FREEHOLD, N.J. — Two nights before Carol Neulander was murdered, she and her husband of 28 years fought like they had never fought before, the couple's son testified Thursday at Rabbi Fred Neulander's capital murder trial.

Through his testimony, it appeared that he believed his father, whom he referred to as "Fred," paid a friend $30,000 to kill Carol Neulander in 1994 to avoid a potentially messy divorce.

Jurors passed tissues among themselves as Matthew Neulander described how it upset him greatly when another jury failed to convict his father after seven days of deliberations last year. That trial ended with a hung jury.

Rabbi Fred Neulander

Among other things, Neulander testified that his father did not have a speck of blood on his clothes after finding Carol Neulander's badly beaten body and that he never once appeared sorry that his wife was no longer alive.

"When I first saw him, I saw that he looked kind of the he way he looks right now. Blank and unemotional," Matthew Neulander, now a physician in North Carolina, testified. "He said nothing to me ... He didn't have a drop of blood on his clothes. All this blood everywhere and he looked pristine."

Prosecutors allege that Neulander recruited Len Jenoff to kill his wife so that the rabbi would not have to divorce in order to be with his mistress of nearly two years, former Philadelphiaradio personality Elaine Soncini. Jenoff and another man, Paul Daniels, confessed to killing Neulander in exchange of $30,000 that they shared.

Fred Neulander called 911 about 9:20 p.m.on Nov. 1, 1994, and told an operator that he found his wife on that the floor and blood everywhere upon returning from Temple M'Kor Shalom to the couple's home in Cherry Hill, N.J. He was concerned that is son Matthew, an on-duty emergency medical technician, would hear the call on his radio.

Matthew Neulander did hear the call and raced home. Along the way, he monitored police and ambulance radio traffic and heard conflicting reports about a possible suicide and a shooting. Though Fred Neulander already knew his wife was dead, his son testified that his father would not answer any of his questions when he got to the house and saw that every light in the house was on.

"All he said was, 'Everything's going to be OK,'" Matthew Neulander said.

Through his questions and during his opening statement Monday, prosecutor James Lynch is trying to underscore the absence of blood on Fred Neulander's clothes after finding his wife's body. Any loving, caring husband would have tried to render assistance, or offer, at the very least, he argues, comfort and support to a badly injured spouse.

Matthew Neulander said that he wondered about the absence of blood on his father, too.

"He said he was repulsed by what he saw, too repulse to go in and see if she was OK," the son testified. "I told him that was too hard to believe and that I know if I saw my wife or kid on the floor, I'd try to help."

Marital Strife

Matthew Neulander, who said it took him at least four years before he became to seriously suspect his father, began his testimony by recalling a huge blowout Carol and Fred Neulander had two nights before the murder. Even before the argument, Matthew Neulander noticed that his parents were growing distant, colder and saw each other less and less.

"I witnessed an argument between the two of them, the likes of which I had never seen before," he said. "There was nothing prior to this that even remotely resembled the argument they had this evening."

Carol Neulander was doing most of the talking, screaming at Fred Neulander. She finally asked him if he wanted a divorce, their son testified.

Carol Neulander was 52 when she was killed.

Fred Neulander became passive and just sat down, his son said. He answered in soft, hushed tones when Carol Neulander asked if he wanted to try to save the marriage, according to the testimony.

"No, it's over," Neulander said, according to his son.

On cross-examination, defense lawyer Michael Riley noted that when Matthew Neulander testified before a grand jury in 1997, he said he did not believe that his father killed his mother or arranged it. Matthew Neulander said he did not recall saying that.

Riley also got the witness to concede that it was not unsual for his father to remain composed and to assure him, when problems arose, that everything would be fine.

The witness, the prosecution's eighth in four days, sparred with Riley over semantics during the long cross-examination. They went back and forth, for example, about the difference between the word "incoherent" and the phrase "not coherent."

Riley brought out that even though Matthew Neulander had come to believe his father was involved in the murder and was cooperating with police, Matthew visited his father in jail from time to time and accepted money from the rabbi to offset the cost of his wedding and relocation to North Carolina the next year.

Matthew Neulander also testified that:

Matthew Neulander said he doubted the robbery theory, noting that his mother's jewelry was not taken and it did not appear that her killer or killers went anywhere other than the living room.

"His reply was that it was probably a robbery and probably some drug-crazed psychopath randomly targeted the house," Matthew Neulander said. "I told him it was a little hard to swallow that someone would break into the house to steal things when nothing was taken."

Unsual Behavior

In other testimony, the junior rabbi serving under Neulander in 1994 told jurors that he was surprised to learn that Fred Neulander sat in another teacher's confirmation class for 25 minutes on the night of the murder.

Neulander rarely, if ever, showed up at Temple M'Kor Shalom on Tuesday nights. Yet he asked Rabbi Gary Mazo, according to Mazo's testimony, if he would mind if Neulander observed a class.

Rabbi Gary Mazo

"It was unusual in that he had not been in my class in over four years at that point and hadn't been observing me formally as a teacher," Mazo said.

After the murder, Mazo noticed that Len Jenoff, Carol Neulander's killer, was coming by the synagogue more and more frequently to meet with Rabbi Neulander. Jenoff was never a member of the congregation, but Neulander mentioned that he was talking to Jenoff about developing a security program from the synagogue.

"He also said [Jenoff] was a private investigator and he was using Len to find clues into the murder," Mazo said.

Mazo also testified that he knew Soncini, but did not learn of her affair with Neulander until after Carol Neulander's murder. Fred Neulander confided that he had had an extramarital affair but that he and his wife had an "open marriage" that permitted it.

"I think I was pretty much shocked at that particular moment," Mazo said.

On cross-examination, Riley used Mazo to try to counter Matthew Neulander's testimony that his father did not appear upset and never seemed to mourn the death of his wife. Mazo acknowledged telling the grand jury that Neulander, who was normally private and rarely showed emotion, looked "devastated" after finding his wife's body and was trembling as he sat in an ambulance.

Mazo wrote a book about the murder's investigation and its impact on the 1,000-family strong congregation and how the community survived the intense publicity. The book, which did not sell well, was entitled, "And the Flames Did Not Consume Us: A Rabbi's Journey Through Communal Crisis."

On the subject of Jenoff, Mazo told Neulander's lawyer that, like many people familiar with the players, were shocked when Jenoff confessed to killing Carol Neulander.

"So you immediately picked up the phone and called the Camden County prosecutor's office and said, 'Hey, I just heard Len Jenoff got arrested...I have information for you. You did that, didn't you?" Riley asked incredulously.

"I don't recall," Mazo replied.

If convicted of first-degree murder and felony murder, Fred Neulander could face the death penalty. The defense claims that he is innocent and that the prosecution's witnesses all have motives for testifying against him.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.