Robert Reldan: Charming People To Death
In the mid 1970s, young women were being taken from the leafy streets of suburban New Jersey. She heard a female voice from the back of the car crying out, “Help me! He’s crazy.” Their abductor, a master of manipulation. You would think he was the sweetest person in the world. He would charm you to death with murder in mind.
Their stockings were tied around their neck with a stick in the stocking to twist it to make it tighter and tighter. It was horrendous and something was just stuck with me forever. But what was the root of his brutal ferocity? From the time he was in high school, his crimes were directed against women. He’s missing compassion and humanity.
And was he born to kill? Oh la. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God. In the 1970s, New Jerseyy’s affluent Bergen County to the west of Manhattan was an idilic place to live for thousands of New York’s professionals. A very nice suburban community directly over the George Washington Bridge from New York City. Very nice middle class residential community.
About half of the people there commuted to New York to work and the other half worked locally. For former Bergen County prosecutor Charles Buckley, the area was at odds with its crimeridden neighbor across the Hudson River. There was never anything criminal happening in the area. There were no breakins going on at the time. I don’t remember a concern about safety at your home. It was very quiet.
But Buckley would soon be called in to work a case that would rock the community to its [Music] core. In 1975, the Gentile district of Hworth had seemed an ideal location for British newlyweds Jonathan and Susan Haynes to set up home. Jonathan had recently taken up a job in the US.
Susan, an accomplished midwife, was looking for work. We had the option of having an apartment in New York or moving out into New Jersey. And we drove around New Jersey and northern Bergen County. It’s particularly lovely. And we picked a house and it was a nice house. The tranquil suburb appeared to offer the perfect start in life for Jonathan and his new bride.
We met at a party and we hit it off almost straight away. She was fairly beautiful, so that was a good eye contact, I guess. She was a very happy girl, hugely warm, always had a smile and very social. Lots and lots of friends. Made friends very, very easily. On the morning of October the 6th, Jonathan headed off to work, leaving Susan at home.
I telephoned Sue at about 1:00 and everything was fine. And she was quite excited. She’d had a letter from good friends in Cape Town. One of the great friends was going to have a have a child. She was excited by that. And so we we chatted for some length of time about that. I said, “I think I’ll be home slightly late tonight.” Jonathan arrived back in Bergen County just before 6:00 p.m.
Her husband came home from work that day. He had every anticipation that she would she would be [Music] there. Normally Sue would always come to the door and say hi, but there was no one there. Um, the house was locked, so I had to use my keys to get in. I shouted, “So, Sue, Sue, there was not a thing out of place.
” He looked into every room in the house and found nothing. The house was in perfect shape. Things were folded neatly as as he would as he expected. There was no flower pots knocked over. There was just nothing there to suggest there would have been a struggle or anything like that. Jonathan went to their garage to check on Susan’s car.
The car was shut, but the driver’s keys were on the ignition, I believe, and the house keys were on the passenger seat. So, that’s the first indication that there was a problem at this house. his wife was gone and there was no reason, no note. The police were called and the young husband soon found himself a suspect.
In any case of a missing woman, the first person that a police officer will think of as a possible perpetrator is the spouse or boyfriend. My friend suggested that, you know, things might not be as they seem to the police. And then then it dawned on me that I might well be a suspect. After 3 days, with still no sight of Susan, the young Englishman was asked to take a polygraph test.
The results of a lie detector test are not admissible in evidence in any court of law, but they are an important investigative tool for law enforcement. I had no idea what a polygraph test was. I wouldn’t want to do it again under the any sort of circumstances like that. More than a third of female murder victims are killed by their husband or boyfriend, but not Susan Haynes.
Haynes passed the lie detector test with flying colors. There was absolutely no concern that he was involved in this disappearance whatsoever. [Music] Jonathan’s new wife had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. They did searches of the area, the wooded areas and fields around the Hannes home.
They brought in sniffing dogs. The police decided they would like to use a psychic to help on the investigation. And I traveled for days in an unmarked police van with police going around New Jersey trying to find indications of where Susan might have been. Hundreds of volunteers went forth marching arm in arm over cleared areas to see if they could come across any sort of evidence whatsoever.
Nothing turned up whatsoever. [Music] Everybody was trying to help to come up with some understanding what might have happened to Susan. Was she wandering around America with a complete loss of memory? Has she been kidnapped by a professional body? Was at that time United Kingdom was having trouble in Northern Ireland? Is there a ransom call? Is this a nonsensical ransom situation? They just don’t know.
There’s nothing to work on. You have to have some clue, some some sense of direction as to where this is [Music] leading. As commuters continued to cross the George Washington Bridge to make their mark in New York, one local remained in the area. Charismatic, privileged, Robert Walden. He was a charming guy, handsome, tall, powerfully built, personable.
He was very good-looking. He spoke well. He didn’t cuss. He didn’t swear. Women loved him. They were all over Robert Raldon. He had girlfriends here, girlfriends there. If you saw him walking down the street and he asked for directions, you’d certainly stop. You wouldn’t think twice about helping him out. Real had been born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940 before his family relocated to Bergen County. Real came from a good family.
His mother and father owned a lunchonet coffee shop in New York City. He may have not had much parental supervision because both mother and father worked in the restaurant. Although Robert was close to his busy parents, when they did get time off work, much of their focus had to be devoted to Robert’s sibling.
Real had a younger sister, Susan, and the younger sister had polio as a child, and the parents attention was turned toward the younger sister. However, Realon didn’t lack for material goods. The aunt was very wealthy. Aunt Lillian, she had she had married well and done well herself financially. Lillian Booth was the sister of Robert Rden’s mother.
She was an aspiring actress in New York City. But like most young struggling actors, she had to find other work while she was waiting for her big break on Broadway. And so she worked in the lunchonet. A very wealthy gentleman came into the lunchonet and took a liking to her. He was the son of an early investor in IBM and had inherited a great deal of wealth.
Lillian and he were a happily married couple. They had no children of their own. And so Lillian focused a lot of her attention on Robert Raldden, whom she called Bobby, and all of the other nieces and nephews that she had in the extended family. Bobby Relen was her favorite and she lavished gifts on him. One of the particularly nice gifts was a a brand new Volkswagen convertible.
But Aunt Lillian’s favorite nephew was not all he seemed. On October the 6th, 1975, 28-year-old newlywed Susan Haynes had mysteriously disappeared from her home in Leafy Bergen County, New Jersey, leaving police and her husband baffled. I just couldn’t imagine at the time what had happened. I guess um desperation sort of creeps in.
You just don’t know what to do. The first thing was to make sure the police knew every single thing possible. [Music] But Susan Haynes disappearance would not be the only missing person case to hit the area. The Reev family were amongst the many residents enjoying an idilic home life in the attractive streets of Bergen County.
My family was two girls and two boys. Two girls came first and then the two boys. Uh my profession was an as an attorney. The parents eldest daughter, Susan, was still living at home. Susan was delightful girl, very attractive young lady, likable person. Everybody liked her very much. She was Susan Sunshine. Having just returned from a month-long vacation trip to Europe, the 22-year-old had landed a new job.
Susan Reeve worked in an advertising agency in New York City. She had uh just graduated from Holland’s College in Virginia and this was her first job. She had a lot of friends. She was hardworking and funloving. She has got everything to live for. She’s just got it all. She had just become engaged to be married and she was looking forward to getting married.
On the 14th of October 1975, 8 days after the disappearance of newlywed Susan Haynes, Susan Reev set off for work as usual. She rode a commuter bus to work every day. It was very convenient. The bus stop was just a short walk from her house where she lived with her parents. At the end of her working day, Susan had arrived back in her neighborhood at around 6:00 p.m.
Susan Reeve was walking up this sidewalk after she got off the bus on that far corner and was walking in the direction of her home, which is further up Anderson Avenue. And then all of a sudden, she was nowhere to be found. [Music] As the time went on, we began to wonder and called around to her fiance and other people to see if perhaps she had a date she had neglected to tell us about.
She was not the type of girl who would irresponsibly stop off for a drink someplace without telling her parents about it at the very least. They came down later on looking and she uh she was nowhere to be found. I mean, they came down where where’d she go? Why isn’t she home? So, we called the police and reported her missing. An eyewitness report on the George Washington Bridge gave cause for concern.
One of the toll collectors in the early evening hours saw a car drive up. The man was playing the radio rather loudly. She heard something coming from, she thought, the back of the car. A female voice distinctly crying out, “Help me. He’s crazy. Help me. He’s crazy.” Screaming over and over again.
The man sped off across the bridge and disappeared from her sight. We all were being driven crazy with apprehension and not knowing what happened. Almost every day looking somewhere, some clue would come about and I would search an area, but to no avail. The disappearance of Susan Haynes just over a week earlier also rang alarm bells. Two women unexplainedly not showing up where they’re supposed to be.
Police now have to see that there’s a strong possibility there could be criminality involved. Police very quickly told me there’s another young woman who who had gone missing and they very quickly put two and two together. I don’t think there was any hesitation. They thought the coincidence was was too great to ignore.
I think we thought she might have been kidnapped and we hoped that we would receive a request for ransom. Two young women called Susan had now disappeared from the comfortable suburbs of Bergen County. A week later in Manhattan, a cler at Macy’s department store was approached by a man selling jewelry.
One item in particular caught his attention. The ring was a very unique ring. It was an engagement ring, but this was a different kind of ring. It was made specially The ring had belonged to newlywed Susan Haynes and never usually left her finger. The engagement ring which we bought from Harrison in England was fairly unique. Looking at it sideways, it was shaped as an S and had a unique pattern of small diamonds and central diamond.
Not an overly expensive ring, but a particularly nice design which we chose. Two days later, the man returned, desperate to buy the ring back, but the store couldn’t at first find it. He raised such a stink, made such a scene out of not being able to immediately get the ring back. He’s screaming, causing all kinds of problems so bad they bring store security up to calm him down.
The man eventually was able to buy the ring back for $100 in cash. He would later be identified as charismatic Bergen County resident Robert [Music] Raldon. And with his millionaire aunt, Raldden was no stranger to the finer things in life. Lillian Booth lived in a very very exclusive small town in northern New Jersey in Bergen County, a town called Alpine, New Jersey.
Many rock stars and rap stars and movie celebrities still live in that area. It’s an area with multi-million dollar homes and tennis courts and swimming pools. And the family was often invited to go there. She would wear flashy jewelry. U she was ostentatious about her wealth. Real lived a playboy’s life because his wealthy aunt finance, horseback riding lessons, skiing trips.
She gave him everything that a person could want. But there was more to Robert Realon than Met the Eye. If you didn’t know him, you would think he was the sweetest person in the world cuz he he would charm you to death. Robert Walddon was in fact a parole and at the time of the disappearance of the two Susans had been free for only 5 months, having been arrested for an attack in 1971.
That day, patrolman Charles Moore had been on duty. I received a radio call stating there was an attempted rape at Matuchin Manor. It’s a apartment complex. A young woman had just been threatened by a stranger. He jumped in her car and pulled a knife and she thought it was a robbery. She pushed the purse towards him and he said, “That’s not what I’m after.
and she jumped out of the car. Searching the area, Officer Moore spotted a man matching the description of the attacker, 30-year-old Robert Redden. The thing that got me was the eye contact. I immediately knew that this is the guy. As soon as we got near each other, he bolted into an ice cream store.
He sort of hit the counter with his hand. I stopped him, you know, told him to freeze. I had my hand on my weapon and he stopped and let’s walk outside because there was so many people, you know, buying ice cream. While additional officers held Raldon, the patrolman retraced his steps. I went back into the store to where he hit the counter and retrieved a blue handled throwing [Music] knife.
Real claimed he was in the area visiting a friend in hospital, a Mr. Prenagast. I went to Kennedy Hospital with another officer and we went up and see if we can interview Mr. Pendergast. We uh went up and asked him if he knew Relen. And he said, “Yes, he did.” And I said, “Well, how do how do you know him?” And he says, “Well, he was his prize pupil.
” I said, you know, a teacher or what? And he says, “No.” uh he had relayed in some manner he was the chief psychiatrist in Rawway prison for sex offenders unit. It was far from the first time that Robert Redden had been in trouble and tragically it would not be the [Music] last. In separate incidents in early October 1975, newlywed Susan Haynes and bride to be Susan Reev had mysteriously disappeared from the comfortable suburbs of Bergen County.
Investigators were baffled. Two women in a relatively close area suddenly disappearing with no explanation, no answer. If you have no evidence and no witnesses, what police activities can you put into effect? You have to have something to start [Music] with. But on the 21st of the month, investigators got a break. The toll booth operator, who had heard a frightened female calling from a car, was shown a photo lineup.
She picked the driver out as Peroli Robert Reelton. They didn’t have any firm suspicions about him. It was a routine matter. Record of sexual activity. Bring him in. When the charismatic 35-year-old was questioned, everything appeared to be in order. He was very positive and he he said, “Here’s a here’s a diary of what I’ve been doing in the past uh 6 months.
” But when investigators checked the diary, overly detailed alibis on the days of the disappearances raised suspicions. Real had elaborately pointed out that he had stopped off at a bar not far from his house. He had a bitter lemon non-alcoholic beverage. So, the investigators actually went to that bar and the bartenders said that they do not stock bitter lemon as a beverage in their bar.
The following day, investigators were called to a park just across the state line. One of the local residents was walking his dog and trying to take a walk down the pathway to the shore of the reservoir and the dog kept dragging him to go off to the right. The dog pulled him toward a more secluded pathway and there he discovered the body of a human being.
[Music] News soon reached the loved ones of the two missing Susans of Bergen [Music] County. He came quietly to me and said, “A body’s been found.” And I think at that time we all realized it was most likely to be Susan. [Music] Dental records confirm the victim was indeed the young British newlywed Susan Haynes.
I don’t think many people in this world can imagine how bad that was. It was horrendous and something which just stuck with me forever. [Music] An autopsy confirmed that Susan had suffered a brutal attack. From all indications, she has been the victim of a of a murder. The hyoid bone in the neck was broken.
The body had been garitted around the neck with a women’s hose, a stick tied in it, and uh tightened. The horrific strangulation confirmed to police that they were now dealing with a sadistic killer. 35-year-old Robert Realon became the prime suspect, and the man with the millionaire aunt had a long history of criminal behavior.
He committed his first offense when he was 16. He went across the George Washington Bridge into the Riverside Drive area of New York City and in one of the apartment buildings there accosted a woman stole her pocketbook and ran off. There’s no real gain in purse snatching from a monetary perspective, but there’s a lot of psychological gain when someone like Redden is doing minor crimes like this to get money when he really doesn’t need it.
Uh and and plus the the risk is enormous because you can go to jail for an extended period of time for just a very minor crime. Uh it’s not to get money, it’s to satisfy himself psychologically. Individuals like this enjoy violating the rights of others. It’s stimulating for them. It’s arousing for them.
Uh and so they do it and they do it repetitively because it’s it it it’s that stimulating. [Music] Thefts, burglaries, and muggings continued through the 60s for the young middle-class man who seemingly had no need for [Music] money. From our perspective, he had it all. We would be envious of of him, but he wanted more.
There was an entitlement there. First of all, he had had psychiatric exams early in his square as a juvenile. They said he had animosity to women and marked animosity to his his mother and he just thought he was a guy who was entitled to a lot more than he was getting from Antletland. Almost from the time he was in high school, his crimes were directed against women.
Most crime escalates. Crime begins early on. It can begin just in fantasy. Then it can go into voyerism or peeping. It can go into break and entry, sexual assault, and then sexual murder. Um, and if you look at the criminal histories of most serial sexual murderers, you have that very similar pattern, particularly burglary, because many burglaries are sexually motivated.
It’s the break-in itself is sexually stimulating. Then in 1967, Raldden spotted a local Bergen County housewife. He’s sitting in his brand new Volkswagen and she drove by and he became fixated on her. He followed her home. He used his charm and he he got her to allow him to come in to supposedly make a phone call and he rapes her and then he gets out and drive gets his car and drives away.
If you look at normal individuals in the course of a day, most people come in contact with someone that they have some sort of attraction to. You don’t attack the person, you control yourself. And Real was certainly capable of controlling himself, but he choose not to control himself. [Music] But Realon’s brazen attack had not gone unnoticed.
His Volkswagen Beetle, a present from Aunt Lillian, had been spotted at the scene, and the 26-year-old was [Music] convicted. Robert Redden was sent to a new rehabilitation program for sex offenders at Raway State Prison. Real would be the poster child for the uh program because he was so good-looking. He said all the right things.
He could shine in front of the whole world. It appeared that the new program suited Raldon. Real was very smart, knew the right terms to throw back at the psychologist to show that the treatment was working. All you needed was a psychiatrist and maybe an officer to recommend you for the parole board. The psychiatrist would say, “Oh, he’s cured.
It’s a miracle.” In the report, he used the phrase, “If Relen is released on parole, I predict that Robert Redden will become the most successful parole in the history of the criminal justice system.” And released on parole, Real was in 1970 when he held the young woman at knife point in her car. The incident led to his return to Raway Prison where despite his offenses, his charm seemingly continued to win over the staff.
He was entirely different in 99% of the inmates. He knew just what to say. He knew how to play the game. All the psyches couldn’t figure him out. In fact, he had them all fooled. different people would come and he could speak well and he showed just enough humility to win everybody. He was such a good con [Music] man.
Robert Redden won parole yet again in May 1975. Now just 5 months later, two young women had disappeared from the streets and one had been found murdered. On the 28th of October, the news got worse. Another body, a woman had been discovered in Tolman Mountain State Park. Former prosecutor Charles Buckley remembers the scene that faced investigators.
Well, the body was found off the park into the environs of the river there. Park employees were checking the pipe to make sure that there was not a high chlorine level and a body was found lying on its back in the water with the arms sticking up in the air. It was missing 22-year-old Susan Reev. And it was clear she hadn’t died of natural causes. But the body’s not right.
It couldn’t have been situated that way with its arms sticking up in the air. The the arms would have been down. Clearly, the police knew this body had been placed there. The shocking news stunned the residents of Bergen County. The press dubbed the murders the Susan stranglings and reports soon reached Susan Reeves father.
I can’t even describe it to you. She’d been dead for almost a week. So it would have been very difficult for me to identify her and it was impossible for her to have a normal funeral. She had to be cremated. [Music] A post-mortem confirmed that Susan had been sexually assaulted. Her cause of death matched the other Bergen County victim, Susan Haynes.
Both women were were killed in exactly the same manner. They were gared. There were their stockings were tied around their neck with a stick in the stocking to twist it. The most efficient way to kill somebody is with a gun. But a serial sexual murderer wants to get up close and personal. The primary method is strangulation, particularly manual strangulation with your hands and sometimes liature strangulation.
And they do it so they can control death. Two days later, prime suspect Robert Redden was arrested for two house burglaries and imprisoned. But Realon had no intention of staying behind bars, and the rich aunt that had supported him for so long would very soon become his target. [Music] In 1975, two young women had been abducted from the suburbs of New Jerseys Bergen County.
Their dead bodies dumped in Parkland. And while the prime suspect, Robert Weldon, was in prison for breaking and entering, prosecutors began compiling their case. Meanwhile, Redden continued to receive the support of his family. Throughout Robert Redden’s life of crime, his family was always by his side. They never lost faith in him. Mother and father, sister, aunt [Music] Lillian.
But it appeared, despite his aunt Lillian’s lifelong support, Realon was intent on getting his hands on much more of her fortune. He approached two fellow inmates with a proposal. Can you get someone to kill her? I’m going to need a big-time attorney to represent me. And these guys said, “Well, all right. We can we can look into it.
” And they start working on a plan. It came through the grapevine because the grapevine in a prison’s a really gigantic thing. And uh he he planned to kill her for her money because she he was in her [Music] will. The inmates reported Raldon’s murder plot to authorities. An undercover policeman then posed as a hired hitman. We met him twice at States Prison.
Recorded conversation real about his desire to kill the ant. the signal that he wanted to kill her was when he told the investigator that’s what he wanted done with the ant that to slash across her throat. So, uh, he was then arrested for that. Robert Redden would face a series of trials for the murders of Susan Haynes, Susan Reev, and conspiracy to murder his aunt.
He made an impression on many that encountered him. good-looking young man, well-dressed, wellto-do family, polished, charm, um, looked like an everyday upper class gentleman. He had a very commanding presence. He was judged by many to have been the attorney, and his attorney was thought to have been the defendant. [Music] But Robert Redden was not prepared to rely on the due process of law.
He was being held in a anti- room to the courthouse when somehow he had obtained a can of mace. He took it out, sprayed the guard in the eyes. My law clerk came running in, locked the two doors and told me, “Stay where you are.” I did not know what’s going on. He had attempted to escape. He jumped out the second story window and broke both ankles and he still ran.
I ran down the stairs of the main part of the courthouse out into the car park and I was running trying to find this guy and I was going to get him. Despite Jonathan Hayne’s best efforts, Raldden managed to reach a car. Well, he was being chased by police up the highway, got into New York State, but the fugitives bid for freedom didn’t last.
He was apprehended when the car went off the road. I would leave to a ditch in 1986. Robert Redden was finally sentenced to 30 years for the murder of Susan Haynes and life imprisonment for the murder of Susan Reev. But the question remains, what was the motive for Realon’s life of crime? Was the privileged young man shaped by his upbringing or was he born to kill? Real was I think greed was the problem.
Real felt he should be getting more from his aunt. She never gave him enough to satisfy him. He just felt animosity towards women. And I think that that this hatred caused him to reach out and rape. You know what? So many times like you talk to prisoners and they say, “Well, my environment, I didn’t have a father. My mother was a junkie.
He had everything. So, how can you possibly explain why he did [Music] that? Personally, I think there’s just something missing in him. I find it very hard to believe that it was the nurturing aspect. I think there’s something psychologically wrong with Real. He’s missing compassion and humanity. He probably wasn’t born to kill, but by the time he reached 16, he must have had an aggression and a hostility against women for whatever reason.
And something grew into frankly a monster. When you look at Real, if you try to understand him as to a reaction to events that occurred in his life, you’re going to miss the entire boat here. There is really no watershed event in Real’s life that made him do what he eventually wound up doing. This is internal. This is the way he is.
From a very early age, he enjoyed violating the rights of others. These individuals function in a very different sphere than the rest of us do. When they see someone with belongings, they think those belongings really belong to them, and it’s their job then just to take it from the person. These things are inbornne really uh to a great extent and it’s gratifying himself by hurting others and really hurting others not just a little bit by a lot.
This is sexually stimulating and part of his sexual arousal [Music] pattern 21 years after he was sentenced. Robert Weldon’s lifelong supporter, Aunt Lillian, passed away, and from her, the inmate inherited the income from a $9 million trust fund. The family of Susan Reev were determined that her murderer shouldn’t receive the money and began legal action.
In 2010, the court ruled that Reddon must pay damages to them and that they should receive the income from the trust fund for the rest of Realon’s life. Barbara and I wanted nothing of Realon’s money to have taken anything from him, might have given him some solace in thinking that we had accepted compensation for what he had done.
So we determined the money would go into a memorial scholarship fund in the college from which Susan had just graduated. It’s been a very rewarding [Music] experience. And the loved ones of midwife Susan Haynes, whose life was snuffed out just after her marriage, ensure she’ll also never be forgotten. She’s buried in our local churchyard where we got married.
It’s quite difficult to um imagine that um at this um 13th century church where we got married um she’s still there. I’m extremely proud of Susan and I know she’d be well remembered. Friends all around who still remember. It was very sad. [Music] to be confronted with murder. He stays with me for the rest of my life. I’m nearly 70. Um, it’s still there.
