Robert Bierenbaum [SEP] convicted of
Robert Bierenbaum
Robert Bierenbaum was an American plastic surgeon who was convicted in October 2000 of murder in the strangulation death of his wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum. The death occurred in their Manhattan apartment on July 7, 1985.
Bierenbaum, a licensed pilot, took a two-hour flight in a Cessna 172 from Essex County, New Jersey over the Atlantic Ocean on the day that Gail had vanished. He failed to mention this fact to authorities during their initial questioning. The prosecution stated that Bierenbaum discarded his wife
's dismembered body in the ocean. The victim's torso was first thought to be found in 1989 but after exhuming the torso, DNA testing in 1999 proved it to not be Gail's.
Despite a witness testimony for the defense who stated that he saw the victim in a Manhattan bagel shop during the time that Bierenbaum took his airplane flight, Bierenbaum was convicted and sentenced to twenty years to life in prison in New York. He appealed, but the conviction was upheld in the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate