0:06

Novel. Hey

0:11

listener. In this episode, we talk

0:13

about domestic violence, control,

0:16

murder, and disposing of a body.

0:19

There's also a group of fearless women

0:21

honoring their beloved friend by holding

0:24

a man accountable. Once

0:26

again, be warned to expect some

0:28

swearing. This episode really

0:31

earns it. If you

0:33

do listen and are impacted by

0:35

any of our themes, you can reach

0:38

out to No More, a domestic

0:40

violence charity we've partnered

0:42

with. They have lots of great

0:45

resources to help you or your loved ones.

0:47

You can find them at no More dot

0:50

org. That's no mor

0:55

dot org. It

1:01

was early in the morning on October twelfth,

1:04

two thousand. I arrived

1:06

at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to

1:08

testify against Bob and I

1:10

was terrified. I

1:13

remember saying to myself, just

1:16

don't pass out, Carol, don't pass

1:18

out. And so

1:20

with that pep talk over, I entered

1:22

the building through the revolving door. I

1:26

emptied my pockets into a tray, and

1:29

I walked through the metal detectors. Shortly

1:33

after I was greeted by the prosecutors.

1:35

They pointed out a woman with cropped red

1:38

hair and told me it was Gail's sister

1:40

Elaine. We had spoken

1:42

about her at the Mayflower a few times,

1:45

but we didn't know anything about her.

1:47

She just seemed like a traumatized sister,

1:50

and that's exactly what she looked like in

1:52

the courthouse that day, traumatized

1:55

but determined. Eventually,

1:58

after some waiting around, it was my turn

2:01

to testify. I walked

2:03

out into the cavernous courtroom to see

2:05

press, the judge, jury,

2:08

and Bob's new wife.

2:10

And there in the chair where people

2:12

on trial sit was my ex

2:15

boyfriend Bob. He

2:18

looked different, older,

2:21

more tired, but he

2:23

did flash me this confusing smirk,

2:26

a smirk till this day I still

2:28

don't understand. When

2:31

I got to the witness box, the prosecution

2:33

told me to address the jury, and

2:35

then came the questions, how

2:38

do you meet Mob? How long

2:40

did you date for? What did he tell

2:42

you about his wife? So

2:45

I told him about the time I asked

2:47

Bob if he killed his wife, and

2:50

when I explained how silent and weird

2:53

he got, I could see the jury

2:55

nodding along, and that's

2:57

when I realized Bob

2:59

was totally fucked. Carol

3:06

Fisher from the teams at Novel

3:08

and iHeartRadio, you're listening

3:11

to The Girlfriend's Episode eight, The

3:13

Girlfriends Versus Beerenbaum.

3:47

After I testified, I took the

3:50

first flight out of New York that I could.

3:52

I was not interested in sticking around,

3:55

So I really knew very little

3:57

about what actually went down at the trial.

4:00

But my brilliant researcher Maddie,

4:02

she got a hold of the transcripts, all

4:04

one thousand, five hundred and nineteen

4:07

pages of them. So let's

4:10

start from the beginning. The

4:12

trial started on October tewod

4:14

two thousand, fifteen years

4:17

after Gale's death. By

4:19

then the case had gone from relative obscurity

4:22

to one of the most covered court cases

4:24

in New York City. Reporter

4:27

Catherine Eban made sure she

4:29

kept her front row seat.

4:31

By then, the courtroom was full, so

4:34

my colleagues in the press corps all

4:36

showed up.

4:37

Place was packed almost every day.

4:39

That's Prosecutor Daniel Bibb

4:41

Press took up.

4:42

The first two rows. There was press

4:44

from all over the place, not just New York.

4:47

In front of the press in what's called the well,

4:49

the attorney sat at two large wooden

4:51

tables. The prosecution closest

4:54

to the jurors box.

4:57

There's three of us see Sirocco,

5:00

Adam Kaufman, and me sitting

5:03

at the prosecution table, which

5:05

is facing the bench. Then

5:08

you have the left, probably

5:10

ten feet away is the defense

5:12

table with Scott Greenfield,

5:14

David Lewis, and Catherine Case.

5:16

Those were Bob's attorneys. In case

5:19

that's not obvious, you won't hear

5:21

from them because they were not interested in appearing

5:23

on this podcast. Back

5:26

to the courtroom, we're in front of everybody.

5:29

With a huge American flag behind her

5:31

sat the judge, Leslie Crocker

5:34

Snyder.

5:35

I don't really use a gabble, except I had

5:37

a huge one that was given to me as a joke, and

5:40

occasionally I'd use it to get the jury laughing.

5:43

I remember her as a

5:46

blonde haired, no nonsense

5:49

judge with a big reputation. She

5:52

was not there to play. I mean, she was

5:54

very strict and tough with the

5:56

attorneys.

5:57

And then sitting at the defence table furthest

6:00

away from the jury as possible was

6:03

Bob.

6:04

I remember Beerenbaum. He

6:06

had this sort of stitching

6:09

gloom that hung over him,

6:12

reflected in the deep shadows

6:15

under his eyes.

6:17

The trial lasted nine long

6:19

days. During that time, the

6:21

defense and prosecution agreed

6:23

that Gail died at some point on

6:26

July seventh, nineteen eighty

6:28

five, but that's where the similarities

6:31

end. The defense argued

6:33

that there was not enough evidence to prove

6:35

that Bob killed her. Instead,

6:38

they suggest all kinds of things could have

6:40

happened to her that day.

6:42

They painted her as a woman with a lot of problems,

6:45

very needy, one suicidal,

6:47

Realdy motivated by money.

6:50

It was quote unquote blaming the victim,

6:53

which, although was pre days

6:55

of me too, I think was

6:58

very distasteful. But the

7:00

portrait of both of them emerged as

7:02

two people who should

7:04

have gotten divorced a long time before, and there

7:06

was an escalation of violent and horrible

7:08

conduct.

7:14

The defense's second tack was a bit more

7:16

tangible. In fact,

7:18

it was a serious threat. At

7:23

the beginning of the trial, they told the jury

7:25

that they had just one witness to call, a

7:28

star witness that swears he

7:30

saw Gilcats alive and well in

7:32

the hours that the prosecution alleged

7:35

she was dead.

7:37

It's a five minute acquittal if you believe

7:39

this guy, because he says he sees

7:41

her at a time when our theory is

7:43

that she is dead and either in

7:46

a bag in a plane or already in the Atlantic

7:48

Ocean. Okay kills,

7:51

the case dead done.

7:57

The prosecution's goal was to do their

8:00

best to undermine the defense's case

8:02

because, as the judge explained,

8:05

the burden of proof was on them.

8:08

They needed to prove that the reason Gail

8:10

was dead was because Bob killed her.

8:13

In the prosecution's opening statement,

8:16

Dan argued that Gail wasn't suicidal.

8:19

In fact, multiple friends claimed she was happier

8:21

than she had been in a while. Her

8:24

psychiatrist, Sybil Baron even

8:26

remembers Gail getting a pedicure just

8:28

days before she went missing.

8:30

I think the line was suicides don't

8:32

get pedicures.

8:34

Then there was the portrayal of Gail's a drug

8:36

fiend running with the wrong crowd. The

8:39

prosecution made it clear that this was

8:41

a gross exaggeration. Her

8:43

boyfriend Anthony Sigalis said

8:46

he only did coke with Gail twice, so

8:48

she certainly was not an addict.

8:51

You know, everybody did cocaine in the eighties, it

8:53

was everywhere. She was

8:56

not this hardcore

8:58

cocaine. So some

9:01

beginner coke user

9:04

all of a sudden becomes this died in the woold coke

9:07

head and gets killed by a drug dealer

9:09

who then disposed of her body.

9:12

Made no sense whatsoever. People

9:14

get killed by drug dealers, their body is usually

9:16

found, you know. And people who die of drug overdoses,

9:19

their bodies are found.

9:23

And that was the crux of the prosecution's

9:25

case. Gail's body had

9:28

never been found. And the reason they

9:30

theorized is because Bob killed

9:32

Gail and threw her body out of a plane

9:34

and into the Atlantic Ocean. They

9:38

just had to prove it.

9:42

This was no easy task.

9:45

We were facing no

9:47

body, no forensics,

9:49

no admissions, an extremely difficult,

9:52

circumstantial case based

9:55

in large part on things

9:57

that the defendant had said to his

9:59

friends and his girlfriends.

10:05

You've already heard a lot of what's covered throughout

10:08

the trial, our testimonies. But

10:10

when I read through these transcripts, I discovered

10:13

parts of the story that I've never heard before.

10:16

Things it shocked me. I

10:18

also see what Prosecutor Steve meant

10:20

when he described the trial as a production.

10:23

The prosecution called up thirty seven

10:26

witnesses to the stand, all of

10:28

us weaving threads of circumstantial

10:30

evidence together to create an

10:32

image of Bob for the jury.

10:37

First up was Bob the controlling

10:39

boyfriend.

10:40

I mean, who makes their wife

10:43

have to sit on his lap to

10:46

eat dinner. It

10:48

was just so strange.

10:51

He had to control everything

10:53

that they did, what they

10:55

ate, where they went.

11:00

And there was violent Bob.

11:02

He came running and leaped

11:04

over the couch, pushed her down

11:07

with his hands around her throat,

11:10

and strangled her.

11:13

Sometimes a witness testimony made it

11:15

seem like he wanted to kill Gail, like

11:18

telling one of his friends that he hated Gail

11:20

so much he could kill her, or telling

11:22

Gail that he would kill her if she left

11:24

him.

11:30

One of the most controversial moments

11:32

of the trial was when various witnesses

11:34

started bringing up the Pterosov letter

11:37

from doctor Stone, the letter

11:39

he had written warning Gail that

11:41

Bob might kill her. The

11:44

judge had disallowed this piece of physical

11:46

evidence in the pretrial hearings, but

11:48

she did not stop people from describing

11:50

it in great detail.

11:53

One of the functions of the judge in any case

11:55

is to try to balance both

11:57

sides right, and I

11:59

felt that allowing testimony

12:01

about the nature of a letter, which I did

12:04

with the Tarosoft letter, but not allowing

12:06

it in for the jury to see, was a balancing

12:09

of fairness to both sides.

12:12

I'll never forget the defense arguing

12:15

that having me testified to what the letter

12:17

said was almost worse than having the letter

12:19

admitted into evidence, and they

12:21

may have been right. At least

12:23

it wouldn't have been the sister talking

12:25

about it.

12:27

And of course it was that letter that Gail

12:29

told multiple people she was going to use

12:31

to blackmail Bob, forcing him into

12:33

divorcing and continuing to pay her school

12:36

tuition. But

12:38

there was also something else that came out at

12:40

trial, something I had never

12:42

heard about before. Gail

12:46

told her friend Lee that she had evidence

12:49

that Bob and his father were involved in

12:51

medicaid fraud and that she was planning

12:53

on using that information as part of her

12:55

ammunition against Bob. Gail

12:58

had all this information ready to go on

13:00

Saturday, July sixth, the day

13:02

before she went missing. That

13:04

day, she went to her hairdressers to

13:07

the Ghana cologist for a routine IUD

13:09

checkup, and she saw friends even

13:12

bumping into her fling Anthony. Everyone

13:15

described her as happy and jovial and

13:18

the reason she was going

13:20

to ask Bob for a divorce that weekend.

13:23

She was going to make him dinner and

13:25

then during dinner she was going

13:27

to talk to Mob about leaving.

13:30

We have no idea what happened over that dinner,

13:32

if she told him at all, but we do

13:35

know that's not when she died. The

13:38

next morning, at around ten thirty am

13:40

on July seventh, Gail picked

13:42

up a call from her former boss, Francesca

13:45

Bial. Francesca

13:48

wanted a doctor recommendation from Bob,

13:50

but Gail was sounding off. And

13:55

that is the last time anyone other than

13:57

Bob saw or heard from Gail.

14:06

As multiple people testified, no

14:08

one saw her leave the apartment building, not

14:10

the doorman, not the neighbors. Gail

14:13

had vanished, leaving all

14:15

of her possessions, including her wallet,

14:18

cigarettes, credit cards, address

14:20

book, and keys. This

14:25

is the point in the prosecution story where

14:28

they stopped talking about Gail and

14:30

instead start talking about Bob,

14:34

because, as you know, he wasn't acting

14:36

like your typical grieving husband. He

14:39

was constantly missing and not returning

14:41

phone calls from the police. He

14:43

said the police could search his apartment, but

14:46

when the forensics team showed up, his lawyer

14:48

said they could only dust for fingerprints.

14:51

He tried to avoid all the press. He

14:53

avoided putting posters up in his building.

14:56

He did not even interview the doormaan basically

15:00

never felt to Gaile's family and friends

15:02

like Bob was driving the search. Instead.

15:06

After a couple of weeks, Bob was seen partying

15:08

in the Hampton's, dressing like he was

15:10

in Saturday Night Fever and laughing

15:13

at a comedy show. And

15:15

then there were the romances

15:18

like ROBERTA. Karnowski, who challenged

15:21

Bob over dinner about killing his

15:23

wife, and Karen Carojuana

15:25

is Hampton's fling. They all

15:27

testified to the

15:30

prosecutors brought on a lot of witnesses

15:32

to show how everyone who interacted with

15:34

Bob after Gail's disappearance seemed

15:37

to come away with a slightly different

15:39

story. I

15:41

think he just didn't count on us remembering

15:43

everything or talking about it.

15:47

These were all professional women who

15:50

said, your wife is missing, and

15:52

you did what. My argument

15:54

was that the women here definitely would

15:56

remember things like this, because again,

15:58

there but for the grace of God, go on. You

16:01

know somebody is telling you how

16:03

their wife disappeared. Wouldn't

16:06

that see her into your brain?

16:09

But, as the defense argued, all

16:11

our stories were just a smattering of circumstantial

16:14

evidence. Witnesses recalling

16:16

conversations they had fifteen years ago.

16:19

Is that really enough? They asked a jury

16:22

to say, beyond any reasonable doubt

16:24

that Bob killed Gail, Even

16:28

after being presented with all of the evidence

16:30

from the Pterosoft letter, Bob's

16:33

lawyer argued that the notion that Bob controlled

16:35

Gail went against the evidence. Instead,

16:38

they explained that Bob jumped into new relationships

16:40

fast because why not his

16:43

wife cheated, did drugs, and ran

16:45

off. Finally,

16:48

the defense referred to the moment Roberta

16:50

challenged Bob over dinner, saying

16:52

she believed he threw Gail out of a plane,

16:55

a crackpot theory that Bob just

16:57

did not need to respond to. But

17:01

Dan and Steve did have a response

17:03

to that theory, a piece of evidence

17:06

that shows Roberta's idea wasn't

17:08

so crackpot after all that

17:12

after the break. So

17:30

we all know the theory by now, where as

17:32

the defense likes to call it the Roberta

17:34

theory, it's something that the prosecution

17:36

we're running with. But how do you

17:39

prove it?

17:40

Like, how could he have done that? How can you be

17:43

flying a plane and pushing a body out

17:45

of a plane?

17:46

At the same time, we.

17:50

Were confident that if we didn't show the jury

17:52

that this could be done, they're going to bring in somebody

17:54

and say that this is impossible.

17:56

So we actually found the

17:58

airplane that he used. It

18:01

was an upstate New York. It was a complete and

18:04

total wreck. But we used

18:06

the exact same model and

18:08

an NYPD helicopter. And

18:11

what we did is we put two

18:13

fifty pound bags of sand and

18:16

a ten pound bag of rice and

18:18

a number of Duffel bags and put

18:20

him in the back of the plane

18:23

and it actually took off from Coal

18:25

Airport, the same airport he used, and

18:28

then trailed by an NYPD helicopter.

18:32

They flew out over the ocean and

18:34

they did three demonstrations, one

18:38

where he simply just pushed

18:41

open the passenger side door and

18:44

pushed it out, one

18:47

where he actually banked

18:50

the plane the door opened

18:52

and it fell out of its own accord.

18:56

And then the third one where he's ragged

18:58

the Duffel bag across his box and

19:01

put it out the pilot's side

19:03

door.

19:07

And this sergeant is actually on the

19:09

witness stand describing this whole thing to

19:11

the jury using

19:14

the video of it.

19:18

It was very powerful I've

19:21

seen this video, and for me, it's

19:23

hard to watch these bags of sand

19:25

and rice and think about a woman inside,

19:28

a woman who just the day before had done

19:30

all the things that I would do, had

19:33

her hair done, laugh with the

19:35

friend in the park, and

19:37

there she was in an airplane with Bob,

19:40

a place that I had been many times,

19:43

a place where I had seen so much beauty.

19:46

She was there in a bag.

19:53

The jurors sat

19:56

there wrapped attention, not

19:59

an eyeball, wasn't on those

20:01

television screens watching that demonstration.

20:04

It was a moment that everybody paid

20:06

close attention to because it was

20:09

very strange. I mean, to

20:11

reenact something that

20:14

you think happened based

20:16

on circumstantial evidence and

20:19

no actual proof. But

20:21

essentially that was their case. That was how

20:24

they were going to build it.

20:26

The prosecution then brought out a guy named

20:28

Charles McKenna from the airline rental

20:30

company, who verified the booking and

20:32

the invoice charged to beer Embaum. He

20:35

confirmed that Bob could have flown at least

20:37

eighty miles out before turning around

20:39

that day. Then

20:42

New York's chief medical examiner, Charles

20:44

Hirsch, described how easy it would

20:46

be for a skilled surgeon to dismember

20:48

a body in as little as ten minutes with

20:51

the kitchen knife in order to fit

20:53

it in a duffel bag. If he

20:55

acted fast enough, he may have even

20:57

been able to fold her in without the graphic

21:00

mutilation. But

21:02

the real clincher to the flight theory was

21:04

when they brought out Roberta Karnofski.

21:10

She told the jury about the moment she

21:12

and Sharon found his altered flight

21:14

lock. At this point

21:17

in the trial, the prosecution brought out

21:19

a brand new piece of evidence. They

21:21

had subpoenaed Bob and forced him to

21:23

turn over the original flight log, and

21:26

right there for everyone to see

21:28

was the alteration. Just as

21:30

Roberta was describing it, the

21:33

seventh of July seventh had

21:35

been crudely changed to an eight. It's

21:38

even in the wrong color ink.

21:40

I'm like Steve, this is a home run. He

21:42

goes, Yeah, why the hell didn't Burnbaum just

21:45

burn the thing? And I said, because

21:47

he's anal because he saves

21:50

everything. He couldn't let it

21:52

go.

21:54

But then, just as it was looking like

21:56

a landslide victory for the prosecution,

21:59

the defense played the ace up their sleeve.

22:02

Their star witness oh

22:18

in the weeks following gales disappearance,

22:21

the missing person squad received

22:23

seven or eight calls from people claiming

22:25

to have seen her. Among them

22:28

was a retired textiles manufacturer,

22:31

Joel Davis. On

22:34

October eighteenth, two thousand,

22:37

the eighth and last day of testimony,

22:40

the defense called Joel to the stand.

22:43

So Joel Davis walks

22:45

to the court and says hello to us. He's just walking

22:47

in, So he takes the stand and

22:49

David Lewis takes me through direct.

22:51

Joel described how on the afternoon

22:54

of July seventh, at H and H

22:56

Bagel on eighty first Street and Second

22:58

Avenue, he noticed an attractive

23:00

woman wearing a distinctive T shirt

23:03

with the complex and colorful print.

23:06

Three to five weeks later, he sees Gail's

23:08

missing poster and recognizes

23:10

her as the woman he saw at the bagel shop

23:13

at around five in the morning. He calls

23:15

the missing Person's number to report it.

23:19

This was not looking good for the prosecution.

23:22

He was pretty strong, and I think

23:24

everyone in the courtroom thought that's the end of the

23:26

prosecution case. Because he was

23:28

absolutely adamant that he had seen

23:31

Gail late enough in the day so

23:33

that the defendant couldn't have killed her.

23:36

Steve's like, oh, this is a problem one.

23:38

You're thinks she's alive when we shay she's dead.

23:40

That case is over. Down

23:42

to tubes.

23:44

Steve gets up, and you

23:46

know, the adage is you don't

23:48

answer a question on cross examination that you

23:50

don't know the answer to. That's

23:53

not one hundred percent true.

23:56

When Steve stepped up to question Joel,

23:59

he had a clear tactic spin

24:01

Joel around enough times that he

24:04

ends up undoing his own testimony.

24:06

He started by asking Joel to clarify

24:09

details like what did this woman

24:11

actually look like, to which

24:13

Joel responded that the woman he saw

24:15

was with another woman carrying a large

24:18

beach bag. They were deeply tanned,

24:20

with a lot of oil all over their bodies.

24:23

He said that he was probably in her presence

24:25

for between five and ten minutes while they waited

24:28

in line for takeout. But

24:30

then it all starts getting a bit seedy.

24:35

The first thing that caught Joel's eye was her

24:37

T shirt. He was in the print

24:39

business, and he was impressed with the T shirt's

24:41

European printing style. But

24:44

then his eyes drifted to her body, which

24:46

he found very attractive. When

24:48

asked to describe her, he says her

24:50

face reminded him of a friend's sister

24:52

in law, but she was built like his

24:54

ex wife, five' one, well

24:57

defined and a very good body.

25:00

He describes her as voluptuous, like

25:02

she's really built, you know, and Gail

25:05

was as flat as a board.

25:08

He'd previously said he was pretty positive,

25:11

whereas now he was one hundred percent

25:13

sure. He'd changed where he'd

25:15

seen her. He changed the clothes

25:17

she was wearing. At one point,

25:20

when asked whether he saw photos of Gail,

25:22

he said, I didn't see the picture, but

25:25

I did see the picture.

25:26

You know.

25:27

All he's doing is he's basically taking

25:29

a knife and he's stabbing himself in the chest with

25:32

every word that comes out of his mouth. Stevie

25:34

is just spinning him around in circles.

25:37

Steve then drilled deeper into Joel's physical

25:39

description of Gail. He pulled out

25:41

some transcripts of a previous interview

25:43

where Joel had described the woman in the bagel

25:46

shop as tall and statuesque.

25:48

He said he'd noticed her because he was a leg

25:51

and ass man.

25:53

Jesus Christ, he

25:55

is describing a woman that is completely

25:58

opposite of

26:01

who Gail Barnbaunm was physically.

26:04

It was kind of amusing how he described

26:06

her as, you know, so statuesque and

26:08

what a great body and tall,

26:11

and then he withdrew that a

26:13

little bit.

26:14

He gets so flustered and he goes, can I explain.

26:17

Steve leans down to me, he goes,

26:19

what do you think? I

26:21

go one hundred percent, let

26:24

him explain. He said he's

26:26

going to explode.

26:30

He did explode with utter

26:33

nonsense. Joel started

26:35

fumbling and said he did, in fact

26:37

see a woman in the bagel shop, but he

26:39

confused that woman with not only

26:41

Gail, but the body of his ex wife,

26:44

who was small, and with the face

26:46

of his friend's ex sister in law, who

26:48

was tall but had a similar face to Gail's.

26:51

If you are confused, don't worry.

26:54

So is Joel, and so is everyone

26:56

in that courtroom.

26:57

There were audible gasps from

27:00

the jury, I mean audible.

27:04

And he finishes and Steve leaves

27:06

down. I go sit down.

27:11

He goes, like a couple more questions. I said, sit

27:14

down.

27:19

To really put the final nail in Joel's

27:21

coffin, Dan and Steve called up

27:23

Elaine with a huge photo of

27:25

Gail in a bikini.

27:27

I went up on the witness stand and I

27:29

identified the photo and

27:32

it showed a side profile

27:34

of her in the bikini, and the

27:36

picture depicted her as

27:39

a flat chested woman.

27:41

It was like a television moment, really,

27:44

that witness had been destroyed, and

27:47

that doesn't really happen that often in

27:49

trials. That you're able to show

27:51

that the witness was either lying or mistaken.

27:56

And that was it.

27:58

The trial was over, the jury

28:01

was charged, and

28:03

then the

28:05

alternates were dismissed. You

28:08

have alternate URIs in case someone gets

28:10

sick. And one of the alternates,

28:13

a beautiful woman, walked

28:16

down and sat next to me and

28:19

she squeezed my hand and

28:22

she said, I hope they convict.

28:26

And there I had yet another

28:29

sister.

28:34

After around six hours of deliberation

28:36

over two days, the jury reached their

28:38

verdict.

28:40

Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?

28:42

Then a four persons say yes, say ask

28:44

to this sole count of the indictment, trudge

28:47

murder on the second degree, how do you find the defendant

28:49

guilty or not guilty.

29:13

I remember turning to my brother and

29:16

saying, what

29:19

did they say? And

29:22

he said guilty? And

29:32

I said yes,

29:39

and I squeezed my brother's hands so

29:41

hard it hurt. And at the same time

29:43

I did that, I took my fist and I banged

29:46

it on my own thigh

29:48

and I felt free at last.

29:52

And just like that we got

29:54

him.

30:03

My sister called me.

30:05

She said guilty,

30:08

and I started screaming.

30:11

Yeah,

30:14

I'll never forget my mother calling me.

30:16

Is screaming on the

30:18

phone.

30:19

He's guilty, he's guilty,

30:21

He's guilty. About fifteen

30:24

times and just sobbing,

30:28

just sobbing.

30:45

On November twenty ninth, two thousand,

30:47

Judge Crocker Snyder sentenced Bob

30:50

to twenty years to life.

30:52

I tried to consider everything the evident,

30:54

the horrible nature of the crime, but also

30:57

that it had been at that point fifteen

30:59

years, I guess, and that

31:02

he had done a lot of good things. Berenbaum

31:05

was a horrible person in what he did, but

31:08

even if it was to xpiate his guilt,

31:10

he spent the last fifteen years

31:12

helping kids in Mexico and

31:15

doing a lot of good things, and

31:18

in no way did that detract from

31:21

the horrible nature of the crime. But

31:23

I also thought he deserved some

31:25

credit for that. The minimum

31:28

would have been fifteen to life at maximum twenty

31:30

five to life, and I gave him twenty years

31:32

to life. This was a tough

31:34

sentence in that I felt I should

31:36

factor in what little good

31:38

he had done, But it.

31:39

Was some good. When

31:44

I first learned about the verdict, I had

31:46

mixed feelings. A

31:49

part of me felt so bad for Bob because

31:51

I had always wanted to believe that he was

31:53

just overworked. Gail was

31:55

a tough wife and he had just snapped

31:58

one moment of anger him twenty

32:01

years of his life. But

32:03

making this series has changed my mind.

32:07

In those intervening years, Bob dated

32:10

so many women that didn't feel safe

32:12

around him. He allegedly

32:14

pushed Karen out of a moving taxi.

32:17

He screamed and raged at me. He

32:20

was so controlling that a therapist told

32:22

Stephanie that she could be in danger

32:24

if she continued to date him. He

32:27

showed no empathy and no remorse

32:30

to any of Gaile's family. Bob's

32:34

charity work in Mexico treating

32:36

children with cleft paletts, it

32:38

was definitely good, but I just

32:40

don't think it has anything to do with

32:42

it. He killed a woman, a

32:45

woman who was in an intimate relationship

32:47

with him, a woman just like

32:50

me or Mindy or Roberta

32:52

or Stephanie or Karen. And

32:56

there's nothing to say that he couldn't

32:58

have done it again. If

33:05

you're good at math, you've already figured

33:07

out that Bob was convicted in two thousand

33:10

and finished serving his twenty year sentence

33:13

in twenty twenty, and well,

33:15

there's been some recent developments. That's

33:18

next. Time on the Girlfriends.

33:21

Oh

33:23

I had twenty years of solid

33:26

peace. I never thought

33:28

about Bob for twenty

33:30

years anymore. And

33:32

then the Pearol's process started.

33:36

Mindy, what I've got the transcripts

33:39

from Bob's parole hearing. Oh my

33:41

god, tell me what happened On July

33:43

seventh, nineteen eighty five.

33:45

We were arguing with each other and

33:47

things escalated.

33:49

How did you attack her? Sir?

33:54

Elaine?

33:54

Hello, Hi, Nice to meet you,

33:57

Carol and Mindy.

33:58

Nice to meet you, Elaine, very nice

34:00

to meet you. The

34:13

Girlfriends is produced by Novel for

34:15

Ourheart Radio. For more from

34:17

Novel, visit novel dot Audio.

34:21

The series is hosted by me Carol

34:23

Fisher and produced by Annasinfield.

34:27

Our assistant producer is Julian

34:30

Manu, Gera Patten and Our

34:32

researcher is Madeline Parr. The

34:35

editor is Veronica Simmons.

34:37

Max O'Brien is our executive

34:39

producer. Our fact checker is

34:42

Valeria Rocca. Production management

34:44

from Sharie Houston and Charlotte

34:46

Woolf. Sound design,

34:49

mixing and scoring by Daniel

34:51

Kempsen and Nicholas Alexander.

34:54

Music supervision by Anna Sinfield.

34:57

Original music composed by Luisa.

35:01

Story development by Isaac Fisher.

35:03

Willard Foxton is creative director

35:05

of development. Special

35:08

thanks to Shawn Glynn, David

35:10

Waters, Might, Billy Rowl, Katrina

35:13

Norvell, David Wasserman,

35:15

and beth Anne Mcaluso. We

35:24

did reach out to Bob and his legal team

35:27

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

35:30

but we never heard back. Novel