cover image Catspaw: One Man's Ordeal by Trials

Catspaw: One Man's Ordeal by Trials

Louis Nizer. Dutton Books, $21.95 (299pp) ISBN 978-1-55611-276-8

Despite the self-serving subtitle, this astounding story of a case that spanned 18 years and four trials is a remarkable account of the criminal justice process and a defendant who was probably wrongly accused. In 1974 a prominent Waterbury, Conn., lawyer and his wife, Irving and Rhoda Pasternak, were hacked to death by an intruder. Their ex-son-in-law Murray Gold, a concentration camp survivor and former stockbroker, was accused of the crime, although he had no discernable motive and there was no forensic evidence tying him to the killings. His first trial ended in a hung jury; the second brought a guilty verdict, largely because testimony strongly suggesting another murderer was disallowed. Nizer, his defense attorney, secured a reversal from the Connecticut Supreme Court, but Gold, becoming increasingly neurotic, fired him. The third trip to court ended in a mistrial; the fourth resulted in another guilty verdict. Bordering on psychosis, Gold received a hearing at the state prison, largely as a result of Nizer's efforts, and was freed again, with motions against a reinstatement of the guilty verdict being filed as this review goes to press. Nizer, who expresses great compassion for Gold because of his Holocaust experience, probes the psychology of the concentration camp survivor to explain the combination of paranoia and guilt that afflicted his client. Doubleday Book Club and Reader's Digest Condensed Books selections. (Apr.)