CAMDEN, N.J. — A confessed killer who helped slay a prominent New Jersey rabbi's wife testified Friday how he delivered the first blow to the back of the victim's head and later collected payment for killing the woman at her shiva.

"I put my left hand on her shoulder and I pulled out the lead pipe, sir, and I whacked her on the back of the head," said Leonard Jenoff, 56, shuddering and sobbing as he recalled the brutal murder at the rabbi's capital murder trial. "She started to stumble and I heard the word "Why, Why..."

Fred Neulander, 60, is charged with ordering Jenoff, 56, a recovered alcoholic who sought counseling from the rabbi, to kill his wife, Carol, on November 1, 1994.

Prosecutors say the charismatic rabbi, who built the successful M'Kor Shalom synagogue in Cherry Hill, N.J., wanted to continue an adulterous relationship with Elaine Soncini, a former Philadelphia radio star whom he had counseled through her husband's death.

The defense claims that the murder could have been a robbery gone wrong, and that Jenoff is an admitted perjurer who has much to gain by fingering the rabbi as the mastermind in the murder. Jenoff and his accomplice, Paul Daniels, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2000. Both men have yet to be sentenced.

The Confession

The murder of Carol Neulander went without arrests until 1998, when a grand jury first indicted the rabbi on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. But it wasn't until Jenoff confessed to the crime and implicated the rabbi that Neulander's charges were upgraded to capital murder, and that prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty.

The private investigator's testimony Friday, which followed his claim on Thursday that the rabbi offered him $30,000 for the hit, elicited gasps and muted cries of anguish from the victim's family and friends. During the hitman's wrenching explanation of the murder, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, 28, the defendant's daughter, leaned against the courtroom wall as tears fell from her reddened face.

In the early fall of 1994, the plan to kill Carol Neulander was already fleshed out. The murder was to take place in the Neulander's home on a Tuesday, so that the rabbi, who spent Tuesday evenings at the synagogue, would have a safe alibi and so that Matthew Neulander, his son, would be away from home at work as an emergency medical technician.

Jenoff was to receive $30,000 for the killing. A pipe or club-like object was to be used, as it would be less professional looking. And, something the rabbi was adamant about: the murder should look like a robbery. According to Jenoff, Neulander said "Do not ransack the house, just kill her and take her pocketbook."

It was near the beginning of October, 1994, that Neulander made the first payment to Jenoff, meeting him in a deserted Sheraton Hotel parking lot off a main Cherry Hill thoroughfare. In a 10-minute meeting, he gave the hitman $7,500 in cash, Jenoff told the jury, and agreed to give him the balance within two months.

After this meeting, Jenoff returned to his apartment, which he shared with Paul Daniels and another friend (who was not involved in the murder), to divide up the cash. He had recruited Daniels, he testified Thursday, to help him with the murder, and was to pay him a total of $7,500 out of the $30,000 Neulander had offered. He said he gave his roommate the first installment of his share in a scene seemingly drawn from the silver screen.

"I dumped it like confetti," Jenoff testified. "Twenty dollar bills just trickled all over Paul — his head, his shoulders, his chair. "I said 'Here's our down payment for killing Mrs. Neulander."

Daniels, who also confessed to his role in the killing, was ecstatic. "It was as if he received an electric volt," Jenoff said, noting his partner jumped out of his chair, thrust his arms into the air, and declared, "That bitch is dead, the [expletive] is serious about killing his wife."

The First Attempt

The first attempt on Carol Neulander's life came in mid-October, 1994, on a Tuesday evening. Jenoff attended his customary Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the rabbi's synagogue, then met Daniels in the parking lot of a shopping center near the Neulander residence. Jenoff left the white 1982 Pontiac Bonneville he had purchased with part of Neulander's first payment in the parking lot, and the two men got into his other car — a dull-colored, non-descript junker they thought would be less conspicuous.

When Jenoff arrived at the house, he saw Carol Neulander sitting in her car in the driveway. He approached. "I said 'Hello, I have a package, I have something I'm going to drop off for the rabbi, is he home?" Jenoff told the jury. "She said 'No, he's not home, why don't you come into the house.'"

Jenoff followed Carol Neulander inside. Once in, he was to have signalled Daniels, who would rush in bearing the weapon, a lead pipe Jenoff had found propping open a back door at his apartment complex. But this time, things did not go according to plan. Jenoff could not find Neulander's pocketbook, which the rabbi had implored him to steal so that the murder would look like a robbery attempt. So he decided to abort the attempt. After asking to use the bathroom, he testified, Jenoff handed Carol Neulander a sealed, empty envelope and left.

The next day, Jenoff told the jury, he met a furious Neulander at their Sheraton meeting place. "His face was red, his eyebrows were raised, and he was absolutely furious. [Neulander said] 'What the f--- happened?' I came home, there was my wife waiting for me.' I've never seen the rabbi that mad, ever ever ever." According to Jenoff, Neulander grabbed him by the chest of his leather jacket and screamed, "There are no more Tuesday nights left. You better do it or you'll be dead. And if you don't believe me, just try me."

The Hit Carried Out

Jenoff described the deadly November 1, 1994, attempt through tears and a face constricted by the painful recollection. Again, he approached the residence, this time climbing up the front stairs of the white, two-story house to look in through the stained, oval window in the front door. Carol Neulander answered with a phone tucked under her ear. (Her daughter, Rebecca Neulander, testified Tuesday that she was on the other end of the phone line.)

Carol Neulander then said "Why don't you follow me into the sun parlor?" Jenoff testified, again beginning to sob. "She turned, and put her back to me." The witness buried his head in his left hand, and continued. "I put my left hand on her shoulder and I pulled out the lead pipe sir and I whacked her on the back of the head."

As Jenoff brought the scene of his brutal first blow to life in the courtroom, family and friends of the victim sent forth their own chorus of sobs, drawing the attention of the jury. Neither Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff nor Matthew Neulander (who was not in court on Friday) have acknowledged their father during the course of this trial.

Daniels came in, Jenoff continued, and finished the job. "I saw him raise [the weapon], I heard thumps... it seemed like five hours." Jenoff checked on Carol Neulander before leaving, he testified. "I looked at the side of her face. I heard a noise," he said, bowing his head. "It was like..." Jenoff paused, put his hand over his mouth, and pushed on. "It was like the sound of gurgling or regurgitation—like a hissing sound."

The next time Jenoff saw the rabbi was at funeral services for the woman he had helped kill. It was difficult for him, Jenoff testified. "I had to act like I was not involved, perpetuate that lie." Jenoff stood in the receiving line, one of hundreds there to pay their respects, and made his way slowly toward the front, where Neulander stood flanked by his children.

When he arrived, Jenoff testified, the rabbi pulled him close and asked 'Are you all right?' Jenoff said he was okay. Then Neulander pulled him closer, hugging him until their cheeks brushed. "Everything will be all right now," the rabbi allegedly whispered. "She's dead."

Two days after the murder, on November 3, Neulander attended shiva, the Jewish period of mourning, at the rabbi's house, and received another payment for the killing, he testified. But this was the last of the bulk payments.

After Neulander became a focus in the investigation of his wife's murder, testified Jenoff, their payment agreement changed. Originally, Neulander had asked for two months to pay Jenoff for the killing. Then, he became worried about moving money around.

The two men struck upon a solution: Neulander would retain Jenoff, a licensed private investigator, to investigate the murder he had carried out. Jenoff would bill the rabbi and his attorneys, including his current team of Jeff Zucker and Dennis Wixted, and would received payment for his services. "They would pay me but it would really be payment for murder," Jenoff explained.

In another disturbing line of questioning, Lynch used wedding photos from Jenoff's August 10, 1997, marriage that took place inside of the rabbi's house to show that the alleged hitman took his vows on the same part of the carpet where Carol Neulander was killed. The wedding gift from the rabbi: a wedding cake from his late wife's cake company, Classic Cake.

Jenoff also testified that Neulander asked him to kill Myron "Pepe" Levin, who testified Wednesday, because the former racquetball partner of the rabbi had provided damning testimony at the 1997 grand jury investigation. The two discussed using a stun gun to stop the 76-year-old's ailing heart, Jenoff said.

Jenoff also explained how he worked his way toward a confession through Nancy Phillips, a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer. Lynch emphasized this portion of the testimony, trying to show Jenoff's motivation for giving himself up for the murder. "What I did on November 1, 1994, was vile despicable animalistic...I couldn't keep it in me," the witness explained. "I hated myself for what I did. I was burning inside because I had done something so terrible. I felt that I had to get it out."

His acquaintance with the reporter, during which Jenoff revealed more and more of his involvement in the slaying, reached a head on April 28, 2000, when Jenoff took Phillips with him to a Cherry Hill diner and admitted to police that "Fred Neulander recruited me, convinced me, and paid me to kill his wife."

On cross-examination, defense lawyer Dennis Wixted attacked Jenoff's credibility. He noted that the state has presented no other witnesses to the conversations between the rabbi and the hitman. "You can pretty much say that he said anything you want and say that he said it, and nobody can contradict you, isn't that right?" Wixted asked. "It was just the two of us, sir," Jenoff admitted.

Wixted also tried to demonstrate the extent to which Jenoff was able to lie. He asked the witness to explain a signed photograph of Ronald Reagan on the back of which Jenoff had forged the inscription "To Len Jenoff, a loyal friend and comrade at arms, Ronald Reagan."

"I was a member of the Republican presidential task force... and I was proud of having various photos of Ronald Reagan. The lawyer also paged through Jenoff's application to become a private investigator in the State of New Jersey, a document fraught with imagined posts with the CIA and the FBI, noting each lie or embellishment as it came up.

The trial, which is being broadcast live by Court TV, resumes on Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. with more cross-examination of Jenoff.