The Sealed, Empty Envelope and "Bathroom Man"
Two weeks before Carol Neulander was murdered, she welcomed a stranger into the house, a man delivering a sealed envelope for her husband, Rabbi Neulander.
The couple's daughter, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, was chatting on the phone with her mother when the man showed up. According to her testimony, her mother did not seem concerned.
"There's somebody here, I shouldn't be surprised," Carol said. "Daddy told me to expect him. But the very strange thing is he needs to use the bathroom." (1)
Rebecca nicknamed the stranger "bathroom man."
Neither woman knew who "bathroom man" really was: hired killer Len Jenoff, a recovering alcoholic, private investigator, & pathological liar who had sought spiritual advice from Rabbi Neulander. According to Jenoff, the Rabbi offered him $30,000 to kill Carol Neulander and make it look like a robbery.
During Jenoff's first visit to the house - when he asked to use the bathroom - he couldn't find Carol's pocketbook, so he aborted his plans to have his accomplice rush in and smash her skull with a lead pipe. Instead, he simply dropped off an envelope and left.
Strange thing was, the envelope was empty.
According to Jenoff's testimony, Rabbi Neulander threatened to kill him if he failed to finish the job. "His face was red, his eyebrows were raised, and he was absolutely furious ... You better do it or you'll be dead. And if you don't believe me, just try me." (2)
Two weeks later, "bathroom man" appeared at the Neulander home a second time. Rebecca was on the phone with Carol once again. Carol graciously opened the door.
It was the last time mother and daughter would ever speak. Only a few minutes later, Jenoff struck the back of Carol's head with his lead pipe, and she cried out, "Why, why, why" as she fell.
But remember the Rabbi's interrogation? One particular moment stands out, when he denied knowledge of any deliveries scheduled for the night of the murder:
JL: Now, earlier this evening while we were talking in the rescue vehicle in front of your house there was mentioned that um there was somebody was suppose to make some deliveries to your house for you. Are you familiar with that?
A. I don't remember anything like that. I know because I don't want people in the house. Um, I have a little enough privacy and ah, you know if, if deliveries are made, um, I would want them to be at the .... Deliveries are made where I don't. Sometimes from the Cooper Hospital. Um and sometimes from the mail. Um, but I. You know I don't people around and ah, um, this I had, I was, I was never have, You know said I want you I want you to drop something off. A delivery. I don't want to confound you. It wasn't until tonight that something was said. I don't know when it happened. Maybe back at Carol was just tryging to protect the fact that she (inaudible) I, I, That kind of bewilders me.
Compare Rebecca's testimony to her father's, and you can see how words transform into something more - something almost physical, suspicious as blood spatter. Words transcend themselves, creating tension, sowing the seeds of doubt and building a case. The tension between dialogue and action, words and objective correlatives, testimony and physical evidence, invites readers to do more than simply read.
1 from Rebecca's testimony, as reported by Court TV, available: http://courttv.com/trials/neulander/101701_ctv.html
2 from Jenoff's testimony, as reported by Court TV, available: http://courttv.com/trials/neulander/101901_ctv.html