Fred Neulander, rabbi serving life sentence, dies in prison at 82

• Published date: 20 April 2024
• Author: ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The New Jersey Department of Corrections website lists Neulander as deceased and says his "date out of custody" was Thursday. Local news outlets are reporting that Neulander was found unresponsive in a prison infirmary and pronounced dead on Wednesday

In a case that riveted the Philadelphia area and American Jewry for years, Neulander, the founding rabbi of the 1,000-family M'kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was convicted in 2002 of paying confessed killers Len Jenoff and Paul Michael Daniels to murder his wife so that he could freely carry on a love affair with former Philadelphia radio personality Elaine Soncini.

Carol Neulander, 52, was found lying dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor of the family home in Cherry Hill in November 1994. She had been brutally bludgeoned to death. Neulander resigned from the synagogue several months later, after investigators found evidence of his affair, but he was not arrested for nearly four years.

Neulander's first trial on the murder charges ended in a hung jury.

But on Nov. 20, 2002, eight years and 19 days after the murder of his wife, the Reform rabbi, 61 years old at the time, was found guilty on all counts for capital murder, felony murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Camden County Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch later described the slaying as a classic case of murder for hire.

Neulander's murder conviction

He was spared the death penalty only after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the sentence, as required under New Jersey law.

Jenoff, who had been posing as the rabbi's private investigator, confessed to a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter that he was the rabbi's hit man. He later came forward and confessed his role in the crime to investigators from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Jenoff and Daniels were both released from prison in 2014 after spending about 14 years in custody.

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