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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 2: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 6: Good evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 6: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 6: History and the authors that are written about them. When
Speaker 6: prison inmate Robert weldins and died and left him an
Speaker 6: eight point nine million trust funds Arthur and Barbara Reeve,
Speaker 6: parents of murder victim Susan Reeve, acted to deprive Relvyn
Speaker 6: of the funds that could gain him freedom on parole.
Speaker 6: The Reeves ultimately got an unheard of ten million dollar
Speaker 6: judgment against their daughter's killer, effectively stripping the man known
Speaker 6: as America's richest inmate. Soon after Susan's murder, the Reefs
Speaker 6: set up a scholarship fund in her name, and the
Speaker 6: killer's money is currently used in that fund, which helps
Speaker 6: it helps to educate young men and women. The charmer
Speaker 6: embraces the hunt to bring Susan's killer to justice and
Speaker 6: then the chase of a lifetime a one family determined
Speaker 6: to give their slain daughter a voice decades after she
Speaker 6: was silenced. The book this evening that we're going to
Speaker 6: be profiling is The Charmer, The true story of Robert
Speaker 6: reldn rapist, murderer, and millionaire and the women who fell
Speaker 6: victim to his allure by Richard Mute and Charles Buckley.
Speaker 6: And with me this evening, I have Charles Buckley on
Speaker 6: the line, and thank you Charles Buckley for agreed to
Speaker 6: this interview, and well, welcome to True Murder.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dan, it's a pleasure to be here. And
Speaker 4: thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. And then the audience says, is
Speaker 6: going to be very interested in this story. We see
Speaker 6: we've had the audience is probably very familiar with people
Speaker 6: that murder in the family, but this is much more.
Speaker 6: It's got some twists in there to the usual plot.
Speaker 6: So this I think the audience is really going to
Speaker 6: enjoy this one. Now let's start off with given a
Speaker 6: time frame for this, because this is not a crime
Speaker 6: that occurred currently, you know, recently, So give us the
Speaker 6: time frame and give us the community that Robert Reldin
Speaker 6: grew up in, give us what his parents were like,
Speaker 6: and tell us a little bit about the life of
Speaker 6: Robert Reldin so we can really understand the character of
Speaker 6: this very fascinating killer. So take us back to sort
Speaker 6: of where these crimes are started in the mid seventies.
Speaker 6: But let's go back to Robert Reldin and where he
Speaker 6: grew up and how he grew up and what his
Speaker 6: parents were like. Take us back to their please.
Speaker 4: Well, Reldon grew up with a pretty steady family situation.
Speaker 4: I mean, the father and mother owned a restaurant in
Speaker 4: New York City. The aunt was very wealthy. There was
Speaker 4: a sister, Susan, who was part of the family, and
Speaker 4: there was a well put together family. There seemed to
Speaker 4: be no reason why Robert Reldon would deviate from developing
Speaker 4: into a fine young man. But before he was even
Speaker 4: eighteen years old, he had gotten involved in a series
Speaker 4: of juvenile incidents involving assaults on women, guns and cars,
Speaker 4: things of that nature. He went through the juvenile system
Speaker 4: in the state of New Jersey and several times he
Speaker 4: was a given psychiatric treatments at the state hospitals. On
Speaker 4: two occasions he was directed by the juvenile courts to
Speaker 4: who they could be on probation, but he had to
Speaker 4: under undergo psychiatric treatment on each occasion. He just went
Speaker 4: once and it didn't bother to come again. His aunt
Speaker 4: Lilian had married very well. She married Ferris Booth, who
Speaker 4: was the son of one of the founders of IBM,
Speaker 4: himself a multi millionaire. He died after approximately ten years
Speaker 4: of their relationship, leaving her fifty million dollars. She became
Speaker 4: one of the focal points in the family and that
Speaker 4: she was generous with her money to the family. She
Speaker 4: was extremely generous to society in terms of giving millions
Speaker 4: of dollars to hospitals, to actors' homes and things of
Speaker 4: that nature. And that may have been one of the
Speaker 4: problems which sent Robert Reldon off on the tam that
Speaker 4: ultimately resulted in two murders. He seemed to feel that
Speaker 4: he was being short changed, that the thousand dollars gift
Speaker 4: at Christmas time was not enough for him, the brand
Speaker 4: new volkswagens he gave when he came out of prison
Speaker 4: was not enough for him, because she was buying a Cadillac,
Speaker 4: two Cadillacs every year for herself and her living friend.
Speaker 4: So this disturb realvant it seemed to be on this
Speaker 4: basis he developed this hatred and this was really brought
Speaker 4: forth in all the psychiatric reports. There was a hatred
Speaker 4: towards women. It just he focused on them and everyone's
Speaker 4: all the psychiatrists seemed to believe. It came from this
Speaker 4: built that idea of the relate, what the relationship should
Speaker 4: be between Lilian and himself. So he just the parents
Speaker 4: continually support him all through his criminal career. In fact,
Speaker 4: you recall the case where he planned, while in state
Speaker 4: prison to have his aunt Lillian murdered in order to
Speaker 4: gain his inheritance early.
Speaker 6: And well, let's not we're we're going let's let's not
Speaker 6: get ahead of ourselves here for the audience, because I
Speaker 6: think that we're we're we're really way fast talking about Yeah,
Speaker 6: we're just going a little bit fast. And with this
Speaker 6: story really really lends itself to really explaining this. Now,
Speaker 6: what what you have described is that despite his upbringing,
Speaker 6: we got to say that it wasn't just his aunt
Speaker 6: that had money. His family had money. And like you say,
Speaker 6: you were alluding to and intimating about his family supporting
Speaker 6: him through even though his juvenile delinquency. It was much
Speaker 6: more than that, wasn't it, Because you say that it
Speaker 6: really was.
Speaker 4: Money in the sense of it, like Aunt Lillian had it.
Speaker 4: They were companible, their business come and everything. But there
Speaker 4: were no shortages in the household. They lived close which
Speaker 4: was a very nice community what's called the Northern Valley
Speaker 4: area of Bergen County, middle class home. No problems that
Speaker 4: anyone could was aware of. But Relvyn just started on
Speaker 4: this course of juvenile activities, breaking into homes, stealing cars,
Speaker 4: stealing tires, which I said, as I said, ended up
Speaker 4: continued problems with the juvenile court system of New Jersey.
Speaker 4: He ultimately was convicted in New York. Happened in New York.
Speaker 4: He was arrested for a theft of an automobile. Now,
Speaker 4: they didn't want to waste the time in New York
Speaker 4: on this peanut charge, but he had this ongoing juvenile
Speaker 4: probation in New York State. So what they did was
Speaker 4: they sentenced him under that violation probation to three years
Speaker 4: in the prison in New York State. He served his time,
Speaker 4: got out of Great Meadows, which where He's served his time,
Speaker 4: and within a month he sexually assaulted a woman in
Speaker 4: Fort Lee and that was the beginning really of his
Speaker 4: adult criminal activities. He then got down to Florida, committed
Speaker 4: two crimes, two minor crimes down there, and then came
Speaker 4: back to North Arlington, back New Jersey, was arrested. Now
Speaker 4: we're in nineteen sixty three. Now just back the assault
Speaker 4: on marine here Hernandez was a month after his parole.
Speaker 4: The two crimes in Florida were in December of sixty
Speaker 4: to sixty two and January sixty three. In December nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty three, he's arrested for about ten various crimes in
Speaker 4: New York State and in New Jersey. So I mean
Speaker 4: he really had been He's done to accumulate criminal episodes
Speaker 4: his life, all the time living at home when he
Speaker 4: wasn't in jail and being supported by his family.
Speaker 6: But it wasn't just a matter of theft though, because
Speaker 6: like you say, there's a rape, there is this added
Speaker 6: and we'll talk about it later. When he talks about
Speaker 6: to people that later informed the police about his attitude
Speaker 6: about women, there's a particular joke that he says about
Speaker 6: what one pedophile would say to another, it really is
Speaker 6: an indication of the psychopathic mind. I know it's maybe
Speaker 6: a cliche, but this guy at a very early age,
Speaker 6: maybe fifteen or so, really shows all those tendencies towards
Speaker 6: very home engageing's sexual assault, you know, theft for no reason.
Speaker 6: Really doesn't need the money that much. It's not really
Speaker 6: he's not poor or anything. No, there seems to be.
Speaker 6: So it really seems to be a portrait of a
Speaker 6: psychopathic killer that keeps accelerating, and his ego is incredible,
Speaker 6: and of course he's narcissistic and it gets in his way. Ultimately,
Speaker 6: it's a very interesting story. So by the time, tell
Speaker 6: us what age and by what age is he now
Speaker 6: in contact with is Adam Marie Hernandez, and tell us
Speaker 6: about that crime, because that's really the beginning of how
Speaker 6: the most serious stuff he's doing.
Speaker 4: That's his first serious criminal activity. He was born in
Speaker 4: nineteen forty. He was he committed. He was released from
Speaker 4: serving out the juvenile sentence for a violation of his probation.
Speaker 4: He was released on January sixteenth of sixty two. Now
Speaker 4: he's twenty two years old, but this was as a
Speaker 4: juvenileist this probation was granted. Within a month, he and
Speaker 4: another individual entered this home where Maria Maria Hernandez was
Speaker 4: staying with her sister, and he tied her up and
Speaker 4: started sexually assaulting her. Fortunately for Marie, the other co conspirator,
Speaker 4: the other guy involved in the and to break in
Speaker 4: him and told Relden to knock it off and let's
Speaker 4: get on what we have to do trying to steal
Speaker 4: the money. And he did stop at that time after
Speaker 4: you know, mishandling her and touching her in an attempt
Speaker 4: to begin an a sexual assault. So that was he's
Speaker 4: only at that time at sixty two, he's twenty two
Speaker 4: years old. He's a month out of prison. He then
Speaker 4: runs to he leaves the state. Then I think he's
Speaker 4: he's looking for to get away from the possibility to
Speaker 4: make him back to haunt them, although he hadn't been
Speaker 4: identified yet. And as I said, he went to Florida,
Speaker 4: he went to Missouri for a while, he was in Connecticut,
Speaker 4: but then he came back to New Jersey and in
Speaker 4: the summer of sixty three, he's now twenty three years old,
Speaker 4: he's arrested by the Closter Police carrying a gun in
Speaker 4: the car. He's arrested by the North Arlington Police in
Speaker 4: New Jersey for breaking and entering and striking a woman
Speaker 4: with a tire iron, the resident of the house. He's
Speaker 4: arrested by the Fort Lee Police on the Maria Hernandez assault.
Speaker 4: This is almost a year later when they finally get
Speaker 4: around to identifying them. So in the meantime, while all
Speaker 4: this is going on in New Jersey, he is making
Speaker 4: daily trips over the George Washington Bridge, committing a series
Speaker 4: of assaults on elderly women in the Northwest area of
Speaker 4: Manhattan Island, where he follows them into an elevator, and
Speaker 4: this goes to his allure, his charm. He's very polite
Speaker 4: your floor, he presses the elevator button for him. He
Speaker 4: only gets in if there's one woman on the elevator,
Speaker 4: and they are just put at ease by his manner.
Speaker 4: He has this just charming way about him. Every woman
Speaker 4: who's involved in he's as victims, talks about the initial
Speaker 4: response to him is one of trust and confidence. And
Speaker 4: what he does then, his signature is to grab them
Speaker 4: by the throat, choke them, steal their pocketbook, jewelry or whatever,
Speaker 4: get out of the elevator, press a button and send
Speaker 4: them up. Well, he runs and goes and hiding, and
Speaker 4: the New York police finally track him over to New
Speaker 4: Jersey in early nineteen sixty four. That's for these nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty three crimes. And the end result of all this
Speaker 4: is he works out plea bargains all over the place,
Speaker 4: and the deal is he'll plead to anything as long
Speaker 4: as it doesn't involve violence or assaults on women. He
Speaker 4: pleads to the guns in the car, he pleads the
Speaker 4: breaking entries, and for ten crimes, for ten separate crimes,
Speaker 4: he receives what is an effect one five year sentence,
Speaker 4: and he does that in New York and New Jersey
Speaker 4: just throws there their sentences doing in New York state.
Speaker 4: And after all this, he's paroled in September of nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty six, having done only two and a half years
Speaker 4: for all these ten crimes. So, I mean, he's really
Speaker 4: moving up the ladder very quickly.
Speaker 6: Sixty how does he get the plea agreement? So who's
Speaker 6: paying for the lawyers during this time?
Speaker 4: And it's Aunt Lily, and it has the money. As
Speaker 4: far as we know, he does hire the best attorneys
Speaker 4: I mean he's oh, every time he's involved in the crime,
Speaker 4: he has a quality attorney working for him, and they
Speaker 4: do a job. I mean in New Jersey, Frank Luciani,
Speaker 4: who is a very very good Bergen County attorney works
Speaker 4: out this deal, which is New Jersey throws the whole
Speaker 4: thing away and says, the five years in New York
Speaker 4: is enough. Get out of here. We don't need want
Speaker 4: to be bothered with you. So, I mean, that's how
Speaker 4: he was able to move along. And he's prolled after
Speaker 4: doing only two and a half years for ten crimes,
Speaker 4: seven of which involved assaults on women, sexual assaults, some
Speaker 4: non sexual, just violent robberies, things of that nature. So
Speaker 4: he had put the.
Speaker 6: Sorry go ahead.
Speaker 4: So now he had really moved the and he's coming
Speaker 4: out of jail after two and a half years in
Speaker 4: September of nineteen sixty six. And in the meantime he
Speaker 4: meets he goes to Florida. Now here's one of the problems.
Speaker 4: He and his father do not have a very good
Speaker 4: relationship his mother. He doesn't think much of his mother
Speaker 4: because she's so easy to get over on. He just
Speaker 4: she'll do whatever he wants. But he doesn't get along
Speaker 4: well with his father, and he's on parole, but he
Speaker 4: dance permission to go to Florida with his father, and
Speaker 4: the father is thinking of starting another restaurant down there.
Speaker 4: And he meets Judith Rosenberg and within the day she
Speaker 4: says she's already fallen in love with him. And that's
Speaker 4: the kind of effect he has on women. He is
Speaker 4: just that personable, that engaging that women fall for him.
Speaker 4: And she says she fell in love with him the
Speaker 4: first day she's married. She has an abusive husband. He's
Speaker 4: a mob all with a mob in Illinois. He can't
Speaker 4: go with her because he's under indictment in Illinois. Reldon
Speaker 4: and Judah Rosenberg become quite friendly in a very short time.
Speaker 4: She goes back and her husband has found murdered in
Speaker 4: the trunk of a car. She immediately calls Reldin and
Speaker 4: asks him to come out and stay with her. Reldn
Speaker 4: is on parole, he can't leave the state without permission.
Speaker 4: He just goes immediately and leaves it without se Judas.
Speaker 4: So they have in this day or so, just formed
Speaker 4: this strong relationship. Now, this is in January of sixty seven.
Speaker 4: He meets her and gets started with her now April
Speaker 4: of sixty seven. Two months later is when he commits
Speaker 4: a rape of Bernice Caplan, then tenafly in New Jersey,
Speaker 4: and again using a chokehold he gains He gains entry
Speaker 4: into her house by posing as someone making a delivery
Speaker 4: of cleaning material, cleaning pants, things of that nature. She
Speaker 4: is at first leary, but being confidence built into her
Speaker 4: by his charm and his gentle manner, she lets him
Speaker 4: come into the house. Then he rapes her. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's just that easy for him. He threatens to
Speaker 4: kill her if she if she doesn't give in to
Speaker 4: his demands, he threatens to kill her son if he
Speaker 4: shows up. She claims he's coming in, you better run.
Speaker 4: Think of that nature. He says, I'll kill him if
Speaker 4: he goes. I have a gun. So he gets away
Speaker 4: with I mean he has that crime. He's immediately arrested
Speaker 4: within two days because the identification is so easy him
Speaker 4: being on parole, he's easy. They forced to come into
Speaker 4: police station where she sees him and identifies him. But
Speaker 4: now one of the flunky things starts. He has a trial.
Speaker 4: They got over.
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Speaker 4: Plus against them the specific identification by miss missus kaplan
Speaker 4: and the identification of the car by a a resident
Speaker 4: who lives in that area, Keith Strickland. He sees the
Speaker 4: car and he just says that that car that was
Speaker 4: parked outside her house was was that that was Relvin's
Speaker 4: car and he identified as the car which was there.
Speaker 4: He goes to trial and there's a hung jury. I mean,
Speaker 4: it just doesn't make any sense. But Relbyn has the
Speaker 4: family behind them. They're in court every day. He's nice,
Speaker 4: he smiles at the jury, acting very polite, very condescending,
Speaker 4: and someone on the jury, we don't know who or
Speaker 4: how many, they refuse to convict him. So now he's
Speaker 4: he's he's developing this this skill in front of juries
Speaker 4: that I'm a nice guy. I wouldn't do anything like this.
Speaker 4: Look at my family with me, and there's a hung jury.
Speaker 4: Now you know you're health. Hung juries are rare in
Speaker 4: criminal cases. I mean that happens, but the general run
Speaker 4: of the mill, either he's guilty or he's not guilty.
Speaker 4: But here we have a hung jury. He's tried again,
Speaker 4: and at this time he's convicted, fortunately, and he receives
Speaker 4: a sentence to the prison with a mandatory a maximum
Speaker 4: of thirty years in jail for the rape to be
Speaker 4: too under to his time at a treatment center, not
Speaker 4: not the the real basic prisons routine that would be
Speaker 4: in place. And he comes and cut it, comes in
Speaker 4: touch with a man who's who's the psychologist at the prison, Prendergast,
Speaker 4: who almost falls in love, I mean he's under the
Speaker 4: spell of Relben himself. And this guy starts writing parole
Speaker 4: letters for Relvin within within three years, based on based
Speaker 4: on prender gas strong earth urging to the parole board
Speaker 4: that this is not a this is not a sexual pervert.
Speaker 4: This crime had to do with his hatred of his aunt,
Speaker 4: his mother, and he's ridden. Now Trey cured of that problem,
Speaker 4: let him out of jail. He gets out of jail
Speaker 4: within five months. He assaults another woman, so Blanche Mott
Speaker 4: in but touching by attacking her and her carth trying
Speaker 4: to rob her and possibly rape her too. So now
Speaker 4: we're talking, you know, it's up to seventy one. He's
Speaker 4: now into his third sexual assault charge. They send him
Speaker 4: back to jail again and he stays in jail on
Speaker 4: this initial thirty year rape charge and now he gets
Speaker 4: five to seven years on the assault on Blanche Mott
Speaker 4: in Middlesex County. But he's finally paroled in May of
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy five, and that takes us up to everything
Speaker 4: up to before the murders.
Speaker 6: Now, before we go any further, you have an excellent
Speaker 6: photo You've chosen to just have basically the title of
Speaker 6: the book, and then the and then the mugshot basically
Speaker 6: of Richard. Pardon me, that's the rape. So that was
Speaker 6: the rape of rest Yeah, okay, oh for me? Okay,
Speaker 6: So now tell us what he looks like, because this
Speaker 6: is what the audience doesn't know. What does he look like?
Speaker 4: What is this?
Speaker 6: What's his hair style? Well? How can he get it
Speaker 6: over with all these people he's wooing the psychologist? Obviously
Speaker 6: he's an intelligent guy, and tell us that you haven't
Speaker 6: I was going to ask that question. He's an intelligent guy,
Speaker 6: but given he's a pretty bright guy. But tell us
Speaker 6: what is Yeah, tell us about that, But tell us
Speaker 6: what he looks like. Describe his weight, his height, his build,
Speaker 6: his hair. How should this guy charm all these women
Speaker 6: and almost everybody he comes across.
Speaker 4: Well, he's he's six foot sixty one, clean shaven for
Speaker 4: most of his life. I don't remember ever seeing any
Speaker 4: picture or anything where he has any hair, facial hair, He
Speaker 4: has a nice brown brown hair that he you know,
Speaker 4: neatly combed. He's handsome. He I don't know how to
Speaker 4: explain what his looks. He's just a handsome guy with
Speaker 4: a tremendous personality which just you know, radiates from him.
Speaker 4: He knows how to turn on the charm. One of
Speaker 4: the reasons that the parents just couldn't believe he had
Speaker 4: raped the Missus Caplin was because he had so many
Speaker 4: girlfriends at the time he raped. He raped Missus Caplin.
Speaker 4: He had two girlfriends in New Jersey that they didn't
Speaker 4: know about each other, and he also had Judith Rosenberg
Speaker 4: from Illinois, who he ultimately married. But women just were
Speaker 4: all over him no matter, you know, whatever it is
Speaker 4: and what charm he had. I never really spoken to
Speaker 4: the man, but the women who have dealt with him
Speaker 4: saying his initial his initial contact with them just causes
Speaker 4: them to drop their guard. So it's hard to explain
Speaker 4: what he looks like. He's a he's a good looking guy,
Speaker 4: and he's he's very muscular, well built, well mannered. He's
Speaker 4: got a lot going for him, and he could he
Speaker 4: I mean, he brags about his ability with women. I
Speaker 4: mean he just that's one of his strong points is
Speaker 4: he's telling telling people in jail, but Williams brothers he
Speaker 4: never had any trouble with women, so that that's his makeup.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, so now you've got everything that got us
Speaker 6: all caught up in his criminality up to the murder itself.
Speaker 6: Now the key person in this too is this Judith Rosenberg.
Speaker 6: Very interesting. Like you say, she's apparently with some gangster
Speaker 6: and then just after she meets Relbyn he's killed. You know,
Speaker 6: what a happy coincidence. And then they get together because
Speaker 6: he really can rely on this woman, and it's it's
Speaker 6: understandable once given who she was already already hooked up with.
Speaker 6: You know, maybe that's why he seemed to be charming.
Speaker 6: Of course, maybe he wasn't abusive, but he must have
Speaker 6: seemed like a preppy dream compared to maybe the mobster
Speaker 6: that she was or gangster that she was with.
Speaker 4: He's there, he's there. I think they're in Hollandia. I
Speaker 4: think in Florida is where they were. He's there with
Speaker 4: his family, his mother and father and sister and a
Speaker 4: you know, it's a nice family. He's a nice guy.
Speaker 4: She's there with her son. I mean all the all
Speaker 4: the the factors are coming together. She is a bad relationship.
Speaker 4: Here's a guy who who has a nice family, friendly, charming,
Speaker 4: good looking, showing uh, showing attention to her, and she
Speaker 4: falls in love him right away. In fact, she waits
Speaker 4: for him while he well, he does his time on
Speaker 4: the rape, on the Captain rape. I mean, she's she's
Speaker 4: comes here. She stays in Illinois until he's about ready
Speaker 4: to get released because of all of mister prendergass effort,
Speaker 4: and she then comes right to uh live with a
Speaker 4: father and mother in close during Burton County. So and
Speaker 4: then then when he does get paroled, they immediately get
Speaker 4: married and you know, they put up get together in
Speaker 4: a place up in just over the border into New
Speaker 4: York State. Which is interesting because it's one of the
Speaker 4: heavy factors in terms of tying him to these murders
Speaker 4: that where he lived was in close close proximity to
Speaker 4: where these bodies are ultimately found. So it became an
Speaker 4: important piece of evidence.
Speaker 6: Right now, tell us about the just prior to the
Speaker 6: murders itself, and tell us the year again, what year
Speaker 6: we're talking about, And he'd he'd been paroled not too
Speaker 6: long beforehand, so tell us about what is going on
Speaker 6: just previous to that, and then tell us, of course
Speaker 6: about the first and the second.
Speaker 4: He gets paroled finally on May thirtieth of nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 4: He's got like a twenty two year parole requirement. He's
Speaker 4: not supposed to be off parole until nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 4: As I said, Judith has moved into New Jersey. In
Speaker 4: the meantime, she's gotten an apartment up in Valley Cottage,
Speaker 4: New York, where they're gonna live. Of course, Relevan's not
Speaker 4: supposed to go out of state to reside. He's supposed
Speaker 4: to live in New Jersey, but he now he's taken
Speaker 4: a chance of living up in New York State with her,
Speaker 4: which would be a violation of parole if he's caught,
Speaker 4: But then he would be sent back to jail. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot of pressure on him. But they get
Speaker 4: married almost immediately in June of nineteen seventy five, and
Speaker 4: he's a I mean, he takes as far as we know,
Speaker 4: he takes his marriage very seriously. He does have another
Speaker 4: fling with another girl, Roberta Gimbal, who he takes to
Speaker 4: another place exactly a place where the second body is
Speaker 4: initially located. I mean, she is an important witness to say, well,
Speaker 4: that's within one hundred feet of where Bobby and I
Speaker 4: had had a picnic one day. This is early in
Speaker 4: July probably of nineteen seventy five. So they live a
Speaker 4: couple of months as man and wife, and it seems,
Speaker 4: I mean he's now into a business. He's got a
Speaker 4: contracting business, odd jobs. He'll do all kinds of construction
Speaker 4: things like that. And he's the day the first the
Speaker 4: first woman disappears, he happens to go over to Westwood,
Speaker 4: the Westwood area, to get this car engine cleaned. Now,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you want to get into the
Speaker 4: specific details of the where missus Haynes was picked off
Speaker 4: or just sure you want me to go from here?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Sure do that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeahuely he.
Speaker 4: Reldin has to have it. He wants his car engine clean,
Speaker 4: and he's over in the Westwood area and Missus Hayes
Speaker 4: at the same time as in the Westwood area trying
Speaker 4: to get a job. She's here as a nurse. She's
Speaker 4: trying to get work. She doesn't want to be home alone.
Speaker 4: Her husband has his own job, and it this is
Speaker 4: a very unique instance, going back to Kaplan rape. He
Speaker 4: didn't Reldon didn't know missus Caplan. He had never seen
Speaker 4: her as far as we know. But he's got a problem.
Speaker 4: He's got these two girlfriends in the area. He's got
Speaker 4: Judith down in Florida now back in Illinois, and he's
Speaker 4: driving home from having dinner with one of the girlfriends
Speaker 4: in the morning. His father is pressuring him about this
Speaker 4: business they want to open up in Florida, and Reldyn
Speaker 4: his route home would take him right past the route
Speaker 4: that missus Caplan would pass coming home from delivering passover
Speaker 4: cookies to her mother over in Hackensack, So the route
Speaker 4: they would take would bring them into close proximity. There
Speaker 4: is no reason where Relvin was in the area where
Speaker 4: missus Caplin lived. He had no business there, he didn't
Speaker 4: know her. There was It just the situation where he
Speaker 4: happened to see her. Now, whatever it was in his
Speaker 4: mind at that time which snapped, it was just that
Speaker 4: kind of incident with no rhyme or reason. He saw her,
Speaker 4: and he followed her, and he made the decision he
Speaker 4: was gonna do what he did to her for some reason,
Speaker 4: and no one can explain it. We don't know why,
Speaker 4: but he follows her to the house, and as I said,
Speaker 4: he gains entry by entry by a subterfusion, and then
Speaker 4: he rapes her. Well, the same thing happened to missus Haynes.
Speaker 4: He's coming back from this boat having the engine cleaned
Speaker 4: on the car. She's traveling the same road. It would
Speaker 4: be four or five miles that they're driving along this
Speaker 4: road and that time are all in sync with when
Speaker 4: she was at the office trying to get this job,
Speaker 4: and when he was having the engine clean and he
Speaker 4: sees her drive into her driveway, and he evidently goes
Speaker 4: down the street, turns around, comes back and drives up
Speaker 4: in the driveway. He makes those kind of instantaneous decisions,
Speaker 4: whatever it was, or whatever it causes it, the pressures
Speaker 4: of the day, what he was under. That seems to
Speaker 4: be the gist of why it happens he's under for
Speaker 4: some reason. He snaps because there's absolutely no contact between
Speaker 4: him and his victims at this stage his life before
Speaker 4: the assaults occur, and he takes her and he gets
Speaker 4: control of her and she disappears from the house. There's
Speaker 4: no sign of any problem in the house. Nothing's overturned
Speaker 4: he didn't get into the house. He caught her in
Speaker 4: the driveway as she was leaving the house to go
Speaker 4: to the office. So and that was the last anyone
Speaker 4: saw of her. So that's that's the thing that jumps
Speaker 4: out of you with with what happens at these all
Speaker 4: of these things that happened Blanche Monty when when he
Speaker 4: assaulted her in Middlesex County, he never saw her before
Speaker 4: what happened there. He was coming out of the hospital
Speaker 4: from from visiting, uh mister Prendergasted. He was having trouble
Speaker 4: at home because his salary had been cut at work
Speaker 4: and he was he was in having some money troubles
Speaker 4: and he felt Aunt Lilian wasn't being as generous she
Speaker 4: could to him, And all of a sudden he sees
Speaker 4: missus mont drive by him, and he follows her out
Speaker 4: of the hospital parking lot down the street about a
Speaker 4: mile to her home in a big apartment complex, follows
Speaker 4: her around, lets her drive into her garage, and races
Speaker 4: down and attempts to assault and reape her. So it's
Speaker 4: it always seems that he's under some sort of tremendous pressure,
Speaker 4: mental pressure at the time he snaps and does these things.
Speaker 4: So that was missus Haynes. And now the next week
Speaker 4: that happened on October sixth and seventy five. On October fourteenth,
Speaker 4: he's sand blasting the house. He got a job sand
Speaker 4: blasting the house. His wife, who worked for a company
Speaker 4: in the area, got another coworker from her company to
Speaker 4: help him with a sand blasting. They're working hard all
Speaker 4: day long, but they don't accomplish as much as they
Speaker 4: wanted to because the sand blasting mask got broken. So
Speaker 4: it's a frustrating, a frustrating day for him. Things aren't
Speaker 4: going right. He's driving home now and who does he see?
Speaker 4: Susan Reeve get off a bus, a pretty young girl,
Speaker 4: the bright dress, smiling, blonde, and he makes a sharp
Speaker 4: left at turn. He's almost by it, according to the
Speaker 4: Favassinis who see him. And he's races up this street,
Speaker 4: passing her and we think, waiting for her to reach
Speaker 4: up a point further up the street. She has about
Speaker 4: a quarter of a mile to a half mile walk
Speaker 4: to get to her the area where her house is
Speaker 4: up that street, and he waits for her and grabs
Speaker 4: her as she's walking up that way, and she's taken
Speaker 4: in the car and never seen again. Now there are
Speaker 4: some witnesses or a special witness who happens to see
Speaker 4: a lot of this, But that's that's what happened. And
Speaker 4: there's always a pressure situation. It causes Reldon I think,
Speaker 4: to snap and do these you know, these criminal acts.
Speaker 6: Well, it could also be a psychopathic killer just accelerating.
Speaker 6: I mean sure that obviously everybody, every killer probably has
Speaker 6: a stressor. I would say that. But you and I
Speaker 6: have bad days too. We might I might kick the
Speaker 6: tires or you know, throw some against the wall and
Speaker 6: have to clean it up. You know, I just got
Speaker 6: mad at an egg about an hour ago. But you
Speaker 6: know the thing is it seems to be a classic
Speaker 6: acceleration as well. You know, within a week, two murders,
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, well on your way to serial killer
Speaker 6: fame and infamy, you know. So he just now I'm sorry, okay,
Speaker 6: sorry what what? Okay? So we're into the second week here,
Speaker 6: he has this murder, These people disappear from the face
Speaker 6: of the euros continue. How does how does he how
Speaker 6: does he unwind or how does he further unravel? What
Speaker 6: does he do? What does his wife do?
Speaker 2: At this time?
Speaker 6: Where is his wife? In all of this in terms of, uh,
Speaker 6: he's doing this, but what's his you know later of
Speaker 6: course we're jumping the gun, but tell us what they say.
Speaker 6: The police would know right at that time with this
Speaker 6: disappearance with these people were were obviously called. Police were
Speaker 6: called and they were noted as as as disappeared. Tell
Speaker 6: us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first woman she was she was English Brides,
Speaker 4: just the bride and she was over here. Her husband
Speaker 4: worked at Leland Motors, British car company, and the initial
Speaker 4: thought about her was that she she may have just
Speaker 4: gone somewhere. She was homesick. The husband knew she was homesick.
Speaker 4: She was she wanted to go back home. She wasn't
Speaker 4: really happy here. So the first thought was this is
Speaker 4: just a woman who has gone off somewhere. And for
Speaker 4: several days there was never a feeling that this was
Speaker 4: a you know, a crime. There was a crime involved.
Speaker 4: Here was a more thought in terms of a woman
Speaker 4: who's just trying to resolve this unhappiness she's under because
Speaker 4: of the living conditions she's she's undergoing here. It's not
Speaker 4: till about four days we're one of the one of police,
Speaker 4: the police chief in Hallworth I think it was makes
Speaker 4: the comment that we may be looking at something more
Speaker 4: than more than just a you know, an unhappy, unhappy woman,
Speaker 4: unhappy life. When the second, when the second girl, Susan Reeve, disappears,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's clear that there is a serious problem.
Speaker 4: And I lived. I lived in that area what's called
Speaker 4: the Northern Valley area, and I can tell you this
Speaker 4: second the disappearance of this second girl caused tremendous fear
Speaker 4: throughout throughout the area. They just no one was certain
Speaker 4: as to what had happened, and it just was too
Speaker 4: too coincidental to think that there's these two women. And
Speaker 4: even even the first witness really wasn't sure that it
Speaker 4: was Reldin at that time. Reldin who had had been
Speaker 4: the one who was with Susan Reeves his identification mister
Speaker 4: Low's ear. The problem was Reldon had been working in
Speaker 4: sand blasting all day long. He's been doing it without
Speaker 4: a mask for most of the day, and he was
Speaker 4: covered with sort he hadn't had time to clean up.
Speaker 4: And the initial description of Reldon was he was sort
Speaker 4: of Hispanic dark, you know, and it was really, I mean,
Speaker 4: is confusing because the color that he had was because
Speaker 4: of the work he'd been doing, so I mean it
Speaker 4: was there was tremendous uncertainty as to just what the
Speaker 4: you know, what the situation was. But what the police
Speaker 4: do in cases like this, they start looking through the
Speaker 4: recent parole lists, you know, people who have sexual crimes,
Speaker 4: crimes of that nature, and Realda's name came up very quickly.
Speaker 4: And here's here's the interesting part of this. How how
Speaker 4: the case really the solving of the case of the
Speaker 4: if you're interested in this, the the factors that really
Speaker 4: led to identifying him as the guy who was the
Speaker 4: probable killer. And yet the bodies hadn't even been discovered yet.
Speaker 4: Reldon on the on the the twenty first day of October. Now,
Speaker 4: these two girls had want of disappeared on the sixth
Speaker 4: and one of the fourteenth. It's now the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: first day of October. And one of the jobs up
Speaker 4: at Pulman State Park, one of the people have to
Speaker 4: do is go down and check the chlorine level at
Speaker 4: the discharge from the pool. And there's an area where
Speaker 4: it flows into the river and you test the water.
Speaker 4: And on the twenty first it's checked by Michael Bettman
Speaker 4: and he finds that the chlorine is fine, and on
Speaker 4: the same day, Robert Relvan is over in Macy's trying
Speaker 4: to point a ring, an engagement ring. Now this ring
Speaker 4: was not your typical engagement ring. Was a very special ring,
Speaker 4: specifically made and sold over in London and Harris a
Speaker 4: big department store over there, and it was very easily identifiable.
Speaker 4: And on that day he pawned it for one hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: I think it was worth a lot more, but he
Speaker 4: took one hundred dollars. That night, he comes home and
Speaker 4: there's a call from the prosecut's office erecting him to
Speaker 4: come down tomorrow to the prosecutor's office. They want to
Speaker 4: speak to him. He has to go because he's out
Speaker 4: on parole. But now he's thinking, yesterday I pulled the ring.
Speaker 4: They're making me come down today. He had no idea
Speaker 4: how much they knew or anything, and they really didn't
Speaker 4: know anything. They just wanted him to come in to
Speaker 4: me speak to him. So he's spoken to him. Now
Speaker 4: he panics. The next day he goes back to Macy's
Speaker 4: and he wants his ring back. They have to keep
Speaker 4: it for fifteen days if somebody wants to redeem it.
Speaker 4: They have to let them buy it back, but the
Speaker 4: ring can't be found. That he causes such a stink
Speaker 4: in the office, screaming about this ring he's got to have.
Speaker 4: They have to cause security to calm him down. Finally
Speaker 4: the ring is found and he leaves with the ring,
Speaker 4: and that's the last time that ring has ever seen.
Speaker 4: But now later on security when he's arrested later for
Speaker 4: these a couple of stupid break ins the houses. Security
Speaker 4: from Macy's calls the prosecutors often tells them about this
Speaker 4: situation involving the ring. If he hadn't made such a
Speaker 4: stink that that never would have happened. They never would
Speaker 4: have found it. And the ring and his possession of
Speaker 4: it was the most vital piece of evidence they had.
Speaker 4: This ring belonged to missus Haynes, and it was the
Speaker 4: most significant piece of evidence we had with respect to
Speaker 4: who who murdered her? So uh what happened?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 4: The bodies are found in a couple of days. The
Speaker 4: first body is found by Michael Shaling I think was
Speaker 4: the name. Let me see.
Speaker 3: Up in up.
Speaker 4: In the reservoir at the Clarkstown so uh in lake
Speaker 4: the forest. Matthew shambling find he finds the body of
Speaker 4: Susan Haynes. The body is really uh uh, pretty well,
Speaker 4: eaten up by animals and decaying things of that nature.
Speaker 4: The next morning, now, now this is right where Relden
Speaker 4: and Judith Rosenberg were living after he got married, after
Speaker 4: he came out of jail. This is right in the
Speaker 4: immediate area where they lived. The next morning, the body
Speaker 4: of Susan Reeve is found, and that's found in Tauman
Speaker 4: State Park. That is exactly where Reldon and ROBERTA. Gimbal
Speaker 4: had had a picnic on a day in August in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy five, a month or so before this happened.
Speaker 4: And the interesting thing was that body was found by
Speaker 4: the fellow who comes down to check the chlorine level. Again,
Speaker 4: it wasn't there on the twenty first, but this is
Speaker 4: there on the twenty eighth, I think twenty not whatever
Speaker 4: the date was. And the body, the second body had
Speaker 4: willow lees. As the body had started to disintegrate, willow
Speaker 4: leies had fallen on and started to become imbued in
Speaker 4: the in the in the body as it started to
Speaker 4: bleach out as the body started melting, and there were
Speaker 4: no willow leaves in that particular area, not the willow
Speaker 4: trees in that area, but where Susan Haynes's body was found,
Speaker 4: there were plenty of willow willow trees. So the body
Speaker 4: which had not been in the water in the lake
Speaker 4: in the Tallman State Park clearly had been at a
Speaker 4: different location at least some period of time. And it
Speaker 4: was in that week between the time of the two
Speaker 4: examinations of the water in the pipe believing the pool.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly when Reldon got panicked and started to
Speaker 4: do things to try and cover up these murders. And
Speaker 4: and one of the things that he admitted to the
Speaker 4: Williams brothers while he was in jail that he had
Speaker 4: moved the bodies and he shouldn't have done that. He
Speaker 4: he he tried to put them up in New York
Speaker 4: State to get away from police looking at him, and
Speaker 4: it just didn't work. And moving the bodies, he said,
Speaker 4: was a mistake. So they were the things that really started,
Speaker 4: you know, made everyone pretty sure that Relvin was the
Speaker 4: person who was involved in these killings.
Speaker 6: So that was the police have enough evidence. So when
Speaker 6: did police have enough evidence and what did they do
Speaker 6: as a result of that evidence? In terms of charging
Speaker 6: them for well the murder, it was grand jury.
Speaker 4: What they didn't they didn't do anything. They they they
Speaker 4: they were gathering evidence. The sand blasting mask was found
Speaker 4: on the street right right up the street from where
Speaker 4: uh miss Reeve disappeared, within within twenty five yards and
Speaker 4: where you know she was pulled into the car and
Speaker 4: we we think that the mask got kicked out during
Speaker 4: the struggle. It was important evidence. It was a sand
Speaker 4: blasting mask with the the the glass plate kicked out.
Speaker 4: There was people who had seen them in close proximity
Speaker 4: to a car which was exactly like the car that
Speaker 4: Relvin had and there's a picture of it in the book.
Speaker 4: It's a truck car really loaded with working equipment, things
Speaker 4: of that nature. So they didn't do anything yet and
Speaker 4: they're still trying to accumulate evidence because like the call
Speaker 4: from Macy's didn't come for a week or so. But
Speaker 4: we were told the police were told that Reldon, if
Speaker 4: he was the one who did these murders, the psychologist
Speaker 4: from Trenton to Hospital not prender Gas, but one of
Speaker 4: his associates said he's likely to do something really stupid
Speaker 4: deliberately to get caught. To sort of get him in
Speaker 4: jail and take him out of the crosshairs of this
Speaker 4: murder investigation. So what happens on the thirtieth and thirty
Speaker 4: first of October. He commits two daylight breaking entries, one
Speaker 4: right across the street where he's doing his sand blasting
Speaker 4: on that doctor's house in the daytime with his car there,
Speaker 4: and one on another one in a house in Norwood
Speaker 4: where he climbs sight on the second story right well,
Speaker 4: the woman's in the bedroom, and he runs away. He's
Speaker 4: caught and put in jail. He almost immediately pleads guilty
Speaker 4: those He gets sent away for two to three years
Speaker 4: in state's prison on the two B and eas and
Speaker 4: his hope is they're gonna forget about me now they
Speaker 4: got other things to do. I'm here in state's prison.
Speaker 4: But so the police do nothing. They can continue really
Speaker 4: just to try and accumulate evidence against him so he'll
Speaker 4: arrest him. As matter of fact, he was never arrested
Speaker 4: on these charges. He was actually indicted when the investigation
Speaker 4: was concluded, but he had never been arrested on them.
Speaker 4: And it's in the prison that he on these charges
Speaker 4: that he needs to Williams brothers and he gets involved
Speaker 4: in this plan to murder his aunt to try and
Speaker 4: get money to he hires Edward Bennett Williams firm Williams
Speaker 4: and Conley, a big, big time Washington, d C. Law firm.
Speaker 4: His aunt gives them seventy five thousand dollars to pay
Speaker 4: for the initial representation will probably cost them a million
Speaker 4: and a half dollars altogether, but she gives them seventy
Speaker 4: five thousand off the bat and maybe two hundred thousand
Speaker 4: representation then the event she gives him the money to
Speaker 4: hire them, and it turns out now the police are
Speaker 4: undergoing this second investigation involving the plan to kill the ant,
Speaker 4: and he's arrested on that charge while he's in prison
Speaker 4: as he's planning this murder, and they back right out
Speaker 4: of the case. They leave New Jersey then and they're
Speaker 4: not going to represent him on the murder case.
Speaker 6: But he then has Sorry, Charles, and let's go back
Speaker 6: a little because you're skipping over some really fun stuff here.
Speaker 6: Because the Williams brothers, most people of these jailhouse snitches
Speaker 6: are famous. People have seen numerous cases where they're seeing
Speaker 6: on television where the cross examination says, what did you
Speaker 6: get for this? What deal did you get for this?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 6: Tell us about the Williams. Why they came in close
Speaker 6: proximity with Reldon? Why on earth Reldon confide in these
Speaker 6: guys about the conspiracy? To explain this? And then what
Speaker 6: happens with the Williams. Who do they contact? Is there
Speaker 6: a plea agreement? And if there isn't, why would on
Speaker 6: earth would they do this? Explain a little bit more
Speaker 6: about the relationship, the kinds of things that Reldon started
Speaker 6: telling them, and what did they do as a result.
Speaker 4: All right, Rev Reldon's in prison. He's doing his two
Speaker 4: to three year term for the two b and ees.
Speaker 4: He has a close friend, a guy who he's come
Speaker 4: very close with down here. His name is al Albert
Speaker 4: Barber called the Buzzard is his nickname, and they're very
Speaker 4: close and spending a lot of time together down in
Speaker 4: Railway State Prison. The Williams brothers are really big time,
Speaker 4: I mean big time breaking entry guys. They are famous
Speaker 4: in New Jersey, in the South Jersey area for the
Speaker 4: number of huge breaking entries and stealing thievery that they've
Speaker 4: been involved in, and the probably murders too and all.
Speaker 4: They've never been convicted of that. I mean, witnesses against
Speaker 4: them always had a strange way of disappearing just before trial. Anyway,
Speaker 4: they happen to get sent because they're they've been convicted
Speaker 4: on a B and E or something down in Trenton,
Speaker 4: and they they go to Railway State Prison and they
Speaker 4: are from Atlanta, Atlantic City area, and they know Albert
Speaker 4: Barber and Barbara vouches for him. These are Barbara Is.
Speaker 4: He's awed by them. He is, he's like hero worships
Speaker 4: of them because they're so big. So he is the
Speaker 4: one who really recommends them to Relden. He vouches for them,
Speaker 4: and they now Relden has somehow Here's here's the guy
Speaker 4: who's just comes into jail and immediately gets a job
Speaker 4: in the in the UH office with one of the
Speaker 4: choice jobs in the officers dining room in the in
Speaker 4: the commissary area because he knows this h Lippert. Miss
Speaker 4: Slippert was a guard for the prison guard who knew
Speaker 4: him when he was in jail earlier in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: But so they they he speaks for them, Barbara does,
Speaker 4: and they get to SOB and Reldon gets them hired.
Speaker 4: He talks to miss Lippert and sure, if you want him,
Speaker 4: Bob will And that's another indication of the charm this
Speaker 4: guy had. He gets a prison guard to do his
Speaker 4: bidding who he wants hired to work with him, and
Speaker 4: he's very plush jobs and anyone, well everyone in the
Speaker 4: prison wants these jobs, but he gets them there. So
Speaker 4: they are very close and Relden has been thinking, according
Speaker 4: to the Williams brothers, Reland has been thinking about this plan,
Speaker 4: what your plan is to rob the end he wants
Speaker 4: to go there and get a lot of money to
Speaker 4: help pay for a defense. As it progresses, about the
Speaker 4: time he is indicted on the murders. Now that happens
Speaker 4: in January when nineteen seventy seven, I believed January twentieth
Speaker 4: seventy seven, he's indicted on the murders, and it's a surprise.
Speaker 4: He wasn't really didn't think it was going to happen
Speaker 4: at that time. But he's indicted and now it sort
Speaker 4: of changes. At the same time. Never mind a robbery,
Speaker 4: let's murder her. And so the idea is, it's not
Speaker 4: the Williams brother are going to do to murder because
Speaker 4: they're in jail with him. He wants it done immediately,
Speaker 4: and he wants them to provide a hitman. Now, the
Speaker 4: Williams brothers don't know if they're being set up. I mean,
Speaker 4: they are people who are targeted by by law enforcer
Speaker 4: for years and they didn't know if they were being
Speaker 4: set up. So one of the things they do if
Speaker 4: they decide, well, we'll call the police and let them
Speaker 4: know what's happening. And they reach out to the because
Speaker 4: the indictment the news. The indictment was released on January
Speaker 4: twentieth of seventy seven, and it was in the paper.
Speaker 4: So the Williams asked his wife to call the prosecutors
Speaker 4: off in Burn County, and the she calls and tells
Speaker 4: Ed Benning, who was the chief investigator on the murder cases,
Speaker 4: that the brothers have information concerning these murders. Now, right away,
Speaker 4: red flags go up as you start to say, you
Speaker 4: can't believe much of what the prison inmates tell you. You know,
Speaker 4: they're looking for a deal, trying to buy some time
Speaker 4: off their sins, whatever it is. They're looking for something.
Speaker 4: But he goes down and talks to him and after
Speaker 4: telling all the story about this comments that the realvan
Speaker 4: made about moving the bodies and things like that. They say, oh,
Speaker 4: by the way, he also got us involved in a
Speaker 4: plan to kill the ant. And this is like some
Speaker 4: off the wall. Denning can't believe this is happening, so
Speaker 4: but they give it some credence. They see letters back
Speaker 4: and forth between Relvin, who was transferred from Railway to
Speaker 4: Trends State Prison after he's indicted on the murders, a
Speaker 4: more secure location, and now there's al Barbera and Reldon
Speaker 4: are sending letters back and forth which have references to
Speaker 4: this job, this other job that needs to be done
Speaker 4: involving the Williams brothers. So they finally decide to have
Speaker 4: a meeting with a guy that the Williams brothers have selected,
Speaker 4: and it turns out to be a Nick Gallo, who
Speaker 4: is an investigator that I worked with in the Burton
Speaker 4: County Prosecutor's office. He's a guy who's very good at
Speaker 4: this kind of work. He's done many of them. He
Speaker 4: goes down and has the conversations with Reldon in jail,
Speaker 4: and then the second one. I mean that it's a
Speaker 4: face to face in the prison. Reldon lays it all out.
Speaker 4: He wants this woman killed. It doesn't bother him that
Speaker 4: it's his aunt. He wants the boyfriend killed. He wants
Speaker 4: it done. He can't be done till May because he
Speaker 4: needs he needs the aunt to make the money available
Speaker 4: for the defense on the murder cases. So he doesn't
Speaker 4: want anything to interfere with that until after, after that's
Speaker 4: all set up, then then they can murder him. So
Speaker 4: it's that time after all that goes, I think it's
Speaker 4: it's sometime in March thirtieth something like that that they
Speaker 4: get down to rest Albert Barber and Robert Reldon for
Speaker 4: the murders and moving Williams brothers out of Trenton because
Speaker 4: their lives were in danger once it became known that
Speaker 4: they had rated on the on Reldon. So that I mean,
Speaker 4: then it happens. You know that the relbn's now charged
Speaker 4: with two indict He's not indicted till April in the
Speaker 4: in the plan to kill the ant, but by the
Speaker 4: time May of nineteen seventy seven, nineteen seventy seven, he's
Speaker 4: got two big indictments. One a plan to kill, conspiracy
Speaker 4: to kill his aunt and her boyfriend, and murder the
Speaker 4: murder of Susan Reeve and Susan Haynes. These are both
Speaker 4: hanging over his head. And now the problem becomes trial.
Speaker 4: Which case gets tried first? Then how do we proceeed?
Speaker 6: So why does the you talked about him and we
Speaker 6: just said in the you talk about in your book too,
Speaker 6: that right away once there was that this murder indictment,
Speaker 6: his his big high powered law team just said to
Speaker 6: see you later. Now, why is that? Did they figure
Speaker 6: he wouldn't be able to afford what? Why wouldn't they
Speaker 6: stay for that?
Speaker 4: Was? That's exactly the point. They knew that they knew
Speaker 4: that we that the Reldon hadn't provided the initial seventy
Speaker 4: five thousand dollars. They knew it had come from Aunt Lilian. Now,
Speaker 4: they didn't know that Lillian was going to stick by
Speaker 4: Reldin all through that trial. So, but they assumed that
Speaker 4: the source of ons had now dried up. They immediately,
Speaker 4: within a day or so, had promotion to be to
Speaker 4: withdraw from New Jersey. You know, if you're an out
Speaker 4: of state attorney and you get permission to come the
Speaker 4: state to handle a case like this, if you don't,
Speaker 4: if you want to get out, you've got to get
Speaker 4: out of almost immediately once you're in for a period
Speaker 4: of time. Yeah, I won't let you leave. That's the problem. Yea.
Speaker 4: They made a professional decision, let's get out of here
Speaker 4: before it's too late and we have to try this
Speaker 4: relving case and have no money coming in from it.
Speaker 4: So that's what.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they just knew, They just knew they had a
Speaker 6: sinking shift there with that kind of client as well
Speaker 6: talking and then.
Speaker 4: I mean the ant I mean all through the trials.
Speaker 4: She she in fact, aunt Lillian testified for Reldon in
Speaker 4: the in the trial of the charges to kill her
Speaker 4: and her friend Misha, and she just wouldn't believe it
Speaker 4: was him. She never even changed her will. She just
Speaker 4: didn't care. Bobby wouldn't do this to me. He was
Speaker 4: her favorite.
Speaker 6: How on earth did he talk her into believing that
Speaker 6: the prosecutors and the police were somehow mistaken or he
Speaker 6: was innocent of this conspiracy to murder her and her companions.
Speaker 4: Well, I told you how charming he was. He just
Speaker 4: could charm women. But really, what he did he came
Speaker 4: up with a story. His story was that he knew this,
Speaker 4: He knew that the Williams brothers were really working with
Speaker 4: the police, and he decided to embarrass and he's going
Speaker 4: to go along with him, and at the very last
Speaker 4: minute he was going to call a newspaper reporter from
Speaker 4: the Bergen Record who he was friendly with, and lay
Speaker 4: the whole story out. But he says it was frustrated
Speaker 4: because the prosecutors got their indictments so quickly, he didn't
Speaker 4: have a chance to tell everyone that he was in
Speaker 4: on this all the way. I mean, it's a ridiculous,
Speaker 4: but what else could he say? That?
Speaker 5: That was his.
Speaker 4: Argument, and continued.
Speaker 6: She continued to support him, she testified for him. She
Speaker 6: didn't she didn't change her will, and then she died
Speaker 6: in two thousand and seven, yes, yes, and giving him
Speaker 6: eight point nine million dollars.
Speaker 4: Well, she actually what she did was, I think there
Speaker 4: were six brothers and sisters. She gave five. There were
Speaker 4: five other you know, five brothers and sisters left, and
Speaker 4: she gave each of them whatever it was, twenty some
Speaker 4: million dollars. And then let's go to go to her
Speaker 4: sister and brother. Now William Reldon's mother died Marie, so
Speaker 4: her her twenty million dollars were thereabouts, was divided between Susan,
Speaker 4: Bob's sister and himself. That's how they each get eight
Speaker 4: point nine It was really the mother's money, which which
Speaker 4: was going to them because the mother had died, so
Speaker 4: that that's how the money got split up. And so
Speaker 4: you know, Reldon lost his money, but his sister still
Speaker 4: has the money and she continues to financially support him,
Speaker 4: especially with respect whose attempt overturned this this twenty year
Speaker 4: parole in eligibility that he was hit with the last
Speaker 4: time he was up for parole. I mean they denied
Speaker 4: him at that time and fixed a twenty year additional
Speaker 4: period before he'd be eligible parole. So they're attacking that
Speaker 4: through an appeal. And also the state legislature in New
Speaker 4: Jersey has now changed the law and I think it
Speaker 4: requires that he get a parole here in every three years,
Speaker 4: which you know, it's a problem a guy like this
Speaker 4: with his money. Each year he's gonna come up and
Speaker 4: they're gonna have all kinds of rons why he should
Speaker 4: get out of jail. He's no threat Anymore's sister has
Speaker 4: the money. He gave up. He gave up his money.
Speaker 4: I mean, he agreed to the consent judgment for ten
Speaker 4: million dollars, showing his you know, how generous he is.
Speaker 4: He didn't want the money. He's sure, give it to
Speaker 4: missus reed, mister and missus reed, and all these arguments
Speaker 4: that to why he should get out of jail. But
Speaker 4: it's being found financed by his sister.
Speaker 6: Now, he talked about the petitioning to the courts through
Speaker 6: civil court to get money and they were successful. Tell
Speaker 6: us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, this is not a son of standcase.
Speaker 4: You know, a criminal, by law in most states, cannot
Speaker 4: profit from his own criminal activity. This is not that
Speaker 4: kind of case. This money did not come from his
Speaker 4: criminal activity. It came as an inheritance from his aunt. Now,
Speaker 4: they had changed the law in the state of New
Speaker 4: Jersey in terms of these statute of limitations. Usually statue
Speaker 4: limitations is about two years on civil matters. But back
Speaker 4: in early in the nineteen ninety they had changed the
Speaker 4: law on murders with respect to death and you know,
Speaker 4: the wrongful death. They changed the sadly limitation say, there
Speaker 4: is no statute of limitations on wrongful death. If you
Speaker 4: can murder someone and someone will relative can prove a
Speaker 4: loss of wrongful death a law of income or something
Speaker 4: like that, you can you can sue. The problem with
Speaker 4: that is they omitted the survivor aspect of it. Uh,
Speaker 4: the survivors are different. Your your claim for survivorship is
Speaker 4: the loss of companionship, the love and affection you would
Speaker 4: have had back and forth between the decedent, the person
Speaker 4: who was murdered and the family, and they had they
Speaker 4: had omitted that it was an accident. So, uh, mister
Speaker 4: Reeve hired an attorneymed Robert Zeller, who did an incredible
Speaker 4: job in terms of changing the law to get this
Speaker 4: this this overturn, to make also the Survivor Act not
Speaker 4: have a statue of limitation. And he did that and
Speaker 4: actually Governor Corzine signed that bill on almost his last
Speaker 4: day in office here to change the law. And with
Speaker 4: that in his pocket, he then he had already filed suit,
Speaker 4: I mean relevant, offered a million dollars in settlement of
Speaker 4: this claim. They turned them down. It got to the
Speaker 4: point where it was going to have to be a trial,
Speaker 4: and Reldon threw in the towel and agreed to a
Speaker 4: ten million dollar judging against himself and the money would
Speaker 4: be It wasn't immediately all paid out. It was paid
Speaker 4: because the money's in trust. Really Reldon never had it.
Speaker 4: It's all held in trust and so it's paid over
Speaker 4: a period of time and if Realdon, if Reldon dies,
Speaker 4: that maybe the end of I forget now all the
Speaker 4: workings and mechanics of this, but the most they get
Speaker 4: is ten million dollars. They couldn't end up with less.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't matter. I mean, this man, he's a
Speaker 4: mister Reeve, is a wonderful guy. Missus Reef she was
Speaker 4: in court every day these three murdered trials. It wasn't
Speaker 4: the money, it was just the idea. He could not
Speaker 4: stand the idea that this guy would be living to
Speaker 4: have the benefit of ten million dollars, and he hurted
Speaker 4: his daughter. He just couldn't stand that. He just was
Speaker 4: not going to say, you know, until he got this
Speaker 4: change of straight out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an interesting story. The only other one I
Speaker 6: heard of anything successful like that, just for the principal
Speaker 6: was the Nicole Brown Simpson.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, with the father.
Speaker 6: He really he got oh j boy, I'll tell you
Speaker 6: if he got him in jail and got the money too.
Speaker 6: So he had little a little bit of a happy ending.
Speaker 6: But there really is no happy endings in these stories, right.
Speaker 4: So the interesting thing about Reldon is, you know, we
Speaker 4: had we had. I told you. The first time he
Speaker 4: was tried on the attack on Marie Hernandez, the very
Speaker 4: first big case he's involved in, he gets a hung
Speaker 4: jury and they have to be tried again. The Cacklin
Speaker 4: rape case. First trial, he gets a hung jury. His
Speaker 4: first murder trial, the double murder trial, happens in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy seventy nine in I guess May and nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 4: he gets a hung jury. One of the jurors fell
Speaker 4: in love with him. One of the jurors just disregarded
Speaker 4: her owth completely and just set in there. I am
Speaker 4: not convicting him. His family's there. They didn't. This man
Speaker 4: can't have been the one who'd done this. We know
Speaker 4: that for a fact because one of the jurors was
Speaker 4: the daughter of a Bergen County Prosecutor's Office detective. Now
Speaker 4: the defendants knew who she was, but they decided to
Speaker 4: take her. She was an African American, and I think
Speaker 4: they liked the idea of having some diversity, maybe you know,
Speaker 4: a feeling about police and untrust. Don't trust the police.
Speaker 4: They put her on. But she told us that that's
Speaker 4: what happened. This woman fell in love with Realdon and
Speaker 4: she wasn't. Now that's a third hung jury. It's just
Speaker 4: an incredible development the second trial because the first trial
Speaker 4: had been hung up in that way. I think the
Speaker 4: county prospectus sied, he's going to throw everything in and
Speaker 4: he brought in his other crime's evidence involving the rape
Speaker 4: of Missus Caplin and the assault on Missus Mott ms
Speaker 4: Mott at the time, and the courts found that that
Speaker 4: was The trial judge allowed it, but the Colored courts
Speaker 4: ruled that was too prejudicial defendent, and they threw the
Speaker 4: conviction out. So it took three trials to try them
Speaker 4: for these murders. And the things that happened, I mean,
Speaker 4: he jumped out the third story window of a courthouse
Speaker 4: during the second trial while he was in jail between
Speaker 4: before the appeal, before the conviction was reversed. During the
Speaker 4: second trial, he developed the friendship with a very pretty
Speaker 4: woman who was a spectator in the courtroom and she
Speaker 4: used to talk to him during breaks, which Nick Galloh
Speaker 4: was just furious about. Anyway, he gets her to come
Speaker 4: down to the on Easter Sunday, to come down to
Speaker 4: the hospital and with a loaded shotgun in the bag
Speaker 4: ready to help him shoot his way out of jail.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's hard to believe these six are happening
Speaker 4: because that was Relton.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, he's a little bit of Bundy, he said.
Speaker 6: I think he's just a classic serial killer really because
Speaker 6: he's he's the consummate kind of like a Ted Bundy,
Speaker 6: very very charming really but really hell bent on having
Speaker 6: his way and being violent.
Speaker 4: Just for everyone asked were there any other murders he
Speaker 4: could have done, and we sort of researched this. He
Speaker 4: was out of jail, so for such little periods, for
Speaker 4: the time he first got out of jail, back in
Speaker 4: what he was put in for the violation of probation,
Speaker 4: back in what's seventy two, forty fifty two, fifty sixty two.
Speaker 4: They're just he was always in jail and there was
Speaker 4: never any unknown know, open murders that were done when
Speaker 4: he was out out of the prison until these two
Speaker 4: happened with Susan Reeve and Susan Haynes. So everyone just
Speaker 4: says he had to there had to be more, but
Speaker 4: in terms of being a serial killer, but he just
Speaker 4: he wasn't. He wasn't in free at the times.
Speaker 6: So Yeah, it's interesting to the role that Judith plays
Speaker 6: in this, but we won't give it away because I'm
Speaker 6: sure the uh, the reader would like to hear how
Speaker 6: Judith was really crucial in again enabling he had an
Speaker 6: alibi and so but there you know that story is
Speaker 6: quite interesting little aside to the trial as well. What
Speaker 6: Judith Rosenberg did in this as well in her contribution, Well,
Speaker 6: but you.
Speaker 4: Don't understand that a waye she she's madly in love
Speaker 4: with him. She believed that women do what he would
Speaker 4: ask him to do.
Speaker 6: So, like I said, I think he has all the
Speaker 6: he has all the character you know, done this for
Speaker 6: a few years now, and then he is among the
Speaker 6: has the same kind of characteristics as a lot of
Speaker 6: these guys Abundi the Rameirez. You have to have a
Speaker 6: lot of charm to be able to do what this
Speaker 6: gentleman did, and yet you know, you go from charming
Speaker 6: to this rage. So it's interesting.
Speaker 4: So well, the funny The funny thing is, I know
Speaker 4: we're over time or anything, but when I was trying
Speaker 4: it for the third time, I didn't try it the
Speaker 4: first two times as a county prosecutor's office tried it,
Speaker 4: but the defense argued there was a conflict of interest,
Speaker 4: so they sent me up from Trent to try the
Speaker 4: third case. When I was trying the case, there were
Speaker 4: two men in the courtroom and each day they're writing everything,
Speaker 4: copious notes. And I got told to them and they
Speaker 4: are writing, They're going to write a book. Now, this
Speaker 4: is nineteen eighty six. They're going to write a book
Speaker 4: on Robert Reldan, you know about these two murder cases.
Speaker 4: I well, that's great. So I wait, I mean, I'm now,
Speaker 4: I'm back to office. I'm doing other things tire in
Speaker 4: ninety five, but there's never a book I had. Then
Speaker 4: I get a signed up as the acting prosecutor in
Speaker 4: Bergen County for a couple of years, and I now
Speaker 4: have access to all this information. I've said, let me
Speaker 4: try and take a look at this and see if
Speaker 4: I can write a book. And I started writing. I
Speaker 4: wrote about five chapters. I read it and I realized
Speaker 4: I don't have the skills that are needed to make
Speaker 4: this assailable product. But I didn't know rich Beauty, and
Speaker 4: we worked together in the office, and I knew he
Speaker 4: had written a book, and I spoke to him. At first,
Speaker 4: he wasn't too enthused. About it. But then I gave
Speaker 4: him about twelve boxes of material. He read through it all.
Speaker 4: He said, you know, there is a book here. And
Speaker 4: that's when we started together and pushing put this together.
Speaker 4: And it's been it was like gues a three year
Speaker 4: job and it's we're very proud of what we were
Speaker 4: able to put together. So that's where we stand.
Speaker 6: Very great read. It's you know, it's hard, as you know,
Speaker 6: to take the the research and then turn that into
Speaker 6: exciting page turner. You know, it's you've done it. You've
Speaker 6: done it. And that's why it takes so long to
Speaker 6: do that because, as you know, you've got to pour
Speaker 6: over it and go, well, we've got to take that out,
Speaker 6: and we've got to and we really have to. You
Speaker 6: have to really cut out all the fat. And there's
Speaker 6: a lot of stuff that you got to go through,
Speaker 6: like you say, boxes and boxes and stuff that could
Speaker 6: be in there and should be in there maybe, but yeah,
Speaker 6: and it.
Speaker 4: Was very rich. It was very adept at doing exactly that.
Speaker 4: I mean, when I write, I write, I write something
Speaker 4: with twenty five pages. He'd do it in seven or
Speaker 4: eight because he just knew he had an author's concept
Speaker 4: as to what's needed to just get by. You just
Speaker 4: can't put every single thing in a book. It would
Speaker 4: be like war and peace, he says, you just can't
Speaker 4: do that. So what what's turned out is primarily his
Speaker 4: final product, and it's in my eye it's really great.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I know it's very good. And you've done a great
Speaker 6: interview yourself. And I want to thank you this evening
Speaker 6: for explaining the book to our audience as well. We
Speaker 6: have a Rabbit true crime fan fanship here and people
Speaker 6: comment all the time, so I'll let you know what
Speaker 6: kind of numbers and if anybody did make any specific
Speaker 6: comments or inquiries. But people just love the show, and
Speaker 6: and thank you very much for coming on explaining about
Speaker 6: this book The Charmer, about Robert Redland and Reldin pardon me,
Speaker 6: and his fascinating tale and his incredible and who's stuck
Speaker 6: by him all the way. It's an amazing story of
Speaker 6: naivety and and family sticking together just for family's sake. Wow,
Speaker 6: what a story, you know, So I want to thank you,
Speaker 6: thank you very.
Speaker 4: Much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you, Charles. And just one just before I go,
Speaker 6: is there a website that you have for this book.
Speaker 6: Obviously people go to Amazon, and they go to their
Speaker 6: local bookstore and people can look you guys up. Then
Speaker 6: it's easy to just to type in the charmer as well.
Speaker 6: But is there any special website you have or any
Speaker 6: information not.
Speaker 4: That I have no now, whether Rich has one, I'm
Speaker 4: not sure.
Speaker 6: Right well, people like say, Amazon's a great marketer for books.
Speaker 6: Everybody goes to Amazon and it's you can't beat the prices,
Speaker 6: and and I'm sure it's going to be in bookstores
Speaker 6: as well. And Entitle Town's a publisher too, so in
Speaker 6: the last couple of years it's they've been quite prominent
Speaker 6: in publishing really good titles and with some good authors
Speaker 6: and some great stories.
Speaker 4: So they've been very nice to work with. O. Yeah, Dan,
Speaker 4: very very much.
Speaker 6: Okay, thank you, have a good night, Charles, you too, fine,
Speaker 6: all right,