FREEHOLD, N.J. — As two men were inside his home beating Carol Neulander to death with lead pipes, Rabbi Fred Neulander was making a rare Tuesday night appearance at Temple M'Kor Shalom, witnesses testified.

Dressed in a suit, Neulander was swinging his arms and appeared carefree when he popped into choir practice, recalled Anita Hochman, longtime cantor of the Cherry Hill synagogue.

"Someone in the choir said, 'How ya doing rabbi?' " Hochman told jurors at the rabbi's capital murder trial Tuesday. "He said, 'Great!' "

Prosecutors contend that Fred Neulander was feeling good that night, Nov. 1, 1994, because he knew that he would soon be out of his marriage of almost 29 years and then be free to openly date his mistress of almost two years.

Carol Neulander, 52, was killed sometime between 6:40 p.m., when her son Matthew left for work, and 9:20 p.m., when Fred Neulander came home to find his wife gravely injured and called 911. Prosecutors claim that Neulander changed from casual clothes to a suit and tie and made sure that he was seen by numerous congregants of M'Kor Shalom around the time Carol Neulander met her death.

Victim Carol Neulander

Prosecution witnesses Len Jenoff, a friend of the rabbi's, and Paul Daniels, Jenoff's roommate, confessed to committing the murder. Jenoff claims that Neulander paid him $30,000 to kill his wife in order to spare his family and the congregation the spectacle of a potentially sticky divorce.

Jenoff, however, has credibility problems so Lynch is providing support through other witnesses. Hochman, for example, testified that Neulander told her after the murder that his wife gave her blessing to his extra-marital liasions.

"He told me he had engaged in two indiscretions — that was his word — and that he was not proud of what he had done," Hochman said.

Marylee Alperin, a founding member of the congregation who was at choir practice the night Neulander popped in, said she punched him in the arm when her husband told her that Neulander made the same claim to him. Alperin said she confronted Neulander and became upset by his reply.

"He told me he and Carol had an open marriage," she said. "Carol was a very moral person. No way would she ever agree to an open marriage."

Alperin recalled Carol Neulander as a warm, giving person. "She was a like a sister to me," Alperin said.

Jurors also heard Tuesday from two witnesses who lend support to the testimony of witness Myron "Peppy" Levin. Anthony Federici, Levin's former driver, testified that after speaking privately with Levin before the murder in 1994, Levin told Federici about the conversation.

"He said, 'Freddy would like to come home and see his wife dead on the floor,' " Federici said, echoing Levin's testimony of last week. "I was awestruck. I didn't know what to say."

On cross-examination, however, Federici admitted that he denied that Levin ever related such a conversation to him when investigators inquired about it in March 1995.

"I didn't want to get involved in this situation," Federici said in response to a question by defense lawyer Michael Riley.

Riley asked Federici directly if he lied to police and a grand jury.

"I guess you could say that. I lied because I was nervous, fearful," the witness explained.

Riley also brought out that Federici told police that he thought that Levin, an ex-convict who has done federal prison time, was soliciting him to find a hit man to kill Carol Neulander.

"I thought he was maybe soliciting somebody but I really didn't know what was in the man's head," Federici said.

Prosecution witness Cynthia Sharp Myers, a New Jersey lawyer who was friends with Levin, testified that she also was "not forthcoming" with police when they showed up at her law office asking questions. Myers initially told police that she had no useful information to offer but eventually gave a statement telling investigators that Levin mentioned that Neulander expressed his desire to find his wife dead.

"I'm a human. I didn't understand its importance," Myers said, referring to her reasons for misleading police. "I didn't give credence to the conversation. I considered it a flip remark."

"You lied to police, did you not?" Riley pressed.

"Yes," she said.

Myers was crying as she left the courtroom.

Autopsy Photos Shown

Some covering their mouths, several of the 16 jurors looked visibly upset Tuesday afternoon as Lynch walked past the jury box holding photos take of Carol Neulander's body taken during an autopsy.

Retired Camden, N.J., medical examiner Robert Segal testified that the victim had seven lacerations on the top of her head, multiple skull fractures and defensive wounds. The ring finger on her right hand was torn and crushed, he said.

The cause of death was ruled to be blunt force trauma, which caused Carol Neulander to choke on her own vomit, Segal testified.

Despite the amount of blood that had to be cleaned from the Neulanders' living room, Fred Neulander insisted on observing the Jewish practice of shiva in the home within days of the killing, according to testimony.

M'Kor Shalom congregant Beverly Weiss told jurors that at the shiva, Neulander sat in a large leather chair in the living room and a man she had not met was seated to the rabbi's right in a folding chair. Weiss said she later learned the man was Carol Neulander's confessed killer.

"It was Len Jenoff," Weiss testified.

Another congregant, Sheila Goodman, said Neulander offered a theory for the murder. He said the bakery where Carol Neulander worked, Classic Cakes, hired "Colombians" and they would "kill you for a nickel," according to Weiss.

On cross-examination Thursday, Riley is expected to key in on the fact that Goodman is a new witness. Neither she nor Weiss testified at Neulander's first trial, which ended last November in a deadlock.

If convicted, Neulander faces life in prison or the death penalty.

Judge Linda Baxter gave jurors Wednesday off so that she can deal with an undisclosed legal issue. The jury was told to return Thursday at 1:30 p.m.

After jurors were dismissed, Lynch and Riley chatted with the judge for about 15 minutes before the courtroom was cleared. When the lawyers emerged 10 minutes later, they weren't talking. Both declined to disclose the reason for the break in the trial.

"I can't comment on the issue," Riley said.

Asked if his client was considering a plea as the elevator shut, he replied emphatically, "No."

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.