A Woman Scorned: The Rita Gluzman Story

Running Down the Clock

At least, some authorities would later say wryly, she wasn't going to get away with burglary or trespassing.

It was Friday, April 12, just a few minutes before noon, and Rita Gluzman was holed up in the tiny bungalow when a cleaning woman, making her routine rounds, surprised her. Once again, Rita Gluzman tried to flee, scrambling out a back window and onto the grounds of the sprawling laboratory, leaving behind her passport, and several travel brochures, including some for Switzerland.

The cleaning woman notified security guards, who trailed her to Blackford Hall, a dining facility that was crammed with visiting scientists on their lunch break.

Blackford Hall where Rita Gluzman was arrested (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives)

She tried to blend into the crowd, sitting alone at one of the few empty tables on the sun-dappled patio, but, with her hair freshly dyed an electric auburn and her loud sports clothes, she failed miserably. Richard Burgess, a visiting researcher from Madison, Wis., picked her out immediately as an interloper, and was just about to point her out to his lunch companions when the security guards approached her.

The local police, of course, had no idea who Gluzman was. They had not received any of the alerts that had been issued in New Jersey and Rockland County. They might simply have charged her with burglary or perhaps just cited her for trespassing and escorted her off the campus, if Art Bings, the laboratory's head of security, hadn't spotted her. Bings, who had worked at the lab for years, had known Rita Gluzman and her husband, though only slightly during their days at Cold Spring Harbor. He had also been following the news reports of her husband's slaying, and he made it clear to the police that they had more than just a routine burglary on their hands.

To the authorities in Rockland and Bergen counties, the news that Rita Gluzman was in custody was welcome, but they also knew that the victory could be short-lived. Zelenin's case had been formally transferred two days earlier from Bergen County in New Jersey to Rockland County in New York and authorities there had formally charged him with second-degree murder. And though he had clearly implicated Rita Gluzman, and had promised to spill all the grisly details of their conspiracy and the murder in open court, investigators still had no independent evidence to back up his assertions. Without it, they could not charge Rita Gluzman with her husband's murder.

And now the clock was ticking. Unless they could come up with something, and soon, it was almost certain that Rita Gluzman was going to be released on bail. After all, she was only charged with burglary and trespassing. And now that they had tipped their hands, making it clear that she was a potential suspect, investigators seriously doubted that she'd wait around for them to finish their work.

The district attorney's office in Long Island's Nassau County, where Rita Gluzman was being held, did its best to help. The day after her arrest, and again a few days later, prosecutors successfully fended off attorney Michael Rosen's efforts to win bail for his client. "We both know this is not just a normal burglary," Nassau County Judge Claire Weinberg had told Rosen. "The possibility of murder charges is in the background."

Judge Claire Weinberg (Nassau County Bar Association)

As far as Rosen was concerned, time was on his side. Under New York state law, Weinberg's decision to reject bail had cleared the way for Rosen to file what is known as a felony examination. The move gave prosecutors 48 hours to provide the court with evidence that Rita Gluzman was dangerous enough, that her crime had been serious enough, and that she was enough of a risk of flight to justify being held without bail. It was evidence that the prosecutors didn't have.

In essence, Rosen had called the prosecutors' bluff.

Two days later, after posting a bond to cover her $250,000 bail, Rita Gluzman walked out of the Nassau County Jail with Rosen at her side.