The Disappearance of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum: A Letter That Predicted the Future

Summary

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Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore

Episode: The Disappearance of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum: A Letter That Predicted the Future

Podcast: Clues (Crime House Original)
Release Date: March 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, hosts Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore (with guest host Sarah Turney) dissect the haunting disappearance and presumed murder of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum, a 29-year-old psychology student from Manhattan who vanished in 1985. Through methodical storytelling, forensic analysis, and survivor advocacy, the hosts follow a web of overlooked warnings, missed opportunities for justice, and the chilling manipulation of perception by Gail’s husband, Dr. Robert “Bob” Bierenbaum—a successful plastic surgeon and pilot. The episode spotlights early red flags in Bob's behavior, the investigation's pitfalls, and the eventual confession that brought some closure to Gail’s family, all anchored by a remarkable warning letter from a psychiatrist that seemed to predict the tragic outcome.

CONTENT WARNING: Episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, murder, animal cruelty, drug use, and suicide.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gail’s Final Days and Fateful Decision

• [07:23] Gail’s friend Denise recounts their July 6, 1985 salon meeting where Gail reveals her plan to leave Bob, with apartment listings in hand.
• Gail appeared “transformed” with newfound resolve—a glimpse of hope before her disappearance the next day.

"Gail has a new haircut, she has this new lease on life, and Denise is really happy for her. However, that will be the last time that Denise ever sees Gail." – Kaelyn Moore [07:44]

2. Background on Gail and Bob's Relationship

• Gail: Sensitive, anxious upbringing; struggled with depression, low self-esteem, and a pattern of “reformation project” boyfriends; past cocaine use and a suicide attempt.
• Bob: Wealthy, ambitious son of a cardiologist; doctor with expensive tastes and a passion for piloting; appears “perfect on paper.”
• Gail’s parents approve of Bob, hoping for stability, but Gail notices disturbing traits:
  • Overreacts to criticism
  • Controlling behavior
  • Political and lifestyle incompatibility

"From the beginning, he did absolutely everything to sweep her off her feet. The feeling wasn't necessarily entirely mutual." – Kaelyn Moore [11:12]

3. Red Flags and Early Abuse

• [23:29] Elaine Katz (Gail’s sister) tells police about Bob’s attempt to drown their cat, a sign of deep-seated cruelty.
• FBI statistics and studies confirm animal abuse is often linked to severe intimate partner violence.

"According to the FBI...the majority of IPV victims who report co-occurring animal cruelty are also concerned the abuser eventually will kill them and should be considered at extremely high risk of suffering severe injury or death." – Kaelyn Moore [24:31]

• Bob’s control extends to deciding Gail’s appearance, actions, and diet; creates dependency and isolation.
• Instances of public humiliation and infantilization:
  • Feeding Gail (and even her sister) at dinner
  • Forbidding Gail from operating light switches
  • Forcing her to sit on his lap at social events

"He was that controlling about every circumstance." – Sarah Turney [27:34]

4. Escalation: Physical Violence and Police Inaction

• [30:55] Gail reports Bob for strangling her into unconsciousness in 1983. The case is shunted to family court; no further action taken—a critical missed opportunity.
• NYPD’s historical mishandling of domestic violence cases is underscored.

"Being strangled to the point of losing consciousness, and you just kick it to a family court?" – Sarah Turney [31:02]

5. The Day of Disappearance & Bob’s Suspicious Behavior

• Timeline Discrepancies:
  • Bob claims Gail left after a fight to go tanning in Central Park; gives conflicting statements to friends and police about her attire and state of mind.
  • Delays reporting her missing until late at night the following day.
• Bob’s behavior post-disappearance is odd: doesn’t return detectives’ calls, holds off on reporting, acts unconcerned about potential sightings, begins dating again shortly after Gail’s disappearance.

6. Mounting Circumstantial Evidence

• Family Sleuthing: Katz family searches Bob’s apartment, finding Gail’s essentials (including cigarettes)—items she’d never have left behind.
• Detectives Finally Examine Bob’s Timeline (14 months late):
  • Discover Bob rented a plane the day Gail vanished, contradicting his alibi.

"A plane rental...July 7, 1985. The day his wife went missing." – Sarah Turney [49:06]

• Roberta (Bob’s girlfriend post-Gail) notices a suspicious alteration in his flight log (July 7 changed to August 7).

7. Dead Ends, Lost Evidence, and the Case Goes Cold

• Despite circumstantial red flags, two years pass with no body, blood, or forensic evidence.
• In 1989, a torso is discovered and misidentified as Gail’s via X-ray match; later DNA analysis disproves this.
• Bob relocates multiple times, cycling through relationships; several exes form the “Harriet the Spy Club,” researching his past and collaborating with police.

8. The Psychiatrist’s Letter: A Warning Unheeded

• Dr. Michael Stone, the couple’s psychiatrist, had grave concerns. He saw Bob as a dangerous psychopath and wrote a letter to Gail warning that her life could be at risk.
• The letter:
  “If I do not heed this advice, I must accept the consequences, including the possibility of personal injury or death at the hands of my husband, and absolve Dr. Stone of responsibility.”
• Gail kept the letter, intending to use it as leverage for a divorce—the very weekend she disappeared.

"Did you ever write a note like this for any of your other patients? And he said no. He goes, I'd never, ever, ever felt the need to." – Sarah Turney [66:49]

9. Trial, Recreation, and Conviction (2000)

• [68:25] Prosecution reenacts Bob’s likely crime using a Cessna 172:
  • Proves a pilot could fly solo, open the door, and push a weighted bag into the sea.
  • No forensic evidence, but a web of circumstantial proof.
• The defense’s lone witness describes a sighting of a woman who resembled Gail, undermined by inconsistent details.
• [72:06] Jury convicts Bob of second-degree murder after 15 years. He receives a 20-to-life sentence.

10. Delayed Justice: Bob’s Confession (2020)

• At a parole hearing, Bob finally admits to killing Gail during an argument and disposing of her body from his plane. The confession, noted for its clinical, emotionless tone, mirrors the prosecution’s theory.

"I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her." – Bob Bierenbaum [73:11] "I went flying, I opened the door, and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean." – Bob Bierenbaum [73:21]

• Gail’s family is left with closure but no remains. The long-misidentified torso is later found to belong to another serial killer’s victim.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Her mother, Sylvia, believed that the solution...was to stop dating guys that she needed to fix and instead, quote, find someone more impressive, like a nice Jewish doctor." – Kaelyn Moore [10:23]
• "Gail reached out to her for help...She had her little cat in hand. And she told Elaine a disturbing story...Bob trying to drown their pet cat in the toilet." – Sarah Turney [22:53]
• "Botched. Not following up on a very serious domestic violence..." – Kaelyn Moore [31:07]
• "As we concluded, Dr. Berenbaum said, ‘This doesn't look right and people are going to start to wonder.’...The implication was pretty clear. Bob realized that he was in trouble." – [36:48]
• "Roberta and a friend actually went and peeked at Bob's handwritten flight log...this is when they discover an altered entry where the log originally showed a flight on July 7, 1985. It had been changed to read August 7, 1985." – Sarah Turney [52:19]
• "In effect, the psychiatrist gave her a letter that said, if you stay with Bob, you might die." – Paraphrased from Dr. Stone’s testimony and letter [65:01]
• "To the shock of everyone there, he did confess to killing Gail. He said, 'I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her.'" – Sarah Turney [73:11]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [07:23] Salon appointment and Gail’s decision to leave Bob
• [23:29] Cat incident and animal abuse as predictive of violence
• [30:55] Strangulation report and lack of police follow-up
• [38:08] Katz family’s search of Bob's apartment
• [43:10] Police restrict search to items for “identification only”—another major investigation flaw
• [49:06] Plane rental discovered 14 months later; Bob’s logbook tampering
• [55:00] The misidentified torso found in 1989
• [61:35] DNA proves the torso was not Gail’s; renewed investigation and resolve
• [63:01] Dr. Stone’s pivotal letter and warning to Gail
• [68:25] Reenactment of disposal of body by Cessna; trial evidence
• [72:06] Jury verdict: Guilty
• [73:11] Bob’s confession at parole hearing

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Legacy and Advocacy

• Gail’s family channeled their grief into advocacy. The Pace University’s Women's Justice Center is named “Gail’s House” in her honor, offering free legal services and trainings for abuse survivors.
• Helplines and Resources:
  • National Domestic Violence Hotline: Text START to 88788 or call 1-800-799-SAFE
  • loveisrespect.org quiz for self-assessment of relationship danger signs.

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Closing Reflections

This episode stands out as both a masterclass in untangling a decades-old cold case and a heartfelt call to recognize and act on the early warning signs of intimate partner violence. Morgan, Kaelyn, and Sarah balance detailed legal and forensic breakdowns with empathetic storytelling, ensuring the listener never loses sight of the human cost behind the headline. Gail’s story, chillingly anticipated in her psychiatrist’s letter, continues to fuel advocacy work and serves as a somber reminder to trust one’s instincts and never ignore “small” warning signs.

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Note: Ads and promotional segments omitted for conciseness and focus.

Transcript

[Sarah Turney]

When someone goes missing, the headlines focus on what happened.

[Courtney Nicole]

But the truth often lives in the smallest details.

[Sarah Turney]

I'm Sarah Turney. After my sister disappeared, I learned how

[Courtney Nicole]

those final hours, the last conversations, the

[Sarah Turney]

last decisions, can haunt families forever.

[Courtney Nicole]

And I'm Courtney Nicole. After seeing crime impact my own family, I've learned how overlooked moments, missed red flag flags, and unanswered questions can change everything.

[Sarah Turney]

Together, we're bringing those lived experiences into the work. This is the Final Hours. A Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. A podcast that puts the moments before

[Courtney Nicole]

a disappearance under a microscope. Listen to and follow the Final Hours wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday.

[Sarah Turney]

This is Crime House. He's a doctor.

[Courtney Nicole]

She's training to be a therapist. They live in a luxurious Manhattan apartment

[Sarah Turney]

until 1985 when Gayle Katz, Beer and Bomb disappears. But finding out what happened to her and actually proving it will take 15 years. And it means exposing every skeleton in their perfect life. Foreign. Hi guys. Welcome to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

[Courtney Nicole]

I'm Kaylin Moore. I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories and the court files released on these cases.

[Sarah Turney]

And I'm your Internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. And I'm the one who's diving into Reddit forums and everything else I can find online to pull out those lesser known details and see what threads just aren't adding up.

[Courtney Nicole]

And don't forget to share your thoughts on socials. Want ad free listening and early access. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts and make sure you go back and listen to our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's get into the case of Gail Katz, Beer and Bomb and the clues that defined it.

[Sarah Turney]

One of this week's partners is Pocket Hose. I'm so excited to tell you guys about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their new product, the Pocket Hose Ballistic. It's tough, but still lightweight, easy to handle. I use a hose daily, whether it's to water down my horse's food, water my plants. And my biggest grievance is when the hose kinks, I gotta walk back over, unfold it. It's heavy. I hate coiling it back up. So then it's haphazardly strewn about the yard. And that is where the Pocket Hose Ballistic comes in. This hose is so lightweight and easy to manage. You turn the water on and it expands. Turn it off, it shrinks back down. Storing it doesn't take up a lot of space. And it even has this anti burst sleeve. Basically the same technology as a bulletproof vest. So this hose is sturdy. If you want a hose that feels easy instead of exhausting, this is the one. And now for a limited time, when you purchase a new pocket hose ballistic, you'll get a free 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a free thumb drive nozzle. Just text clues to 64,000. That's clues to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase text clues to 64000 message and data rates may apply. If you're listening to clues, you're probably not someone who just takes everything at face value. You hear one detail, pull the thread and you want to know what's really going on. So if you love pulling the thread when you Travel, visit Go Colette.com podcast and use offer code TRAVEL26 to get $200 off select Colette Explorations Tours. That same curiosity is probably what makes you a great traveler. Not the check the box kind, but the one who wants to go deeper. That's why Colette's exploration tours stand out. And honestly, I think they could really resonate with you too. These are small group guided tours. How small is small? An average of just 19 travelers. And they're designed by experts who actually live in those destinations. People who know how to uncover the real story of a place. So instead of rushing through you slow down. You might take part in a centuries old tea ceremony in Japan, share a home hosted meal with a family in Morocco, or mush a dog sled under the northern lights in Finland. That's because Colette's tours are designed by travelers for travelers with a real understanding of what makes a journey meaningful. They've been doing it for more than 100 years and that experience really shows. So if you love pulling the thread when you Travel, visit Go Colette.com podcast and use offer code TRAVEL26 to get $200 off select Colette Explorations Tours. Here we go, here we go.

[Courtney Nicole]

It's our first one back recording in a while.

[Sarah Turney]

I'm like here we are, three months since our last recording session. You've had a whole ass baby.

[Courtney Nicole]

I had a whole baby in that time.

[Sarah Turney]

A whole baby.

[Courtney Nicole]

An entire baby.

[Sarah Turney]

Oh my God. The cutest little baby.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, I just want to say thank you too. I heard from a lot of listeners who actually reached out, even listeners. Cuz you know, we've been putting out episodes that we recorded back in December, November, Dec. And there were listeners that have kids that reached out and were like, make sure you're not overextending yourself. Like I know how hard it is at like in those first few weeks,

[Sarah Turney]

especially you, your workhorse.

[Courtney Nicole]

Thank you so much. But even the fact that they thought to check in with me and luckily like I did get some time off, like we had pre recorded those episodes, which was really nice. But no, just thanks to everyone who reached out. It really meant a lot.

[Sarah Turney]

I know the cutest little guy. You guys, if you ever go to Kaylin's Instagram and like go look at what she's posting, like this little baby is the most aware of the world baby I think I've ever seen.

[Courtney Nicole]

He's really awake. Yeah, it's kind of freaky. Well, did I tell you when he was born, the nurses were like, oh, he's been here before. This little baby has seen this hospital.

[Sarah Turney]

Literally.

[Courtney Nicole]

He's got an old soul. Yeah, I know, I know. I was like literally story there.

[Sarah Turney]

I can feel the hair standing up. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Congratulation.

[Courtney Nicole]

Like an old man. Thank you so much.

[Sarah Turney]

It's so exciting. Yeah, not much is new for me. Just turning 32 basically tomorrow.

[Courtney Nicole]

I know.

[Sarah Turney]

Earth day.

[Courtney Nicole]

Are you doing anything fun?

[Sarah Turney]

Going to Disneyland.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yes.

[Sarah Turney]

It's like I'm like one of those people that like when you win the super bowl, where are you going? I'm going to Disneyland. That's me. Happy birthday. It's just easy, I don't cry.

[Courtney Nicole]

They give you the little birthday pin too to celebrate. They make it about you, which I love.

[Sarah Turney]

Yes, but okay, without further ado, let's get into today's case cuz it is a bit of a doozy.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yes, yes, this one is. I still can't really wrap my head around it, so I'm very curious to see what everyone thinks and again, share your thoughts on socials. Also a quick reminder, if you're watching this episode on YouTube, we're going to put up some maps, some pictures, assets that will help you visualize the case. If you want to see those same photos, you can check out our Instagram. That's at Clues podcast on Instagram.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And just a warning before we begin this episode, it does contain descriptions of domestic violence, murder, dismemberment, cruelty to animals, as well as mentions of drug use, suicide and suicidal ideation. It is a bit of a heavy one, so please listen with care.

[Courtney Nicole]

So this case starts on Saturday, July 6, 1985. 29 year old Gail Katz Beerbob meets up with her friend Denise at this New York City hair salon. And in Gail's hand, she's carrying a newspaper. And she specifically has the part out where they show ads for apartments and there are dark circles around a couple of the listings. And that's when Gail drops this huge bombshell on her friend. She tells Denise that she's leaving her husband, 29 year old Dr. Robert or Bob, beer and Bomb that weekend. She says that she'll force him to agree not only to the divorce, but to her preferred terms for a settlement. She's already borrowed the money she needs to rent an apartment, and if she can't find a place in time, she says she's going to stay with a friend in Connecticut until she does. And Denise, after they have this whole get together as friends, she watches as her friend leaves the salon that day totally transformed. Gail has a new haircut, she has this new lease on life, and Denise is really happy for her. However, that will be the last time that Denise ever sees Gail. She had no idea what was to come. So let's go back a little bit in the story and talk some more about who Gayle was. She was born on March 8, 1956, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the first of three children to Manny and Sylvia Katz. The family was, at least from what we read about, always under financial stress due to Manny's business ventures. It wasn't necessarily an easy environment to grow up in, but Gail seemed to have taken it the hardest. She was described as being this sensitive, anxious kid, and her parents fought constantly about how to handle her low self esteem and her emotional outbursts. Her parents also fought with her as she got older about the boys that she would bring home. She had what was described by her parents, this long string of messy relationships. She seemed to fall for her next boyfriend before she would even break up with the last. And most of the guys that she dated had their own baggage, too. Her parents referred to them as, quote, Gail's reformation projects. And that's because Gail would try to fix these guys. And it seems like she would do that to keep her mind off of her own problems. She struggled with depression on and off throughout her life, especially during college. And that's when she started using cocaine. She dropped out of college twice at that time, too. And in 1979, when she was 23 years old, she did attempt suicide after she had a really bad breakup. A friend arrived at Gail's apartment just in time to save her life. But after the fact, it seems Like, Gail just really felt even worse about herself. Her mother, Sylvia, believed that the solution to these problems was to stop dating guys that she needed to fix and instead, quote, find someone more impressive, like a nice Jewish doctor. Which that actually eventually did come to fruition. In 1981, when Gail was 25, mutual friends set her up with this guy named Bob Berenbaum. He was a year older than Gail. He worked as a medical resident at Maimon Medical center in Brooklyn. He made about $35,000 a year during his residency, and that was 50% more than the average salary in New York at the time. And as the son of a wealthy cardiologist, he had pretty expensive taste. His favorite hobby was flying small planes, which he rented by the hour to take Gail on dates in. He lived in an expensive Manhattan apartment, which his parents helped him pay for. But they weren't really worried about bankrolling their son forever because Bob wanted to be a plastic surgeon, and that was definitely going to pay him pretty well in time. He had his eyes set on that as his profession. Really, the only distraction that he had in his life seemed to be Gail. From the beginning, he did absolutely everything to sweep her off her feet. The feeling wasn't necessarily entirely mutual. At the beginning, Gale kind of had to convince herself that she liked him.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, I think she could see the potential that Bob had on paper.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

Surgeon, pilot. I mean, one of the very first dates he took her flying around New York City as the sun was setting, he was pulling out all the stops for her. So she saw this and was like, yeah, maybe not my ideal guy, but good potential.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. Are you watching the Carolyn Kennedy? No. And you have to watch the Love Story on fx. But it kind of reminds me of that a little bit in the sense of, like, average girl being swept off her feet by this incredibly wealthy socialite, like, son of a rich family kind of person. Yeah, he was really perfect on paper. And obviously, Gail's parents loved him. Like, finally she was dating this guy that she didn't have to fix. But there were a lot of things about Bob that did bother Gail. One of the things was that he would overreact to tiny criticisms, which that is such a red flag. And people, I don't know, when you start dating someone and they can't even take, like, a little bit of a joke, and they just immediately, like, are really defensive. Defensive about it. Exactly. And so that's, like, something Bob would do that Gale immediately flagged as just being kind of odd. He was also known to not really, like, Tuck in his shirt. That was like a quirk of his that she just didn't really.

[Sarah Turney]

Appearance was always described as a bit disheveled, like didn't really care about his appearance that much.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yes, which, okay, that on its own, not necessarily a red flag. There's also the fact that he was conservative Republican and Gail was liberal Democrat, which they could not agree on anything over. And they still chose to date, but they really did not get along when it came to politics. Still, Gail decided she was going to overlook it all. And less than a year into their relationship, Bob proposed to Gail and she said yes. And then they were married in August of 1982. After their honeymoon, 26 year old Gail went back to school and she got a bachelor's degree in psychology from Hunter College in the city. She then studied a PhD of clinical psychology at Long Island University. And then she started seeing her own patients and began her own business outside of therapy. It was a service for other women. It was called Help, where Gail ran errands for wealthy clients. In between her classes and patients, both she and Bob were living busy lives with separate careers. But they seemed to be making it work. That is, until about three years into their marriage when Gail walked into that salon and said she was getting a divorce. Let's fast forward again though, back to the day after Gail's hair appointment. That's Sunday, July 7, 1985. And that's when she mentioned she was planning to tell Bob that she wanted out of their marriage. That night, around 6:30pm, Bob showed up to his nephew's birthday party in New Jersey, alone. When people asked where Gail was because it was odd to see him without her, Bob said that they had an argument that morning and he was gonna just give her some time to cool off. After the party, though, Bob went to a friend's house, which was also in New Jersey, and he told that friend that Gail stormed out of the house at around 11am wearing shorts, sandals and a halter top, saying that she was gonna go work on her tan in Central park and that he hadn't heard from her since. So, from his friend's place, Bob calls his apartment a couple of times. Gail doesn't pick up though. And that's when Bob starts to panic and he heads back into the city. He returns to an empty apartment at almost midnight. So he calls Gail's friend, Dr. Yvette Feis, to ask if she had seen or heard from Gail. And after Yvette said that she hadn't, Bob decided that he was gonna go to bed and just try again the following morning. The next day, Bob knew that Gail had a therapy appointment scheduled. So he called that therapist to see if she showed up, but that therapist said that she hadn't. So then Bob starts calling a few other people that day to see if maybe they had spoken to Gail. But no one had seen or heard from her since Saturday. So at around 9pm that night, which was July 8, Bob went to an Upper east side police station and he filed a missing persons report.

[Sarah Turney]

The officers taking Bob's report had quite a few questions for him, and his answers are actually our first clue. He said he last saw Gail at 11am the day before, when she left their apartment after an argument. But he also mentioned that Gail got a disappointing phone call from someone earlier that morning before their argument had even started. He doesn't give police any other details about the call, but he does tell them something different than what he said at his nephew's party. The main difference was that he claimed Gail was wearing a T shirt when she left for Central park, not the halter top that he had mentioned before. But other than that, the story is pretty much matching everything that he's told his friends and family already. Bob also said that his wife was in good physical health but poor mental health. He shared her history of depression and her suicide attempt from six years earlier. Bob also told the police that they were in marriage counseling. They were having weekly sessions with a psychiatrist in Greenwich Village. Even though it seemed like he came from a place of worry, his behavior over the following days would prove otherwise. Today's episode is brought to you by Alma. It can be challenging to find the right therapist, someone that gets you, teaches you strategies that are actually going to work for you and your needs. And it can sometimes be costly. Well, ALMA is on a mission to change all that. They want to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care. And they have over 20,000 diverse therapists and an easy to use platform. One thing I love about ALMA is that you can do consultations with a therapist. It's almost like an interview. And you can make sure you guys match each other's vibes before you really jump in and get started. Their directory helps you find a therapist that takes your insurance and meets your specific needs with filters like gender, race, therapeutic approach, and more. And you're going to know exactly how much you're paying upfront. With their free insurance, cost, estimator, calculator. We're entering a new year, so now is the perfect time to start addressing things you might Want to work on a year from today? Isn't that far away? Get started [e-mail] clues that's hello a l m a.com clues these days I'm

[Courtney Nicole]

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[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, I feel like to them it could have looked very performative. Yeah. What is. Wait, what?

[Courtney Nicole]

Or just like a weird pivot too, to totally change your story? Okay, first, the shirt she was wearing is Different. And now your theory on what happened is totally different.

[Sarah Turney]

And don't you think the police would have been the first he would have approached about this foul play theory?

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. And he's already not calling them back whenever they call him.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

So the detectives decide that they're going to interview Bob again, but this time it's going to be as a potential suspect because not only was he behaving strangely, but the more they talked to Gail's loved ones, the more they learned that they're also concerned with Bob's behavior.

[Sarah Turney]

By now, police had begun establishing a timeline of Gail's last known whereabouts. And they found someone who had actually spoken to Gail on the morning she disappeared. A regular client with her help service, a high powered corporate attorney named Francesca McCartney Beal. Francesca's story is actually our second clue. At 10:20am the morning Gail went missing, Francesca called her with a question. A friend of Francesca's needed surgery and was wondering if Bob could recommend a good doctor for her. Now this might be the disappointing call Bob said that Gail got that morning. You know, I watched an interview with Francesca and she said that Gail sounded really excited initially when she called her, but when Gail found out that the reason for the call was related to Bob, she kind of seemed down and not as uppity.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

And Francesca takes this further. She actually tells detectives something else that's troubling. Two years earlier, in November 1983, Gail asked to stay in Francesca's guest room for a while. When Francesca asked Gail why, Gail said that it was because she was afraid of Bob and thought that he might harm her. Francesca told Gail that she didn't think it was a good idea, figuring she had family that might take her in instead. But after that, Francesca said that it seemed like things went back to normal between the two of them. When Francesca made that call on July 7, she had no idea that it was the day Gail planned to ask for a divorce. In fact, Francesca didn't even know Gail was missing until the police told her. But Francesca's account lined up with something else. The detectives had been hearing about Gail's life. A story that was told to them by her sister, 27 year old Elaine Katz. At first, Elaine thought that Gail had just left Bob without saying anything about a divorce. But now Elaine was fearing the worst and she was very forthcoming with detectives about all of her suspicions. Which brings us to our third clue. Elaine told the police about a disturbing incident from early on in Gail and Bob's relationship. Bob and his lawyer have since disputed this story, but we're going to tell you Elaine's version of events. She said that Gail reached out to her for help In August of 1982, about three weeks before their wedding. She had called her, crying, begging for her to come into the city and pick her up. When Gail got into her car, she had her little cat in hand. And she told Elaine a disturbing story. Again, you guys, we are going to mention talks of animal harm, so please skip if you can't handle that today. Gail had apparently caught Bob trying to drown their pet cat in the toilet. When Gail confronted him, Bob said that he was angry and jealous because Gail loved the cat and cared for the cat more than him. And Bob didn't even seem sorry about this, more sorry that he got caught. And he even went so far as to imply that this isn't the first time he had tried to harm their cat, and it wouldn't be the last. Gail even shared with Elaine that Bob had mentioned strangling a previous girlfriend's cat. There was a story about the cat being loose in a car, and he strangled it. And it was clear at this point to Elaine that he had a history of harming animals. And this deranged behavior.

[Courtney Nicole]

Oh, it's so horrible to hear about, but to be jealous of the cat, too. Oh, God, what kind of person do you have to be to be jealous that your girlfriend likes the cat?

[Sarah Turney]

Insane.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

And Elain was just trying everything she could to support Gail through this. She told her to call off the wedding. You know, we can get you out of this. It's. It's fine. Let's. Let's pack up your stuff. You know, she was really trying to be like, Bob is the problem, not the cat.

[Courtney Nicole]

No, that's a great sister, too, to immediately go to. Like, you can't not be with this person.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And, you know, instead, Gail had Elaine drive her to the animal shelter, where the cat was surrendered for its own safety. And Gail felt that this was better. You know, the invitations had already gone out. It was going to be too embarrassing to call things off. And at that point, Gail swore Elaine to secrecy. You cannot tell anyone about this. You cannot even tell our parents. You cannot say a word. And now, at this point, with Gail missing, this was a detail Elaine could no longer ignore and keep to herself.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, of course. And we looked into it more, too. So we found that a lot of violent criminals also kill or abuse animals. But there's a little bit more context, at least in regards to this story. So According to the FBI, 75 of abused women who have pets report that their pets are also abused. And here's a really scary quote from the FBI. Quote, the majority of IPV victims who report co occurring animal cruelty are also concerned the abuser eventually will kill them and should be considered at extremely high risk of suffering severe injury or death. There was a 2021 systematic review of 30 studies on animal abuse and intimate partner violence that confirmed that viol partners who also abuse pets are more likely to seriously harm their human victims. Severe violence towards women by male partners was especially significantly associated with physical harm to pets. And abusive partners who also hurt animals did so primarily to control their human victims through fear. All of these studies came out after Gail disappeared. And back in 1985, the link between animal abuse and intimate partner violence wasn't widely known. But still, her sister had the spidey sense to be like, something's not right here. And also, I think it's just important to. To bring this up because, Morgan, I know on your show you talk a lot about, like, just signs to look for an abusive relationships, because sometimes it really is like that pot of water boiling and you don't even know when the temperature's risen too high.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Courtney Nicole]

But if you notice weird things with your pets and your partner, like, that could be something to also look out for.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna be honest, like, before researching this case, I didn't really know about the connection.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

Like, obviously, you know, we've, we've done episodes now where we've talked about serial killers who harm animals. Growing up, it's like we, we know this link between domestic violence and harming animals not everyone knows about. I didn't know about it. And I have, we have this podcast, so definitely it's good to highlight. And it's so hard, you know, when you're in a relationship like this to know what's normal, what's not, what is just a one off.

[Courtney Nicole]

Right. And it seems like that was Gail's situation too, where she was like, well, let's just not tell anyone about it because maybe this will just go away.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. When detectives heard Elaine's story about this cat incident, they knew it was a pretty big red flag. But Gail had shared a lot of red flags with Elaine over the years. Those warning signs are actually our fourth clue. After Gail married Bob, Elaine saw him take charge of nearly every aspect of her life. He decided what she would wear, how she would style her hair. He urged her to lose weight, and they fought constantly. Usually it was about money. Bob wanted Gail to bring in more into the household. If the arguments didn't go his way, Bob would even threaten to harm himself. And something that's really interesting that Elaine mentions that speaks to Bob's control is a double date. She actually went on with Gayle and Bob. And the entire time Gale, like, wasn't allowed to feed herself. What? They went and got sushi.

[Courtney Nicole]

I didn't sushi read about this.

[Sarah Turney]

They went and got sushi. And Bob was the one constantly using the chopsticks to put the sushi in Gail's mouth. She wasn't allowed to feed herself. And Elaine says he even took it further and started to feed Elaine. No, he was that controlling about every circumstance. Gale wouldn't be allowed to turn on light switches herself. Bob would, like, race over and then turn the light switch on. There were so many aspects of her life that were truly controlled beyond wild imagination. A friend's birthday dinner. He forced her to sit on his lap the whole dinner.

[Courtney Nicole]

It's weird because it's. It's control, but it's also control that makes other people feel uncomfortable. Like intentionally makes other people feel uncomfortable as a way to also control them. Yeah, it's. That's really scary behavior.

[Sarah Turney]

There was one instance where he acted like he was gonna jump out of their moving car to get away from Gale. On another occasion, he grabbed a kitchen knife and threatened to harm himself. And multiple different neighbors report that they screamed at each other at all hours. Like this was kind of just a normal occurrence to hear them fighting. And kind of as a way to escape this, Gail began having affairs. In a couple interviews I've seen, family just described that, you know, Bob was working all the time and Gail was dealing with this abuse and also not having any of her needs met. And so she just looked for an escape.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. While they were married.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

And it's unclear if Bob knew about these affairs, at least to police. He wasn't mentioning them in these interviews. But it wasn't a well kept secret from those close to Gail. Gail had told Elaine and her friends about the two other men that she was seeing in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. When Elaine told their parents all of this, their mom, Sylvia, was at that point just convinced that Bob had murdered Gail. And there was like even a delay in Bob reporting Gail missing. And her family kind of saw this as like him just not caring because maybe he knew what happened to her.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, he decided to keep searching in the morning after she didn't come home all day or night.

[Sarah Turney]

You haven't Heard a word.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

Calling her family. You know, she's not with them. She's not with you.

[Courtney Nicole]

She left in just a halter top, according to you. So, like, she definitely didn't bring enough stuff to be gone for that long. And then you're just gonna sleep on it. No. It's, like, so suspicious from the jump.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And Gail's mom even left messages on Bob's answering machine saying, quote, I know you killed my daughter. So by the time Gail's parents were then interviewed, they had absolutely no desire to protect him, which obviously is good for detectives, because they had a lot of questions about one incident in particular. It turns out they had located an old police report accusing Bob of third degree assault. It was filed back on November 12, 1983, by Gail herself. And this is our fifth clue that day. Gail had told a civilian police aide that, quote, her husband did strangle her to the point at which she lost consciousness, but nobody ever followed up. The case had been, quote, referred to family court. This is what the NYPD did with family violence reports that they didn't deem worthy of an investigation.

[Courtney Nicole]

Gotta grab the botchboard for that.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. Botched. Not following up on a very serious domestic violence.

[Courtney Nicole]

Very serious. Being strangled to the point of losing consciousness. And you just kick it to a family court.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And, you know, I've. I've seen some interviews where detectives. Detectives say, yeah, this was 1983. No wonder why I didn't get followed up on. If this happened in 2021, Bob would have been in handcuffs. And as much as I would like to think that that's true, I'm not so sure.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard too many stories.

[Sarah Turney]

We have a lot of these stories, and we. We need to really make some changes in how we handle cases like this. So in 1985, the detectives had to piece together the rest of the story from Gail's friends and family. And here's what they learned. Four days before the report was filed. On November 8, 1983, Bob came home early and caught Gail smoking cigarettes on their balcony. Bob absolutely hated smoking and insisted that Gail quit. When they actually got together, it was always kind of a big point of contention between the two of them. And that night, Bob became enraged over it in a way that Gail herself had never seen before. He threw her cigarettes off the balcony, climbed over the railing, threatening to jump himself. And after Gail had literally talked him

[Courtney Nicole]

off the ledge, like, literally off the

[Sarah Turney]

ledge, literally, the argument still continued. Bob lunged at Gail. In one account I heard from Family. He got her on the ground of the balcony and started strangling her until she lost consciousness. And when she woke up, Bob apologized and just begged Gail not to tell anyone.

[Courtney Nicole]

That's just a. That's a control thing, because why don't you want her to smoke cigarettes? You know, like, it's.

[Sarah Turney]

I mean, it's bad.

[Courtney Nicole]

It's bad for you. But you know what also is bad for you? Getting strangled to the point of losing consciousness. So obviously, he wasn't, like, worried about her health.

[Sarah Turney]

No, I think it's just, like, a

[Courtney Nicole]

thing she did to relax that he just didn't want her to do.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. I mean, it was a really, really stressful time for Gail at this moment. She was taking her GRE the next day, the test that would basically determine if she could get into grad school. And she didn't want to miss this. This is a huge, pivotal point.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

In her career, in life. And so she. She took a break while she thought Bob was gone and just go have a smoke. And he came home a little earlier than she expected. So, you know, at this point, she's really stressed. She's nervous about these exams.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

And she didn't call 911 that night after her test, she went back to the apartment while Bob was at work, packed her things, and left for her grandfather's house. The police matched up the timelines and realized that this must also be when Gail called her client, Francesca Beale, and asked her to stay in her guest room. Later that November, Gail moved back in with Bob on the condition that he seek counseling. You know, her sister Elaine describes it as like, she knew he was unhinged, and the only way she was willing to stay and work on their marriage and was if he got the help he clearly needed. And Bob, at this point, he appeared willing to do anything to save their marriage, even go to therapy separately and together. And Gayle seemed to believe that he was gonna be a changed man. She was so confident things would be okay that she even got two new cats.

[Courtney Nicole]

Ooh, that's heartbreaking.

[Sarah Turney]

It is. But, you know, the Domestic Violence Services Network kind of, they see this. This cycle of abuse, and it's this repeating pattern in relationships where this intimate partner violence is present. And it's often in these four phases, which are the tension building phase, where distance and strain create a sense of walking on eggshells around the abuser. The explosion phase when violence occurs, the denial phase, where the abuser either acts like the violence didn't happen or promises that they've changed, it'll never happen again. And then the honeymoon phase where the couple reconciles and the abuser may be extra loving and attentive for a time until it repeats itself again. And this is kind of where Gail found herself. And it's a very difficult position to be in.

[Courtney Nicole]

It's hard to break out of that cycle.

[Sarah Turney]

It is.

[Courtney Nicole]

So after detectives in 1985 heard about the choking incident, they decided that they were going to bring it up to Bob again in an interview on July 13th. That's six days now after Gail's disappearance. One of the first questions that they asked was, did Bob ever strangle Gail? And his response was that he didn't want to talk about it. He did admit to threatening to jump out of a window during an argument, but then he said he didn't want to talk about that either. They then asked Bob if he had abused Gail's cat. And again, his response, he didn't want to talk about it. They tried to rattle Bob by asking if he knew about the other two men that Gail was sleeping with, Ken and Anthony. But Bob didn't take the bait this time. He just said that he had seen those names in Gail's address book. And eventually the interview just ended. But it did end on a really strange note. I'll read you a quote from the report. Quote, as we concluded, Dr. Birenbaum said this doesn't look right and people are going to start to wonder. And when I asked him what he meant, he said, it's obvious, isn't it? He refused to clarify that statement, but the implication was pretty clear. Bob realized that he was in trouble. So the next day, July 14, another detective met with Bob for a voluntary interview. Again, all of these are voluntary. This one mostly focused on Bob's movements leading up to and right after Gail's disappearance. So Bob painted them this picture of a pretty normal weekend until it wasn't. There was dinner and a movie on Friday night, shopping for lingerie and cat food with Gail on Saturday before cooking a romantic steak dinner, which they ate by candlelight that same night. And then on Sunday morning, the argument followed by Gail's disappearance. Bob didn't explain why he never looked for Gail before leaving at 5:30 for his family party in New Jersey. The exact thing that we pointed out to is just being very strange. But Bob's father did confirm that he arrived at that party at 6:30pm Bob also couldn't really explain why he went to work on Monday like everything was normal and why he didn't report his wife missing until until that night, detectives asked Bob if he would agree to a voluntary search of his apartment. He didn't agree right away, but he promised that he was going to think about it. And then not long after these two interviews, Bob gets a lawyer and he decides that he is done playing nice with the police. Without enough evidence for a search or an arrest warrant, the investigation into Gail's disappearance was really slow moving. Even though Gail's family suspected Bob had done something to her, they decided to stay close to him because they figured that that was the only way that they were ever going to get any answers. Maybe he would slip up in something and maybe give something away. And at the same time, Bob knew the cat's family thought that he was a murderer, but if he pushed them away, it wasn't going to look good for his case. So the cats has used this as an opportunity to get inside Bob's apartment and look for evidence on their own. According to Gail's sister Elaine, that's how they found something interesting.

[Sarah Turney]

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[Sarah Turney]

Every disappearance has a moment where everything still feels normal. A text that doesn't raise concern, a routine that goes unchanged, a door that

[Courtney Nicole]

closes just like it always has says until it doesn't. When someone goes missing, investigators zoom out. The headlines focus on what happened. But the truth often lives in the smallest details.

[Sarah Turney]

I'm Sarah Turney. After my sister disappeared, I learned that those final hours, the last conversations Last decisions can haunt families forever.

[Courtney Nicole]

And I'm Courtney Nicole. After seeing crime impact my own family.

[Sarah Turney]

Family.

[Courtney Nicole]

I've learned how overlooked moments, missed red flags, and unanswered questions can change everything. Together, we're bringing those lived experiences into the work.

[Sarah Turney]

This is the Final Hours a Crime House original, powered by Pave Studios. A podcast that puts the moments before

[Courtney Nicole]

a disappearance under a microscope. We examine the timelines, the clues hiding in plain sight, and the questions that. That never stop being asked.

[Sarah Turney]

Because when it comes to justice, there's no such thing as overanalyzing.

[Courtney Nicole]

Listen to and follow the final hours on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Sarah Turney]

New episodes are out every Monday.

[Courtney Nicole]

Gail's purse was hanging on a door. It contained her credit cards, wallet, and cigarettes. Elaine knew even if Gail wasn't going to smoke, she would never leave them behind for Bob to find. Because of the incident that happened prior, Elaine saw the cigarettes as really being a critical piece of evidence. But it never became a big part of the official investigation. And most of the time, these sneaky searches. Didn't find anything at all.

[Sarah Turney]

No, nothing. And I. I did see an interview with her brother where, you know, he's describing going into this apartment, and he's like. Like, my mom even told me to check the drains in the bathtub.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. Just for anything.

[Sarah Turney]

For anything.

[Courtney Nicole]

And he.

[Sarah Turney]

He's like. He's like. At this point, I knew that I was looking for something to show that my sister's remains had been here.

[Courtney Nicole]

Right.

[Sarah Turney]

And that, like, to have to be your own investigators and sneak and coerce your way into your sister's apartment to look for evidence.

[Courtney Nicole]

It's just sad.

[Sarah Turney]

It's so sad. And this is one thing with our legal system where it feels like there's enough of a suspicion to get a search warrant here to at least just look for any sign of her. I mean, the fact her purse is still there. Yeah, come on.

[Courtney Nicole]

I know. The fact that they had so much history of Bob being an abuser.

[Sarah Turney]

You have a police report from Gail herself describing domestic violence. She's gone. Husband doesn't seem to care, doesn't report her missing right away, and yet you can't get a search warrant.

[Courtney Nicole]

Well, I guess there's just nothing. Is again, the phone a scientist? There's nothing that indicates she'd been murdered at that point. So can you, you know, if it's an abusive marriage, maybe she fled on her own, and then you can't get a warrant. And without a warrant, you can't do that search. But, yeah, it's just sad that it was, like, up to her brother.

[Sarah Turney]

I know.

[Courtney Nicole]

Really, like, look for stuff.

[Sarah Turney]

This is where I need my lawyers to chime in. I've been seeing you in some of the comments on our other episodes, and I need you to just please enlighten me about, like, more of the criteria for a search warrant. And if you think they could have justified it in this case at this point.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, Maybe it was different in the 80s, too, but.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. So nothing the Katz has got from Bob's apartment was a smoking gun. That was enough for police to get this warrant. In fact, it would take another two months for the police to get Bob's permission to voluntarily search his home. His attorney, though, worded the approval very intentionally. He only authorized the police to look for things that might help identify Gail if her body was found. So they could look for things like fingerprints, anything that. Like, yeah, if she was found, they could use that to identify her body.

[Sarah Turney]

Listen to that back. You can only look at things in my apartment that would help you if her body was found.

[Courtney Nicole]

I know. Yeah. That's so telling.

[Sarah Turney]

What?

[Courtney Nicole]

That's so telling. In other words, the police weren't allowed to dig for any evidence that a crime had been committed in the apartment.

[Sarah Turney]

So it's feeling botched.

[Courtney Nicole]

I can't look for blood.

[Sarah Turney]

Lawyers chime in.

[Courtney Nicole]

They can't look for, really, like, anything that would say what happened to her.

[Sarah Turney]

And so at that point, it's like, what's the point? This is two months. He's probably cleaned whatever up.

[Courtney Nicole]

No, exactly. Like. Yeah, you can't do a luminol test for anything.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

And without a proper search warrant, which, again, they couldn't get without any evidence, detectives had to abide by those very specific terms. And when they finally did get inside, they didn't see any obvious signs that a crime had been committed there. After that voluntary search, the investigation only gets more frustrating. Unfortunately, tips from the public were coming in thanks to the missing persons posters that were all over Central Park. But none of them led to any useful sightings or evidence. By week three of the investigation, the Katzes were over this charade. They totally stopped speaking to Bob, and they began just searching separately. Now, Bob's family perpetuated the narrative that Gail likely died by suicide or ran away with another man. Meanwhile, Bob starts telling different stories to different people. He told one business contact that Gail disappeared because of her relationships with drug dealers. He pulls that out of nowhere. I mean, we had mentioned earlier that Gail had used Cocaine before. Like, previously. And they did have evidence that she had used cocaine with one of her affair partners. It was the 80s, though. Like, everyone was doing cocaine, and it's New York city in the 80s. Oh, my God. But he's, like, saying that to be like, oh, she was probably, like, in with some bad drug dealers and, like, ran away or, like, got murdered by one of them.

[Sarah Turney]

Her sister Elaine was like, they were throwing everything they could to make my sister look like the problem here.

[Courtney Nicole]

Who Destroy her relationship, destroy her. Her, like, reputation. Yeah, we see that so many times, especially when women disappear. Like, you just have to throw them under the bus to make yourself look innocent. It's horrible. And he, again, in the spirit of telling different people different stories, he tells a friend of Gail's that she ran off and was waitressing by the beach somewhere. So he somehow knew that she'd become a waitress.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. Yeah, right. She's studying and getting a PhD in psychology and has patience that she feels that she needs to care for, and she's gonna run off and be a server on the beach.

[Courtney Nicole]

She left all of that. And also, like, how do you know that?

[Sarah Turney]

How do you know this?

[Courtney Nicole]

Then he tells someone else that he found Gail's towel and suntan lotion in Central Park. But of course, he never relayed that to the police.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, why wouldn't you hand it over for evidence?

[Courtney Nicole]

Nope. He just apparently found that and then decided that was all he needed. And he told a different acquaintance that Gail's therapist warned him that she was suicidal just before her disappearance. So it really feels like he's just trying to cover every base with every story he's telling. When police spoke to the therapist, she denied ever talking to Bob and said that Gail was not suicidal. And given Gail's history, that's something that a therapist would have been tracking.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

Now it's. At this time, it's not really just what Bob's saying that's suspicious. It's also what he's doing. Doing in October of 1985. That's four months now, after Gail disappeared. Elaine went to Bob's to collect Gail's things finally. And when she showed up, everything was packaged in garbage bags. On top of that, he had already moved in a new girlfriend into the apartment. That's four months. It was an anesthesiologist named Dr. Roberta Karnovsky. And Roberta, get this. Was actually the second person that Bob had dated since Gail vanished.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, he started dating, I think, in one source I saw, just a couple of weeks after Gail went Missing.

[Courtney Nicole]

And we talk about this in missing persons cases, but it's always so suspicious when someone acts in a way that they know that person is not coming back.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And it seemed like he knew she wasn't coming back. I mean, he spent the summer, the rest of the summer, partying in the Hamptons. Yeah, I mean, he was going. The one person described it as he went from wearing L.L. bean to disco clothes and just kind of popping off.

[Courtney Nicole]

We talked about it in the Susan Powell case that we just did too, where something like 10 days after she disappeared, her husband fully cleans out all of her accounts, just spends all the money and like takes her retirement out. Like, come on. The first person that he started dating was a nurse educator at the hospital where he worked. And he started seeing her just three weeks after Gail disappeared. But a few months after Roberta moves in, something interesting happens. The police call Bob in the middle of the night to say that they're holding a woman at a bus terminal who matched Gail's description and they wanted him to come down and identify her. According to Roberta, Bob was not excited about this. In fact, he was actually annoyed about being asked to get up at 3am to go to a bus terminal.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah, he, he actually asked, can this wait until tomorrow morning?

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, it was very inconvenient for him, apparently.

[Sarah Turney]

Very inconvenient, which.

[Courtney Nicole]

So suspicious. Unfortunately, the woman was not Gail. But it is pretty odd behavior and the police acknowledge that it's odd behavior for someone whose wife had been missing. And there was a similar incident in July of 1986, which was a full year after Gail disappeared, when an investigator called at 2:30 in the morning to say that they'd found someone they thought was Gail. And this time they wanted Bob to come to the World Trade center to identify the woman there. Once again, Bob did not seem interested in doing this. He just was annoyed about being woken up in the middle of the night again. And then also In July of 1986, Gail's parents asked the Manhattan District Attorney's office to take over the case. They agreed and began a new investigation. And once they get started investigating, it turns up a new and very important detail.

[Sarah Turney]

So in September 1986, 14 months after Gail went missing, investigators began digging into Bob's movements at the time of Gail's disappearance, which. It took you 14 months to look at Bob and his, his movements.

[Courtney Nicole]

I'm just going to mark it on the botchboard. We're just going to 14 months.

[Sarah Turney]

People have whole babies in that time. Less. The following month, they actually found something that the first investigation had missed, which is our sixth clue. A plane rental. As we know, Bob is a private pilot, but he didn't own his own plane, so he would typically use rentals. And so they went looking for any rental history they could find. They got records from a company at the Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey. And one date jumped out. July 7, 1985. The day that his wife Gail went missing. And this is where they noticed that Bob had rented a small plane, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. He never told the original detectives that he even flew that day. On top of this, his flight started at 4:30pm and ended at 6:25pm so Bob lied when he first said that he was at his apartment until 5:30pm that day. And he couldn't possibly have been at his nephew's birthday party by 6:30 like his father had told police. He couldn't have. He was flying until 6:25pm unless he can teleport, I don't think he got there in time. And so as these new investigators were digging, they spoke to Bob's now ex girlfriend, Dr. Roberta Carnofsky. Roberta said that about six months into their relationship, she had become suspicious of Bob after hearing accusatory messages from Gail's family on his answering machine. And as we know, Roberta was there that night, one of the nights that Bob got a phone call. Hey, can you please come down? And after he hung up, Roberta says she got nervous. She's like, your wife is about to come home. And here I am moved in and I need to go. And at this point, Bob turned to her and she just described it as basically, you have nothing to worry about. It's not her.

[Courtney Nicole]

He knew.

[Sarah Turney]

He knew. And so in her head she's like, how would he know Unless he was the one responsible, of course. And so Roberta's a smart woman.

[Courtney Nicole]

Funny how she put that together faster than any police officer.

[Sarah Turney]

Yes. And so she came up with a theory that maybe Bob used an airplane to dispose of Gail's body in the ocean. The wheels are turning for her. And so when Bob was out one day, Roberta and a friend actually went and peeked at Bob's handwritten flight log. And a flight log is a notebook that pilots will keep to record all of their flying hours. They have to keep their license current. They need a certain amount of hours. And also, I was gonna say the

[Courtney Nicole]

Epstein files are out. We know what flight logs are.

[Sarah Turney]

We know what flight logs are. And there's a saying where it's like, you don't have to ask. If someone's a pilot, they'll tell you. Like, pilots are very. They're very proud of being pilots.

[Courtney Nicole]

And they.

[Sarah Turney]

They keep. Keep detailed logs. And this is when Roberta and her friend discover an altered entry where the log originally showed a flight on July 7, 1985. It had been changed to read August 7, 1985. And you'll see a picture here. If you're watching. Check our Instagram for it. It's not like he wrote out August. It was supposed to be July, so seven, and the seven got turned into an eight. It's. It's very clear to me if I'm looking at it, but please let me know what you guys think. Maybe, I don't know, maybe there's an alternative reason for it.

[Courtney Nicole]

And again, it's Roberta who figures that out.

[Sarah Turney]

It's Roberta. But Roberta didn't go to investigators when she was first discovering this.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. In February 1987, a DA's team oversaw a forensic search of the exact plane that Bob had rented, as well as two cars Bob had borrowed the week Gail disappeared. One belonging to his father and one from someone else. Investigators use luminol to look for blood evidence, but nothing shows up, neither in the plane or the vehicles. And again, Gail had been missing for 19 months at that point. The plane had been cleaned many, many, many times in between renters. So they're not really surprised that nothing shows up.

[Sarah Turney]

No. And imagine, Imagine if they had looked at where he really was that day. The plane might have not have even been rented by other people at that time.

[Courtney Nicole]

No, of course, it would have been a completely different investigation.

[Sarah Turney]

So there's another one for us on the botched board.

[Courtney Nicole]

So this is a total dead end by the time they even get here. And In April of 1987, nearly two years after Gayle went missing, her case is officially closed. They decided that there's, like, nothing else that they can look into.

[Sarah Turney]

It looked at this point like Gail's family was never going to get justice or any closure even. That is, until May 1989, when an unexpected clue washed up on a remote Staten island beach. Which brings us to our seventh clue. A torso. It was badly decomposed, but they noticed that there were still surgical cut marks visible where the arms and legs had been detached. The torso appeared to match Gail's size, age, and race. And then three months later, in August 1989, a radiologist determined that it matched previous X rays of Gail's spine. The torso was officially determined to be Gail's her case was reclassified from missing person to homicide. That same fall, it was turned over to Gail's family for burial. They held a small private funeral and made sure Bob knew that he was not welcome.

[Courtney Nicole]

Good.

[Sarah Turney]

The torso didn't yield any useful evidence beyond that though, which meant that the case stayed closed despite her partial remains being found. And I know a lot of you are, you're like DNA. What about the DNA? You guys, you talk about the DNA, we will get there. But at this point in time, no DNA testing was done.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, I guess it's like early on in the life of DNA.

[Sarah Turney]

It is. I mean, DNA profiling wasn't really used until 1986. They weren't really using it in this way to identify people commonly. Right. Like I think it was out there a little bit, but not, not widespread.

[Courtney Nicole]

Even though he had never been charged for the crime, Bob was looking for a fresh start at this point. So in late 1989, more than four years after Gail vanished, 34 year old Bob moved from New York to Las Vegas and he opened a plastic surgery practice there. Then in 1990, he met a 31 year old chiropractor named Stephanie Youngblood. At a New Year's party. Stephanie told her friends that she was seeing a jet setting doctor who took her on ski vacations. He even said he made regular trips to Mexico to do volunteer work providing medical care for underserved children. Bob proposed to Stephanie, but they never actually got married. By 1993, three years after they met, she found out about Gail's disappearance and that Bob was a suspect. She initially believed he was innocent until she saw him flying into a terrifying rage on two separate occasions. Stephanie did say that Bob never hit her, but she was very worried that he might like Gail. Stephanie made Bob go to therapy and his therapist warned Stephanie that she should leave Bob because he might harm or kill her. His therapist warned Stephanie that she should leave Bob and luckily she did listen. Not long after, 39 year old Bob got together with a 36 year old woman named Carol Fisher. She was a divorced mother of one. Carol opened up to him about her past marriage, but when she asked if he had ever been married before, he was reluctant to answer. So Carol kind of making a joke, not really knowing what was going on, said, what'd you do, kill her? And Bob did not take that as a joke. He demanded to know what Carol had heard and who told her. After she convinced him that she was just kidding, she had no idea what he was referencing, Bob calmed down and he actually told Carol the story he said that Gail was a depressed drug addict who walked out after an argument and then never came back. Carol at this point believed Bob and she thought that he did deserve a fresh start in Vegas. So she kept this secret about Gail walking out of their relationship for their entire six month relationship. But by the time they broke up, Carol wasn't so sure about Bob's innocence. She claimed that he had threatened to kill her dog dog during an argument. He got enraged at her for breaking a glass from the dishwasher and he also falsely accused her of giving him syphilis, which is wild. Yikes, that's a wild one. After they broke up in 1996, three of his Vegas exes, Stephanie, Carol, and a third woman named Mindy that he dated all got together and they started comparing notes on Bob. Meanwhile, the now 41 year old Bob moved to Minot, North Dakota and married Janet, Sholay and OBGYN. He had no idea that his exes had gotten together to compare notes and also gave themselves an adorable nickname, the Harriet the Spy Club. And they had spent hours going through library archives to find coverage of Gail's disappearance.

[Sarah Turney]

Holy.

[Courtney Nicole]

They all got together and formed a club. Like a little detecting society. I love it. And eventually the New York City detectives were heard about these women and they wanted to see if they could help solve Gail's case.

[Sarah Turney]

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[Courtney Nicole]

one daily ritual meet Daily Microfoliant from Dermalogica. This iconic exfoliating powder activates with water to gently polish away dullness and uneven texture. It leaves skin instantly smoother and more luminous while supporting your skin barrier. Formulated with professional expertise. Expertise to deliver visible results daily, even on sensitive skin. Discover your healthiest skin today. Visit dermalogica.com and use code smooth at checkout for an exclusive gift with your $65 purchase. In 1998, now 13 years after Gail disappeared, the chief investigator at the Manhattan District Attorney's office assembled a team to reinvestigate cold cases. He was on the verge of retirement and he didn't want to leave with Gail's case still on his conscience. So he went to the team to look into it. And the investigators realized something. Gail's torso was discovered before forensic DNA testing was common, so it was never confirmed with DNA. With the cats permission, investigators exhumed the torso to do a test. They just wanted to be sure.

[Sarah Turney]

And this was a really, really hard thing for her family to agree to.

[Courtney Nicole]

Like, I can't even imagine.

[Sarah Turney]

This was like, as Elaine describes it, like this was the most horrible, gut wrenching decision to make because you've already,

[Courtney Nicole]

I mean, to bury a loved one is already so upsetting. But it's like, let them rest. And then the police come, they're like, we wanna, we just wanna be sure. They exhumed the body and when the results came back, they found that the torso was not in fact, Gail's. Not only did the investigators no longer have a body at this point, but because of the lack of technology at the time, they had allowed the Katz's to bury the wrong person in their family plot. And now at this point, like, they've completely upended people's lives. The DA's team was really determined to actually solve this case once and for all.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. Elaine says that she told investigators like, you took her from us. Like this is how she was kind of grieving this loss. And she's like, you took this from us. And now to make it right, you better get this guy.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, you have to, you have to solve this now. At that time, Bob was in Minot, North Dakota, living with his second wife, Janet. And the couple had welcomed a daughter. And Bob was making headlines in Minot too, but not exactly for what you would expect. Apparently he had saved a child's life after a tiger attack at the state fair. And because of it, his new friends and colleagues were really considering him to be a hero. At least until 1998 when the Manhattan investigators came sniffing around the area and they began talking to everyone in Bob's life, including those three exes from the Harriet the Spy club. Investigators noticed that everyone Bob had spoken to over the years got an incredibly different story about Gail, but they had also all gotten stories about Gail. He was still telling people what had happened, but all these different stories about it. And by now, they were feeling like they had enough circumstantial evidence to prosecute him. They had a parade of witnesses willing to testify to his abuse patterns. And in 1999, the investigators were working to bring charges against him. And that was when one final witness came forward to seal the deal, and that was Bob and Gail's former psychiatrist.

[Sarah Turney]

Now, doctors and therapists usually can't testify against their patients because of doctor patient privilege, but Dr. Michael Stone hoped that the judge would make an exception. And his testimony is our eighth clue. If you recall, after the choking incident, Gail insisted that Bob see a psychiatrist. He chose one. But the doctor found him to be a very difficult patient to treat. So he referred Bob and Gail to Dr. Stone. After speaking with a colleague and before meeting Bob, Dr. Stone believed that he had a treatable case of borderline personality disorder. But after he met Bob, Dr. Stone concluded that he was actually a dangerous psychopath who was on the verge of harming Gail. And now, psychopathy is not an official DSM diagnosis, and professional opinions on its validity as a psychological condition do vary. However, many psychiatrists view it as a real mental illness. And that is coming from Dr. Stone like that is his wording. That is what he believed. And after a few more sessions, even Dr. Stone began to not feel safe with Bob. He didn't even feel safe enough to reject him as a patient, though. So he came up with a list of treatments that he believed Bob would refuse, putting Bob in the position of giving the rejection rather than receiving it. The conditions were the following. First, Dr. Stone would record their sessions on two separate tapes, giving one to Bob and mailing the other to Dr. Stone's own attorney. Second, Bob would have to pay for a life insurance policy for Dr. Stone, providing $2 million for each of Stone's two sons. If Bob murdered him. If Bob murdered him. And third, Gayle and Bob had to divorce.

[Courtney Nicole]

Wait. So these were the things that the psychiatrist said Bob had to do in

[Sarah Turney]

order to keep seeing him?

[Courtney Nicole]

In order to keep seeing him. Wow.

[Sarah Turney]

And as Dr. Stone expected, Bob turned these down, and Dr. Stone was relieved to never see Bob again. But there was still one thing Dr. Stone felt that he had to do. Dr. Stone felt that he had this legal obligation to warn the person he believed his patient intended to harm or kill. So that same month, November 1983, Dr. Stone handed Gail a letter saying she needed to move out and stay away from Bob because he might kill her. It actually read more like a liability release though. And we'll include a picture of this note and we have some quotes from it. Quote, if I do not heed this advice, I must accept the consequences, including the possibility of personal injury or death at the hands of my husband, and absolve Dr. Stone of responsibility. Gail refused to sign this letter, and she found herself a different marriage counselor. Even so, though, she still held on to it. And according to her friends, she, she planned to use this as leverage when she demanded a divorce. Gail saw it as, you know, the secret weapon to use that if Bob didn't want to separate on her terms, she was going to send this letter to all of his colleagues at the hospital, essentially ruining his medical career before it really got off the ground. But on the day she planned to threaten him with this, she vanished. And now that the case was open again, Dr. Stone believed he should be allowed to testify. In an interview, someone asked him, did you ever write a note like this for any of your other patients? And he said no. He goes, I'd never, ever, ever felt the need to. And that just shows you how serious this was.

[Courtney Nicole]

I know we have therapists that watch too. I'm so curious what you guys think about this letter. Like, have you ever felt that unsafe with a patient that to ask your patient to pay for your life insurance because you're so convinced that they're going to kill you?

[Sarah Turney]

I know. And in his interview, he, he says, you know, the reaction Bob had to Gail smoking the cigarette is what really freaked him out the most. Because if he's so willing to explode over such small things, he has a word for it. But he was like, this is, it's volatile, unpredictable. And so Dr. Stone really believed it was almost his obligation to testify. And the prosecution was willing to give it a try. With no physical body or forensic evidence, they would take any help they could get. Death.

[Courtney Nicole]

Finally, on December 8, 1999, now 44 year old Bob Berenbaum was arrested and charged with second degree murder. He was arraigned and then released the same day on a half million dollar bond. Both Dr. Stone and two other psychiatrists who had warned Gail about Bob testified before the judge. However, when the trial actually began in October of 2000, 15 years after she disappeared, jurors were only allowed to hear third party testimony about Dr. Stone's warning letter. The judge did not let Dr. Stone himself testify. In addition, the prosecution argued several Important factors, including Bob's inconsistent stories and strange behavior over the years, his lies about renting an airplane, and the change to his handwritten flight log. But the biggest piece of evidence was a recreation of the crime using an actual Cessna 172.

[Sarah Turney]

And that just gave me full body chills.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. The theory was that Bob had dismembered Gail's 110 pound body, placed it in a flight bag or suitcase, flown over the Atlantic Ocean, and pushed the bag out of the plane. And again, they are recreating this crime for the jury so that they can see how he would have actually done that.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

They had to prove that Bob could have physically kept the plane airborne while pushing the bag out without any help. So they had a pilot do exactly that on film using a flight bag stuffed with £120 worth of sandbags. And they did prove that after takeoff, a pilot can leave the controls unattended briefly without any danger. And that made the theory more bulletproof than ever.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. And I talked to multiple different pilots about this. My dad's a pilot.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

One of my husband's best friends is a pilot. And they did have autopilot invented back then. I looked everywhere to see if Bob's plane had it. No mention anywhere.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

But then I asked, like, how would you do this? And they basically just said, an experienced pilot like Bob, who. Like Bob is a big deal pilot. He got to instructor level. That's how good he was. So he's not some little enthusiast, like, let's be clear. And they said, yeah, you know, once you get up, feel it out, feel the wind, kind of set your yoke up the steering wheel, like in a place that feels good, and you got enough glide to open your door. The pressure's not hard against it, and you can do it. And clearly that recreation showed that you can.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, yeah. Undeniably showed that you can. And we talk about it in the Lacy Peterson disappearance, where, like, the recreation is so important in a case like that because you have to be able to prove someone can physically do the crime.

[Sarah Turney]

Now, the defense leaned mostly on what the prosecution didn't present. Rather than poking holes in the evidence that they did actually have, they only presented one witness, a man who said he saw Gail Katz the afternoon she disappeared. He described seeing Gail at a bagel shop with another woman wearing pink shorts and a T shirt that said operados on it. And this matched Bob's description of what Gail was wearing when she disappeared that day. However, the defense attorney wasn't able to find anyone Else who said they saw Gayle neither that day NOR in the 15 years between her disappearance and the trial. And they poked a lot of holes in this witness because of Gayle's physical appearance. This witness described the woman he saw as very, I think the word was voluptuous. And Gail's family and friends, you know, they didn't describe her body type as being that they, they talk about her chest size in so many other of these sources that I've seen. And it, I don't know, it was.

[Courtney Nicole]

That's odd to bring up. It was very important.

[Sarah Turney]

It was just interesting. But that was like, to them, like clearly the wrong woman because my sister is not voluptuous in the chest.

[Courtney Nicole]

And we already know, right, because there are people saying that they saw him at the party that he couldn't have been at.

[Sarah Turney]

Yeah. So like, he definitely is like, is shot.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah, shot.

[Sarah Turney]

Defense attorneys also floated the theory that maybe one of Gail's affair partners had killed her, but they had no evidence of this. And I will note here, in one of the sources I saw, you know, we mentioned that it's unclear if Bob knew about her affairs or not, but one source I saw does say that one of her affair partners goes to investigators and tells police that Bob had confronted him. So again, Bob cannot be believed.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

But throughout their presentation, the defense attorneys just reminded the jury that there was no body, no blood, no DNA, no forensic evidence at all. And they hoped that it would create enough reasonable doubt for the jurors.

[Courtney Nicole]

After seven hours of deliberation across two days, on October 24, 2000, 45 year old Bob was found guilty of second degree murder. His second wife, Janet, was in the courtroom, but stepped out when the verdict was read. She was there again on November 29th for Bob's sentencing hearing, this time holding hands with Bob's ex girlfriend, Sandy Schiff. And that's because the two of them believed in Bob's innocence and became close friends because of it. The judge, however, was not as supportive. She sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison. Bob maintained his innocence and filed several appeals over the years. All of them were unsuccessful, though. After serving 20 years of his sentence, Bob was eligible for parole. And In December of 2020, he appeared before the board for a hearing. And to the shock of everyone there, he did confess to killing Gail. He said, quote, I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her. That's what he said about it. Still, like not taking any accountability, kind of like placing it on her. Well, I just wanted her to Stop yelling.

[Sarah Turney]

Also like the simplicity in that statement. Yeah, I just wanted her to stop yelling at me, so I killed her. Yeah. It's so simple. Taking her life was so simple for you.

[Courtney Nicole]

As for the means of death, Bob did say that he strangled Gail just like he allegedly had in November of 1983, but only this time, he didn't stop. And then he went on to describe how he got rid of her body. Quote, I went flying, I opened the door, and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean. It's all very clinical, the way he describes everything. His confession finally gave Gail's family some semblance of peace. I mean, there is a chance that, guilty or not, Bob repeated the prosecution's exact theory of the crime in this confession simply because his lawyer knew that was what the parole board wanted to hear, as if that would maybe help him in his parole resentencing.

[Sarah Turney]

It's an interesting strategy.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah. How? On the other hand, though, Elaine, Gail's sister, the full transcript, according to her, the full transcript of Bob's confession read exactly like the voice of her former brother in law. She recognized the tone, his bragging, his lack of real emotion while talking about it, and she believes that Bob composed the confession himself and he did confess truthfully. And that, you know, at least, was some closure for Gail's family. As of this recording, though, Bob remains incarcerated in Otisville, New York, with his next parole hearing scheduled for June of this year, 2026.

[Sarah Turney]

Scary thought.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

When it comes to loose end theories, the big one is the identity of that torso. Yeah.

[Courtney Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sarah Turney]

There were a lot of people that, you know, early on assumed it could be linked to the Long island serial killer. But thanks to DNA testing, it has been revealed that the torso belonged to Heidi Balk, the first victim of another serial killer, Joel Rifkin. Heidi's severed head was discovered on a golf course in 1989, the same year her torso was found in the east river and then mistakenly identified as Gails. And this detail has been publicized more recently through a podcast hosted by Carol Fisher, one of Bob's exes. Wow.

[Courtney Nicole]

Oh, my gosh. As for Gail's sister, Elaine, she is now a family lawyer, so it meant a lot to her. In 2001, when Pace University's law school named the main office of the Women's Justice Center Gail's House. They provide a free walk in legal clinic and free civil law service to survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence and elder abuse. They also host trainings and community events that help people learn to recognize the signs of intimate partner violence, as well as human trafficking, sexual abuse and other forms of violence. Elaine is currently chairperson of the Center's advisory board, and if you would like to join Elaine in her advocacy and you're near Westchester County, New York. The PACE Women's justice center does accept volunteers. Some positions are specifically for lawyers or law students, but others are open to the public. Otherwise, look for law schools near you because a lot of them do have domestic violence legal clinics. If you need help, and if you're experiencing intimate partner violence yourself, or if you just want to talk to someone about possible warning signs of abuse in your relationship, you can text START to 88788 to reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and they're also available via live [e-mail] and 1-800-799-safe 1-800-799-7233. In many US cities, you can also dial 311 to reach city representatives who can refer you to local domestic violence resources. Intimate partner violence can happen to anyone, regardless of any factor like gender, sexual orientation, education or age. There is absolutely no shame in admitting that you are not safe at home and need help getting out. And in fact, it is one of the best ways you could honor Gail's life and memory.

[Sarah Turney]

I do just want to talk about one other resource because I've mentioned it on this podcast and I mention it on two hot takes quite a bit. But there is a quiz on loveisrespect.org that even if you don't know if you're in a relationship that is toxic or abusive, you can go and take this quiz and it provides all these questions and it, it gives you a result at the end. And I had a listener reach out to me recently and said I had a friend who was in a very abusive relationship and it was clear she wasn't ready for me to point it out and so she sent her the link for the quiz and after taking that quiz the friend started to get help.

[Courtney Nicole]

That's amazing.

[Sarah Turney]

So it could be a good resource to share with people and just be like hey yeah, blah blah blah. Seems great. Like you should take this quiz. I just think I can get the wheels turning and not not put you in a in a bad position to where that person doesn't come to you then for support or help. And it's a, it's another good resource that we will share and make sure is in the show notes.

[Courtney Nicole]

And with that, let's talk about the Missing Person of the Week.

[Sarah Turney]

This is Vanessa Morales who went missing at just 14 months old in 2019 when her mother was murdered and this was in a town 10 miles west of New Haven, Connecticut. There has been no sign of her since. As of April of this year, Jose Morales has been sentenced to 65 years in prison for beating her mother Christine Holloway to death and for tampering with evidence, though he has maintained his innocence. At his trial, the 48 year old claimed that on the night of the murder he and his daughter were with Holloway in her apartment when two intruders broke in, beat Holloway, assaulted him and then kidnapped his daughter Vanessa. While he is considered a suspect in his daughter's inn disappearance, he has never been charged. Vanessa at this time would be seven years old, female at the time of her disappearance had dark hair and again we will include the age progressed picture. Anyone with information on Vanessa's disappearance or who may recognize the age progressed photo is urged to contact the police department. Anonymous tips can also be left online with the following link. Anonymous tips can be left online to the Ansonia Police Department as well.

[Courtney Nicole]

And that is all we have for this episode of Clues. Now. We want to hear from you guys. Your thoughts, your theories, your feedback. All of this is what makes the

[Sarah Turney]

community so special at Crime House. We value your support. So again, share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. Thanks guys. Bye bye. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning and even exercising. But what if you could be saving

[Courtney Nicole]

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[Sarah Turney]

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[Courtney Nicole]

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[Sarah Turney]

Multitask right now. Quote [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. We're Sarah Turney and Courtney Nicole. Crime has impacted both of our families, teaching us how the last conversations, the missed red flags can change everything.

[Courtney Nicole]

On the final hours, we examine the moments before a disappearance and the questions that never got answered.

[Sarah Turney]

Listen to and follow the final hours wherever you get your podcast.

[Courtney Nicole]

New episodes every Monday.

[Sarah Turney]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless Way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail].