At Any Cost
A Father's Betrayal, a Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
At Any Cost unravels the twisted story of Rod Covlin, whose unrepentant greed drove him to an unspeakable act of murder and betrayal that rocked New York City.
Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity--and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer to block him from her millions. She would never make it to that meeting.
Two days later, on New Year’s Eve, Shele was found dead in the bathtub of her Upper West Side apartment. Police ruled it an accident, and Shele’s deeply Orthodox Jewish family quickly buried her without an autopsy on religious grounds. Rod had a clear path to his ex-wife's fortune, but suspicions about her death lingered. As the two families warred over custody of Shele’s children—and their inheritance— Rod concocted a series of increasingly demented schemes, even plotting to kill his own parents, to secure the treasure. And as investigators closed in, Rod committed a final, desperate act to frame his own daughter for her mother’s death.
Journalists Rebecca Rosenberg and Selim Algar reconstruct the ten years that passed between the day Shele was found dead and the day her killer faced justice in this riveting account of how one man’s irrepressible greed devolved into obsession, manipulation, and murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalists Rosenberg and Algar take a chilling plunge into the mind of a psychopath in this riveting account. On New Year's Eve, 2009, Shele Covlin, a wealth manager at a New York City bank, was found floating in the bathtub of her Upper West Side apartment by her nine-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. The children called their father, Rod Covlin, Shele's estranged husband, to tell him what had happened. Rod later told the police Shele fell in the bathtub and drowned. The medical examiner ruled the death an accident, and the family refused an autopsy on religious grounds, but that didn't stop family and cops from digging. Rod, 11 years younger than Shele, was an abusive, philandering freeloader. After his wife's death, Rod bragged that he would get the kids and $5 million in insurance money. Years of legal wrangling stripped Rod of his children and the money and drove him to devise plans to kill his parents, have his then 14-year-old daughter accuse her grandfather of rape, and frame the daughter for Shele's murder. He was arrested in 2015 for Shele's murder, and in 2019 was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. Vivid prose bolsters this tale of justice delayed but finally triumphant. True crime fans will be enthralled.
Customer Reviews
Perplexing
The crux of the story for me was: how to destroy the lives of two children because your religion tells you to not to get an autopsy. An even more egregious crime than the murder itself.