Rod Covlin allegedly “made statements [to his girlfriend] implicating himself” in the New Year’s Eve 2009 slaying of his banker wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, who was found dead in a bathtub at her Upper West Side apartment. And those statements – and rapidly ticking timeline nearing a big payday for Covlin – allegedly triggered his arrest this week, almost six years after the murder.
Above: Shele Danishefsky Covlin
Then New York Post reports:
…Rod Covlin, 42, “made statements [to his girlfriend] implicating himself” in the New Year’s Eve 2009 slaying of his banker wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, who was found dead in a bathtub at her Upper West Side apartment, law enforcement sources said.
Covlin was less than two months away from inheriting half of her $4 million fortune until prosecutors charged him with murder Monday. The fortune has been kept in a trust due to a wrongful-death suit filed against him in 2011.
Under an agreement, Covlin could inherit the funds if he was not found responsible for Shele’s death, if the Manhattan DA said he was no longer a suspect or if six years passed after her death, court papers say.…
When Covlin’s girlfriend went to authorities, she gave them the ammunition to indict him, sources said.
“This one would be a great ‘Law & Order’ episode,” a source said.
“We always knew he did it. [But] the DA’s office is very conservative in prosecuting homicide cases. So the case proceeded very slowly.”
Covlin — a Columbia grad who sponged off his wife while pursuing a passion for backgammon — was arrested on a warrant at the Metro-North station in Scarsdale at around 11 a.m. Sunday as he headed to his weekly visit with their kids, who live with his parents.
“He was totally stunned,” said a source. “He wasn’t expecting this at all. He had a blank stare on his face.”
Shele’s family hailed the arrest.…
Cops initially thought Shele accidentally slipped. The only visible wound was a cut on her head. And, as per custom, her Orthodox Jewish parents at first refused an autopsy [at the urging of the haredi organization Misaskim and local Orthodox activists who interceded with police and the medical examiner to block the planned autopsy – FailedMessiah.com].
She was quickly buried in Hawthorne in Westchester. But nagging questions led her parents to agree to an autopsy three months later.
It found “a bone in her throat was broken by force,” a source said.
Shele’s divorce lawyer, Dominic Barbara, told The Post: “The moment I was told she died, I said, ‘He killed her’ . . . He was violent.”
Shele had received a “get,” the Jewish equivalent of a divorce, and gotten a restraining order against Covlin a month before she died.
But he still had keys to her apartment. In fact, he was living in an apartment across the hall.…
Read it all here.
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