbaum had tried to Strangle her in a race so in the course of looking at the case You know I find Dr. Stone and I interview him at the end of seeing him Did you have the impression that he was under control? No? I had the impression that he was not in good control the more trivial the Incident that sparked it in my way of thinking the more potentially dangerous the person This was a minor incident which means that he had a Hair trigger kind of temper. He says I Realized she was not going to be safe living with him and he tells me I wrote a letter Realizing this it's a letter of warning to Gail the letter went as far as being a hold harmless letter He didn't want to be held liable For not warning her About the danger the letter says I have been advised by Dr. Stone that for reasons of my own safety I should at this time live apart from my husband dr. Robert Birrenbaum I further understand that if I do not heed this advice. I must accept the consequences including the possibility of personal injury or death At the hands of my husband and absolved Dr. Stone of responsibility for any such eventuality This letter says That you are worried about her husband Killing her. Yes, and that you're trying to warn her. That's right. Have you ever written a letter worded that strongly to or for another patient? It's the only letter ever written To a patient at any sort in all of the years When she left your office the last time she left your office Did you feel then Even then that she was in serious danger. Yes And had rather a sinking feeling about the future because I had to wander Everybody I knew how and she wasn't heating my warning When Gail got the letter I know that she of course she kept it She didn't just destroy it. I read it and thought away. She put it away Were you aware of the letter? Gail told me about it Approximately a year after she got it. It's like it says he's a psychopath and that he's gonna kill me Why in the world would she stay with this guy after she received that kind of warning? I think she didn't believe it. No, no, no, Elaine. You know, I'm just about finished with my PhD I understand psychology. I'm safe. Don't worry about it She said to me that I'm I want to get divorced, you know He really has to do right by me and if he doesn't I am going to publicize this letter and it's going to ruin him After she received the letter. I mean the marriage continued they continued living under the same roof The situation was calm at home, but it was the calm before the storm It was all going to blow up for them come the 4th of July weekend I pulled my mom and she said you know where Gail is and I said What do you mean? Do I know where Gail is? I think something terrible has happened to her Gail has subtly gone missing vanished into thin air Could that ominous warning and Dr. Stone's letter have come true My heart went into my throat and I said he kept her I knew it. 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I'm not saying I hate you But I would unplug your life support to charge my phone from executive producer Ryan Murphy. I will not stop and I will win Let's give these girls a show this is gonna be a good test. The hulu original series all's fair from years November 4th on hulu and hulu on Disney Plus for bonus subscribers terms apply The dynamic in the relationship I think changed dramatically after the strangulation incident to the extent that she would go to bed fully closed We're talking about people who are in the third year of their marriage and they're not having sex Gal admitted to me that she was dating a little bit She told me how long this she was On July 6th 1985, we took a walk She liked to hang out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art We sat down and we talked and she had a copy of the real estate section of the New York Times with her She said to me. I'm gonna look for apartments And I'm gonna tell Bob that I'm leaving Just like yay. Thank God. She's gonna leave him Sunday, July 7th was a turning point in this story Sometime that morning in Francesca Biel a sometime employer of Gail cold I had not been in touch with Gail for a long time and she was extremely happy to hear from me But it turns out Francesca wasn't calling for Gail at all. She wanted Gail to ask Bob for a referral to a doctor She didn't seem angry, but she just seemed quiet and sad It sounds like she was deflated. Yeah, it wasn't about her, but rather yeah The doctor husband and maybe she thought I needed her for a friend Wasn't quite the phone call that Gail was looking forward to what we do know for certain is that something sparked Another argument and we know from their downstairs neighbors that the argument was loud and it continued for a while until There was silence in the apartment Later in the day of Dr. Biel and Bob left the apartment Showed up in New Jersey the birthday party for his nephew We were telling people that she had left the apartment in a half He doesn't know where she went. He hasn't seen or heard from her since she left the apartment and he was worried about her My call my mother and my mother says do you know where Gail is and I'm like no and she's like Bob cold They had a fight this morning and Gail never came home Bob calls me He says is Gail still with you? I said what do you mean is Gail still with me? I left her yesterday if I've caught my heart Went into my throat She's not with me and she's not with my parents And at that moment I know that my sister's dead I just put the phone down for a second. I said he kept her I knew it. I knew it right away and if she's not alive There's only one person who is a Lately suspect to murder her and it's Bob. There's no other suspect On one day july 8 1985 about 9 in the evening Robert Beer and Bound came into the prison to report his wife Gail missing. I interviewed him at length Robert I mentioned that sometime that morning Gail and he had an argument. She left to go to central park to cool off She was dressed to go lay out in the sun Parishore to believe a halter top and a towel and that was not unusual for Gail Bob tells police that they had an argument and she came here to the park. Yes And by the very following weekend We had missing posters made of Gail my family and my sister's friends all came to the park and plastered This poster this poster we plastered the entire loop of the park We never spoke to a single person that said I recognize Gail It was almost like pulling teeth to get Robert Bernbaum to help. It was almost like they had to drag him, picking and screaming. Meanwhile, the tension is building between the cats and the beer and bounds. The beer and bounds are portraying Gail as a mentally unstable person who might be responsible for her own disappearance. In front of us, they're saying to the police, she was suicidal. She must have killed herself. Now, this is ridiculous. My sister has a therapist who says she's healthy. The other lie that he starts to float is it must have been a drug deal gone wrong. My sister wasn't buying drugs on the street. They just kept floating alternate theories. And all of them defamed my sister. A search was made and every effort to locate someone that might have been a victim of a crime was made, there weren't any bodies, there weren't any victims that were discovered in the park. Gail was not discovered. She did not commit suicide in the park. Week after his wife's disappearance, Bernbaum seems the opposite of a grieving husband. I heard he was out in the Hamptons, partying with a lot of elite people. He's dating, he's bringing women back, you know. But then investigators make a shocking discovery at a New Jersey airfield, a discovery that could bring Robert Bernbaum back to Earth. They struck gold. This was a bombshell discovered. It was. It turned things upside down. This week after his wife Gail vanishes in New York City, Robert Bernbaum starts spending time in an exclusive spot out on Long Island. Gail and he had a share in a Hamptons house and Robert continued to go out there on every weekend he possibly could. He was seen partying in a notorious disco in the Hamptons school, Marrakesh. Even his dress changed from LL being to Saturday Night Fever. This wasn't the concerned husband and the summer house people thought that his behavior was rather cold and dismissive of his missing wife. His co-worker at his hospital, Karen Caruana, was also out in the Hamptons at the time. Some mutual friends suggest that the two of them meet for a date, even though it had only been a few weeks since Gail went missing. We went out to dinner, he drove back to this house. I remember sitting in his kitchen and asking him, you know, tell me what happened with Gail. And what he told me was, Gail had left and flown out to California and gotten some kind of a waitress job on the coast. He had hired a private investigator and this private investigator had found her out there. That wasn't true. What we know for a fact is after having spoken to the investigator that there was never any evidence of her in California. I asked him about the police, have they gone and searched his apartment, etc. And he told me the police had already been there, they had already searched his apartment and everything was clean. That was far from the truth. The scope of our search in that apartment with the forensic team was limited to finding fingerprints on personal items that Gail may have come in contact with in their normal daily activities. I tried to get a broader scope to get evidence of any crime and that was objected to by Scott Greenfield, Robert's attorney. How did I progress? Okay. I'm not sure how we got up to the bedroom but we did and we had, you know, sex quite a few times that night. I kind of question on my judgment on, you know, doing that and, you know, I let my guard down and that was probably not a good move on my part. He told that lie to Karen Carolina because he wanted to sleep with her that night. This is a man whose wife has been missing now for weeks and it's the first opportunity he has. And jumping at the chance to get into bed with another woman. In August of 1986, so years gone by, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office decides to take a look at the case and it goes to the chief investigator, Andy Rosenzweig. Andy Rosenzweig is a criminal's worst nightmare because he's extraordinarily intelligent. He's extremely detailed oriented. But when you looked for a case, what did you look at in the folder to say this one looks like it could go? Well, we looked at a case that presented a challenge that we thought perhaps other agencies wouldn't be equipped to do as well as us. What Andy Rosenzweig did initially to further this investigation was that they knew he was a pilot and they began canvassing various airports to see if they could find any evidence as to whether he had rented or flown a plane on July the 7th, 1985. They started out looking at the private aviation companies in New Jersey. The second choice was Essex County Airport and they struck gold. So they came here, went through that door, went through that door and they said, yes, as a matter of fact, we do know Robert Bernbaum. Do you have records of him flying? Yes, we do. Robert Bernbaum, the day his wife disappeared, drove to Coalwell Airport sometime in the afternoon, flew a plane for over an hour and a half, returned to the airport and then went to his sister's house for the party. This was a bombshell discovery. It was. He spoke to detectives and he told them, a stayed at home till 530 when he knew that by that time he was already probably 75, 80 miles out over the Atlantic Ocean. Once they figured out he had gone up in the plane, how quickly that they say that was how he disposed the body. That was a median. The working theory was that he folded her up, put her in a duffel bag, came out to where we are today, rented his plane, loaded her in the plane, flew out over the ocean and dumped her in the ocean. My parents and I are like, great, we've got that missing link, now we can prove you did it. The existence of the airplane, the existence of the flight, it was all suggestive and circumstantial. So the DA's office at the time felt we don't have a murder case. And I remember the district attorney's office bringing my parents in and saying, it's not enough. How hard was it on your parents? It was a death sentence for my parents. Then in May of 1989, three years after the investigation goes cold, there's another heartbreaking development for Gale's family. A torso washes up off a statin island, headless, legless, unarmless. We found these X-rays and an X-ray technician compared this X-ray with this torso and said, this is Gale. Now we have a body to bury. We have some closure. While the discovery of the body still isn't enough for the police to press charges, Elaine's crusade to hold Gale's husband accountable hasn't been laid to rest. Elaine Katz was determined to get justice for her sister and that meant staying after Robert Beerenbaum. I would send clippings to the doctors that he worked with to the people that lived in the building and I would leave messages on his answering machine, you know, telling the woman he was living with, he's dangerous, you know, be careful. Your intent was? My intent was to make every day of his life miserable to make him walk down holes and have people think, oh my god, he's a murderer. While Elaine's relentless efforts appear to pay off, in 1989, Robert Beerenbaum pulls up stakes and leaves New York City behind. I believe that I ran him out of New York. But the next chapter in the Beerenbaum saga would come as a complete surprise. The startling new life and yet another transformation. Early had undergone quite a makeover, and they started wearing fancy suits. Yes, he loved his Armani suits. Sometimes, though, it's not so easy to bury the past. The rumors started coming in from New York the Bob Potentially murdered her. It feels completely safe, completely confident that he's gotten away with murder. Robert Birmingham had absolutely no idea what's coming with him. What was coming was a startling demonstration in the sky, one that could prove the key to flipping Dr. Berenbaum's wings. For good. I don't think Spielberg could have done it better. Critics are raving. Wild Horse 9 is a blood-thumping comic thriller. Who are you? The CIA? We are the CIA. John Malcovitch and Sam Rockwell are a dynamite pair in this wildly different kind of buddy movie. You're always eating. Stop eating. Yeah, if you're shooting a guy. This Friday, John Malcovitch, Sam Rockwell, Steve Bouchetti, and Parker Posing star in one of the best films of the year. I've killed people in countries you can't even spell. Name one. Czechoslovakia. Wild Horse 9 only indeed is Friday. Read it out. Under 17 on the middle of our parent. Hey, everyone. Listen to the All's Fair official podcast. I'm your host, Evan Ross Katz. We'll sit down with the cast and unravel all of the irresistible drama of season two. People don't know the half of what goes on. We wanted to die. OK, guys, let's give it to them. Watch and listen to the All's Fair official podcast, premiering November 4th on Hulu, Hulu on Disney Plus, and wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss All's Fair, season two, also streaming November 4th with Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Gail Bearingbaum vanished from the apartment. She shared with her husband, Robert, a Manhattan plastic surgeon. Turn on the TV. They've arrested Robert Bearingbaum for the murder of Gail Katz. I find screaming. Dr. Brandbaum, we have to ask you, did you kill your wife? Bob Bearingbaum is the last person anybody would think that would commit a murder, unless you saw his other side. My life was flashing in front of my eyes. He was moving all over, maybe to get as far away from New York as he could. After he left, incompetently, thought the ball game was over. I didn't want him to get away with it. I wanted every day of his life to be miserable. I said, we ever married before. I thought, whoa, I touched a nerve. Did he do it? Could he have done it? Could it have been me? The first thing that stood out to me were the flight records. Oh my god. There's the explanation why Gail is not around anymore. I didn't want anyone to dig her up. Literally, they're going to have to exume the body they think is Gail's. I'm so devastated. What was in that grave? He has no idea what's coming down the road, and it's us. Las Vegas in 1989, 1990. There was a whole new energy occurring. We had dazzle, lots of glitz, lots of beautiful, beautiful showgirls, cocktail waitresses. plastic surgeons were starting to flock here. This was the wild, wild west. It was eating frenzy for plastic surgeons. It was December 31, 1989. I decided to have a New Year's Eve party. It was a huge party, and my boyfriend wanted to bring a new plastic surgeon in town. It went around the corner to the party, and we were having a good time, and somebody introduced me to Bob. Your first impressions of him? I thought he was very nice. He was tall, bark and handsome. It turns out Bob is none other than Robert Berenbaum. He had been the target of an investigation in New York City. After his wife, Gail, had gone missing in 1985 under highly suspicious circumstances. Berenbaum was his suspect, because the police discovered that he had lied about where he was. They found out that he had been up on a plane, and he had never mentioned it. The DA's office had closed their end of the investigation without bringing charges. I believe I ran him out of New York to Vegas. In Las Vegas, Berenbaum transforms himself from a surgical resident in New York to a hot shot plastic surgeon. He befriends colleagues like Dr. Julio Garcia, the man who reattached Evander Holyfield's ear after Mike Tyson bit it off. Keep your eye on Mike. Mike has just seen it. Look at him. We all know he was New York, but he played that card close to the chest. He did not disclose any chips on that table. He kept his secrets to himself. He called me up and asked me if he want to get high tonight. And I really didn't know what he was talking about. And suddenly you were here, huh? Yes, this is the airport. We went flying on our first date. It was fun. Las Vegas is fun to fly around at night. With all the glitz and light. The world was perfect. Fun, fun, fun. We went to social events all over town. We went to medical black tie events. We went on a lot of ski trips. Vegas Bob 2.0 was certainly new and improved from the New York version he had left behind. He had traded in his wrinkled plaid shirts for Armani Suites. He had a way of taking an Armani suit and making it a little sloppy. He had a sports car and a jeep truck. Las Vegas were big on vanity plates. So why wouldn't he have nip and tuck and nip and truck? It's the way we roll here in Vegas. In Vegas, there was another side that emerged to Bob. And that was a charitable side. He joined a group called the Flying Doctors, which several times a year would fly down to a specific community in Mexico and provide medical care to poor families. Bob was a perfect fit for this, especially being a plastic surgeon doing cleft palettes. He changed these children's lives forever. I loved going to Mexico and doing network. It was kind of a glue that held us together. She did call me and said, you'll never believe it, but this guy lies to Mexico and helps children that are disadvantaged. I can't believe I'm at a person that was so great. But one thing Dr. Bob hasn't been so eager to share with Stephanie are details of his previous life in New York. Stephanie says she found it odd that he was so reluctant to have his palm read by her close friend, a palm reader. He had this dark energy and his eyes. There were the strangest thing that I've ever seen. His eyes look good like this. Well, by then, he figured out what I did for a living. And so he didn't want anything to do with me. There was something secretive about him. One time, I saw his luggage tags that said "Gale Bear and Bob" on him. So I'm like, OK, maybe cousin, no biggie. And then, after a while, I'm just like, Bob, who's Gale Bear and Bob. And then, it took him a long pause. And he got kind of emotional. And he told me he had been married before. And they had a big fight. And she took off for Central Park. And she disappeared. Stephanie says Bear and Bob told her he had been thoroughly investigated by the cops and cleared of all wrongdoing. And the way he told the story, it was believable. About a year and a half into the relationship, he gave me a fortune cookie. And I opened it up and there was a diamond ring. And I'm like, Bob, we can't get married. Because Bob wanted kids, I did not. So that's when our trouble began. Bob's image on paper was really, but cracks started to appear. One time we went flying, when we went down to Sedona with Dr. Thalgot, it was a very intense landing. She simply bumped the door of the airplane, when it was parked. The meaner changed just like that and went into a rage. Tight eyes, tight mouth, focused, red in the face, screaming, I thought he was going to strike her, I thought, "This guy's crazy!" On another trip, this time on a boat, Stephanie says she feared for her life. There was an explosive incident after she asked the host for a glass of red wine. When he went to open that bottle of wine, it was like opening a bottle of champagne that sprayed everywhere. Bob went ballistic. That's when I saw his laser eyes. That just pierced my soul. He just raged on me like it was my fault. And I thought, "Oh, this is not good." My life was flashing in front of my eyes. That was like a tipping point in our relationship. A alarm by that incident, Stephanie says she demanded they see a therapist, just like Gail had done a decade before. We only had one session and she goes, "There are issues there. That my life could be in danger with him." And so I started to build a strategy to leave. I definitely said, "Stephanie, you dodged a bullet." But Bearingbomb quickly bounces back, dating and proposing to one woman after another. Bob took the same diamond and said it in one ring after another, after another, until Bob finally met the woman of his dreams, Janet Cholette, a gynecologist in Las Vegas. And in June of '96, they were married. There would be a next stop, and yet another transformation for Dr. Bob, when his wife gets offered a new job out of Las Vegas. I learned that he was in some real rural place, sounded like the antithesis of New York City life. But it turns out Dr. Bob was about to become a hero after a terrifying incident. The tire reared up on his hind legs. Mine on North Dakota is known as the Magic City. That dates back to the early days when the railroads came through and a city emerged out of the prairie and grew like magic. But when we talk about the magic city today, the magic in mind is the people. How friendly everyone is, and willing to do something for a complete stranger. People tend to just accept you and not ask a bunch of questions. If one was escaping something, perhaps that's a great place to go. Robert Beerenbaum came to mind it in the mid-90s and made quite a splash. When Bob was in North Dakota, I believe five plastic surgeons in the entire state. Beerenbaum had followed his wife Janet from Las Vegas to Maynod, after she landed a job there. They both worked at Trinity Medical Center, Janet as a gynecologist, Bob as a plastic surgeon. They lived in a small condo. The first time I spoke with him, he got real close and kind of got into my space and touched my face because I had a mole on my face and I'm kind of backing up and he says, "I can fix that." He didn't quite fit in. His style was more New York than it was mine out, so he stood out. But he made an effort to be part of the community. The Jewish community was very small. We only one another. I started a bagel shop in Maynod. He was a customer sometimes and he was also well known in the community for making his own bagels. He always came across as being a nice kind of dishevel, not quite put together guy, you know, and smart. People in the medical community were impressed with him. He had great credentials. I think people in Maynod would have imagined that. Dr. Bearingbaum was a kind of gift. Then on July 30th, 1998, there was an incident at the North Dakota State Fair that thoroughly cemented Bearingbaum's reputation in Maynod. Every year our biggest event in Maynod in North Dakota is the North Dakota State Fair. We've got rides and carnivals and every kind of food imaginable. Okay, let's hear from a candy, our tiger's favorite. There was a tiger exhibit at the fair. We were offering pictures on a table with a cub tiger. We had been extraordinarily busy. We had a vast large attendance on the day. In the photo ops, a cub was being fed a bottle of milk and all the tigers had been overfed at that point except for a roughly 280 pound tiger named Luton. And I thought we were coming up to a break. But, you know, the manager said, "Well, let's get this one family." The tiger, Luton, was a last-minute substitute for this photo. It was taken with Ron goddess's family gathered behind him. The trainer at the tiger by lesion, the tiger was bearded up on his hind legs, pulled my son back towards him. And, due to its malve, it commenced to make an attute toy out of my son's head. My son was a fraction of an inch from losing his right eye and a quarter of an inch from losing his left ear. They were expecting to have to fly my son, not a vac, to a fargo. But there just so happened to be plastic surgeon and they were able to get a hold of it and it happened to be Dr. Barambaum. He sowed his eye back in and tucked it nice and tight. And, uh, put his ear back on. I believe Dr. Barambaum saved my son's life without a doubt. Hands down. While the incident with that tiger makes Barambaum a local hero, he's apparently still touchy about details of his past life. I just am passing, so I'd have said, we ever married before. His reaction was so immediate and so, um, stiff. The surprise shocked, you know, that I thought, whoa, I touched the nerve. Soon after arriving in Minot, Janet decided to go to law school and she moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, which was 200 miles away. He had his domestic situation with a life in Grand Forks, but he had a patient base in Minot. He got into his plane and flew between the two cities. He'd be working in Minot and then see Janet on the weekends. In November of 98, Janet and Bob had a baby daughter. My name is Baram Cooper and I was one of the nannies for Robert Barambaum and his wife Janet in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It looks like he must have come home from work. He had his suit on and just sitting down on the kitchen floor just right where he was and to play with his little girl and his dog. This is one where we're Bob would have come home. He's got a name tag on. His face would just light up when he would see her. He looked good, wore suits, loved his child, loved dogs, you know, just all over all things that you would think would be great characteristics to him having somebody. He becomes a family man as a daughter. He has a child. At that point, do you think he may well live out the rest of his life never having to pay for this? I think I began to feel even ambiguous that that was the life we were going to have to live. After he left Las Vegas and moved to North Dakota, I'm confident that he thought the ball game was over that he's never going to have to deal with this ever again. And then one day, something really strange happens while you're at work. I had a strong loud knock on the door. I opened it up. There were a couple gentlemen standing outside. They wanted to talk to me about Dr. Robert Bear and Bob. He has no idea what's coming down the road. One of the stops on that road would be the cemetery where Gail was laid to rest and what they'd find in her grave would surprise everyone. In North Dakota, Robert Bear and Bob has created a new life for himself as a highly respected doctor and a pillar of the community. Dr. Bear and Bob was a guy who did good stuff in New York, he'd be called a mench. Here, he'd be called a good guy. Somebody that you might think is a little bit odd, but you appreciate because of the good deeds he's doing. While Bob was building a new life in the Dakota's back in New York, there was somebody, somebody important who couldn't forget the disappearance of Gail 14 years earlier. That guy was Andy R. the chief investigator of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. How long did you guys work at this and the first go-round? Probably between nine months and a year. As any Rosenthalag is getting towards retirement, he's also looking at cases that are still haunting him. And the Baron Bound case was top among those. Within the DA's office, they had just created a cold case unit, and Rosenthalag decided to give this cold case to Steve Srirako and Dan Bitt. Two seasoned investigators who he knew if anybody could find out, if Baron Bound did it, they would. Andy came to Steve and I with a file and said, "I want you guys to take a look at something." The first thing that stood out to me when I reviewed the file were the flight records. Oh my God, he flew for two hours. The DA's wife disappeared, and the fact that he isn't telling anybody. That coupled with his visits to his psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Stone, his sessions with Dr. Stone were so intense in upsetting this psychiatrist was ethically bound to send his wife, Gail, a letter, that warned her that she was in danger of her life. The letter says, "If I do not heed this advice, I must accept the consequences, including the possibility of personal injury or death at the hands of my husband." I called Stone, called them, and I said, "Dr. Stone, my partner and I are re-investigating the disappearance of Gail Katz, Baron Bound," and he said, "Of course he killed. Dr. Baron Bound was a dangerous psychopath. This case has been burning on my brain." Then I said to Dan, "If the next day I think we're on to something here, that's when we started like rolling." Andy Rosen's white calls me, and he said, "I want to reopen Gail's case." And I had mixed emotions. I did not want my life turned upside down. I didn't want the wound opened for nothing. And for relaying, it would become even more difficult. Back in 1986, a female torso that washed up off Staten Island had been identified as belonging to Gail. Her family laid it to rest in a cemetery in Queens. In the summer of 1998, we decided to attempt to get Gail's body ex-oomped. Body intended have been identified through an X-ray. Of course, we had the technology now to do DNA. And to our surprise, it came back that Gail Katz had been eliminated as a contributor of that sample. I am so devastated. That little, little shred of closure that I had has now been ripped away. And I looked up at Dan, and at Steve, and I said, "Now, you better get a conviction." Babin Zarako decided to re-interview everyone associated with the case in person, including a woman beer and bomb dated in New York City after Gail's disappearance. One of the things she related involved a phone call that came in the middle of the night, the police called from the Port Authority bus terminal thought that they had found Gail. Bob's initial response is, "Can I talk to you in the morning?" He hangs up, and he says, "I doubt it's Gail. Go back to sleep." Babin Zarako also traveled to Las Vegas to interview the women beer and bomb dated there. You get a knock on the door. Investigators wanting to know about your old boyfriend. They were from the New York investigative bureau. I was shocked. Last thing I expected. In late November of '98, we decided to send investigators to North Dakota and to see if we could get some kind of statement. He's feeling as safe as you possibly can. All of a sudden now, he sees these guys from Manhattan telling him, "We're here because we're investigating, re-investigating, your wife's disappearance." Dr. Brombaum reacted with shock and disbelief. So there was a baseball bat upside his head. Then in September of 1999, 14 years after Gail's disappearance, a grand jury indicts Robert Barembaum for second degree murder. Authorities accused the plastic surgeon of killing his wife Gail in this apartment, packaging her body and dumping it somewhere over the Atlantic Manhattan D.A.'s office. To see your boss's face on the 10 o'clock news, accused him murdering his first wife was pretty shocking. When that came on, I was standing and I actually dropped to my knees. I was just like, "I couldn't believe it." For a million years, you'd be using cold, calculated murder in the same description of this guy. Dr. Barembaum, it's just no way. The Barembaum story, when you get right down to it, is Dr. Checkle and Mr. High. And that's a hell of a story. Robert Barembaum will be returning to New York City, this time to stand trial for Gail's murder. But with no body, no physical evidence, will he be convicted? We knew it was going to be the toughest trial that we'd ever had. There was no foregone conclusion to this case by any stretch of the imagination. And there was a huge unanswered question that would involve a demonstration in the sky. Was it even possible to toss out a body out of an airplane, flying more than a hundred miles an hour? Hi, I'm Andy Richter. I might not have won the Miraball last season. That was so fun. But I did win the best gig ever. Hosting the Dancing with the Stars' official podcast. Woo! Get ready for all the inside scoop from the cast. All right, well, let's get to work. Behind the scenes secrets and more from every episode. That was long story. It's gonna be iconic. All my dreams are coming true. Dancing with the Stars' official podcast. New episodes every Thursday on Disney+ and Hulu, and wherever you get your podcasts. The NBA on ESPN is happening now. And we're here from all of it. From the superstar moves to the next-gen revolution. Let's get who we are, boys. Another trade. Hey! We don't just love it. We love it. Because the NBA is a world of its own. So from the biggest names to the biggest moments, ESPN is where you call home. ♪ Rock'n'ly, rock'n'ly, rock'n'ly ♪ 44-year-old Dr. Robert Beerenbaum's dark secret has made national headlines. Beerenbaum turned himself into New York police this morning. I get a phone call from my sister. She's just turned on the TV. They've arrested Robert Beerenbaum for the murder of Gail Katz. And Iceland's screaming. Authorities accuse the plastic surgeon of killing her of the apartment, packaging her body, and dumping it somewhere over the Atlantic during a two-hour flight in his private plane. It was such an unusual case. What doctor pushes his wife out of a plane on me from the upper side? I delighted and happy that this day had come. I saw my mother-father and sister cheering up there. Bob, why did you tell the public that you're innocent? Why did you tell me that you didn't kill my sister? Fifteen years, I'm waiting to hear you say that you didn't kill my sister. It's the moment that I was waiting for that Bob knows he didn't get away with it. You were going to stand trial for my sister's death. Dr. Beerenbaum, we've been trying to talk to you. We'd spent a lot of time digging into this story. And I wanted to ask Dr. Beerenbaum in person, point blank. Did you kill your wife? I have no comment, John. Thank you. And Dr. Beerenbaum has nothing to say about this? Yes, no comment. And it drove her out. It's in the middle of a prosecution. Say what we have to say for her. No forensics. No, I wouldn't. This is entirely circumstantial. On September 18, 2000, there at 100 Center Street in Lower Manhattan, the trial begins. And on the bench, you have Judge Leslie Crocker's Nightingale. Her reputation was no nonsense. Tough judge. Well, it was an unusual case with a lot of difficult legal issues. And one of them would be, of course, that there was no body, because then you wonder how the prosecution is going to prove that there was, in fact, a murder. In the opening statement, I tell the jury out of the bat, I have no forensic evidence. But I said, nonetheless, it's going to point in only one direction, the guilt of the defendant, in this case, Dr. Burma. It was a key thing for the prosecution to let the jury see how Beerenbaum had abused his wife during their marriage, including the 1983 choking incident, where it was so serious that she lost consciousness. Now, you would think that the prosecution has a huge card up their sleeves, that ominous letter from Dr. Michael Stone to Gail. It warned possible death at the hands of her husband, but it turns out there's a big problem with showing that letter to the jury. The prosecution wanted to admit, as evidence, this devastating letter, but the real issue here was a legal one, and that involved the Dr. Patient privilege. I didn't allow the admission of the letter. Although the jury couldn't see the exact letter, the witness's sister, her friend, were able to describe the letter, the existence of the letter. Dan had done a terrific job of preparing me to testify. He says, "You're going to be able to testify to more than I thought you would be able to." It just helped the case to build and build and build. It was another factor that demonstrated the nature of their relationship. Another critical part of the prosecution's case, the discovery that Behrombom had flown his plane on the afternoon of July 7th, the day Gail went missing. Remember, he told police he was alone in their apartment during that time. Prosecutors, though, are able to show jurors Behrombom's own personal flight log, where the seven for July had been apparently altered to an eight. And not very professionally either. It looked like a child had done it. A big hurdle for the prosecution was to persuade the jury that someone could actually fly a plane and push a body out the door and not crash. When I was told by the defenders of Robert Behrombom, that actually doesn't work. You're flying this airplane at 100 miles an hour through the sky. You have 120-pound Victor, and somehow you're supposed to lean over and throw it at the physics of it. Just make it impossible. We thought what better way to show somebody it can be done than by doing it ourselves. We were going to find a plane and model and take 110-pound bags of dead weight and throw them out of the plane over the ocean. The sergeant showed that not only was it possible to dispose of the 110-pound bag that it actually was very easy. You could do it either from the pilot's door, which he did or from the passenger door. The trailing helicopter actually filmed the bag going into the ocean. I thought the demonstration with the airplane was extremely effective, probably one of the critical moments in the case. But it turns out that defense has its own ace in the hole. The defense has only one witness. If the jury believes them, it's a huge problem for us. A bombshell eyewitness who threatens to overturn the entire prosecution's case. Over the course of the trial, the prosecution calls 34 witnesses, including those close to Gail, who testify about how she had become fed up with her husband's treatment of her. I talked about his controlling behavior, and I talked about the fact that she was looking for another place to live. She was going to leave. It was imminent, and I think that that was part of the reason why he did what he did. The defense used cross-examination effectively to tarnish the reputation of Gail, to portray her as unstable, a risk-taker. The defense did go into other reasons why she could have gone missing other than our husband murdering her. They brought up mental health issues that possible drug use or infidelity. Ultimately, I think what they did led nowhere. The evidence didn't amount to anything. The defense had one witness, Joel Davis, and I think they pinned their hopes for their entire case on him. Joel Davis was a retired textile manufacturer, who told police early on that he had seen Gail in an H&H bagel shop near where she lived at three o'clock in the afternoon, standing there in shorts with a beach chair with a friend. He essentially blows up the people's timeline as to when she was dead. Of a drawer believes that sometime three to four that afternoon that she's alive, that's a huge problem. What hurt Joel Davis the most was his description of the woman that he saw in the bagel store, that she was large, statuette, full-figured, so he'd lead him even further down the road. He's saying like she had a big chest, yes, she was well up to she was. Steve blew his up, like on a poster board size, this photo of my sister. And I get to say that's Gail, she was an A cup, she barely filled that. I think everyone in the courtroom, and there was a lot of buzzing, that the defense case had gone down the tubes. The message I wanted to deliver to them and summation was that he's the right person, he's the guilty party. One of my favorite movies is North by Northwest, Albert Hitchcock, tale of a businessman caught in an international intrigue. The movie there is a discussion of how to get rid of a body, and James Mason says, "It's the best disposed of from a great height of a water that made it into my summation because I thought it was entirely appropriate." In their summation, the defense tried to take the prosecution's case part piece by piece. No physical evidence at all. The body out of a plain nice, but just a theory. Gail's own personal behavior could have been a problem that led to her own demise. Fifteen years after Gail's disappearance, the case finally goes to a jury. After just five and a half hours of deliberation, there's a verdict. Once everyone heard there was a verdict, it was very, very tense. My heart is pounding. I can feel it in my chest, and I can feel the tension in the courtroom. The four persons stands up and says, "Yes, we, the jury, have reached a verdict." And then the four persons said, "Gilety." And there was a buzz in the courtroom. It was just a sense of complete satisfaction for not only justice, but for the sister and the family. Guilty verdict against plastic surgeon Robert Beardbaum. When you heard that conviction, your reaction. I'll never forget squeezing my brother's hand and slamming it down on his thigh and saying, "Gilety, with a question mark at the end, because did I just hear that?" And then, of course, the reaction of my brother, as he grabbed me and held me and we trembled and we cried, then I knew it was true. I was in shock. I finally see the handcuffs go on his wrists, to finally see him walk into a jail cell. The feelings are undescribable. A typical sentence for me would have been 25 to life because of the enormity of the crime, there are very few cases in which someone has been a law-abiding citizen and has done good things. So I gave him 20 years to life. Since that sentence in 2000, few people thought they would ever hear about Beardbaum again. But just recently, shockingly, Beardbaum would re-emerge and what he would say would stun everyone involved in the case. Now it's like, holy s**t, are you kidding me? The Earth shifted. I was in shock. Since 2000, Beardbaum has been behind bars, serving that sentence of 20 to life. When Bob was incarcerated for many, many, many years, I stopped thinking about him. Beardbaum offered no apologies to the cat's family when he was sentenced, insisting he was innocent. And he spent the first 10 years behind bars trying to prove his innocence and get his verdict overturned. He appealed in state courts, federal courts, and got nowhere. Back in North Dakota, there are still those who believe he might not have been guilty of the crime. It didn't add up. You didn't think it would be possible for somebody that nice to do something that ugly. Just last December, after 20 years behind bars, Bob Beardbaum was up for parole. Parole board denied him freedom. There was no. public reason given for the decision, but 2020 obtained this transcript of that parole hearing. And in it is a shocking revelation. For the first time in 35 years, Berenbaum finally admits to killing Gayle. To the parole board, Berenbaum said, "I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her." When he's asked, "How did you attack her?" He responds, "I strangled her." Berenbaum goes on to say, "I went flying. I opened the door and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean." I was stunned when I heard he admitted it. Now I was like, "Are you kidding me?" He admitted doing it just the way we told the jury that he did do it. The Earth shifted. I was in shock. He admitted killing Gayle. And I cried. He said he killed Gayle because he was immature and didn't understand how to deal with his anger. The parole board noted that at the time he was a 29-year-old medical doctor. And you were immature, really? Said he was a danger to the community and needs to stay in. When I read those minutes, oh my God, this is exactly the same man that I knew 35 years ago. He is incapable of a shred of remorse. It's a very sad story, because it's an unnecessary one. And this is what happens so often in domestic violence cases. The victim could have been saved. This is the home of the Pace Room, it's just a center. 20 years ago, we named it Gayle's House to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of domestic violence. The first time Bob strangled my sister to unconsciousness, we just-- So young, such potential. I would like to believe that my sister's energy has been out there for 35 years cheering me on. I feel my sister's spirit is here. It is warning others, inspiring others. It's still to this day, I think, about her constantly. So young, such potential. I would like to believe that my sister's energy has been out there for 35 years cheering me on, motivating me, encouraging me, holding me up. The world's a lesser place for the loss of my sister. Some really moving words from her sister here tonight. And we should point out that Robert Berenbaum's next parole hearing is scheduled for November. He turned down our request for an interview. And if you or someone you know is dealing with domestic violence, please go to our website at abcnews.com/2020 for resources that could help. And you can find all new broadcast episodes of 2020 Friday nights at 9 on ABC. Last October's brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was shocking. Now, nearly a year out, there are still critical questions to be answered. Where did they go? And second, where did they come from? In this series, I'll take you inside the events of that day, like you've never heard them before, through the eyes of the people who lived them. On the pavements, I saw something shiny. You did see the crown. Yes, exactly. Heist at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio, available now, ad-free on Amazon Music.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Robert Berenbaum, a Manhattan plastic surgeon, married Gale Katz in 1982, presenting a perfect couple on the surface but hiding a toxic, controlling, and abusive relationship.
  2. Gale experienced severe emotional and physical abuse, including being strangled in 1983 and threatened with violence over her cat, revealing a pattern of extreme control and violence.
  3. A therapist warned Gale in 1984 that she was in danger, sending a detailed letter warning of possible murder, which she ignored despite its severity.
  4. After Gale disappeared on July 7, 1985, flight records revealed Berenbaum had flown his private plane for over an hour, leading investigators to believe he had disposed of her body at sea.
  5. A torso found on Staten Island in 1989 was identified as Gale’s, but DNA testing later disproved the match, leaving the case unresolved.
  6. Berenbaum moved to Las Vegas and later North Dakota, transforming into a respected doctor and community figure, while concealing his past crimes.
  7. In 1998, a re-investigation by Manhattan DA’s office uncovered new evidence, including flight logs, the letter from the therapist, and testimony from women he dated.
  8. In 1999, a grand jury indicted Berenbaum on second-degree murder charges, and in 2000 he stood trial, with the prosecution relying on circumstantial evidence, including abuse patterns and flight records.

Summary:

The true story behind the disappearance of Gale Katz, wife of plastic surgeon Robert Berenbaum, reveals a deeply troubling case of domestic abuse and murder masked by a facade of perfect love. From their initial marriage on the Upper East Side to Gale’s sudden disappearance in 1985, the relationship was marked by control, violence, and emotional manipulation. Gale faced repeated physical threats, including a near-strangulation in 1983 and attacks on her cat, while a warning letter from her therapist detailed the danger she faced.

Despite these red flags, she stayed with Berenbaum, believing in his love. After her vanishing, investigators uncovered flight records showing Berenbaum had flown his private plane that day, leading to a theory that he had dumped her body at sea. A torso found in 1989 was initially believed to be hers, but DNA testing later invalidated the match, casting doubt on the case.

Years later, a renewed investigation by Manhattan’s DA’s office, fueled by new evidence and witness accounts, rekindled suspicion. Berenbaum relocated to Las Vegas and then North Dakota, where he became a community hero, but was confronted by investigators in 1998–1999. In 1999, he was indicted on second-degree murder charges, and in 2000 faced trial with no physical evidence, relying instead on abuse history, flight records, and psychological evidence.

The prosecution struggled to prove the murder due to legal hurdles, including the doctor-patient privilege, but the case remained one of the most compelling examples of hidden violence and domestic abuse. Ultimately, the story underscores how a seemingly perfect life can conceal a brutal truth, and how justice can be delayed, even when evidence points to a clear perpetrator.

FAQs

The series streams on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus on November 12th.

The series explores the moral and personal conflicts within a Mormon family, focusing on the tension between appearances and reality, especially within a marriage.

Dr. Robert Berenbaum, a Manhattan plastic surgeon, is the central figure accused of murdering his wife, Gale Katz, in 1985.

The investigation suggests he wrapped her body in a duffel bag, flew it out of New Jersey on a private plane, and dumped it over the Atlantic Ocean.

Flight records showing a plane flight on July 7, 1985, the day Gale went missing, and a letter from his therapist warning her of danger were key pieces of evidence.

Yes, a torso was found off Staten Island in 1989, later identified as Gale Katz through X-rays, though it was later determined to be a match based on DNA analysis.

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