S1: E10 – Who Killed Carol? Part 2

Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Police officer Richard Bombaar investigated the nineteen ninety four murder of Carol Newlander. She was the wife of esteemed Rabbi Fred Newlander, and in.

Going through the case, it came across a photograph and it was Fred and and Jenoff standing with their arms around each other.

Len Jenoff was a private investigator the rabbi hired to find his wife's.

Murderer after Carol's death. He actually married len Jenoff in the same room that Carol was murdered in and their wedding pictures of them arm in arm Fred and Jenoff right where Carol was laying.

When she was murdered.

How could Rabbi Newlander celebrate marriage in the same room his wife was murdered and why.

It was really bizarre.

We're in Cherry Hill, New Jersey today for part two of Who Killed Carol? I'm swung Glass and this is American homicide. And just a note that this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening. Cherry Hill lives up to its name. Every April. That's when a two mile stretch of road through the town transforms into a sea of pink and white as the cherry blossoms bloom.

It's a nice area to live in, nice area to raise your family.

Richard Bumbear worked as a Cherry Hill police officer in the nineties. Back then and even today, Cherry Hill was your quintessential middle class suburb with sprawling subdivisions and a huge shopping mall.

Was considered a safetown to live in when we wouldn't lock your doors.

So you can imagine their shock following the nineteen ninety four murder of Carol Newlander.

The community was just terrified. They didn't know what happened. If it was a random act of violence and somebody tried to rob Carol and to take her money and kill her, to whether it was thought out or planned.

It was Cherry Hill's first homicide in years, and the victim, Carol Newlander, was a respected mother of three who ran a popular bakery, which is why she often had a lot of cash on her She and her husband, Rabbi Fred Newlander, were like royalty in South Jersey.

No one in a million years thought that Fred Newlander, a prominent rabbi in the community at the time, was a suspect or had any involvement with it.

Absolutely no one could make sense of why Rabbi Newlander would officiate a wedding in the very spot where his wife was murdered.

When Fred Newlander became person of interest, it was devastating to the community. People started questioning their religion, people started questioning everything about them, and it was horrible, absolutely horrible.

Lenn Jennoff's wedding happened in nineteen ninety seven, about three years after Carol's murder, and if that wasn't disturbing enough, their reception inside the Newlanders home featured a cake from Classic Cakes, the bakery Carol had founded.

Even if you had no involvement at all, none at all, Not only are you going to probably sell the house and get out of it, but you're not going to marry somebody and take pictures right where your wife was laying when she was murdering.

Pretty tasteless.

Absolutely, it is tasteless and suspicious. The rabbi was never named a suspect, but also never cleared he had an alibi, but it was overshadowed by news of his multiple affairs, And then there was a controversial polygraph test.

Sometimes after murder. Fred's lawyer took him from Cherry Hill down to Virginia to have a lie detect their testimony.

Arthur Magida wrote a book about the new Lander murder.

Fred was asked if he killed Carol.

The needles on the.

Machine were fine, nothing etmal. Fred was asked if he had anything to do with Carroll's murder. At that point, the needles went crazy and waivered back and forth.

The rabbi's lawyer said Fred was under a great deal of stress at the time and was on medication.

Polygraph experts have said that makes no difference. Either you're telling the truth or you're not telling the truth.

About a month after Lenjenov's wedding inside the Newlanders home, prosecutors made a curious move. They impaneled an investigative grand jury to see if there was enough evidence to charge Rabbi Newlander. More than a dozen witnesses were called to testify, including his children, the rabbi's mistress, Elaine Cencini, and Lenjenoff. The rabbi was never called to testify, and while this was going on, he told reporters he had nothing to do with Carol's murder.

He invited a woman, I think from the Philadelphia magazine and to his home, and his first words to her were, Yes, I'm Fred Nolander. I'm the man you love to hate.

The grand jury met for nearly a year before things for the self described man you love to hate took a drastic turn. Early one morning, the police performed a traffic stop of Rabbi Newlander just a few blocks from his home. They ordered him out of his car, and then they handcuffed him and placed him under arrest. They charged him with orchestrating the murder of his wife.

Everybody was stunned. How could this possibly be?

The prosecutor claimed Rabbi Newlander wanted so desperately out of his marriage that he hired a hit man to kill his wife so that he could continue his affair with his mistress, Elaine Sansini. The prosecutor did not identify who the hit man was.

When there's a murder and there's a husband, and as the police would very quickly discovered, this was a very unfaithful husband to the husband who automatically becomes a suspect until vindicated.

It's not as if the Jewish religion forbids divorce. There are plenty of divorced rabbis Rabbi Newlander said, that's why this theory did not make any sense. He again denied the charges, and his private detective, Len Jenoff, defended him to reporters.

I stole believe that Mike find has had absolutely nothing to do with the horrendous murder of his wife.

Len Jenoff defended the Rabbi throughout his investigation, and while the Rabbi awaited his trial, Len sort of became the rabbi spokesperson.

I think Ben wanted to be a more important person than he was.

Frank Hartman was len Jenoff's attorney.

That was a very very important thing in leader of Jenoff's life. The Rabbi whenever I saw him, he always wanted to talk to me about the Rabbi.

Len and the Rabbi had a curious relationship. It was almost like father and son, and Len so desperately wanted the Rabbi's approval and attention.

He wanted to please the Rabbi. He was very perturbed about the fact that he had never been bar misfited. The Rabbi told him that that was not important. If it was really important to him to have a private ceremony for him, and he encouraged the rabbi, and he encouraged him, which is how I think he ultimately became so dependent upon the rabbi.

For the next eighteen months, Lent, the former FBI and CIA agent, continued his own investigation to help clear the rabbi. He even met with a local reporter to exchange notes and discuss the case.

And she managed to worm her way into his confidence, mostly because she was trying to get information about the rabbi.

In the spring of two thousand, six years after the murder, len Jenoff called this reporter with a scoop. They later met at a Jersey diner and were joined by two investigators working the case. Everyone went into this meeting not knowing what to expect. To picture this four people sitting in the back of a New Jersey diner, drinking coffee after coffee and chainsmoking cigarettes, waiting to hear a scoop on an unsolved murder investigation, and what happened in the

I think this murder weighed heavily on his conscience, and I think he wanted to unburden himself. Glenn did it for the Rabbi. I don't there's any doubt about that. Lenn was completely under the sway of the Rabbi. Didn't shock me to find that he was willing to consider doing something as serious as burger. Len wanted to be important,

The plan was for Len went off to kill Carol, but Len brought an accomplice.

Glenn brought a friend along with him, a young man who was I think mentally challenged. Well.

That young man was his roommate, Paul Michael Daniels, who suffered from drug addiction and schizophrenia.

The young man struck her with a piece of pipe and said to him, you have to do this too, It's not just me. So that's when len actually struck a blow to the lady. And then they realized their pursh was there and that she had considerable money in it because it was the day's proceeds from her bakery shop. So to make it look like it was a robbery, they took the money and left.

So how did they even get into the house. Well, it turns out Carol opened the front door. Len Jenoff had showed up at the house with an envelope for her husband. Jenoff was actually there to kill her, but he couldn't find her purse, and the plan was to make it look like a robbery gone wrong, so he pretended to use the bathroom and then he left. Two weeks later, he returned with his accomplice and claimed he killed Carol.

They had a very good case against the rabbi and that he was in a lot of trouble.

Even with len Jenov's confession, Rabbi Newlander denied being involved with the murder.

The defensive the rabbi was that, oh no, he did this on his own. He's only trying to incriminate me. But nevertheless he did it and Generally speaking, in the law of the person who hire someone for murderer is more culpable than the actual murderer.

In the summer of two thousand, Lenjenov and his roommate pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and they made a deal with prosecutors to testify against the rabbi in exchange for a lighter sentence.

This is the person who could really the case down and feel in it dots, as they say.

Len Jenoff would be the prosecution's star witness against Rabbi Newlander. The former CIA and FBI agent was about to embark on his toughest assignment yet, after years of denying he had anything to do with his wife's murder, a grand jury indicted Rabbi Fred Newlander for conspiracy to commit murder. Those charges grew to capital murder following the confession of his former private eye, Lenjenoff.

At the time, he was facing the death penalty.

Jeff Zucker was one of Rabbi Newlander's attorneys.

You can't have any more pressure than that put on you.

When the trial opened in late two thousand and one, prosecutor James Lynch told the jury that the adulterous Rabbi wanted Carol murdered so he could continue to be with his mistress.

This is a man overwhelmed by lust, creed, arrogance, and betrayal, and as a result of those qualities and those characteristics, he involved himself in the murder of his wife. He planned it, he plotted it, he paid money for it to be carried out.

The Rabbi's defense denied that motion.

He could have gotten a divorce. It would be a huge jump from wanting to leave one's wife to becoming a murderer.

Jerors first heard about the rabbis years of adultery. One congregant from of Coursia Lom testified that she and the rabbi slept together for months. In fact, their affair overlapped with the Rabbi's affair with Elaine Censini.

Elaine Sensini, she was a radio personality who had an affair with Rabbi Newlander.

We started seeing each other, I would say every two to three weeks in the beginning, and after that we saw each other just about every day.

Elaine talked about her personal life on the radio, but that didn't compare to sharing those intimate details on the witness stand.

We had the relations in his office. He told me that I was the most special woman that he had ever met.

The Rabbi was certainly a smooth operator and manipulator. He shared a dream with Elaine about how violence was coming Carol's way.

There was one conversation where he said to me that he just wished that she were gone, puff gone, and I wish her car would go into the river.

After months of being the other woman, Elaine decided in the summer of nineteen ninety four that she wanted more or no more.

I said, Fred, I don't want to see you after December. I want to start my new life January first, nineteen ninety five, and he would say, please, you know, hang in.

Trust me.

We're going to be together by your birthday.

Elaine's birthday was in December and Carol Newlander was murdered the month before.

And what I said was, whatever you decide is fine. I support you one hundred and fifty percent.

Elaine and the Rabbi slept together nearly every day, including the day Carol was murdered. That night, Elaine was asleep by eight pm and learned of Carol's murder the following morning.

He called me at work, and he said that he was all right, that he was at the police station all night, and that Carol had been killed, and something about a burglary. And he just asked me if I was frightened, and I said no, you know, friend, of what? And he said, are you frightened of anything? And I said no.

It was a strange conversation. Still, Elaine and the Rabbi slept together a few more times after Carol's death, until she asked him to stop contacting her. Instead, he sent her cards and letters. Some of those were used as evidence in the trial.

Elaine, what you and I discovered and have comes once in a lifetime. It is a gift God permits so infrequently. I need you to know that I will not because I cannot love another. Of Course I will always love you. Of course you will always love me. I will pay any price, wait any time to keep my promise.

The prosecution argued that promise was that the two would be together.

And after Carol Newlander died, Fred said, I told you to trust me. When God closes a door, he opens a window. I was afraid that, even though I chose to believe that Fred Newlander was not involved in the murder of his wife, that there was that possibility I dishonored his wife in life and I was not going to dishonor her in death.

The rabbi's defense team wasn't having any of that. They quickly fought back and tried to discredit her.

And would you describe yourself, miss Suncini, as the type of a woman who has low moral standards or who had low moral standards at.

That time looking back on it now, yes, And didn't you have.

Very real concerns that you yourself may have been considered a suspect because you were the other woman.

I was having a two year relationship with a married man and his wife was murdered.

Well, were you afraid Fred Newlander was going to kill you?

I was afraid that Fred Newlander might kill me, as a matter of fact, because I didn't know what had occurred the night of the murder, and I didn't know where I was in this relationship. All I knew was somehow I'm involved too.

Then the defense went for it. They questioned how Elaine went from sleeping with the rabbi to marrying Cherry Hill police officer Larry Leaf.

Isn't it a fact, Missus Leith, that your now husband, Larry Leaf, was seen going through the files of the new Lander investigation in the confines of the Cherry Hill Police Department.

All Larry told me was that he wanted to read my statement to see if I was involved, if he was getting involved with a bad woman.

After a full day's worth of testimony about the rabbi's adultery, the prosecution then moved on to the rabbi's plan to get rid of Carol, and it started with someone named Pepi Levin.

Peppy Levin, it was somebody that the Rabbi used to play a racketball with.

According to the testimony you're about to hear, a few months before Carroll's murder, the Rabbi approached him.

He says, I wish I could get rid of my wife ever killed on the ground When I go home someday, he says, do you know anybody go a gin the kock out of my head? You crazy?

You are nuts?

I said, you nuts, Stay away from it. He got a lovely wife. Stick with it.

But the defense said that Peppy couldn't be trusted. He had a shady past that included time in federal prison. For arson, conspiracy, and tax fraw charges.

He was a very colorful, strange, wild witness.

But perhaps the strangest, wildest, and most polarizing witness was the hitman who ultimately carried out Carroll's murder, len Jenoff. He was the prosecutor star witness.

Len Jenoff was a private investigator, a person who claimed to have been in the CIA, but he absolutely had many problems. Many problems.

Yeah, it turned out his biggest problem was his credibility. This is kind of mind blowing. After years of talking about his past, the defense learned that len Jenoff had never served in the CIA or the FBI.

Len Jenoff was a pathological liar, So was.

He telling the truth when he confessed to killing Carol? The prosecution star witness had a lot of explaining to do, and it would all happen on the witness stand. Prosecutors portrayed Rabbi Fred Nulander as a womanizer who carried on multiple affairs and hired a hitman to kill his wife.

It was the doctor stane, I have my life, sir, but I took that man's promise of thirty thousand dollars.

That was from Fred J.

Newlander, and I cured his wife for that promise of thirty thousand dollars.

That was len Jenoff's testimony. He and his roommate Paul Michael Daniels claimed to have murdered Carol Newlander on the evening of November one, nineteen ninety four.

I pulled out the leg pipe star and I racked her in the back of the head. She started to stumble, and I heard the word why why.

Those details were painful to hear, especially for Carol's relatives. You can hear crying in the background as len Jenoff described killing and then robbing Carroll.

Now By, Newlander was adamant in telling me only take the cash.

Whatever cash is in there.

It could be fire dollars, it could be five thousand, and throw the pocketbook away.

Len Jenoff says he did what he was told to do. He disposed of the handbag and murder weapon in a dumpster near the Cherry Hill Mall. Two days later, he had the audacity to attend Carrol's memorial. That's where he saw.

The rabbi and then he kind of pulled me in for a hug, patted me on the back, and he whispered, everything will be all right now she's dead.

Not only did len Jenov attend Carrol's funeral, but he returned to Rabbi newlanders house a couple days later for the Shibba, the Jewish period of.

Mourning, and he answered me, this Manila envelope stuck with cash, and he said, here's another down payment, seven thousand dollars in cash.

The prosecution portrayed the Rabbi as an arrogant and selfish adulter who hired len Jenoff to kill his wife. But the defense said len Jenoff cannot be trusted.

Len Jenoff was a person that we described as a pathological liar.

Jeff Zucker was one of Rabbi Newlander's lawyers who untangled len Jenoff's long string of lives.

We had so many things that we brought up to show that he had lied and lied and lied.

It's true Len admitted to line about being in the FBI and CIA. In fact, most of his resume was one giant lie, most damning. Len admitted to lying to the grand jury.

Yes, I was trying to protect Rabbi Newlander and myself.

The defense said, the only reason Jenoff was testifying against the Rabbi. Was to get a lighter sentence, and that was a pretty good argument.

He made a deal for himself obviously, so that was part of the reason he was testifying.

But Len Jenoff said he didn't act alone. He paid his roommate Paul Michael Daniels to help carry out the murder.

Did mister Jenoff tell you that's the money you got to say for the job came from Newland.

Yes, he pled guilty too actually committing the murder.

Paul Michael Daniels was just twenty years old at the time of Carol's murder, and like Jenoff, his time on the witness stand wasn't smooth.

Couldn't remember a lot of what happened. He basically said he just went along, I think with what Jenoff told him to do, but he really had mental problems.

Paul Michael Daniels was bipolar and suffered from schizophrenia and paranoia.

Claims that Jenoff got him to go to the house to kill Carol Newlander.

Now, if you were or listening to this crazy case, you probably wouldn't know who or what to believe at this point, which is why the decision to put Rabbi Newlander on the witness stand was so important.

Rabbi Newlander was a tremendous orator when he spoke in the synagogue. He was the type of person who could really keep your attention and draw.

You in delivering a sermon. Well, that's one thing a holy man answering questions about his numerous affairs and an open marriage is another.

We made a decision that if there were needs that could not be supplied between the two of us, then we would go outside the marriage.

His character was certainly called in question because of his infidelity.

Prosecutor was right. I was selfish and arrogant, and I went beyond the balance of marriage, and I betrayed Carol, I betrayed family, I betrayed community, I betrayed my synagogue. I betrayed my profession. But divorce was never an issue.

Now, as you got into the fall of nineteen ninety four, in relation to miss Nansini, did she make if you recall further references to the fact that she wished the affair to end.

Yeah, she repeated that at the end of the year she would have to create a new life for herself.

Did you ever tell her to trust you that something would happen now, did you ever say anything about anything happening so that you could be together with her on a birthday?

No?

I didn't.

Did you ever say something to miss Sancini has expressed in her testimony concerning your wishes regarding Carol, which was proof Carol's going No.

He also denied the conversation with his rack up all buddy Peppy Levin about wanting Carol dead never occurred.

I wouldn't tell Peppy if I twisted my finger, and he was not a confidant. He just knew who Carol was and we had socialized in that soul.

As for Lenn Jenoff, the Rabbi said he never even hired him to investigate Carol's murder. It was Lenn who offered his services.

Did you ever agree with mister Jennoff that you want to have your wife killed and then you wanted him to do it for money?

No?

Did you ever want a divorce ever from your wife, for Elaine Sansini or any other woman.

No.

As you sit there today, sir, are you guilty or innocent?

Innocent?

Well, it wasn't surprising. The rabbi held his own while answering questions from his own lawyers. But things changed. During cross examination, the prosecution played sultry voicemails the rabbi left Elaine Sansini, saying he truly loved her and needed her. She's left the rabbi, blushing.

Simply wanted the relationship to continue.

And I don't.

I can't categorize why I said.

What I said.

And if Lenn Jenoff lied about his past, why didn't the Rabbi do a better job vetting him.

Didn't you want to get the very best person you could find to investigate the murder of your wife?

Yes, I did, with.

Letter jen Off, the very best person you could find to do that investigation.

I didn't know how careful did you look, sir? How many investigators did you talk to?

And taking out Mistry Jenner, how many people did you go through it together?

I didn't investigate any other didn't bought anybody else.

No, but something else. Fred Newlander did on the witness stand even bugged his own lawyer.

What bothered me the most when we questioned him or when the prosecutor questioned him about coming home and seeing his wife on the floor. Instead of describing his wife as Carol, he said, I saw the body on the floor.

Hours after you found your wife, you referred to her as the body. Correct.

Correct, It just came across as to me as being too cold.

Here's something else that was cold. The rabbi found his wife bloodied and beaten in their home, and he didn't touch her. He didn't put her in his arms, he didn't comfort her.

That's right.

I stayed away.

I saw her, and I just I couldn't deal with it.

If a person comes in and sees their wife bloodied on the floor, my response, I would hope, would be to run over to my wife and hold her and see how she is. But there can't be a typical response to that, which is what we argued to the jury. Nobody could possibly know that unless they were put in that position.

Okay, that's definitely true. But then came the question that had lingered from the night of his wife's murder. Why did Fred Newlander appear so aloof Well?

I can tell you is that I know how I grieve. I usually have an.

Quiet, private, not quiet, a private experience of crying and then quickly gather it together.

Then the rabbi talked himself into trouble. He first said he loved Elaine Sancini and even wrote her letter that's said so. But the next day on the witness stand, he changed his testimony.

Yes, I can say I.

Didn't love her with all the jury yesterday that it did love her.

Correct.

I never had any intention of continuing a relationship with her. I wanted to maintain whatever relationship we had.

You weren't lying to this jury yesterday, were sir.

I gave the wrong impression.

I used the wrong words. He did not come across as a good witness. He did not come across as a credible witness. In my opinion, the key really was Jenoff. I was hoping for jurors they could see through len Jenoff because he was the cornerstone of their case.

The defense knew that len Jenoff also didn't come across as honest, so they presented one final surprise witness, a man who knew len Jenoff from AA meetings. Now the second word in AA is a notus, So this witness broke the pledge of anonymity and testified that to will incarcerated. Lenjenov was working on either a book or movie deal, but that deal wouldn't happen unless Rabbi Newlander was found guilty. So what's really going on here? Was Fred Newlander responsible for the death of his wife?

This is a man of God who acted in a thoroughly ungodly fashion.

Or was Rabbi Newlander's self purported hit man a liar trying to secure a movie deal.

There's nothing real about this man.

He's a liar.

I'm slow Glass. The case against Fred Newlander is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

I understand from your note that you have reached a verdict.

Yes we have, and we'll hear the surprising conclusion in part three of Who Killed Carol? That's next time on America Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced

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