Len Jenoff: From Hired Killer to Star Witness

Len Jenoff is the confessed hit man who beat Carol Neulander to death in her Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home on November 1, 1994, on a murder-for-hire contract arranged by her husband, Rabbi Fred Neulander. He kept the secret for more than five years, then confessed to a newspaper reporter in April 2000, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and became the prosecution’s central witness at the rabbi’s 2002 trial. He served roughly 14 years of a 23-year sentence and was released in January 2014.¹

Who Jenoff Was Before the Murder

Jenoff grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He had no formal Jewish education, never had a bar mitzvah, and later described deep feelings of inferiority about his Jewish identity. In 1986 he caused a car accident that killed an 18-year-old, and afterward developed a severe drinking problem. By 1991 he had lost his job and his family. He stopped drinking on December 19, 1991, entered an intensive Alcoholics Anonymous program, and in April 1992 moved into a group home for recovering alcoholics in Cherry Hill.²

Through the 1980s and 1990s he worked for several private investigators, unlicensed, mostly interviewing witnesses on insurance claims. Around that work he built an elaborate false identity. For roughly 14 years he told people he had worked for the CIA. Agency officials confirmed to the Philadelphia Inquirer this was untrue. He also falsely claimed to have graduated from Monmouth College, to have been an employee of the Baltimore Police Department, and to have served in Vietnam; records showed he served as a cook in the Army Reserve within the United States. He even produced a photograph of Ronald Reagan on a horse, purportedly inscribed “To Len Jenoff, a loyal friend and comrade in arms.” Handwriting analysis indicated Jenoff had forged the inscription himself. He later attributed the lying to “inferiority and low self-esteem.”³²

How Rabbi Neulander Recruited Him

In June 1993, after Jenoff’s AA sponsor learned he was considering converting to Christianity, Fred Neulander called and invited him to Temple M’Kor Shalom in Cherry Hill. Jenoff later testified the rabbi was “very warm” and “gracious,” told him he should not feel inferior about lacking a bar mitzvah, and made him feel important over the months that followed.²

By spring 1994, Neulander asked Jenoff whether he would “kill for the State of Israel.” After Jenoff agreed, the rabbi identified an “enemy to the State of Israel” living in Cherry Hill and eventually disclosed that the target was his own wife, Carol Neulander. He agreed to pay Jenoff $30,000 and also promised to help him secure a job with Mossad.⁴⁵

Neulander’s motive, prosecutors later established, was his affair with Philadelphia-area radio broadcaster Elaine Soncini, which had begun in December 1992. By summer 1994, Soncini had told him she intended to move on by January 1, 1995, if they could not be together publicly. Neulander feared a divorce would end his position at the synagogue he had founded.⁴

The Murder

In July or August 1994, Jenoff recruited his roommate at the group home, 20-year-old Paul Michael Daniels, who had been through two treatment programs for alcohol and drug addiction. Neulander instructed that Daniels be paid out of the $30,000 total. In late September or early October, the rabbi handed Jenoff $7,500 in cash as a down payment, and Jenoff gave half to Daniels.⁴

Neulander gave Jenoff a hand-drawn map of the family home. He specified the killing take place on a Tuesday night, when he would be at the synagogue and his son Matthew would be at work, and he directed Jenoff to use a blunt instrument rather than a knife so the scene would look like a robbery gone wrong.⁴

On October 25, 1994, Jenoff made a first attempt, going to the house posing as a deliveryman, but he could not find Carol’s purse (which he was supposed to steal to stage the robbery) and left without attacking her. Neulander pressured him to finish the job. A week later, on the evening of November 1, 1994, Jenoff and Daniels returned with metal pipes. Carol Neulander, 52, was beaten to death in her living room. Jenoff testified he struck her first and Daniels continued the attack.⁴⁵

The Cover-Up Years

After the killing, Neulander hired Jenoff as a “private detective” to investigate his own wife’s murder. The arrangement ran from March 1995 to October 1998 and served as a vehicle to funnel the remaining payments. Jenoff submitted bills to Neulander and to the rabbi’s defense counsel and was paid in varying amounts. In that phony investigator role, he steered people away from the truth, at one point introducing a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter to a “psychic” who produced a fake sketch of the killer, and complaining openly about Neulander owing him “thousands of dollars” for investigative services to make the cover story more plausible.⁴³

Neulander was not arrested for nearly four years. He resigned from his synagogue after investigators uncovered the affair, and was finally arrested in September 1998.⁶

How Jenoff Confessed

During the five years he carried the secret, Jenoff developed an unusual relationship with Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Nancy Phillips, who had been covering the case since 1995. She had first met him in February 1995, when he introduced himself to reporters as the rabbi’s private investigator. Over the following years she stayed in touch, bought him meals, and discussed their shared Jewish faith. Jenoff later testified he felt a “fantasy or crush” on her and trusted her because she promised their conversations were protected by the First Amendment.⁷

On November 1, 1996, the second anniversary of the murder, Jenoff made a veiled, hypothetical confession to Phillips. In December 1999 he explicitly told her he had arranged the murder at the rabbi’s request, but insisted the information stay off the record, and she honored that.⁷

On April 28, 2000, Jenoff asked Phillips to drive him to Philadelphia to show her sites related to the crime. During the trip he decided to turn himself in. Phillips called Camden County Prosecutor Lee A. Solomon from her cell phone, and the three met at Weber’s Colonial Diner in Audubon, New Jersey. Over three hours, with homicide investigator Martin Devlin also present, Jenoff calmly confessed.³

Days later, on May 1, investigators fitted Jenoff with a body wire and sent him to persuade Daniels to confess as well. The operation worked. On May 5, Jenoff gave a detailed recorded statement explicitly implicating Fred Neulander. On June 1, 2000, he pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter.⁴

Testimony and Attacks on His Credibility

Neulander’s first trial ended in a hung jury. At the second trial in the fall of 2002, Jenoff took the stand as the prosecution’s central witness. He testified in detail about the rabbi’s recruitment, the “enemy of Israel” ruse, the $30,000 payment, the promised Mossad job, the hand-drawn map, the first failed attempt, and the murder itself.⁸

Defense attorneys attacked his credibility hard. They highlighted his years of lying about the CIA, fake college degrees, and fabricated military service. They put on testimony from inmates and acquaintances who said Jenoff had previously told them Neulander “had absolutely nothing to do with it” and that the killing was a “botched burglary” or that Daniels had “snapped” on his own. They pointed to evidence that Jenoff anticipated book and movie deals and expected to emerge as a “hero.”⁴

The defense also sought to introduce evidence of Jenoff’s possible involvement in a separate unsolved murder. Janice Bell, 33, had been stabbed to death in her Voorhees, New Jersey, home on December 7, 1995. An inmate testified that Jenoff confessed to participating in the Bell killing, saying he had dropped off an accomplice at the home and later feared he had left identifiable tire marks at the scene. Jenoff denied involvement and provided an alibi, but the defense found his claimed alibi date was off by one day. He was never charged in Bell’s death, and the case remains unsolved.⁹

The prosecution did not rest on Jenoff alone. Elaine Soncini testified about the affair and Neulander’s statements before the murder, and other witnesses corroborated key details. On November 20, 2002, the jury convicted Fred Neulander of capital murder, felony murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.¹⁰

Sentence and Release

On January 30, 2003, Judge Linda G. Baxter sentenced Jenoff to 23 years in prison with parole eligibility after 10 years. He had already served three. Baxter acknowledged that his cooperation had been critical, telling him that without it “there is a considerably strong possibility that the most culpable co-defendant, Fred Neulander, might have been acquitted,” and she credited him for coming forward when he was not even a suspect. She was blunt about the rest: “Let me be very clear. You are and you were a calculating murderer. You’re not entitled to be praised or complimented. Greed, plain and simple, motivated you.”¹¹¹²

Paul Daniels received the same 23-year sentence. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia and was on multiple medications during trial. He admitted hitting Carol Neulander twice with a metal pipe and testified he spent his $7,500 on “girls, clothes, drugs.”¹³

Jenoff was released from Mid-State Correctional Facility in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on January 24, 2014, after serving roughly 14 years. His release came earlier than the initially scheduled date of February 14; corrections officials attributed the change to good-behavior credits, security concerns, and other factors. He was not required to report to a parole officer.¹¹⁴ Daniels was released on October 1, 2014, after serving more than 14 years.¹⁵

The Recantation He Later Took Back

In January 2009, Jenoff signed a sworn affidavit recanting his trial testimony. In it he stated: “Fred Neulander never asked me to kill his wife, and to the best of my knowledge he never had any idea of any attempt on his wife’s life.” He claimed law enforcement had pressured him to implicate the rabbi and alleged that prosecutors had reneged on a “sweetheart deal” promising him a five-year sentence.¹⁶

Neulander’s court-appointed lawyer filed the affidavit in June 2009 with a petition for post-conviction relief and a new trial. In 2010, Jenoff wrote to the court and retracted the recantation. In a 2012 interview he told NBC Philadelphia: “The truth is Fred Neulander hired me to kill his wife. I will say that every day until the day I die.” He said he had recanted in 2009 because he “felt bad” for the rabbi and had received “bad advice” that changing his story might help him get out sooner.¹⁷

On July 28, 2016, the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division upheld the trial court’s denial of Neulander’s petition. Judges Joseph Yannotti and Francis J. Vernoia concluded in a 28-page opinion that Neulander had failed to show Jenoff’s original trial testimony was false or perjured, noting that Jenoff himself had retracted the recantation, and finding the argument “without sufficient merit to warrant discussion.”¹⁸

1
NBC Philadelphia. Hit Man Jenoff Released
2
CNN. Neulander Trial Coverage, November 2002
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The Philadelphia Inquirer. A Tale of Murder That Took Years to Unfold
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Justia. State v. Neulander, Appellate Division Opinion
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The New York Times. Fred J. Neulander
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Jewish Exponent. Fred Neulander Dies in Prison at 82
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American Journalism Review. Reporter and Source in the Neulander Case
8
CNN. Neulander Trial Coverage, October 2002
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CNN. Neulander Trial Coverage, October 2002
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The New York Times. Younger Son Asks Jury to Spare Rabbi’s Life
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CNN. Neulander Hitmen Sentenced
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The New York Times. Two Hit Men Get 23-Year Terms for Killing Wife of a Rabbi
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SouthJersey.com. Neulander Case: Conflicting Testimonies
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6ABC. Jenoff Released From Prison
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CBS News Philadelphia. Neulander Conspirator Paul Daniels Released From Prison After 14 Years
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CBS News. Confessed Hit Man Recants Claims Against Rabbi in Notorious Slaying
17
NBC Philadelphia. Len Jenoff Loved Rabbi Neulander Enough to Kill for Him
18
Courier-Post. Neulander Loses Latest Appeal in Murder Case