The Prince of Paradise

by John Glatt

  * * *

  After his second failed attempt to kill Bernice Novack, Cristobal Veliz left Miami with Laura Law, going back up north to regroup. He was angry and frustrated, and complained that he had already given Melvin Medrano $150 for the aborted job.

  The plot was then put on hold, until Melvin Medrano could recruit someone else to help him. A couple of weeks later, a thirty-three-year-old illegal immigrant from Nicaragua named Alejandro Garcia started work at Medrano’s car wash.

  Garcia had first arrived in Florida in 2005 on a six-month work visa, staying on when it ran out. He was a street person and a crack addict with a long police record for theft, drugs, and petty crimes.

  Five foot, ten inches tall and weighing around two hundred pounds, Garcia sported a large dragon tattoo on his right arm. He was blind in his right eye, after a machete cut it open in a childhood accident. Now he always wore sunglasses, as light troubled him, giving him dizzy spells and severe headaches.

  Soon after they met, Medrano asked Garcia if he had ever beaten anyone up for money. When Garcia said no but that he was willing to do so, Medrano said he knew of a job to beat up an old lady.

  “They were going to pay good money,” Garcia later testified. “So I told him if [it’s] an old lady, the job looks easy. I needed money, so I said okay.”

  Soon afterward, Medrano opened a new car wash, at a Vallero gas station a few blocks away, and hired Garcia to work there. Garcia would soon be meeting “Jefe” (the big boss), he told his new employee, who was bankrolling the old lady job.

  The last week of March, Cristobal Veliz and Francisco Picado arrived at the car wash and met Garcia.

  “Cristobal told me he wanted me to beat up an old lady,” Garcia said. “The lady was his sister’s mother-in-law.”

  Veliz explained that the old lady disliked his sister, Narcy, making her son, Ben, beat Narcy every day as part of the Jewish religion. He also told Garcia that Narcy had “big tits” that she didn’t want, because her mother-in-law had given her a drink and she had woken up with them.

  “He told me that [Ben] abused her sexually,” Garcia would later testify, “and had sex up the ass without any tenderness, and made her give him blowjobs whenever he wanted. Horrible dirty things.”

  Veliz explained that he had sent others to try to assault the old lady, calling those other men “blood bunglers” because they had been too scared to do it.

  Then he took Medrano and Garcia for lunch at a Subway restaurant near the car wash, to make the deal.

  “Cristobal asked me how much I would charge,” said Garcia. “I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never done this. Is a thousand okay?’ He said, ‘Okay, just do the job.’”

  Veliz said that he and Medrano would follow the old lady’s car and hit her from behind. When she got out of it, Garcia was to assault her.

  “The plan was for me to give her a good beating,” he explained, “and hit her in the teeth.”

  Before leaving, Veliz gave Garcia his cell phone number, which Garcia punched into his phone under the name “Jefe.”

  * * *

  On Sunday, March 22, Temple Hayes and her partner, Barbara, stopped off in Fort Lauderdale, while on a cruise around Florida, to spend the day with Bernice. They drove over to the Coral Ridge Golf Course to collect Bernice and took her to Whole Foods, one of her favorite stores.

  “And we sat there and talked for hours,” said Hayes. “We were laughing with her about the great shape she was in. I said, ‘Jeez, girl, you’re my motivator, because you’re almost in better shape than I am.’”

  Then they went back to Bernice’s house for a couple of hours, before they had to get back to the boat. At one point, Hayes asked how things were between her and Narcy.

  “For some reason Bernice had softened around all that,” Hayes said. “I think that she had let her guard down, and just said, ‘This is the way it is, so I need to just be comfortable with it.’ She was no longer talking about Narcy so negatively.”

  * * *

  The following Saturday morning, March 28, Bernice Novack went to the Bank of America, in downtown Fort Lauderdale, to put a five-carat diamond ring in her safe-deposit box. On her way into the bank, she tripped over some broken sidewalk, landing facedown on the pavement.

  The bank staff rushed out to help her, bringing her into the bank. They sat her down and treated the cuts to her head with rubbing alcohol. Bernice refused to let them call an ambulance, insisting she was fine. And after leaving the ring in her safe-deposit box, she drove herself home. Then she called Ben Jr., who was out of town, telling him she had fallen. He told her to go to the hospital immediately, but she said it was unnecessary.

  “She was banged up pretty bad,” said Rebecca Greene. “She had all kinds of cuts and bruises.”

  A few hours later, Ben Novack Jr. returned to Fort Lauderdale, driving straight over to his mother’s house. He insisted on taking her to the Imperial Point Medical Center, where she was X-rayed, before being released.

  Ben Jr. then decided to sue the Bank of America for negligence, because of the injuries caused to his mother by the broken sidewalk. The next day, Bernice asked Rebecca Greene to come over and photograph her injuries.

  “She called me to take pictures of her face,” said Rebecca, “and all because her son was going to sue them. He was one of those type people.”

  When Green arrived, Bernice gave her a digital camera to take the photographs.

  “Bernice had this really thin skin,” Greene recalled, “so if she cut herself or fell down, it would look just awful. That’s the way she looked, because she had fallen and cut herself in several places, and skinned her face all up.”

  Apart from her injuries, Bernice appeared fine, and even opened a bottle of white wine to thank her neighbor.

  * * *

  On Monday morning, Bernice Novack drove to work as usual, but Ben and Narcy insisted on driving her home, saying she looked terrible.

  “She tried to come back to work,” said Charlie Seraydar. “That’s the stamina that this lady had. Ben insisted that she go to another hospital for a second opinion.”

  Later that day, Ben Jr. e-mailed Seraydar the photographs of his mother’s injuries, asking what needed to be done to file a negligence suit against the bank.

  “She was all bandaged up,” Seraydar said, “and had bruises on her legs, her arms, her elbows, and her face. I mean she looked like she’d had the shit kicked out of her.”

  Seraydar advised hiring private investigator Pat Franklin, who had worked on the home invasion incident seven years earlier, to photograph the sidewalk outside the Bank of America where Bernice had fallen.

  After Bernice’s fall, Narcy had been unusually sympathetic and helpful—for it would now be far easier to stage another accident for Bernice Novack, with her recent medical history of falls.

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE KILLING

  At 1:00 P.M. on Friday April 3, Francisco Picado rented a red Chevy Scion from Rent Max in Miami, paying $118 in cash that he had been given by Cristobal Veliz. He then drove it to the car wash, where Melvin Medrano was waiting.

  Two hours later, Medrano took the wheel of the Scion and collected Alejandro Garcia from the Blue Belle Trailer Park, where Garcia was renting a small room in the back of a trailer. He brought him back to the car wash, where Veliz was parked in his green Nissan Pathfinder.

  After collecting a fourteen-inch monkey wrench, Medrano and Garcia followed Veliz to NE Thirty-Seventh Drive, Fort Lauderdale, and waited for Bernice Novack to come home. Several hours later, after she failed to appear, Veliz took his men out for dinner.

  “Cristobal said that we were going to return,” Garcia said.

  On Saturday afternoon, they regrouped in the parking lot of a Checkers restaurant on East Sunrise Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale. Upon their arrival, Garcia stepped out of the Scion and walked over to the Pathfinder, where Veliz was receiving last-minute instructions from Narcy on his cell phone.

  “
He said, ‘Mi Niña is giving me her route,” Garcia later testified. “His sister was giving him information, and he was writing down the make and license plate numbers of the old lady’s car.”

  Veliz said the old lady would be at a strip mall near her house. So, after eating lunch, they drove there. When there was no sign of Bernice at the mall, he checked in with his sister, who suggested trying a nearby hair salon Bernice used. But there was no sign of her there, either.

  Then Veliz ordered Medrano to follow him to Bernice’s house, where there was a large black truck parked outside in front of her tan Infiniti.

  Jefe told his men to wait for the old lady to come home and then attack her, before driving off and parking a few blocks away by a condo complex.

  Melvin Medrano parked the red Scion at the end of the block and waited.

  “I told Melvin I needed to buy a bottle of rum,” said Garcia. “I was nervous because I had to attack the old lady. I can’t do this if I don’t drink something.”

  So they drove to a nearby liquor store, by the beach, and Medrano bought a large bottle of rum and a soda to mix with it, which Garcia began drinking.

  Periodically, Medrano drove past Bernice Novack’s house to see if the black truck was still there, as they were waiting until it had left before moving in. When Garcia finished the bottle of rum, he told Medrano to buy him another, so they drove back to the liquor store.

  While there, Medrano decided to buy binoculars, for a better view of the old lady’s house. So he drove to a drugstore and bought a pair for twenty dollars. Then, after discovering they were no good, he returned to exchange them for a better pair.

  This time when they went back to Bernice Novack’s house, they found that the black truck had now gone, leaving the coast clear for the attack.

  * * *

  That Saturday, Bernice Novack had stayed home all day, canceling her regular hairdressing appointment, as she was feeling unwell. She had spent the afternoon helping her longtime housekeeper Eduardo clean her home, which she enjoyed doing.

  At around 5:30 P.M., Ben telephoned to check on his mother. Tomorrow was the thirty-fourth anniversary of Ben Sr.’s death, and Bernice told her son that she missed his father terribly.

  Then she received a call from Estelle Fernandez.

  “She had a very rough day,” said Estelle. “She wasn’t feeling well, but she was going to take it easy after Eduardo left.”

  The two friends made plans to meet the following day, and Bernice got off the phone saying she had to see Eduardo out.

  “She said she’d call me back,” said Estelle, “but she didn’t.”

  After Eduardo drove off in his black truck, Bernice Novack locked all her doors, as she always did. She was feeling tired so she changed into her blue nightgown and poured herself a glass of chardonnay from the bottle she had opened the previous Sunday. Then she settled down on her sofa to watch television.

  * * *

  At around 8:00 P.M., Cathy Moffa was out walking her dog when she noticed a stocky Hispanic-looking man in sunglasses talking on his cell phone outside her neighbor Bernice Novack’s house. Her dog started barking, and she became concerned. When she got home, she asked her husband to investigate. But by the time he went outside, the Hispanic man had disappeared.

  * * *

  At 9:22 P.M., Alejandro Garcia hid the large monkey wrench in his pants and grabbed the nearly empty second bottle of rum. He told Melvin Medrano to keep his cell phone on, so they could be in constant communication and Medrano would know when to come and collect him. Then he got out of the red Scion and walked down the street toward Bernice Novack’s house.

  When Garcia reached the house, he took out the monkey wrench and placed it between two large garbage cans with the bottle of rum. Then he crouched down in the shrubbery, waiting for the old lady to come out and move her car, as Narcy had said was her custom.

  “I was drinking all the time,” said Garcia, “and talking to Melvin on the cell phone.”

  At 9:25 P.M., Garcia heard the double garage doors opening, and Bernice Novack came out in her blue nightgown.

  “The lady’s coming,” Garcia whispered to Medrano on his cell. “I need to get out of here.”

  After turning on the speakerphone so his getaway driver could hear everything, Garcia put the cell phone in his pants. Then, as Bernice walked out of the garage and toward her car in the driveway, Garcia picked up the heavy monkey wrench.

  He later recalled hearing a clicking noise as Bernice opened her car door remotely. Crouched down in the bushes, he watched her get into the car and start the engine. Then, as she drove past him, Garcia crept up behind the car, following it into the garage. Bernice Novack stopped the car inside and turned off the engine, taking the key out of the ignition.

  Suddenly, as she opened the car door to climb out, her attacker lunged toward her, brandishing the monkey wrench.

  “She looked at me and screamed,” Garcia later testified. “Then I hit her. She fell down on the [passenger] seat. I leaned into the car and put my left hand on the steering wheel, and hit her again in the face. I don’t remember how many times I hit her with the flat side of the wrench.”

  After Garcia had finished beating her, he carefully cleaned his fingerprints off the steering wheel with his shirt. Then he ripped Bernice’s black piglet key ring out of her clenched hand, as Jefe wanted proof of the attack. Leaving the old lady slumped across the driver’s seat in a pool of her own blood, he came out of the garage.

  Melvin Medrano, who had heard everything on his cell phone, was standing in the driveway waiting.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Garcia grabbed the monkey wrench and the rum bottle and jumped in the red Scion, parked outside with its engine running, and the two drove back to Miami.

  * * *

  The first savage blow from the wrench hit Bernice Novack squarely across the face, sending her glasses flying to the garage floor. It fractured her skull. The second blow broke her jaw, knocking out some of her teeth. Garcia had then delivered three more punishing blows to Bernice’s head with the wrench.

  After her attacker left, Bernice lay on the car’s seat with her head bleeding, drifting in and out of consciousness. Terrified and in full shock, she somehow found the strength to get out of the car and stumble out of the garage. She opened the door to the house and entered by way of the laundry room, leaving a trail of blood as she did so.

  Confused and trying to gather her thoughts, she staggered into her kitchen, through the living room, and into the bathroom, where she lost control of her bowels. She desperately tried to clean herself up, taking off her soiled underwear and trying to stop all the bleeding.

  Suddenly, to her horror, she remembered that the door to the house from the garage was still open. Fearing her attacker was still out there and might return, and bleeding profusely, with her body shutting down, she staggered back out through the living room and kitchen and into the laundry room, where she locked the door.

  Then she reached up to hit the panic button on the security control panel to summon help. But before she could do so, Bernice Novack collapsed facedown on the floor.

  * * *

  As they sped back to Miami, Alejandro Garcia called Jefe’s cell phone at 9:38 P.M., informing him the attack had been successful. Veliz immediately called Narcy with the news. That day, the siblings were in constant communication, making fifteen calls to each other.

  Back in Miami, Melvin Medrano parked the rented Scion outside Rent Max on NW Twenty-Eighth Street and waited for Cristobal Veliz to arrive. A few minutes later, Veliz’s green Pathfinder drew up behind them, and Medrano went to collect their money for the job.

  “Melvin came back and gave me six hundred dollars cash,” said Garcia. “I asked him, ‘What’s this?’ ‘Well, he said, ‘the man’s not carrying more money; he’ll give you more later.’”

  Then, after going back to the trailer to wash Bernice Novack’s blood off the monkey wrench, Garci
a went off to a friend’s house, spending the night smoking crack.

  * * *

  At 5:30 on Sunday morning, Rebecca Green went downstairs to get her newspaper. It was still dark outside, and she was surprised to see Bernice Novack’s garage door open and the light on inside.

  “She didn’t get up early,” Rebecca explained. “So I felt that was very unusual.”

  An hour later, when her husband, Bill, woke up, she told him something strange was going on, as Bernice’s garage door was open.

  “Well, don’t call her,” he said. “You’ll scare her to death if you call this early.”

  So they waited another two hours before telephoning Bernice. As there was no answer, they decided to go over and see if she was all right. On the way over, they could see her tan Infiniti in the garage, with the lights still on.

  Bill Green knocked on Bernice’s front door. When there was no answer, he and Rebecca walked around to the back and peeked in through the sliding glass doors of Bernice’s living room.

  “Everything was like it had been left the night before,” Rebecca recalled. “There were lights on, and the TV was going. Her glass of wine was sitting on the table. And I said, ‘Something is wrong.’”

  The Greens went back to their house and called Ben Novack Jr., telling him he ought to come over to his mother’s house immediately and see if she was okay.

  * * *

  At 8:26 A.M., Ben Novack Jr. called Fort Lauderdale Police as he and Narcy raced to his mother’s home. He asked them to check on his mother, saying her neighbors were concerned for her safety.

  Ten minutes later, Ben and Narcy arrived at 2757 NE Thirty-Seventh Drive, where they were met by Bill Green.

  While Narcy waited in the car, Ben Jr. unlocked the front door, and he and Bill Green entered.

  “Ben and I walk in there,” recalled Green, “and he yells, ‘Hey, Mom! Hey, Mom!’ He walks around into the kitchen and then we found her in a pool of blood, facedown. Her feet were toward the laundry room and her head was toward the kitchen.

  “Ben used to be a policeman, so he went over and checked her pulse. And he said, ‘Well, she’s gone.’”