Police Off The Cuff

Prosecuting murder without a body recovered. Robert Bierenbaum, a former plastic surgeon who was convicted of murdering his wife in 2000, confessed to killing her and throwing her body out of an airplane after more than three decades of maintaining his innocence. Bierenbaum, an experienced pilot who had been convicted on circumstantial evidence, was serving his 20 years-to-life prison sentence when he made the chilling confession during a December 2020 parole board hearing. It was the first time he had admitted to the crime since his wife, Gail Katz, disappeared in 1985. Her body has never been found. “I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her,” according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by ABC News. When asked how, Bierenbaum said he “strangled” her, and went on to say, “I went flying. I opened the door and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean,” the transcript said. He also told the board he killed his wife because he was “immature” and “didn’t understand how to deal