EXCLUSIVE
HOW THE GIRLFRIENDS PODCASTER CAROLE FISHER EXPOSED A MURDERER
When Carole Fisher started dating Bob Bierenbaum, she had no idea he was harbouring a deep, dark secret. But it transpired the renowned plastic surgeon had been accused of murdering his wife, Gail Katz, who went missing from their New York apartment in July 1985. Intent on finding the truth, Carole began looking into his background with some of her girlfriends, who had also dated him. Their findings led to Gail’s case being reopened by police, a journey charted in the new must-listen podcast The Girlfriends.
THE CONFESSION
Back in 1995, Carole was a 35-year-old, twice-divorced single mum living in Las Vegas. Looking for a partner, she had noticed the “handsome and smart” Bierenbaum around. A wealthy and reputable physician who could speak five languages, was a gourmet cook and had his own private plane, he was considered a very eligible bachelor among the single women in the close-knit Jewish community. “I had seen Bob at different events, but we didn’t speak until my friend Mindy [Shapiro], who had gone on a couple of dates with him but hadn’t felt a connection, suggested that we go on a date,” Carole tells Crime Monthly. “She gave Bob my number and we had several phone calls. He was charming, endearing and personable. A sense of humour is important to me, and he seemed like a lovely person on the phone. It wasn’t long after that he asked me to go to dinner.”
Carole and Bierenbaum went to a restaurant in January 1995, where she was wined and dined by the medic, and it turned out to be unexpectedly memorable. “Over dinner, I asked him about his history. He was very hesitant to talk about his past, even to confirm that he had been married,” she recalls. “I joked, ‘What did you do, murder your wife?’” She was not expecting his response. “Bob was visibly shaken. He turned white and was squirming,” she remembers. “He regained his composure, and went on to tell me that he had been married and his wife had a lot of issues. He had been accused of murdering her, but moved to Vegas to start a new life after being cleared.”
Rather than seeing that as a red flag, Carole and Bierenbaum started dating, and she felt he could be her knight in shining armour. “Knowing what I know now, I should have run the other way. But I didn’t because I was seduced by his story,” she reveals. “I felt bad for him – he painted himself as the victim in the story he had crafted.”
But over the next six months, Carole realised Bierenbaum was not the perfect catch he appeared to be. “He was fantastic on paper, but behind closed doors, he wasn’t,
