A FAILED stock trader who for years has been the prime suspect in his wife’s 2009 murder has finally been arrested after allegedly blabbing to his girlfriend about what he had done.
Rod Covlin, 42, “made statements implicating himself” in the New Year’s Eve slaying of his banker wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, who was found dead in a bathtub in her New York City apartment, law enforcement sources told The New York Post.
Covlin was less than two months away from inheriting half of her $US4 million ($5.6 million) fortune until prosecutors charged him with murder on Monday. The fortune has been kept in a trust due to a wrongful-death suit filed against him in 2011.
Under an agreement, Covlin could inherit the funds if he was not found responsible for Shele’s death, if the Manhattan District Attorney said he was no longer a suspect or if six years passed after her death, court papers say.
When Covlin’s girlfriend went to authorities, she gave them the ammunition to indict him, sources said.
“This one would be a great Law & Order episode,” a source said. “We always knew he did it. [But] the DA’s office is very conservative in prosecuting homicide cases. So the case proceeded very slowly.”
Covlin — a Columbia grad who sponged off his wife while pursuing a passion for backgammon — was arrested on a warrant at the Metro-North station in Scarsdale, in upstate New York, at around 11am Sunday local time as he headed to his weekly visit with their kids, who live with his parents.
“He was totally stunned,” said a source. “He wasn’t expecting this at all. He had a blank stare on his face.”
Shele’s family hailed the arrest, six years after her death.
“It’s about time. I hope he gets what he deserves,’’ her ailing mum, Jaelene Danishefsky, 84, said from her home in Hillside, New Jersey. But “there will never be closure. She’s gone, and that’s all there is to it. I think of her every day.
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