Fred Neulander - Crime documentary

Pledge 1$/month to support this channel - https://goo.gl/2wgFqk Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide - Murder for hire
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: November 1, 1994
Date of arrest: 1998
Date of birth: August 14, 1941
Victim profile: Carol Neulander, 52 (his wife)
Method of murder: Bludgeoned to death with a one-foot section of lead pipe
Location: Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA
Status: Sentenced to serve 30 years to life in prison on January 15, 2003
Jury finds rabbi guilty of hiring hit man to kill his wife

*Disclaimer*: The narrator on this documentary sounds drunk and annoys most of the viewers. If you get easily annoyed by voices, this documentary is not for you.

November 22, 2002

FREEHOLD, N.J. — A former New Jersey rabbi now faces the death penalty after he was found guilty on all counts Wednesday of hiring a hit man to carry out the murder of his wife of 28 years.

Fred Neulander, 61, showed no emotion as the forewoman of the jury of seven men and five women pronounced the once-beloved religious leader guilty of murder, felony murder and second-degree conspiracy.

Carol Neulander, 52, was bludgeoned to death in her Cherry Hill, N.J., home with a one-foot section of lead pipe on Nov. 1, 1994, after returning home from her work as a bakery manager. The couple's son testified that he had heard his parents fight two nights before she was killed and that his father had told his mother their marriage was "over."

As jurors filed out of the courtroom after the verdict was announced, members of Carol Neulander's family appeared relieved, wiped away tears and hugged each other.

"We are very pleased by the verdicts returned this afternoon by this jury," said prosecutor James Lynch, who was surrounded by members of Carol Neulander's family as he addressed reporters briefly. "We now move to a very critical stage of this case."

Michael Riley, the rabbi's lawyer, called Neulander a "courageous" man and said the rabbi would address the jury directly on Thursday during the penalty phase of the trial. "We are disappointed with the result, obviously," he said before leaving the courthouse.

The jury will return Thursday at 1:30 p.m. to begin the penalty phase.

Deadly Mix: A Rabbi, a Mistress and a Hit Man

On that November night in 1994, the rabbi arrived home from his synagogue, M'Kor Shalom, to find his wife, Carol, sprawled on the couple's parlor floor. She was covered in blood, the rabbi testified at his first murder trial, so he ran from the room and called 911.

The events of that night would set off eight years of investigation, shocking revelations about the indiscretions of one of New Jersey's noted religious leaders, a mistrial, and finally, a murder conviction. The case made national headlines because of its startling details: a rabbi, a mistress, a murder and a hit man.

Investigators at first had few leads in the slaying of Carol Neulander, a bakery manager and mother of three. But suspicions soon turned to the rabbi, who had been caught lying about a two-year affair he had been having with Elaine Soncini, a Philadelphia radio personality.

The case was coming together for police, who long suspected that the rabbi had arranged to have his wife killed. Prosecutor Lynch argued that Neulander feared losing the affections of Soncini and believed that a divorce would bring him too much embarrassment. Murder, the prosecutor argued, was the rabbi's way out.

In 1998, the rabbi was indicted for murder, but the case was entirely circumstantial. That would all change two years later when, in April 2000, Len Jenoff, a private investigator who was being paid by Neulander to investigate his wife's murder was persuaded by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter to tell police what he knew about the crime.

Jenoff told investigators and the reporter at a Cherry Hill diner that he and an accomplice, Paul Daniels, killed Carol Neulander — and that the rabbi had paid him to do it. Jenoff said he gave Daniels a cut of the $18,000 Fred Neulander paid him to kill Carol Neulander and make it look like a botched robbery.

Jenoff, however, was widely known in the suburban Philadelphia community of Cherry Hill as a storyteller. Among other things, according to testimony, he claimed falsely to have been a former CIA agent, a former FBI agent, a "comrade in arms" of President Ronald Reagan, a player in the Iran-Contra Affair and a former police officer. He also falsely told people that he was a candidate for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and that he had tried three times to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for the CIA. Thank you for helping me reach 50.000 subscribers. This is your small gift from me https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B84... Subscribe to our new channel - Crime Vault - https://www.youtube.com/crimevaultcha... (Weird cases, serial killers you never heard of and much more)