When Gail Katz vanished off the face of the earth in July 1985, her husband, famend plastic surgeon Robert Bierenbaum, had asserted that his wife was suicidal. The police, too, had their palms tied due to a lack of concrete proof. ABC’s ’20/20: Do No Harm’ recounts this horrifying disappearance and portrays how it took more than 15 years to convict Robert of his wife’s homicide.
Who Is Robert Bierenbaum?
Robert Bierenbaum used to be a well known plastic surgeon who met his spouse, Gail, in Manhattan when he was a surgical resident. Robert used to be additionally an skilled pilot, which added to his attraction and drew Gail towards him. The two appeared happy to start with, however purple flags soon emerged, and the show discussed that there were hints about Robert’s atypical and controlling conduct. Still, Gail determined to head ahead with a wedding, and although she settled down in Manhattan with the plastic surgeon, life used to be some distance from highest.
Post-marriage, Robert reportedly was a completely controlling and vindictive husband, who didn't hesitate to lodge to verbal as well as bodily abuse. Although a number of instances within the poisonous marriage resulted in Gail short of an out, the display discussed a hair-raising incident where Robert stuck his wife smoking and choked her until she lost awareness. Gail’s sister, a therapist, in addition to other well-wishers, encouraged Gail to get out of the wedding as soon as imaginable, but horrifyingly, the lady went lacking ahead of she may just escape.
When Gail went lacking on July 7, 1985, Robert claimed that she had stormed out in their house after a battle. Although her family and friends couldn’t keep an eye on their anxiety and searched frantically for the lacking lady, Robert hardly seemed troubled and ostensibly moved on with his lifestyles. Even with the plastic surgeon maintaining that his wife had left on her personal, Gail’s circle of relatives and family members suspected him of being keen on her disappearance. The government even started an investigation and found out that Robert had piloted a aircraft out of the New Jersey airport on the day of his spouse’s disappearance. Yet, with out a frame, it was once not possible for the police to construct a case.
In May 1989, a body did wash up from the sea on Staten Island, but the lack of forensic generation supposed that a DNA check was inconceivable. Yet, the police when put next the deceased body with Gail’s outdated chest x-rays and concluded it may well be the missing girl. But alas, they had been still unable to building up a case in opposition to Robert, and through 1990, he had relocated to Las Vegas, where he opened a personal plastic surgery practice.
Over the following years, Robert attended events, dated multiple girls, and lived life as a successful bachelor. Yet, according to the show, the ladies Robert dated, including a physician called Stephanie Youngblood, talked about his uncontrollable rage. In 1998, the police determined to make use of DNA generation to check the frame that used to be recovered from Staten Island and came upon that it didn't belong to Gail Katz. However, determined to succeed in a conclusion, officers began taking a look into Robert or even interviewed somebody and everyone inquisitive about his existence.
That used to be when a former female friend discussed that she overheard Robert talking at the telephone where he was confident that the body which used to be recovered did not belong to his spouse. This remark struck the police as suspicious and matched with the truth that he had flown out at the same night time, they concluded that he may have dumped his wife’s frame out in the ocean after murdering her. Although there was no direct proof, the police nonetheless determined to build a case and he was once indicted with second-degree homicide in connection to his wife’s dying.
Robert Bierenbaum is Serving Prison Time Today
Once Robert was offered in court docket, he pleaded now not to blame and based his defense on the declare that Gail was suicidal and risky. This declare was vehemently rejected by means of Gail’s family, whilst the prosecution alleged that Robert killed his wife after which piloted out to the Atlantic Ocean on his aircraft, where he ultimately dumped her frame. In truth, even with out proper evidence, Robert Bierenbaum was convicted of second-degree homicide and was sentenced to two decades to lifestyles in jail in 2000. In the years following the sentence, he appealed his conviction, but to no avail.
Then, in a chilling flip of events, Robert determined to come back clean during a parole hearing in December 2020 and finally confessed to his spouse’s murder. He claimed that he had strangled her prior to flying out of the New Jersey airport. Robert then admitted to the prosecution’s principle and stated that he flew out over the Atlantic Ocean and dumped her body into the water from where it hasn't ever been recovered. Following his remark, parole was once denied, and Robert remains incarcerated at the medium-security Otisville Correctional Facility in Orange County, New York, with his next parole hearing scheduled to be held in September 2023.
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