Man charged with murder in wife’s 1985 disappearance

Thursday, Dec. 9, 1999 | 10:39 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

NEW YORK -- Fourteen years ago, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum stormed out of her apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side after an argument with her husband and never returned. At least that is what police documents show her husband, Robert Bierenbaum, said at the time.

But Wednesday prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office offered another explanation as they arraigned Bierenbaum, 44, on charges of second-degree murder.

They say there is evidence that Bierenbaum, a plastic surgeon who moved to Las Vegas and now lives in Grand Forks, N.D., killed his wife, drove her body to Essex County Airport in Caldwell, N.J., then dumped her body as he flew his private plane over the Atlantic Ocean somewhere between Montauk Point, N.Y., and Cape May, N.J. Her body was never found.

Calling it a "powerful and compelling case," Assistant District Attorney Daniel Bibb told Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder of State Supreme Court Wednesday that more than a decade of investigation had led prosecutors to this conclusion, adding that Bierenbaum had been free for too long.

Prosecutors said they could not detail the evidence that had surfaced recently but added that much of it had to do with inconsistencies in how Bierenbaum had explained his wife's disappearance to others over the last several years. Bierenbaum's lawyer, Scott Greenfield, refused to comment on the case.

Bierenbaum pleaded innocent to the charge and was freed on a $500,000 bond after he turned over both his pilot's license and passport. The judge ordered him not to venture outside New York City or New Jersey, where his parents live.

In 1990 Bierenbaum moved to Las Vegas, where he lived for five years before moving to Grand Forks, N.D. He has since remarried and has a 1-year-old daughter.

Alayne Katz, a sister of the missing woman, was in court for Bierenbaum's arraignment. She wept while saying her family had suspected her former brother-in-law of murder from the start.

"I'm sorry that my parents are not here to see this," Katz said. "I hold him responsible for their early deaths."

Katz-Bierenbaum was working on a doctorate in clinical psychology when she disappeared. She was last seen July 7, 1985, the day Bierenbaum told police his wife was missing.

According to police documents, Bierenbaum initially told police his wife had stormed out of their apartment after an argument. He told investigators he believed she had gone to Central Park to "cool off," and that his doorman remembered seeing her leave. In the missing person's report he filed, Bierenbaum said he and his wife had quarreled during the previous weekend and had been seeing a marriage counselor.

Inconsistencies led police to doubt Bierenbaum's story, though they said they were unable to charge him until Wednesday.