Robert Bierenbaum (born July 22, 1955) is an American former plastic surgeon and convicted murderer. He was convicted in October 2000 of having murdered his estranged wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum 15 years earlier in their
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
apartment on July 7, 1985.
Bierenbaum, a licensed pilot, took a two-hour flight in a
Cessna 172
The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company.Essex County,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
, over the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
on the day he murdered Gail. He failed to mention this fact to authorities during their initial questioning.
The prosecution stated that Bierenbaum discarded his wife's dismembered body in the ocean. The victim's torso was first thought to be found in 1989 but after exhuming the torso, DNA testing in 1999 proved it was not that of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum. (The torso actually belonged to Heidi Balch, the first victim of serial killer
Joel Rifkin
Joel David Rifkin (born January 20, 1959) is an American serial killer, who was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of 17 women between 1989 and 1993.
Early life
Rifkin's birth parents were both young college students and his bio ...
, as discovered by the podcast ''The Girlfriends''.) An eyewitness testimony for the defense stated he saw the victim in a Manhattan bagel shop during the time that Bierenbaum took his airplane flight, but was contradictory and didn’t accurately describe the victim’s physical features Bierenbaum was convicted and sentenced to twenty years to life in prison in New York. He appealed, but the conviction was upheld in the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division in 2002.
Bierenbaum is currently incarcerated in
Sing Sing Correctional Facility
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum-security prison for men operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is about north of Midtown Manhattan ...
. He has been eligible for parole since October 2020. His offender number is 00-A-7114.
At his December 2020 parole hearing, Bierenbaum confessed that he had killed his wife and threw her body out of an airplane.
Notoriety
The Bierenbaum case was the subject of the 2001 ''New York Times''
non-fiction
Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...
Court TV
Court TV is an American digital broadcast network and former pay-television channel. It was originally launched in 1991 with a focus on crime-themed programs such as true crime documentary series, legal analysis talk shows, and live news cover ...
.
In the ISBN database, the summary of the book includes:
Bierenbaum has been referred to as "The Lady Killer." It has been said in '' Vanity Fair'' and ''
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
'' magazine that women still find him attractive, even though he has been convicted of murdering his first wife.
Legal precedent
''People of the State of New York v. Robert Bierenbaum'' was a
landmark decision
Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly ...
, setting precedent on upholding physician-patient privilege even when a Tarasoff warning is invoked: "Neither a psychiatrist issuing a Tarasoff warning nor a patient telling his friends he's in treatment constitutes a waiver of a patient's psychiatrist-patient privilege."
The case was also used as precedent in the
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
At a parole hearing in December 2020, Bierenbaum confessed to strangling his wife and tossing her body out of an airplane while flying over the Atlantic Ocean. The hearing denied his parole. His next parole hearing was scheduled for November 2021.
Medical practice status
As a result of the
New York state
New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...
Medical Licensing Board's misconduct review following the court case, Bierenbaum surrendered his License to Practice medicine in November, 2000. In September 2002, New Jersey also revoked his medical practice license.
In popular culture
The Robert Bierenbaum case was featured by the television show ''Law and Order: Criminal Intent'', in an episode titled "The Good Doctor," which originally aired in November, 2001; in an episode of the French series ''
Paris enquêtes criminelles
''Paris enquêtes criminelles'' () is a French television series that is a foreign adaptation of Dick Wolf's '' Law & Order: Criminal Intent''. It was broadcast in 3 seasons, between May 3, 2007 to November 8, 2008 via TF1
TF1 (; standing for ''T ...
;'' and in an episode of
20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of visual perception, vision, but technically rates an animal's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity depends on optical and neural factors. Optical factors of the eye ...
in October 2021.
Lisa DePaulo profiled the Bierenbaum case in her story, "Intimations of Murder" published in the September 2000 issue of '' Vanity Fair'' magazine. The case was featured in an episode of OWN series ''Devil You Know''.
The podcast ''The Girlfriends'' by Carole Fisher and iHeart Podcasts & Novel premiered on July 10, 2023 and covers the Robert Bierenbaum case in season one. In season two, the podcast searches for the identity of the torso that was misidentified as Gail Katz-Bierenbaum for nine years.
Crime Library
Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books. It was founded in 1998 and was most recently owned by truTV, a cable TV network that is part of Time Warner's Turner Broadcast ...