Opinion ID: 147061
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Disappearance of Gail Katz Bierenbaum

Text: Gail Katz and Robert Bierenbaum were married in August 1982. They resided in a twelfth-floor apartment on East 85th Street in Manhattan. Bierenbaum had graduated from medical school in 1978, and was a surgical resident at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Katz was a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology at Long Island University. On Saturday, July 6, 1985, Katz kept a follow-up appointment with her gynecologist, and made a further appointment in December. She kept an appointment with her hairdresser, and met with a close friend that afternoon for a couple of hours. She told her friend that she was going to leave her husband that weekend, and that she was looking for another place to live. On the evening of Sunday, July 7, 1985, Bierenbaum attended a family gathering for a nephew's birthday in New Jersey, without Katz. Bierenbaum said that she had gone out earlier in the day and had not returned to their apartment. Although Bierenbaum did not express any concern about his wife at the party, later that evening at a friend's house he appeared distraught and called the apartment a couple of times. To his friend he related that he and Katz had an argument that morning and that she had left the apartment to sunbathe in Central Park wearing shorts, sandals and a halter top. Close to midnight that evening Bierenbaum telephoned Dr. Yvette Feis, one of Katz's friends, asking if she knew where Katz was. Bierenbaum told Feis that they had had an argument, that she had gone to Central Park and not returned, and that she was still missing when he returned from a family party in New Jersey. Katz did not keep her regularly scheduled psychotherapy appointment on July 8. Bierenbaum called her therapist and others on that day asking if they had seen her. That evening Bierenbaum filed a missing persons report indicating that when Katz was last seen she was wearing pink shorts and a white t-shirt. He told the detective assigned to investigate the case that he had last seen his wife on July 7 at approximately 11 a.m., and that she had left the apartment to get some sun in Central Park. He told the detective that he remained at home until approximately 5:30 p.m., when he left for New Jersey. No one, other than Bierenbaum, reported seeing Katz after July 6.