Court
The trial, held in November 2001, contained few surprises. Karen’s babysitter testified that Richard had entered the house and shot his wife. The jury also got to hear the 911 call in which Karen’s understandably traumatised brother said that Richard Sharpe was the person who had fired the gun.
Richard’s siblings spoke movingly about the numerous times he’d been physically assaulted and emotionally abused by their father, about how he’d turned from a good kid into an aggressive and violent teenager. Richard’s sister Laura admitted that he had terrorised her throughout their childhood and she was so afraid that he would kill her during the night that she put a total of ten locks on her bedroom door.
The doctor took the stand in his own defence and described the stresses that he had endured in the weeks leading up to the murder. He’d been separated from his wife and children, had broken his pelvis and endured other health problems, was being threatened with a lawsuit at work and was jealous that Karen was dating another man. He admitted to taking five or six prescription drugs on the day of the shooting and to also drinking alcohol. As is typical with such killers, he used the passive voice when talking about the homicide, saying ‘The gun went off,’ rather than the more honest ‘I fired the gun.’
The defence psychiatrist took the stand and described Richard’s mental disorders, which ranged from borderline personality to clinical depression. He noted that his client lacked a sense of identity, was unable even to decide if he wanted to be male or female. He described the various plastic surgeries that Richard had submitted to as further proof that the man was deeply confused. The prosecution’s psychiatrist concurred that the doctor probably had a personality disorder but said that he was not insane. After all, he’d gone calmly to the house and asked for Karen, had driven away after he’d shot her, got rid of the weapon and bought beer and a rope before booking himself into a hotel.
Verdict
The jury agreed with the prosecution and soon returned with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. Later that week he was sentenced to a life of hard labour at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution. He broke down, screaming ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ but many people who knew him believed that he was crying for himself.
Further mayhem
The following spring, Richard was found guilty of offering a sizeable sum to a fellow inmate to kill the assistant district attorney, who he blamed for his life sentence. Richard was put into solitary confinement as a punishment, but tried to hang himself with his shoelaces and was transferred to Bridgewater State Mental Hospital. When he revived, he contemplated having a sex change so that he could be moved to a women’s prison.
On 5th January 2009, Richard Sharpe waited until his cellmate was in another part of the prison, then he wound his bed sheet around the top bunk, looped it around his neck and hanged himself. He was found within the hour and rushed to hospital where he was formally pronounced dead.
2 Dr Robert Bierenbaum
Though a previous incidence of domestic violence and cruelty to animals put this surgeon in the frame when his wife suddenly disappeared, there is no physical proof linking him to her most-likely violent death.
The child prodigy
Robert was born on the 22nd July 1955 to Netta and Marvin Bierenbaum. Marvin was a doctor and Netta worked as his receptionist. They were very proud of Robert’s high IQ and almost photographic memory which ensured that he got outstanding exam results. His sister was also brilliant and went on to become a successful psychiatrist.
In high school, Robert – who liked to be called Bob – excelled at judo, skiing and various other sports. At seventeen he went to college and in 1977 he graduated with a degree in medicine, taking an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. By then he had already earned his pilot’s licence so spent many evenings and weekends flying a single-engine plane. Though supremely talented he had comparatively few social skills and many people found him blunt to the point of rudeness. He also had a penetrating stare that made many of his peers uncomfortable, though some women appreciated his intensity.
Cruelty to animals
At work, Bob found himself attracted to another young physician and they dated and got engaged, but were both working 120-hour weeks and had little time to socialise. Soon the young woman had second thoughts and broke off the engagement. Bob was enraged and let himself into her apartment when she was out in order to strangle her cat.
Marriage
By his mid-twenties Bob was chief of coronary care at Mount Sinai, a remarkable achievement for one so young. During a rare night off in 1980, he met Gail Beth Katz at a mutual friend’s house. She was an attractive young woman with a history of self-harming who had taken an overdose at age 23 after a boyfriend finished with her. Bob was an academic whilst Gail had dropped out of college, but there was an undeniable sexual attraction between them and they were both Jewish, a shared religion which was important to them. At first they appeared to be in love, but Gail was soon dropping hints to friends that Bob wasn’t in touch with his emotional side, that he wasn’t her type. However, her mother had always wanted her to marry a Jewish doctor and Gail herself seemed enamoured of the lifestyle that she could eventually enjoy as a surgeon’s wife.
They planned a lavish wedding for August 1982 but, days before, she phoned her sister in distress saying that Bob had become jealous of her kitten and had tried to drown it in the toilet bowl. The animal was terrified of him so Gail’s sister took it to an animal shelter to be re-homed. Even after this incident, Gail insisted on going ahead with the wedding, saying that she could make Bob happy and that, in turn, he’d support her when she returned to university.
After marrying in a Manhattan synagogue and honeymooning in Greece (Bob would remain involved with the synagogue and would later study Hebrew), the couple settled down to married life in New Jersey. Gail enrolled on a Psychology course, telling one of her fellow students that Bob had threatened to kill her if she ever left him. Fortunately, their work and college schedules kept them apart for most of the week, but they fought loudly every Sunday when they were both at home. Gail wanted Bob to pay her attention and to socialise, but he was working so hard that he needed to be able to come home and relax. Incensed at his apparent lack of interest in her, she began to have affairs.
One night in November 1983, she was sitting on the balcony of their home and having a clandestine cigarette, having told her husband that she’d given up: she knew that he detested smoking. But he came home unexpectedly and was so angry that he strangled her into unconsciousness. The following day, she left him and, four days later, she finally reported the incident to the police.
Bob himself was so concerned about this violent incident that he went to see a therapist. The psychiatrist, in turn, was so perturbed by what she heard that she phoned Gail in Bob’s presence and warned her that he was dangerous. She referred Bob to another psychiatrist who also phoned Gail to warn her. A third psychiatrist, Dr Michael Stone, talked to Bob, and the surgeon admitted partially strangling Gail’s kitten and strangling his former fiancée’s cat to death. He showed no remorse for these acts and the psychiatrist feared that he was in the presence of a psychopath. He met Gail and quickly realised that she showed the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, and that she was a perfect victim. People with this condition fear abandonment yet also enjoy risk-taking and often indulge in self-destructive behaviour. Try as he might, Dr Stone couldn’t persuade her to leave Bob.
Determined to have his advice on the record, the psychiatrist wrote a registered letter to Gail, suggesting that it was hazardous for her to live with her husband at this time and for the foreseeable future. She showed it to Bob then put it into a bank safety deposit box. Dr Michael Stone would also allege that he warned Bob’s parents their son was dangerous.
A brief hiatus
The couple went into therapy with another doctor, which briefly improved their ability to communicate with each other. But, in w
hat was surely the triumph of hope over experience, Gail brought home another two cats. Soon the shouting matches resumed and Bob told a friend that Gail made him so angry that he wanted to murder her. Meanwhile, Gail began yet another affair.
After one fight too many, she played her hand, telling him that she wanted a divorce and that he’d have to give her half of his salary for as long as she remained single. When Bob understandably objected to this, she threatened to show Dr Michael Stone’s letter to his boss and to any other hospital that he might apply to in the future for a job. His brilliant career would be over before it had fully begun.
The couple eventually went to bed on the Saturday night and, the following morning, on Sunday, 7th July 1985, they resumed fighting. Neighbours heard both of them shouting followed by a loud bang. That day, Gail didn’t leave the apartment as she usually did, something that the doorman would later testify to. In fact, she was never seen again.
Later that same day, Bob left the house, drove to the airport and rented a Cessna. Soon he was flying over the Wanaque Reservoir and on to the ocean. That night, he called in at a friend’s house and said that Gail had left him after a fight. When he got home he phoned his mother-in-law and said that Gail was missing but didn’t report this to the police, instead cleaning the apartment until the early hours, disturbing neighbours by dragging the furniture about.
On the Monday, Bob reported his wife’s disappearance to the authorities and they visited the apartment to find that Gail hadn’t taken any money or credit cards, unthinkable for a woman who loved to go shopping. She’d also left behind her cigarettes and her keys. Questioned by detectives about his movements on the day that his wife had disappeared, the surgeon lied and said that he’d been home alone until the evening. He refused on two occasions to take a lie detector test. Police were convinced that he’d murdered Gail, as were her friends and family.
Whilst still under suspicion, Bob changed his flight log so that it appeared that he hadn’t flown on the 7th July but on the 8th. He also altered the records to state that he’d made several short flight checks rather than one longer flight.
He almost immediately began to date two women – who didn’t know about each other’s existence – and two months after Gail disappeared, he moved one of them into the marital home. She was worried that Gail might return, but Bob seemed unconcerned. Indeed, when detectives phoned him one night to say that they’d found a body that might be Gail, he asked if he could go back to sleep and identify it the following day. Bob clarified that the body wasn’t Gail’s. His girlfriend noticed that he was kind to Gail’s two cats and that he kept her possessions, including personal items such as her diary.
No charges
Bob was upset on the occasions when one of his heart patients died, so he decided to move into plastic surgery, which had a lower mortality rate, and was soon specialising in breast reconstruction for women who had survived breast cancer. Meanwhile, police closed down the investigation into Gail’s disappearance, telling her family that they were convinced the doctor had murdered her but they didn’t believe they had enough evidence to win the case.
The wrong body
In May 1989, police at Staten Island fished a badly decomposed female torso from the water. The head, arms and legs had been cut off, ruling out a suicide, and the sternum had once been broken but had healed. Gail Katz had never broken this bone prior to her disappearance, yet the city identified the body as hers and her parents gave the torso a full Jewish funeral and Bob sat shiva at his parents’ house for a week.
A new life
Bob Bierenbaum was now in his prime. He moved to Las Vegas, established a private plastic surgery practice and dated several beautiful women. He got himself another cat and appeared to dote on it. He told some of his girlfriends that he’d never been married but told others that Gail had probably been killed by a drug dealer or had committed suicide.
He also joined the Flying Doctors of Mercy and flew down to Mexico at least four times a year at his own expense to help children with cleft palates – the uneducated community believed that this disfigurement meant that these unfortunate youngsters were possessed by the devil, so they were ostracised and suffered terribly. Bob performed corrective surgeries on them so that they enjoyed good health and were no longer pilloried. The parents loved him and referred to him as being ‘like a saviour’. Fluent in five languages, Bob could communicate well with his patients and was very good at reassuring them.
During this time, his relationships with women continued to falter and he had three broken engagements. Some felt that he was trying to rush them into marriage as, by now, he longed to be a father. He was good with other people’s children and wanted to start a family before he reached his fortieth birthday.
Sleepless in Seattle
In 1993, Dr Michael Stone arrived in Seattle to address a psychiatric convention. He spoke about Gail Katz Bierenbaum’s disappearance and about her dangerous husband. Even though he used false names, one of the women in the auditorium had known Gail and recognised her story. Afterwards, she apparently told Dr Stone that she had seen blood on a rug in the Bierenbaums’ apartment the day after Gail’s disappearance, and that the rug had disappeared shortly afterwards.
A second marriage
Oblivious that he was still being talked about, Bob continued to work and play hard. In 1993, he met a female gynaecologist, Dr Janet Chollett, and they began dating. Three months later they got engaged and, the following summer, they married in New York. The couple moved to Dakota and resumed their medical careers, Janet delivering babies whilst Bob performed breast reconstruction surgery. In November 1996 they had their first child, a girl. Bob became a stay-at-home father whilst Janet, who wanted a change from medicine, enrolled in a Law school two hundred miles away. The couple rarely saw each other for a while and Bob often slept on a fold-out bed next to his aeroplane rather than go home. When he returned to work they hired a nanny, Bob taking especial care to recruit a non-smoker. His hatred of cigarettes was well known in the community and at work, where he sometimes refused to treat patients who smoked.
The years passed and Bob remained devoted to his second wife, his daughter and his patients. But, unbeknown to him, his time as a free man was running out. The authorities were looking at his case for the third time and, in 1998, decided to exhume the body that had been buried nine years previously as Gail Katz. Using improved DNA techniques they were able to prove conclusively that the torso belonged to another young woman, a Jane Doe.
Detectives reinterviewed Dr Michael Stone, and he told them about the woman who had approached him at the seminar and said that she’d seen blood on the rug in Bob and Gail’s apartment. The police then interviewed her, but she said that she’d only heard a rumour about the blood and hadn’t seen it with her own eyes – but she had seen the red marks on Gail’s neck after Bob had strangled her unconscious in 1983. She’d been so alarmed that she’d given Gail a cheque as the deposit for a new apartment, but Gail had decided to remain with Bob.
Police also interviewed some of the women that Bob had dated after Gail’s disappearance and one of them told the detectives about finding the altered flight log. The following year – fourteen years after Gail’s disappearance – he was indicted by a grand jury in New York.
Out on bail, Bob discussed his future with Janet. Both were convinced that he would be found not guilty, after which they might relocate to Mexico where he could continue his work with disfigured children. They also wanted to have a second child.
Dr Michael Stone testified at the hearing, recounting how alarmed he was by Bob’s behaviour and saying that he’d spoken to Bob’s parents about the situation at the end of November 1983. But Marvin Bierenbaum was able to prove that he was in a medical conference in Taiwan at this time, and Netta Bierenbaum swore under oath that she was ill with influenza. The prosecution had to admit that the psychiatrist’s dates might be wrong.
However, they were adamant about many other d
etails: Bob had choked Gail on a previous occasion after finding her smoking a cigarette. They’d argued yet again on the day of her disappearance, after which he’d lied to people that the doorman had seen her leave the building. He had also lied in telling detectives that he was home all day when he’d actually been out flying, and had later altered the flight log to suggest that he’d used the plane on a different date.
The defence countered that Gail had been seen at a restaurant an hour or two after her supposed death and they produced a stranger who had allegedly ogled her from a nearby table. But he described her as ‘statuesque’, whereas Gail was short and slim.
A doctor for the prosecution testified that Gail’s body would easily have folded at the waist and could have been stuffed into a bag in her apartment. The authorities had already ascertained that a bag with a 110 lb weight inside could be thrown from a small plane, so they alleged that Bob could easily have dumped his wife’s body into the Atlantic, where it might never be found.
In their summary, the defence said that Gail had had several lovers and that at least one of them had never been identified, and that she occasionally used recreational drugs and could have been killed by a drug dealer. Her body might have remained hidden or she might have been wrongly buried under another name or in an unmarked grave.
Without a body, the case against Bob Bierenbaum was purely circumstantial yet the jury took less than six hours to return with a guilty verdict. Bob paled and looked deeply shocked. When he returned for sentencing, he was given twenty years to life. He appealed but his conviction was upheld in 2002. He will become eligible for parole in August 2020.
Doctors Who Kill Page 2