Robert Neulander convicted of tragic murder of his wife Leslie

The body of Leslie Neulander has puzzled investigators. The wealthy philanthropist, who suffered from dizzy spells, slipped and fell badly while taking a shower, said her husband, Dr. Robert Neulander, a well-known gynecologist from Dewitt, New York.

But Leslie’s head wound was so deep that the bone broke to the base of her skull, exposing her brain. She also had strange wounds on her face and hand. Police could find no motive for the killing of this “living” 61-year-old mother, nor could they explain the enormous amount of blood in the bedroom and bathroom. Wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery, the district attorney turned to Leslie’s friend, Dr. Mary Jumbelic, a retired forensic pathologist who helped police solve the case.

“They say that dead people don’t tell stories. That’s not true. Dead people tell remarkable stories if you look closely enough,” said William Fitzpatrick, Onondaga County District Attorney, on Accident, suicide or murder, Broadcast Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.

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The morning of September 17, 2012

“Oh my God, there’s blood everywhere! Daddy, put her down! Her neck could be broken!” screamed Leslie’s 23-year-old daughter Jenna in a disturbing emergency call that was posted on Accident, suicide or murder.

Her friend Megan Coleman, a news anchor at NBC3 in Syracuse, described Leslie as “a pillar of the community. She served on numerous boards … they were a power couple.”

Neulander told police he hadn’t seen Leslie that morning until he found her curled up on the shower floor, her head bleeding. He explained they slept in separate bedrooms in their sprawling home because he was often called to the hospital at all hours of the day and night.

After returning from his morning run, Neulander, as usual, placed a cup of coffee on his wife’s nightstand while she was in the shower. It was Rosh Hashanah, and they planned to go to temple later that day. It wasn’t until he checked on her a second time that he found her still badly injured in the shower. According to his police report, he rushed to Jenna’s room and urged his daughter to call 911. Afterward, he returned to the shower and attempted CPR, but the shower was just too slippery. Neulander then carried Leslie’s body from the bathroom down a short flight of stairs to the bedroom, where he performed “vigorous” CPR to revive her.

“When I got to the bathroom, the shower was still running,” said Sergeant Michael Kurgen, one of the first patrol officers to arrive. “I knew Dr. Neulander. He was one of the few gynecologists in the county. He used to be my wife’s doctor.”

While paramedics were trying to save Leslie, Kurgen noticed blood. There were stains on the bedroom carpet and splashes all over the nightstand, tile floor, and bathroom. Leslie was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Any evidence in the shower could have been washed away. I took a picture… and then turned the water off.” The officer also took samples from water bottles and the cup of coffee on the nightstand. “You never know if she might have ingested something. At this point we’re wondering if this was a true accident or if this was a homicide?”

The question was quickly answered when the coroner ruled the death an accident, saying her injuries were consistent with a “slip and fall” in the shower.

It’s not that unusual to die in a bathroom, Fitzpatrick told the show’s producers. “The only estimate I’ve seen from the Centers for Disease Control is about 2,500 a year who have a catastrophic event like a heart attack or stroke and then fall and … the fall can cause catastrophic injuries.”

Dr. Mary Jumbelic “helped solve the case”

As the community gathered around the Neulander family — who were holding the traditional shiva celebration at their home — rumors were circulating behind the scenes. Leslie’s close friend, Jumbelic, was the retired chief medical examiner of Onondaga County. She took all the talk of murder and marital problems with caution. Even when a mutual friend told her she had been in the house and seen an incredible amount of blood, Mary initially brushed her off. “I’ve heard people say, ‘That’s so much,’ and there’s a quarter-sized drop of blood,” she said. ASM.

But when she learned that Neulander was planning to travel to Israel shortly after his wife’s death, alarm bells went off. Jumbelic contacted her old colleague, District Attorney Fitz, because she feared that Neulander was leaving the United States for good.

Although the case was officially closed, Fitzpatrick couldn’t shake his suspicions and asked Jumbelic to come out of retirement to help. It was “a very harrowing moment,” she recalls.

The crime scene photos that Jumbelic received shocked her and she felt that she was investigating the wrong case. “It was completely different from what had been found. The head wound was much more complicated than a simple fall in the shower.” She also noticed wounds on the arm, face, neck and nose, “all in places that would not be affected in a simple fall,” and bruises on the hands that looked like defensive wounds.

“I realized that all my experience as a forensic scientist and all my training brought me to the point where I had to stand up and testify on her behalf,” she said, adding that her professional opinion was clearly manslaughter.

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“Many small pieces of information slowly trickle in”

Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, had received an anonymous tip about the couple’s marital and financial problems. He found out that Neulander had been unfaithful, and they divorced. He was also involved in a legal battle with an insurance company over billing practices that had cost him millions. New York is a no-fault state, and their assets were to be split in half. “That was another blow he had to take,” Fitzpatrick joked.

A lot of things didn’t fit together properly. “You see someone in the shower. It looks like she slipped and fell. The water is running. You love that person more than anything in the world. You turn the water off,” he said, adding: “To get into the shower you have to climb down a four-inch step. Her head was under that step, she could have drowned.”

A paramedic was skeptical of Neulander’s claim that he performed CPR on Leslie, and that there was a working phone right outside the shower. He asked, “Why does your daughter have to call 911? What in God’s name makes you even want to involve your daughter in this?”

Police take a closer look at Neulander

After interviewing Neulander’s co-workers, police found that he had a short temper. Months before his wife’s death, his behavior at work changed and he reportedly yelled at his co-workers. Police also found a mysterious man in his 30s named Nevin Robi who had exchanged intimate text messages with Leslie. Although many of these messages were sexual in nature, Robi insisted that there had never been any physical altercations between him and Leslie.

But when Neulander discovered his wife’s flirting, things took a turn. “That made him angry,” Coleman recalls, and he wondered, “Was that a possible motive for Bob Neulander to kill his wife?” According to police, Leslie had confided in Robi that her husband was not coping well with the divorce and that his behavior frightened her.

Then, while looking through police photographs, the couple’s longtime housekeeper noticed a small but important detail. The sheets that were on Leslie’s bed on Monday, the day she died, were not the sheets the housekeeper had put on the bed on Friday. They looked sloppy and haphazard, and a pillow was missing.

This gave investigators enough reason to inspect the bedroom one last time. As luck would have it, Neulander had sold the house and the new owners had not yet moved in or renovated it. When they lifted up the carpet, they found a horror scenario with pools of blood on the subfloor. “At least three feet below where her head must have been, there was a huge blood stain. The only explanation is that she had been resting there for a while,” said Fitzpatrick.

“Dead bodies don’t bleed,” Kurgen added. “You have to have a functioning vascular system, the heart, pumping circulating blood to keep bleeding.” Sgt. Lucas Byron noticed blood stains on the headboard and said Accident, suicide or murder the evidence clearly indicated that Leslie was murdered in the bedroom.

Eighteen months after Leslie’s death, the coroner revised his verdict to manslaughter, telling the prosecutor, “I was wrong.”

Neulander was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence (including switching the sheets) and went on trial in March 2015. His children and Leslie’s siblings accompanied him to court every day, Coleman noted. “His children and extended family supported him unconditionally,” and he maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Despite having neither a murder weapon nor a solid motive, he was found guilty.

Jury misconduct and a second trial

Unexpectedly, a juror was accused of misconduct after receiving thousands of text messages during the trial, including one from her father saying, “Make sure he’s guilty.” The defense alleged juror misconduct, and the trial was thrown out.

In July 2018, he was released from prison by his son on $1 million bail and was suddenly a free man. Due to Covid-related delays, the second trial did not begin until February 28, 2022 – nearly a decade after Leslie’s death.

Advances in forensic technology made the case against Neulander even stronger. The “bombshell,” as Coleman put it, was “a piece of fatty tissue found at the headboard” that could only have come from Leslie’s head wound. It seemed clear that her fatal injury had happened in bed, not in the shower. Advanced blood analysis revealed several drops of blood on the nightstand, including on the tissue box, lampshade and water bottles, “but there was not a single drop of blood on that pristine ivory cup of coffee. It was as clean as freshly fallen snow, and that’s where he messed up,” Fitzpatrick said. Investigators suspected he had placed the cup after Leslie’s murder to stage the crime scene.

The jury unanimously found Neulander guilty of murder and sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison.

After Leslie’s death, the Syracuse Jewish Community Center named an award after her to be given to individuals who embody her qualities of service and commitment to the community.

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