CAMDEN, N.J. — When prosecutor James Lynch called the Rabbi Fred J. Neulander "a man who fell victim to his own needs," he offered jurors in the religious leader's capital murder trial for ordering his wife's death an outline of the state's case.

As that case unfolded over eight days, Lynch's claim was reiterated time and again — by the rabbi's mistress of two years, by the hitmen he allegedly hired to kill his wife, and even by two of his children.

In all, Lynch called 21 witnesses to portray Neulander as a once-powerful spiritual figure that was so beset by lust, greed, and arrogance that he hired a member of his own congregation to kill his wife of 28 years.

Fred Neulander, 60, co-founder of the successful New Jersey synagogue Congregation M'Kor Shalom, is accused of paying two men, Len Jenoff and Paul Daniels, $30,000 to murder his wife in order to continue an affair with Elaine Soncini, a popular Philadelphia radio personality.

Lynch claims Neulander wanted his wife killed because a divorce would threaten his rabbinical post.

Defense lawyers for the rabbi contend that the leader of the hitmen, Leonard Jenoff, is a habitual liar who has wrapped the rabbi up in a murder conspiracy to disguise what was, in reality, a robbery gone wrong.

Motive: The Mistress

Lynch began his case by putting Elaine Soncini, a former Philadelphia radio host at WPEN, on the stand as the motive for Neulander's conspiracy to kill his wife.

Soncini told the jury about her two-year affair with the Rabbi, which began in 1993 with her husband dying in the emergency room, detailing the romantic liaisons that occurred during lunchtime at her house and even, at times, in the Rabbi's synagogue office.

Soncini was smitten by the educated, well-spoken Neulander, but her role as a cloistered woman wore thin, she testified. "I wanted a normal life again," Soncini told the jury. "I wanted a relationship with a single person. I wanted to share a life with somebody, but I had such strong feelings for Fred."

So Soncini made Neulander an ultimatum: If he didn't become a single man by the end of 1994 or she would leave him. Soncini's assumption, as she testified, was that Neulander would get a divorce. But as the end of 1994 approached, the rabbi began to warn her about the coming of "a tumultuous fall" that, in hindsight, prosecutors say, portended his wife's death.

"He dreamed that violence was coming to Carol," Soncini testified. "He pictured 'a tumultuous fall,' then every time something happened [he said] 'I told you it was going to be a tumultuous fall.'"

In another conversation, Soncini testified, Neulander said "I wish [Carol] were just gone, I wish her car would go into the river." That conversation bothered Soncini. "It just didn't sound right. I said 'You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking."

The Hitmen

While Soncini provided a motive, it was the witness that most directly linked Neulander to the killing, Leonard Jenoff, 56, provided Neulander with a method to kill his wife.

In four days on the stand, Jenoff testified that the rabbi offered him $30,000 to kill his wife, and helped him carefully plan for the 1994 killing.

In early summer 1994, after convincing Jenoff to kill for him, Neulander finally identified his target as his own wife, Jenoff testified. "Let's go for a ride," he said. The two men hopped into the rabbi's Acura, left the synagogue and wound their way into the Neulanders' docile Cherry Hill neighborhood. According to Jenoff, Neulander pulled in front of 204 Highgate Lane and gestured at his white, two-story house. "The woman that you said you would kill is my wife," he said.

Jenoff pressed for details, he told the jury. But Neulander was silent. "He said I'm either the man for the job or I'm not the man for the job," Jenoff testified. "He said ... 'I promise you $30,000 if you kill my wife.'"

"It was the darkest day of my life," he explained to the rapt jury. "I killed his wife for $30,000 dollars."

The murder occurred during the "tumultuous fall." During the most emotional moment of the trial, Jenoff described the murder attempt. "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 Jenoff, shuddering and sobbing in unison with friends and family of the victim. "She started to stumble and I heard the word "Why, Why..."

Then, Jenoff testified, his accomplice took over. Paul Daniels, his voice slurred by anti-psychotic medication he takes to combat bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, testified on the last day of the state's case. While Daniels backed up his older partner in crime on some points, his testimony differed on a number of points.

Daniels verified that he received money from Jenoff (though the amount, $2,500, was less than what Jenoff testified he gave his partner) which he spent on "girls, clothes, and drugs." When asked whether the money could have come from a source other than the rabbi, Daniels said "No. Jenoff wouldn't have that kind of money."

Daniels, too, detailed the first aborted attempt on Carol Neulander's life and recounted the second, successful, attempt in brutal candor.

The Defendant's Children

Two of the State's witnesses, Neulander's daughter, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, 31, and his son, Matthew Neulander, 28, provided testimony that showed how their father acted in the months before and after his wife's death.

Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, who has been in court each day of the state's case, provided important details about the minutes before a first attempt on her mother's life was aborted and the minutes before she was bludgeoned to death.

Two weeks before her mother was killed, Neulander-Rockoff testified, she was speaking with her mother on the phone from her Philadelphia apartment when "the bathroom man" made his first appearance. That time, Neulander-Rockoff told the jury, her mother didn't seem startled or frightened, saying that the rabbi had told her to expect a letter.

"There's somebody here, I shouldn't be surprised, Daddy told me to expect him. But the very strange thing is he needs to use the bathroom," Neulander-Rockoff testified her mother told her. The man earned his moniker when, during that first visit, he asked to use the bathroom.

The night of the murder, Neulander-Rockoff was again on the phone with her mother when "the bathroom man" returned. "All of a sudden she was acting like there was somebody else there," Neulander-Rockoff testified. "She said that it was the bathroom guy. To me it meant that it was the person who had been at our house the week before." The two women got off the phone at about 8:45 p.m. on November 1, 1994. Minutes later, Carol Neulander was killed.

Dr. Matthew Neulander, who was working as an volunteer emergency medical technician and living at his parents' two-story home in Cherry Hill at the time of the murder, testified about a nasty fight his parents had only two days before the murder.

"Your father's leaving ... he's leaving the house," Neulander told the jury his mother said to him. The evening of October 28, 1994, after his parents came home. "This was a tremendous surprise and shock since I was not aware of any marriage problem they had had."

Neulander also told the jury that in the years leading up to the murder, his parents' relationship had deteriorated. "Their relationship over the years had grown increasingly distant," he testified. "They were clearly spending less and less time with each other, they were squabbling more and communicating less friendly when they were in the house."

And, testified Neulander, his father's reaction after his mother, who he testified he was closest to in the family, was not what he would have expected.

"Dad, what's the matter, what's wrong, where's mom, is she dead, did you see her?" Neulander told the jury he asked his father, rapid-fire, when he arrived at the house the night of the murder. His father was reticent, however. "He had one response to all my questions, which was 'everything is going to be okay.'"

Though defense lawyer Jeff Zucker made the point that grieving is a personal process and difficult to judge, Carol Neulander's sister, Rebecca Miele, who has a background in helping grieving individuals, made the same point as Matthew Neulander. She was the last of the state's 21 witnesses.

The Fateful Racquetball Game

One of the most colorful characters to testify on behalf of the state was Myron "Pepe" Levin, a 76-year-old former felon who told the jury Neulander asked him for help in killing his wife following a 1994 racquetball match.

"Fred said 'I wish I could get rid of my [expletive] wife and have her killed on the ground when I go home some day,'" Levin told the jury. "I says 'What are you [expletive] crazy? What are you nuts?' He says 'Do you know anybody good?' I say 'Get the [expletive] out of out of my head.' 'I says you're [expletive] nuts, stay away from me, you got a lovely wife, stick with it.'"

Levin was one of three witnesses to testify that Neulander made comments about wanting his wife dead in the months before her eventual murder.

But his testimony was vigorously attacked by defense lawyer Zucker, who took advantage of Levin's memory problems and previous criminal record to discredit his testimony. In an effort to rehabilitate Levin's testimony, Lynch brought two witnesses to the stand to back him up.

On the second-to-last day of the case, Anthony Federici, 41, a former driver for Levin, also verified that Neulander's former racquetball partner came out from a game with Neulander and said "F------ rabbi would like to see his wife dead on the floor when he comes home."

Federici said that Levin also told him on a later occasion "You know that crazy rabbi called me again about his wife, and he's asking me if I can find someone to murder her."

The trial, which is being broadcast live by Court TV, resumes Monday at 9:00 a.m. ET, with the defense's first witness.