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NARRATOR: A young mother
mysteriously died just hours after dining in an
upscale restaurant.
00:00:13
The search for clues
revealed secrets hidden in an attic, an upscale
gentleman's club,
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and underneath the
young woman's skin. [theme music] NARRATOR: Shortly
after midnight,
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police in a wealthy
Philadelphia suburb received a frantic 911 call. 34-year-old Craig
Rabinowitz said
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he had just found his wife,
Stephanie, in the bathtub. When police arrived, they found
Rabinowitz in the bathroom
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holding his wife's
head above the water. They performed CPR, and
rushed her to the hospital.
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Unfortunately, there was
nothing doctors could do. When Craig learned of his wife's
death, he collapsed in grief.
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Doctors had no explanation. CHARLES CRAIG: I asked
the doctor, you know, help me out here.
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What do you think happened? And he said, he
really didn't know. He told me, some time people
die for unexplained reasons.
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Could have been an aneurysm,
a heart attack, whatever. But on first glance, there
wasn't any sign of trauma.
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NARRATOR: Rabinowitz told
police that he and his wife, Stephanie, had dinner
at a Thai restaurant,
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came home, had a drink. Then Stephanie took
a bath while Craig said he watched television.
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CHARLES CRAIG: And while he
was watching the hockey game, he heard a thump, which he
attributed to the shampoo
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bottle falling on the
floor in the bathroom. He didn't think much of it. He watched the hockey game for
approximately 20 to 30 minutes,
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and realized, hey, his wife
hasn't come back to the bedroom from the bath. So he went into the
bathroom, and found
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her unconscious in the bathtub. NARRATOR: Detective
Charles Craig had investigated many
unusual deaths before.
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And a spouse with
something to hide would usually act suspiciously,
but not Craig Rabinowitz.
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-Generally when we
interview people, witnesses, victims,
suspects, we look to see if they have
eye contact with us,
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see if they're shaking,
or they're very nervous, or if they're perspiring. And he didn't exhibit
any of those signs.
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NARRATOR: And police found
nothing suspicious or out of place in the couple's
home after Stephanie's death.
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CHARLES CRAIG: TV was on. The shampoo bottle
was in the bathroom. There was water in the bathtub.
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We checked all the
doors and windows, and found that the
house was secure. We went through
the master bedroom.
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Didn't appear to have
any signs of a struggle. We didn't find blood, or
anything of that nature.
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NARRATOR: Craig and Stephanie
were a classic love story. They had been together since
they first met in summer camp
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as teenagers. JIM NOLAN: The Rabinowitzes were
the perfect couple, in love, with good jobs.
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They had a beautiful young
daughter, a year old. He had a business
of his own, selling
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latex gloves and supplies. They had been
married since 1990. She was a lawyer, Bryn Mawr
and Temple University educated.
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NARRATOR: Craig was
proud of his wife, and worked hard to put
her through law school.
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-Stephanie spoke about her
marriage in very idyllic terms. I mean, she thought she had a
wonderful relationship, almost
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a perfect relationship in that,
and she was extremely happy. NARRATOR: Between her law
practice and his business,
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they were very
affluent, and lived in the exclusive mainline
section of Philadelphia.
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But even wealth and privilege
can't prevent unfortunate incidents like the one that
befell Stephanie Rabinowitz.
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MITCHELL BACH: I came to the
office Wednesday morning. I walked in and
everyone was crying,
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and I was shocked to
hear that Stephanie had died Tuesday night. I heard that she
had an accident,
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that she drowned in a bathtub. That's all we were told. NARRATOR: But why had
Stephanie drowned?
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Was it caused by
something she ate, medication, was she depressed? Forensic investigators
needed to find out more.
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The cause of Stephanie
Rabinowitz's death was a mystery. JIM NOLAN: Stephanie
Rabinowitz may have slipped,
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hit her head in the tub,
subsequently drowned. It was a real tragedy. A mother of a
one-year-old child,
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devoted husband,
happy family life. -I mean, I was at a loss as
to how she could have died.
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I didn't see any type
of drama, any cuts, any abrasions, any of
that type of thing.
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NARRATOR: Stephanie came from
a religious Jewish family. In accordance with her
religion, Stephanie's parents
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and her husband
Craig wanted to bury her before the next sundown. -There was a push to
have Stephanie Rabinowitz
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buried quickly
under Jewish custom. NARRATOR: But the coroner
overruled the family's wishes,
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saying he wanted to
perform a complete autopsy. His action was prompted
in part by something
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Craig Rabinowitz told police. He said Stephanie
was having trouble adjusting to the demands of
caring for their new baby
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and her work as a lawyer,
and she occasionally took a prescription
sleep medication.
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In the meantime, a
tipster called police, suggesting they investigate
Craig's involvement
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in a gentleman's club
named Delilah's Den. -Delilah's Den is the upscale
strip club in Philadelphia.
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It's a place where it's
not uncommon to see a lot of professional
athletes or entertainers,
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or people who visit
Philadelphia from out of town, businesspeople, and just groups
of guys out to have a beer
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or for a bachelor party to
show up at the Delilah's Den. NARRATOR: When detectives
visited the club,
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they discovered Craig
was a regular customer, and that his interest was
primarily in only one dancer,
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named Summer. Employees said this
wasn't unusual. MISS BUNNY: Well,
Summer didn't come
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dance at clubs to make friends. Like, she was definitely
there to make money. And she was sort of known
as something of a shark,
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like she was always
a big moneymaker, she always went after
the like customers that appeared to
have the most money.
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You can either be
entertaining on stage, and make it real clear to the
customers that we're going
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to have a good time
while you're here, but the fun ends at the door. Or you can sort of
draw the customers
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into this like longer,
drawn out fantasy, and develop regular customers. NARRATOR: When
interviewed, Summer
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admitted that Craig was a good
customer-- but strictly that, a customer, and not
even her best one.
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CHARLES CRAIG: They
would each have two or three good customers
who would spend a lot of money
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on them, even buying them
furnishings for their house, or paying repair bills,
or doing dental work,
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that type of thing. -She said there was no sexual
relationship between the two of them, that they
weren't dating,
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or anything of that nature. We were always suspicious
of that, of course. MISS BUNNY: I know dancers
who have gotten cars
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from their customers, other
elaborate gifts of jewelry, um, you know,
apartments, et cetera.
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NARRATOR: Delilah's
customers who want something a
little cozier can get private dances in
the champagne room.
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They use Delilah's
Dollars, house money bought with credit cards. Club records indicated Craig
was spending as much as $3,000
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a week at Delilah's--
a lot of money, perhaps, but
certainly not illegal. -In fact, Craig's visits
too Delilah's were not
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unknown to Stephanie Rabinowitz. I think he had really told her
that he did business there.
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And that is not an uncommon
thing to see in any city with people who
are doing business,
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especially something like sales. NARRATOR: Whether Craig's
interest in Delilah's was
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professional or
personal, it certainly didn't explain
Stephanie's death. That would have to come from
the forensic accountants.
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In the 12 months before
his wife's death, Craig Rabinowitz
spent almost $100,000
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in Delilah's Den, an
upscale gentleman's club in Philadelphia. Investigators searched
the Rabinowitzs' home
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for financial records,
interested to know how Rabinowitz could afford
this kind of spending.
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-He was a latex glove
salesman, but nobody could really find a
lot of latex gloves.
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NARRATOR: But detectives
did find a hidden crawl space in the bedroom closet. -So basically I just lifted
up the board covering
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the crawl space, looked
around, didn't see anything, but felt around the
top of the crawl space,
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and found this bag. And it turned out
to be a shopping bag filled with a
lot of paperwork.
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NARRATOR: The paperwork
included credit card receipts for Delilah's Den, hotel
receipts, and gifts
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he had purchased for
his favorite stripper. There was also pornography. -Basically, Craig
Rabinowitz's double life
00:10:04
was squirreled away in the crawl
space of the top of his home. NARRATOR: The bag
contained pawn shop tickets
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proving Craig pawned
Stephanie's heirloom jewelry just after she died. The bag also contained an
accounting ledger, possibly
00:10:23
for Craig's surgical
gloves business. But investigators weren't sure. -They brought a
forensic accountant,
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which I'd never been
involved with before. And he uh, very thoroughly
and systematically went
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through every bill
that Rabinowitz had. NARRATOR: Ric Zayas is an
expert at finding the real cost
00:10:42
or value in accounting records
that have been written in a way to hide their true meaning.
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RICARDO ZAYAS: He was
describing importing containers of these latex
gloves from overseas,
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that the cost of a container
would be $20,000 or $22,000 per container, that he was
then going to be able to sell
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those containers for
twice that amount. That was the pitch. Sounds too good to be true.
00:11:07
NARRATOR: It was
too good to be true. Zayas discovered that Craig's
latex glove distribution
00:11:14
company had never bought
or sold a single glove. The only money coming
into the company
00:11:20
was funds from investors,
Craig's family and friends whom he was scamming with a
Ponzi or pyramid scheme.
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-So the money from
investor two was now going back repay
investor one, and just keeping that cycle running.
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NARRATOR: And Zayas learned
that Craig paid no office or warehouse rent
anywhere in Philadelphia.
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The closest thing
Craig had to an office was his seat at
Delilah's strip club. JIM NOLAN: When his
family, when his wife, when
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his friends, when his in-laws
thought he was out making sales calls for his latex glove
business, at least one, two,
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three days a week, Craig
Rabinowitz was in dark, air conditioned strip
club in a back room,
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getting couch dances
and lap dances by a 24-year-old stripper. NARRATOR: Zayas
estimated Craig was
00:12:12
in debt to the tune of $800,000. He owed most of it
to his shareholders, who had invested in his
non-existent business,
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and who wanted their money back
at some point with a profit. Apparently, not even Stephanie
knew what was going on.
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-Of all the people
that Craig conned, quite clearly uh, he-- he
conned Stephanie the most.
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NARRATOR: And the
forensic accounting identified a possible
motive for murder. On the In side of the
handwritten ledger,
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were amounts that corresponded
to the life insurance policies on Stephanie, including
$1.5 million worth,
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which Craig had just purchased. The Out side of the
ledger listed the amount owed to each of
Craig's investors.
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He made small, token
payments to pacify them, and through a series of
financial calculations,
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Zayas was able to tell
when they were made. -They were only accurate
for a limited period of time
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during the middle
part of April of 1997, leading to an inference that the
document was prepared about two
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weeks before Stephanie
Rabinowitz was murdered. JIM NOLAN: Craig
Rabinowitz, it was
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very apparent to the
investigators at that time, had literally done an
accounting of the value
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of killing his wife. NARRATOR: The insurance payout
not only would have eliminated
00:13:40
Craig's debt, but
also allowed him to continue his extravagant
relationship with Summer,
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and still not have
to work for a living. All of this showed motive, but
if the medical examiner didn't
00:13:54
rule Stephanie's
death a homicide, it was salacious,
but little else. After Stephanie
Rabinowitz's death,
00:14:08
her family wanted a quick
burial, in accordance with their religious customs. But it was Dr. Ian Hood
who overruled that request,
00:14:17
in order to perform
a full autopsy. And almost immediately, that
decision paid big dividends.
00:14:27
The first clue was the food
found in Stephanie's stomach. IAN HOOD: We know she very
recently ingested a meal.
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In this case, shrimp and bean
sprouts were quite clearly seen with very little digestion
having occurred in the stomach
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contents. So she obviously died
probably within an hour or two of ingesting that meal.
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NARRATOR: That meant Stephanie
died around 10:30 PM. But Craig didn't call
911 until after midnight.
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Dr. Hood also
discovered small bruises on Stephanie's right
elbow and knee. And he saw tiny red marks on her
forehead and around her eyes.
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These petechial hemorrhages form
when tiny blood vessels burst because the blood
flow is constricted.
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Dr. Hood then examined and
dissected the neck muscles. IAN HOOD: She had some more
subtle bruises and abrasions,
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very hard to see, on her neck,
where there'd been clearly as I found out from looking
at beneath the skin,
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hard gripping of the upper neck. NARRATOR: Toxicology tests
showed Stephanie had taken
00:15:32
a higher than normal dose of a
prescription sleep medication. A check of local
pharmacies revealed
00:15:39
the drug had been prescribed
for Craig, not Stephanie. Dr. Hood concluded
that Stephanie
00:15:46
had been drugged, and
then strangled to death. Stephanie was finally laid
to rest in her family plot.
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Immediately after
the burial, police brought Craig Rabinowitz
in for questioning.
00:16:08
During the interview,
Craig told the same story as he did on the night
of Stephanie's death--
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that he had been watching
a hockey game on TV when Stephanie went
in to take a bath,
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and no one else had
been in the house. That's when police revealed the
evidence that proved Stephanie
00:16:25
was dead for two hours
before he called 911, and that the autopsy proved
she had been strangled.
00:16:37
Prosecutors concluded
that the motive was money. BRUCE CASTOR: He had dug
himself into this deep hole
00:16:42
financially. Now part of it is lavishing
money on the stripper. But that he needed to have that
cash so that he could get out
00:16:50
of debt, because clearly he
could have divorced his wife, and run off with the stripper
if she would have had him.
00:16:55
But I don't think
she'd have him if she found out that he was broke. NARRATOR: Craig had
stretched his business
00:17:01
scam as far as it could go. His investors wanted
their money back, and were putting
pressure on him.
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BRUCE CASTOR: We had evidence
in the case that indicated the they were expecting
to get their money
00:17:11
at the end of April. Well the murder was in
the last week in April. NARRATOR: And despite
Craig's denials,
00:17:17
his credit card receipts
told investigators that he was visiting local
hotels, possibly with Summer.
00:17:24
-On some of those
receipts, there was room service for two people. So we assumed that he
was going there with her.
00:17:34
NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe
Craig set his plan in motion after they returned home from
dinner in the Thai restaurant.
00:17:48
Before going to bed, Craig
spiked Stephanie's drink with his prescription
sleep medication,
00:17:54
more than enough
to knock her out. He carried Stephanie
upstairs, removed her clothes,
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and placed her in the
bathtub to drown her. But the bath water revived her. Her bruised elbows and knees
showed Stephanie struggled,
00:18:18
but she had no chance. The forensic evidence shows he
gripped her around the neck,
00:18:25
and held her under water. Frightened by what
he had done, Craig waited two hours to call 911.
00:18:40
-The gamble that Craig
Rabinowitz engaged in was that we would not
conduct an autopsy.
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JIM NOLAN: I think
the autopsy decision was a very critical decision. I think because when
it first came across,
00:18:55
the outward
appearances of it was that a horrible accident
had taken place. There were
sensitivities, I think,
00:19:01
in trying to be sensitive
to the family's wishes to bury Stephanie
under Jewish custom,
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and to bury her within
a day of her death. NARRATOR: But the autopsy found
the petechial hemorrhages,
00:19:16
the neck bruising,
and the two hour delay between her death
and the 911 call. The forensic accounting
uncovered the motive.
00:19:29
When he was charged with
first degree murder, Craig Rabinowitz
pleaded not guilty.
00:19:37
But on his first day in court,
he had a change of heart. He said his wife appeared
to him in a dream
00:19:44
and convinced him
to end the trial and confess to what he had done. IAN HOOD: I think that's
complete nonsense.
00:19:52
I think he plead guilty
for selfish reasons. He knew that we would spend
several weeks just completely
00:19:59
annihilating his character
in front of the whole world, including his mother
and friends and whatnot.
00:20:07
JIM NOLAN: Craig Rabinowitz,
if this proved anything, was a selfish,
self-absorbed, weak person.
00:20:14
And I think the prosecutor
saw his plea not just as a heartfelt act of contrition
to help the families, but as
00:20:25
a self-serving, cowardly act,
that allowed him to avoid truly confronting and articulating
in public the detail
00:20:36
and the exact nature
of he had done. NARRATOR: Craig Rabinowitz was
sentenced to life in prison
00:20:43
without the
possibility of parole. MITCHELL BACH: I had no doubt
that this would work out,
00:20:48
and Craig would be convicted. What this was doing
to Stephanie's family had a much more
immediate impact on me.
00:20:54
And I think they
really needed closure. They needed a full understanding
of what had occurred.
00:21:02
And to me, that's what
the forensic evidence did. [theme music]