The Girlfriends S1/E3: Bubbly, Bouncy and Very Alive

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culture Resist with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 3 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Resistance with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 2 What if you could boost your Wi-Fi to one of your devices when you need it most? Because Xfinity Wi-Fi can. Like when you need to upload 200 photos of your cat in a Santa hat to post online.

Speaker 5 We've all been there.

Speaker 6 And what if your Wi-Fi could proactively fix issues before they even happen?

Speaker 2 Xfinity Wi-Fi does that too.

Speaker 8 It's like having a little holiday helper.

Speaker 4 And what if your Wi-Fi had parental instincts built right in?

Speaker 3 So your kids are always protected online.

Speaker 2 It's Wi-Fi that's not just smart, it's brilliant. And during the holidays, that's a gift we all could use.

Speaker 3 Xfinity, imagine that.

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Speaker 12 Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Speaker 1 Where did that story come from?

Speaker 11 Book?

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Speaker 8 Novel.

Speaker 13 Hey, listener. In this episode, there's mention of suicide attempts, depression, violence, and control.
There's also the story of Gail's life full of friendship, curly hair, and the romance of youth.

Speaker 13 Probably a few swears too. So as they say in the South, sorry y'all.

Speaker 13 If you do listen and are impacted by any of our themes, you can reach out to Know More, a domestic violence charity we've partnered with.

Speaker 13 They have lots of great resources to help you or your loved ones. You can find them at nomore.org.
That's n-o-m-o-r-e dot org.

Speaker 6 Ah, baby photos.

Speaker 6 Is that you two? That's us two.

Speaker 6 And Gail.

Speaker 17 No.

Speaker 18 And Gail.

Speaker 15 That's like coming.

Speaker 18 And I was with her when we took this one. You know, you get from JC Penny, these like little things come here for a free photo.
And she made me go with her, and we took the photo.

Speaker 18 And that's her beloved cat.

Speaker 18 Here's more carefree Gails before she met and married Bob.

Speaker 18 And here's Bob.

Speaker 18 And here's Gail and Bob.

Speaker 18 Does she look happy?

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 18 I'm Elaine Katz.

Speaker 18 I'm Gail's sister.

Speaker 13 I'm Carol Fisher, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, you're listening to The Girlfriends, episode three, bubbly, bouncy, and very alive.

Speaker 13 I've got

Speaker 13 you.

Speaker 13 Yes, I've got

Speaker 13 you.

Speaker 13 I've got you, got you. I've got you, got you, I've got you.

Speaker 13 A few days before Christmas in 2022, my producer Anna visited Elaine in Westchester County, New York.

Speaker 13 Elaine had just moved houses the day before to this beautiful wood-paneled home which looked out over the Hudson River.

Speaker 13 They sat around the kitchen table for two days drinking wine out of plastic cups pulled from cardboard boxes. I wish I could have been there, though I'll admit I would have been nervous.

Speaker 13 I worried a lot about how Elaine would perceive me as a member of a lady's social club that had turned her sister's disappearance into gossip.

Speaker 13 I would hate for her to think we made light of the hardest moment of her life, but I'm really ready to learn about Gail and to show all of you who she was because I never got that chance when I first stumbled into this story.

Speaker 13 If you look at some of those old photos of their family, it's clear how similar Elaine and Gail look.

Speaker 13 They weren't even two years apart.

Speaker 18 One of our favorite sayings is Gail and I were the opposite side of the same coin.

Speaker 19 We were very different,

Speaker 18 but it was because we were responding to the same stimuli in an opposite way. So we were very close.

Speaker 18 Early in our lives, we lived in Brooklyn. And there was a school at the end of our block.
And the kids would get out.

Speaker 18 And I find this impossible when I think back on it. They would go wild and they would like sometimes start fights with us.

Speaker 18 Gail was a protector then

Speaker 18 but then she became fragile.

Speaker 18 She had psychosomatic asthma like when she got anxious she couldn't breathe.

Speaker 18 And I remember we would be in school and, you know, they had those public announcements, you know, Elaine Katz come to the nurse's office.

Speaker 18 And there there my sister would be breathing with, you know, a bag over her nose, and I would be called down there to hold her hand and calm her down.

Speaker 18 So there was like a role reversal. Although she was older than me, she had become

Speaker 18 highly emotional and fragile.

Speaker 13 Elaine, Gail, their younger brother Stephen, and their parents, Sylvia and Manny, moved to Belmore, Long Island in 1964. It's where where the girls lived out their teenage years.

Speaker 21 There was a lot of noise in our families. When we got together, it was always lots of loud discussions.
I think partly the Jewish families. Lots of debating always went on.

Speaker 13 This is Abby Bruce, Gail and Elaine's cousin.

Speaker 21 We were having a Passover or Thanksgiving or something all together. And there was a lot of tension going on between my mother and my uncle.
I forget what was going on, but I remember it being tense.

Speaker 21 And Gail went over and sat down at the piano and started playing the piano.

Speaker 21 It completely diffused the situation.

Speaker 21 She was young. We were probably, you know, 14 or 15 at the time.
I remember watching her hands on the piano and thinking, she has such beautiful hands.

Speaker 18 I would say I was into boys. Gail was into love.

Speaker 18 There's a difference. I'm not saying that Gail was boy crazy.
I was boy crazy. Gail

Speaker 18 was love crazy. Gail was engaged like twice before she graduated high school.

Speaker 17 Insanity.

Speaker 23 Gail had a way about her that she would attract a lot of attention.

Speaker 23 We were very popular in school. We were in the popular crowd.

Speaker 13 This is Gail's best friend from high school, Denise Kasenbaum.

Speaker 13 If you look through Gail's high school yearbook, you'll find Denise and Gail on the same page. They look like they could have been plucked right out of Woodstock.

Speaker 13 Denise has an air of a young Barba Streisam with long, straight Joni Mitchell hair.

Speaker 13 While Gail's Gail's rocking more of a young Cher look with her curly dark hair, flat iron long and cut to one length. Pure flower power.

Speaker 13 They met when Gail was bumped up a year after excelling at her studies. While they weren't at school, they were having lots of fun doing all the things us girls did back in the 70s.

Speaker 23 I remember being at her house and we'd go up to her room and we'd listen to Neil Young,

Speaker 13 Crosby Stills and Nish and Neil Young.

Speaker 23 That was our favorite.

Speaker 23 And she was the first person

Speaker 23 who I went to New York City with. We were only 14 and our parents let us go into Manhattan on the train and we went down to Greenwich Village and we, you know, walked around.
We met boys.

Speaker 23 We thought we were so cool.

Speaker 13 Gail graduated at 17 and followed her high school boyfriend David out to Albany in upstate New York. She was convinced he was the love of her life, but they broke up within a year or so.

Speaker 13 A few more unsuccessful relationships later and Gail was single again. But this time she was stuck in Albany for no good reason.

Speaker 13 She made a plan to enroll in a school in Colorado in the fall, but decided to stick around for one more summer.

Speaker 18 During that summer, she met John, fell in love

Speaker 18 head over heels.

Speaker 18 They had this adorable apartment facing this public square.

Speaker 18 Decorated it completely, like, you know, hippie style. She was completely vegetarian.
She had, you know, a zillion cats in the apartment. He was a struggling artist.

Speaker 18 And every now and then, because they really couldn't pay the rent, they would go, they would tell some local club that the name of their band was Rent.

Speaker 18 They would play a few gigs. They would cover whatever crap somebody wanted them to cover.
They would raise enough money for the rent.

Speaker 25 And they would stop.

Speaker 13 When his band called Odd, spelled OD, weren't trying to pay the rent, they were writing and performing an avant-garde rock opera.

Speaker 13 If you don't believe me, here it is: John's on the keys.

Speaker 13 I saw the heart of men burning the old order.

Speaker 11 People touching hands as they walked on the water.

Speaker 26 All the treasure was shared with enough for everyone.

Speaker 13 Ah, the 70s.

Speaker 13 I found her.

Speaker 18 Unfortunately, she was the daughter of professional, educated Jewish people. And our tribe doesn't really believe in rock music as a career.
And she was getting a lot of flack from her parents.

Speaker 21 Her mother was very overbearing as a mother.

Speaker 13 Here's Gail's cousin, Abby, again.

Speaker 21 And she had very high expectations of the kids.

Speaker 22 So Elaine did what...

Speaker 21 Sylvia thought she should do, and that was go be a lawyer because you're really smart. Gail didn't want to do any of that kind of thing.

Speaker 21 She was a bit of a free spirit, and that was really hard for her mother.

Speaker 18 I think she started to feel like they had to succeed.

Speaker 13 Gail moved down to New York City, where she enrolled in a dance therapy program and started fronting the band music producers.

Speaker 18 And she even got a job as a cocktail waitress at Trax, T-R-A-X.

Speaker 18 which was one of the hottest rock clubs in the city.

Speaker 13 I think Gail and I would have been fast friends. I swooned over my fair share of rock stars too, starting with the Monkees as a young girl, and later, Eric Clapton and Mick Fleetwood.

Speaker 13 Rock and roll musicians represented everything opposite from an overbearing Jewish mother, and crushing on them felt like a certain kind of freedom.

Speaker 13 So I totally understand why Gail wanted it to work with John. I wanted a guy like him too.

Speaker 13 At Tracks, Gail met big-name producers and record label AR guys. She even got friendly with Cindy Lauper.

Speaker 13 But no one was really biting at her rock opera offering. It was pretty lonely.

Speaker 13 Sitting in her Manhattan apartment, Gail would write John poems describing how much she missed him.

Speaker 13 Here's Elaine reading one of them.

Speaker 18 It is a poem of loneliness about which I write. Words, thoughts, and images seem to come best to me in the dead of the night.

Speaker 18 Alone, I am in my own quiet room, hoping that this feeling will go away soon.

Speaker 18 I close my eyes and wish you're here to help and love me and calm my fears.

Speaker 18 But you and I have things we must do to grow and to learn to make our dreams come true.

Speaker 18 I cannot touch you and hear you say all of the comforting words you always know to help me up when I fall too low.

Speaker 18 And so I'll sing my song of loneliness until you come to me with the internal kiss.

Speaker 13 In 1979, John moved to Manhattan to be with Gail.

Speaker 13 But their free-flowing upstate love didn't thrive for long in the big city. They split after a year or so.

Speaker 13 Around the same time, Gail suffered from an elbow injury that pulled her out of her dance therapy program. Within just a few months, she felt lost and aimless.

Speaker 18 Gail

Speaker 18 kicked around the city, you know, working at tracks, dating guys that she shouldn't have been dating in the music industry.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 18 she unfortunately had a suicide attempt and ended up in the hospital, St. Vincent's.

Speaker 18 I don't think it was a real suicide attempt. She picked the night to try a suicide attempt when I was meeting her at Trax.

Speaker 18 So she knew that I would get to Trax. She wouldn't be there.
Ultimately, she was in and out of the hospital and I somehow convinced her to move into my apartment in Eastern Long Island.

Speaker 18 And she lived with me briefly.

Speaker 16 out there.

Speaker 18 But not surprisingly, she didn't want to live out there. And I

Speaker 18 wangled out of my graduate school and internship in the city. And the two of us moved into the city and we lived together in the city.

Speaker 6 So, yes, my sister had a chronic depression.

Speaker 18 I have chronic anxiety. And quite frankly, anxiety and depression are on a continuum spectrum.

Speaker 18 As I said, opposite sides of the same corn.

Speaker 2 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culture Resess with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 3 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Resist with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 2 What if you could boost your Wi-Fi to one of your devices when you need it most? Because Xfinity Wi-Fi can. Like when you need to upload 200 photos of your cat in a Santa hat to post online.

Speaker 5 We've all been there.

Speaker 6 And what if your Wi-Fi could proactively fix issues before they even happen?

Speaker 2 Xfinity Wi-Fi does that too.

Speaker 8 It's like having a little holiday helper.

Speaker 4 And what if your Wi-Fi had parental instincts built right in?

Speaker 3 So your kids are always protected online.

Speaker 2 It's Wi-Fi that's not just smart, it's brilliant. And during the holidays, that's a gift we all could use.

Speaker 3 Xfinity, imagine that.

Speaker 28 Incoming with the old gays, it's Jessé, Bill, Robert, and Mick with a special bonus episode of Silver Linings with the Old Gays.

Speaker 28 No matter what time of year it is, we know it's important to uplift the spirit of pride, which is relatively easy when Palm Springs celebrates in November.

Speaker 26 The first pride I went to, it made me feel like I was really part of something.

Speaker 26 People being so joyous in the streets and being themselves.

Speaker 29 We've really come a long way and I realized I am standing on the shoulders of so many millions of queer queer people who sacrificed their lives for what we have today.

Speaker 28 Silver Linings with the Old Gates is brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Viv Healthcare. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 12 Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs.

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Speaker 25 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 25 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 25 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 25 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 27 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center, that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 25 Listen to Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 13 It's never easy hearing about someone reaching a point so low that they try to end their lives. I can't imagine what Gail must have felt to find herself there.

Speaker 13 What I have learned from listening to Elaine is that depression was a lifelong affliction for Gail.

Speaker 13 But by the summer of 1980, after Gail's hospitalization, she was doing a lot better, well enough that she wanted to start dating again.

Speaker 13 So, her friend Diane invited her over for a summer barbecue with the promise of vegetarian options and a young man to meet.

Speaker 18 Diane was living in New Jersey with her then doctor husband and invited Gail over with the intention of a sort of blind date fix-up with Dr. Bob.

Speaker 18 And they really headed off.

Speaker 23 She was enamored, doctor, surgeon, pilot.

Speaker 18 One night took her, and I think it was Valentine's Day, flying all over the bridges of Manhattan at night.

Speaker 23 She said it was very romantic.

Speaker 30 I mean, why wouldn't it be?

Speaker 21 He whined and dined and...

Speaker 18 Took her up to his Eastside, high-in-the-sky apartment with beautiful views of the East River.

Speaker 18 And he took her out to his idyllic family's home in West Orange, New Jersey, where his doctor-sister, doctor, brother-in-law were visiting with their son.

Speaker 18 The mother, I think, was a psychologist, something that Gail always had an interest in.

Speaker 18 It seemed perfect to her.

Speaker 21 But in terms of the difference between those two guys, completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

Speaker 21 John was a musician. He could sit around for hours and play his guitar and

Speaker 5 it was calm and

Speaker 21 Bob was different.

Speaker 21 There was a lot of excitement, a lot of, we did this, we did that. He was bigger than life.
I think she was just overwhelmed with, wow, this is amazing. And you couldn't blame her.

Speaker 11 We all thought it was too.

Speaker 13 Everyone was hearing about the wonderful new man in Gail's life, even her hairdresser.

Speaker 10 My name is We Dodd. I am the curl expert.
Started the curly hair in the country back in 1984, the first salon for curls. Gail Katz was a client, a regular client, regular basis.

Speaker 10 She was ecstatic when she first saw what her hair can do for her. It was bouncy and she was having a good time with it.
And it literally reflected her personality. Bubbly, bouncy, very alive.

Speaker 10 That's the Gail that I knew.

Speaker 10 We were all talking about boyfriends and she had met this doctor and she was very excited about it.

Speaker 10 And I remember it was around Thanksgiving, and that she was dreading going to Thanksgiving, but she might be introducing Bob to her family at the time.

Speaker 13 I imagine Gail would have been excited about introducing her new beau to the family. He was exactly what her mother wanted for her.
Boy, do I know that feeling.

Speaker 21 Sylvia was beside herself. He's a doctor.
He's a doctor. That's all she talked about.
And I don't think she meant it in a bad way. I really don't.

Speaker 21 A typical Jewish mother from Long Island should dream for their child.

Speaker 21 I think she wanted Gail to be taken care of. And this was the answer to what she thought was the best thing that could happen.

Speaker 13 And Bob took care of literally everything.

Speaker 18 Gail would tell me she would go to turn on a light.

Speaker 18 And he would with one hand hold her hand and with the other hand turn the light on. Now, it might have looked like he was helping her, but who needs help turning on a light?

Speaker 18 He was controlling everything.

Speaker 13 One evening early on, Elaine and her boyfriend Larry went out for sushi with Gail and Bob.

Speaker 18 And Bob was with his chopsticks picking up food and putting it in Gail's mouth.

Speaker 6 He was feeding her.

Speaker 18 And then he started feeding me.

Speaker 18 He was telling Larry, I own both of them.

Speaker 18 It was

Speaker 17 so

Speaker 19 strange.

Speaker 13 From that moment on, Elaine started noticing things about Bob that made her uncomfortable. First, it was just the way he stood out in his frumpy clothes when they went dancing at Studio 54.

Speaker 13 Then the fact he'd make up bizarre lies. like saying he went to a trendy pizza place all the time and then not knowing which neighborhood it was in.

Speaker 18 It was such an innocuous and dumb lie. Like, nope, Peppy's pizza isn't there.
And, you know, he's so bright

Speaker 18 that you had to be really smart to catch him in all his lies.

Speaker 18 But that wasn't so hard for Larry. Larry was Yale undergrad, Harvard grad.
Larry was smarter than Bob. And Bob would say something, Larry would turn his head and look at me and roll his eyes.

Speaker 18 And I knew that was, you know, code for not true.

Speaker 13 Worst of all was how Bob was trying to change Gail.

Speaker 18 Gail couldn't change two things that Bob required of her. He wanted her to be taller and he claimed that she had a Brooklyn accent.
She was 5'2 ⁇ , she wasn't tall.

Speaker 18 So there was this constant, you're not good enough for me. Get thinner, get taller, don't wear, you know, sexy clothes.
I'll never forget seeing her, and she was dressed so dowdy.

Speaker 18 She looked like she was from some religious sect.

Speaker 18 We very quickly began to realize, Larry and I, what a sick fuck Bob was.

Speaker 13 The fact is, Gail was in love and she wanted it to work out with Bob, just like I had.

Speaker 13 No amount of side-eye from Elaine was going to convince her otherwise. After around a year of dating, Gail and Bob got engaged.

Speaker 13 And whether Elaine liked it or not, she was plunged into the role of maid of honor.

Speaker 13 They started planning the wedding, picking out food, scouring wedding dress shops, visiting venues, combing through Bloomingdales.

Speaker 18 I hate at Bloomingdale's. It's way too big.
I have no idea where anything is in Bloomingdales.

Speaker 18 But we went to Bloomingdale's looking at dishes and linens and towels and doing the whole gift registry thing.

Speaker 13 During a haircut, she told Weedad the news and asked if she'd come up to Long Island to do everyone's hair and makeup before the ceremony. No expenses spared.
Gail seemed so excited.

Speaker 10 You know, I'm in New York, a lot of clients. So for me to have a Jewish girl marrying a doctor is perfect.
That's what they all want. Another Jewish girl marrying a doctor, how happy, how fabulous.

Speaker 13 Then one night, About a month before the wedding, Elaine got a frantic call.

Speaker 18 My sister calls me hysterical and she said, you have to come get me in the morning. And like, I wasn't so happy about this marriage.
This sounds good to me. I'll come get you in the morning.

Speaker 18 I go into the city and I drive up to her apartment and she comes out holding her cat. No luggage, no nothing, just the cat.
And she's weeping, and I'm like, what's up?

Speaker 18 And she said, Bob tried to kill the cat.

Speaker 18 And she tells me that she was in the bedroom, she heard the cat making a funny noise.

Speaker 18 She goes into the bathroom and there Bob is with the cat's head in the toilet, drowning the cat.

Speaker 21 And she, of course, saves the cat and

Speaker 18 She says he was jealous of the cat.

Speaker 18 He thinks I love the cat more than I love him.

Speaker 6 So, I'm going to prove to him how much I love him. I'm going to get rid of the cat.

Speaker 18 And I, of course, responded, I have a good idea.

Speaker 18 Let's keep the cat and get rid of Bob.

Speaker 13 While this alleged drowning was never reported to the police, it raised alarm bells among Gail's family.

Speaker 21 I remember thinking, this is so weird. Why would anybody do something like that?

Speaker 13 Here's Gail's cousin Abby again.

Speaker 21 And I think I remember having a conversation with my mother about it

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 21 my mother saying,

Speaker 21 you know, maybe it's not exactly the way we hear it went. You know, it was the typical deny that it could really be as bad as it was.
So I remember thinking, okay, maybe it wasn't.

Speaker 11 We were planning a wedding.

Speaker 21 So why were we planning a wedding if this was so terrible?

Speaker 19 When I think back now, I'm like, oh my God, what planet was I on?

Speaker 22 Sorry.

Speaker 11 I didn't think it would make me cry.

Speaker 2 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culture Resess with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 3 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Resist with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 2 What if you could boost your Wi-Fi to one of your devices when you need it most? Because Xfinity Wi-Fi can. Like when you need to upload 200 photos of your cat in a Santa hat to post online.

Speaker 5 We've all been there.

Speaker 6 And what if your Wi-Fi could proactively fix issues before they even happen?

Speaker 2 Xfiniti Wi-Fi does that too.

Speaker 8 It's like having a little holiday helper.

Speaker 4 And what if your Wi-Fi had parental instincts built right in so your kids are always protected online?

Speaker 2 It's Wi-Fi that's not just smart, it's brilliant. And during the holidays, that's a gift we all could use.

Speaker 3 Xfinity, imagine that.

Speaker 28 Incoming with the old gays. It's Jessé, Bill, Robert, and Mick with a special bonus episode of Silver Linings with the Old Gays.

Speaker 28 No matter what time of year it is, we know it's important to uplift the spirit of Pride, which is relatively easy when Palm Springs celebrates in November.

Speaker 26 The first pride I went to, it made me feel like I was really part of something.

Speaker 26 People being so joyous in the streets and being being themselves.

Speaker 29 We've really come a long way, and I realize I am standing on the shoulders of so many millions of queer people who sacrificed their lives for what we have today.

Speaker 28 Silver Linings with the Old Gates is brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Viv Healthcare. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 12 Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Speaker 1 Where did that story come from?

Speaker 11 Book?

Speaker 1 Dream? Nope, it came from a conversation. Meet Miko Mini Plus, the AI companion that co-creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time.

Speaker 12 What color was the hamster's cape?

Speaker 10 And what did he pack for lunch?

Speaker 1 Unlock your child's imagination. Discover Miko Mini Plus and the magic of AI exclusively at Costco.

Speaker 25 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 25 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 25 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 25 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 27 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 25 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 13 Gail did get rid of the cat, a stray she rescued from Caldwell Airport after she found it roaming the strip. It was named Amelia.

Speaker 13 A month later on the morning of August 29th, 1982, Gail and Bob woke up in separate beds. Gail at her parents' house in Long Island and Bob in their apartment.

Speaker 13 They're getting married.

Speaker 18 A poem by Gail Katz.

Speaker 18 Today I feel like pleasing you more than before. To be living for you is all I want to do.
To be loving you.

Speaker 5 It will all be there.

Speaker 18 Everything you want, I swear, it all will come true. Today, I can't use words.
They don't say enough. Please, please listen to me.
It's taken so long to come true.

Speaker 18 So long for you.

Speaker 18 All for you.

Speaker 13 There are so many reasons we choose to get married. It sounds unromantic, but it's not always just about love.

Speaker 13 We get married for security, both financial and physical. We get married because of family pressure.
We get married because our friends are are doing it too.

Speaker 13 I can't say why Gail decided to marry Bob. I suspect she recognized in him a life she wanted, financial security, and a husband her parents would be proud of.

Speaker 13 But for her sister Elaine, it felt wrong. She'd been dragged around every wedding dress shop in Manhattan, only to find that Gail had decided to wear Bob's mother's dress.

Speaker 18 I can tell you for a fact, it was not at all

Speaker 18 like what I thought she was going to buy. And I again think this was about pleasing Bob.

Speaker 13 It was the most obvious start to a marriage of compromise.

Speaker 13 Early in the morning on the wedding day, We Dodd and her husband Peter arrived at Gail's parents' home to start fixing everybody's hair and makeup.

Speaker 10 The door was open. I just rang the bell.
They said, come in. I walked in.
Peter was with me. We walked through a hallway into the kitchen.

Speaker 10 kitchen and there was an argument going on with her mother her sister and Gail

Speaker 10 it was screaming but you see many things as a hairdresser so it's not shocking but it's like all right how do we manage this how do we get rid of these two to try to do the bride calm her down get her ready and get out

Speaker 10 And the mother and the sister, I asked them if they'd mind leaving. And they said, in a minute, we need to finish this and you can come right back.
And so I I said, okay.

Speaker 10 I turned around and I said to Peter, we're starving. We'll have a cup of coffee and a bagel or something.
And then we'll wait for them and then I'll go in and I'll do it.

Speaker 10 So we go outside, we're looking at each other. And he said, this is odd.
I'm like, I know. It's really strange.

Speaker 10 I went back in, the argument, I guess, resolved. And I went and did Gail's hair.
I was in her room. We were doing her hair.
And she was just upset. Very, very upset.

Speaker 10 She wanted it to be the way she wanted it and she doesn't care what her mother says. She doesn't care what they say.
She had, I believe, I don't know whose veil, but she didn't care how it was put on.

Speaker 10 She was just, just get me done and get me out of here. I don't care what the hell I look like.

Speaker 10 It was just a strange experience.

Speaker 13 Nobody can fully remember what the argument was about. We Dodd says she thinks she heard Bob's name being thrown about.

Speaker 13 Elaine remembers it being tense because the flower crown Gail ordered turned out to look more Christmas wreath than Stevie Nick's.

Speaker 13 The only thing I'm sure of, it's not the wedding morning Gail would have dreamt of.

Speaker 13 She put on a brave face and headed into Manhattan, wearing a modified flower crown and her modified mother-in-law's dress.

Speaker 21 She looked so beautiful. I don't know if you've seen pictures of their wedding.
She was beautiful.

Speaker 18 Bob wore a white linen suit, which is a little odd. And he sort of matched Gail.

Speaker 13 After a traditional service at a temple in Manhattan, everyone moved on to the party at a stylish penthouse restaurant called Terrace in the Sky, overlooking the grounds of the Columbia University campus.

Speaker 13 From up there, you could see panoramic views across northern Manhattan.

Speaker 18 There were two rooms at the terrace, and she had her friends and, you know, me in one room, and she had everyone else in the other room.

Speaker 13 The venue boasted a wine list of over 300 bottles, and the chef prepared dishes like smoked salmon and caviar, lobster belouté, and duck confi.

Speaker 18 She arranged for she and I to be served a better champagne than anyone else. We had special champagne, Gail and I.

Speaker 21 It was really fun. We danced, and it was a happy day.
It seemed like it was a happy day. I didn't end the day thinking this is the beginning of the end

Speaker 21 in any way.

Speaker 13 After the wedding, Bob and Gail went on a honeymoon to Crete. And judging from their photos, it looked like a beautiful trip.
But something changed when Gail got home.

Speaker 10 After the marriage, her energy was not there. She was a little bit more subdued, not talking about clubs, not talking about museums, not talking about anything.
Just very, very quiet.

Speaker 10 Just wanted her hair done. No conversation as to a desire of what she would like this time.
It was just whatever you think.

Speaker 10 Very passive.

Speaker 13 At this point, Bob was working 120-hour weeks on a three-hospital rotation, and Gail was studying psychology at grad school.

Speaker 13 He was exhausted and she felt neglected.

Speaker 18 She was the most lonely wife imaginable. She was completely ignored.
He came home like some 14-year-old before they were real video games and played on his computer.

Speaker 18 He was either doing his internship and working or home.

Speaker 18 and

Speaker 18 playing on his computer. Unless he had some infantile need that he needed satisfied, he ignored her.

Speaker 23 The incident which really turned my head around about him was my 30th birthday pie.

Speaker 13 This is Gail's friend Denise.

Speaker 23 I mean, who makes their wife have to sit on his lap to eat dinner and feed her?

Speaker 23 It was just so strange.

Speaker 23 That was the first time that I really started to think this is not kosher.

Speaker 13 Elaine says that by 1984, Gail started having an affair with a finance guy named Anthony Segalis. They'd hang out at each other's apartments while Bob was at work.
They would party.

Speaker 13 They would sleep together. Then there was also Kenneth Feiner, a professor who Gail met on the subway after he spotted her reading a psychology article.

Speaker 13 He always insisted it was a meeting of the minds rather than a sexual thing.

Speaker 13 It's hard to know if Gail was just distracting herself or trying to line up her next relationship before breaking things off with Bob. But the fact is she was unfaithful.

Speaker 21 She needed that kind of validation from a man.

Speaker 21 So did her mother. Her mother promoted that having a man in your life made you complete.

Speaker 21 And without that, you weren't.

Speaker 13 On November 9th, 1983, the day before Gail's graduate record exams, she was studying at home.

Speaker 18 She was feeling nervous.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 18 Bob had gone to work. She figured he was doing, you know, his usual residency long shift.
She thought he wouldn't catch her smoking. And he came home.

Speaker 18 And he saw her smoking. And between the front door and the balcony of their apartment, there was a couch.

Speaker 18 And as she tells me, he came running in, leaped over the couch. I mean, it's not a six-foot hurdle, it's just a couch.
Pushed her down

Speaker 18 with his hands around her throat

Speaker 18 and strangled her.

Speaker 18 And of course, he did what all men do after they've gotten their anger out. Oh, I'm so sorry.
And I told her there has to be a report of this. You know, go to the police station and make a report.

Speaker 18 And she did.

Speaker 18 Which, by the way, is amazing. I mean, that was attempted murder.

Speaker 13 In the report made to the police a few days after, Gail describes to the desk clerk how Bob strangled her to the point of losing consciousness. But the police never followed it up with Gail.

Speaker 13 So instead, she tried to fix her crumbling marriage herself.

Speaker 18 She told me how sorry he was and he was going to get therapy and everything was going to be okay, just like after he strangled the cat.

Speaker 21 She went and stayed at my grandfather's in Brooklyn. I remember my mother being very upset, furious at him.

Speaker 11 I think my grandfather.

Speaker 19 I think my grandfather told her that she needed to work it out.

Speaker 21 I don't think she told my grandfather about the strangling part.

Speaker 21 And then she went back home. That was the beginning of the end for Elaine.

Speaker 22 She didn't want her around him anymore.

Speaker 21 She did everything she could

Speaker 11 to

Speaker 21 get her out of there, begged her to come stay with her, begged her to stay at my grandfather's, begged her to do something legal. And Gail just wouldn't.

Speaker 21 When Gail made up her mind about something,

Speaker 22 you couldn't talk her out of it.

Speaker 13 For the next six months or so, Gail and Bob went to therapy both separately and together.

Speaker 13 It was a confusing time for Elaine because on one hand Gail seemed to be dedicated to staying with Bob and then on the other she started to talk about leaving him.

Speaker 18 My boyfriend Larry was sublending his apartment. She called me to ask me if I could come up for the last weekend in July because she wanted to have a really big 30th birthday party for Bob.

Speaker 18 And then she also asked me if she could sublet Larry's apartment because she wanted to leave Bob.

Speaker 18 And I said, you know, which is it?

Speaker 18 And she says, I'm not sure.

Speaker 10 A couple of visits in, she goes, it's really tough. I thought it would be different.
It's not different.

Speaker 10 I think I made a mistake. I need to change my life.

Speaker 10 And it just so happened that my client next to me happened to be a realtor and they started a conversation.

Speaker 10 I don't know where it went from there, but I think they did connect about trying to get an apartment.

Speaker 18 I remember in the late fall, early winter of 1984, her telling me, I'm going to get a divorce and I'm going to get him.

Speaker 18 She told me that she had a letter, a letter from his psychiatrist warning her that he was twisted and dangerous and he was going to kill her.

Speaker 18 She was going to use that letter to threaten him, to give her divorce, number one, because there was no no-fault divorce in the state of New York, and number two, to give her

Speaker 18 what she wanted.

Speaker 18 And what she wanted

Speaker 18 was just to finish graduate school. She just wanted him to support her so she could finish her degree and go on her merry way and support herself.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 18 I, of course, said, it's very dangerous to be threatening Bob that you're going to ruin him.

Speaker 18 And as always,

Speaker 18 as when he strangled the cat,

Speaker 18 as when he strangled her,

Speaker 18 she said, Don't worry, Elaine, I have it under control.

Speaker 23 The last day I saw her,

Speaker 23 I picked her up at her hairdressers

Speaker 23 and we went to the museum.

Speaker 2 It was a sunny day,

Speaker 17 warm.

Speaker 23 She was wearing a halter top or something like that, and shorts.

Speaker 23 We were laying on a blanket

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 23 we were chatting about art, music, places we'd seen and been

Speaker 23 and how much we loved each other.

Speaker 23 She had the New York Times with her and we were circling apartments, possibilities.

Speaker 23 It wasn't until, you know, towards the end of the day that

Speaker 23 She told me that she was going to make him dinner.

Speaker 23 And then during dinner, she was going to talk to Bob about leaving.

Speaker 23 I got nervous right then and there because

Speaker 23 by that time I knew he wasn't the kind of guy who was just going to take that sitting down.

Speaker 30 And so I had this feeling in my gut like, oh my God,

Speaker 30 you know.

Speaker 23 How's that going to go? How is he going to react?

Speaker 23 And she was saying to me, you know, I got to get home because I got to cook Bob dinner.

Speaker 23 Walked back together to her apartment building,

Speaker 23 kissed each other goodbye, and she went upstairs and I went downtown.

Speaker 30 I shouldn't have let her go home.

Speaker 9 Denise, that's not on you.

Speaker 30 No, I know.

Speaker 10 I know.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 23 I knew something wasn't going to be right.

Speaker 10 Sorry.

Speaker 10 Sorry to apologize.

Speaker 23 I still, I still get emotional about it.

Speaker 10 Gonna pause? Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 13 Next time, the search for Gail.

Speaker 18 Bob was not forthcoming. Bob does not want me to find your sister.

Speaker 8 He was so stone cold.

Speaker 23 It's not as if he displayed any emotion at all.

Speaker 18 She left her pocketbook there with cigarettes, and she lives in a building with doormen. And there's a fire department on the same block where they all whistled at my sexy sister.
Nobody saw her.

Speaker 15 Sometimes I'd see somebody that looked like her.

Speaker 30 I'd get this rush inside me, like, is it girl?

Speaker 30 I began the

Speaker 30 process

Speaker 19 of

Speaker 19 proving

Speaker 19 that Bob killed my sister.

Speaker 13 The Girlfriends is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

Speaker 13 The series is hosted by me, Carol Fisher, and produced by Anna Sinfield.

Speaker 13 Our assistant producer is Julian Manugera Patton, and our researcher is Madeline Parr.

Speaker 13 The editor is Veronica Simmons. Max O'Brien is our executive producer.
Our fact-checker is Valeria Roca. Production management from Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf.

Speaker 13 Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander.

Speaker 13 Music supervision by Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein.
Story development by Isaac Fisher. Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development.

Speaker 13 Special thanks to Sean Glynn, David Waters, Maitali Rau, Katrina Norvell, David Wasserman, and Bethann McAluso.

Speaker 13 And an extra big thank you to Kevin Bartlett and the rest of the band Odd for letting us use their track, The Electrifying Flying Man.

Speaker 13 We did reach out to Bob and his legal team to ask if he'd like to comment on the podcast, but we never heard back.

Speaker 8 Novel

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