Dateline NBC - Recipe for Murder

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

In this Dateline classic, Keith Morrison reports on a dramatic undercover operation in Palm Beach, Florida to save a wife and mother who had no idea she was in danger. Originally aired on NBC on March 26, 2010.

It was the cake that should have told them something. The killer cake. The cake to die for. It was supposed to be the jewel in the crown of the gourmet deli. A deli which more than a few regular customers would rank right up there at the top. And just a two-minute drive across the bridge from Palm Beach, Florida, with its five-star hotels, its balmy, perfect beaches, insanely pricey houses, and hungry billionaires who wanted only the best.

Rich Hardy managed the gourmet deli for four years. We were doing about three million dollars a year of business. For a 150-seat deli, that's an incredible amount. We would have waiting lines two hours long for people to come in and eat dinner. It used to be the Three G's Deli. That's when its reputation was born. But brothers Andy and Bruce Garnett, who owned the place, had developed some other restaurants too. And back in the mid-'80s, they were feeling a little overextended. And then one day, they met a 33-year-old entrepreneur named Glenn Sandler. Out on the golf course, he just said he was looking to get into business. And I said,

why don't you buy my restaurant? Just like that? Over lunch. I think it was a tuna salad. What was he doing before? Playing golf every day. He was retired. Retired from what? I mean, what did he do? He had a few different businesses. I think one was a no-name or no-ad company that he had different products, and I think he sold that. I think he did videos or some other stuff. But he made a lot of money. He made a ton of money. He was basically a self-made millionaire.

So Sandler bought the restaurant. But expectations for his tenure were, to put it mildly, low. At the time, I thought, you know, the guy's going to try to do it for a little while and get bored with it and, you know, be done with it. But Glenn Sandler surprised everyone. From the day he bought that restaurant, he was there every single day from ding to dong, from open to close. He was passionate about learning how to be the best deli guy or appetizing or Nova slicer there could be. He worked alongside deli guys. He worked alongside the guys in the kitchen.

He worked alongside the porters. He was determined to learn every aspect of this business. There was no doubt that he was a workaholic. Sandler probably didn't have to work so hard. There was no doubt that he was a workaholic. Sandler probably didn't have to work so hard. He was raised in the Boston suburbs. There was family money. His dad was a very successful businessman, but he, well, after college in Miami, he proved he had some talent of his own for making money. He seemed to be lucky, too, in business and in life. In 1981, he married a beautiful young Miami woman

named Betty Schuessler. Pretty much looked like the old Barbie Benton, the playmate. Wow. Yeah, yeah, she was outgoing, fun. She was a very pretty woman. Very beautiful lady. And soon enough, a mother that had two sons. I think that she was a good wife and an outstanding mother.

I know she was real heavily involved with the PTA, you know, at the kid's school. She was just into her children. And after the Sandlers bought the deli, its former owners got to know both of them. Andy Garnett and his wife went on a cruise with the Sandlers. We went down to the islands. Had a great time. They got along well. They got along great. He had a little went down to the islands. Had a great time. They got along well. They got along

great. He had a little house down in the Keys. I rode down there with him and spent a few days out on his boat fishing and not that I'm much of a fisherman. He wasn't all flashy or anything, just a real nice guy. So it was a charmed life apparently. His neighborhood, a place called the Arrow Club. You get up from dinner and you can go jump in your airplane and go flying. Businessman John Herring was one of Glenn Sandler's neighbors. Bring your cars in the front of the garage and you take your airplane out the back of the garage

and you taxi down the taxiways to the runway and you take off. And Sandler was so proud of his four-seater Mooney, like an airborne sports car, the neighbors say. He was very particular and very detailed and took great care of his airplane. A beautiful wife, a big house, an airplane in the garage. It suited Glenn Sandler perfectly. Glenn loved to fly, and Betty was always with him. She always said, I think Glenn was a good husband. But of course,

nobody's perfect. Everybody has flaws, every marriage too. And even this neighbor found himself wondering if Sandler was a little too determined to get his way. I think Glenn is the control guy, and he was going to control everything that was happening. It was a competitive thing. He had to win. Just had to. After Bruce Garnett and his brother sold Sandler their deli... He'd pay for golf. He'd buy you drinks. He'd give you the shirt off his back. When it came to business, cutthroat. Not an option for Glenn Sandler, a loser, to fail.

He couldn't lose. Absolutely not. He could not lose at anything. At anything. Like, for example, the cake. Not just any cake, of course, but a chocolate cake. So good, so creamy, so tempting. It was known as the killer cake. People would actually come from all over to buy this killer cake.

And when Sandler bought the deli, the recipe for the killer cake came with it. But... This was one recipe that Glenn, you know, just couldn't get right. He hired a baker to come in and read the recipe, you know, and just couldn't get it right. He believed that I was out to sabotage him by not giving him the right recipe to the cake. And from that day, our relationship went down. He felt that he lost because he couldn't get the cake recipe right. And so, given the untimely falling out,

the Garnett brothers didn't see Sandler or his wife Betty very much anymore. That savvy businessman would not accept defeats, and it seemed it didn't matter what it cost him. A lot of times it was his way or the highway. Was that why the marriage ground down? Why, in the new millennium, life with Sandler became intolerable for Betty? By 2004, after more than 20 years of marriage, Betty had had enough. She asked for a divorce. And Sandler felt blindsided, emotionally and financially.

If any contest had to be won, then this was it. Glenn Dowler, Sandler's manager at the Gourmet Deli, heard a running commentary on the bitter divorce battle from his boss. If he had it his way, she wasn't getting a penny. She kept wanting more. Is that something they talked about? Yeah, yeah. I mean, basically feeling like she's just a greedy you-know-what. And he saw Sandler change. First, there was the nose job. Then Sandler started showing up with

women. Quite a few of them. Was he bringing girls into the place? He would bring a girl in and tell me, look at this new girlfriend of mine. Did he seem to change after that divorce happened? Oh, absolutely. Just personality change? Absolutely.

She wanted the divorce. He didn't, so he was very unhappy. Yeah, I mean, you can't leave me. If I want to leave you, I'll leave you. But if you are not leaving me, so he was very unhappy. And yeah, I mean, you can't leave me. You know, if I want to leave you, I'll leave you. But you are not leaving me. That would mean I lost. But Glenn Sandler was a man who could not lose. And now he took steps that would make a win absolutely certain. Sandler approached him and asked if he knew anyone that could kill his wife.

Glenn Sander, the wealthy investor and restaurateur, was a high flyer around balmy Palm Beach, Florida. And even if he didn't quite master the killer cake, his deli, his whole existence, looked like a huge success. Except there was this one quirk. Sadler said one of his friends and colleagues couldn't stand losing anything. Miss a pot on the golf course? If he hit a bad shot, you know, it was kind of like duck, because that club could fly, you know? And Sandler was not a man to cross. An irate deli employee found that out when he asked for what Sandler thought was an undeserved raise.

Just took an ashtray and slammed it on the desk, and, you know, and broke an ashtray. And another, you know, occasion, he'd just snap a pencil. Never hit anybody, never actually grabbed anybody by the shirt collar and threw them out, but these were intimidation things that he would do. And then there was another time that Sandler's manager heard his boss pulled out a gun in a showdown with another employee. He didn't pull the trigger or anything, so, you know, I think he did it as a scare tactic.

And then, in July 2004, Betty, his wife of 25 years, threw him out, demanded a divorce. And Glenn found himself competing with her over who got what. Deidre Funchen was a reporter for the Broward-Palm Beach New Times at the time. At one point, he offered her

more than $2 million. And she said, that's not enough. That's not enough. I want said, that's not enough. That's not enough. I want more. That's not enough. And this bugged him to no end. You don't cross them. You don't try to take advantage of them. And you don't leave them. And you don't leave them. Around the gourmet deli, Sandler's employees watched his once busy and ordered life start to unravel. He was there at 8 o'clock sharp every Monday for year, you know, year after year. And then all of a sudden it got to be where he was showing up at like 8 o'clock in the evening. And then, about a year into this downward spiral, it was the fall of 2005.

Sandler made a secret friend, a drug dealer named Chris Robinson. Chris Robinson then became Glenn Sandler's crack dealer. Crack dealer? Yeah. Cocaine, tawdry motel rooms, prostitutes, all supplied by this small-time dealer and pimp. And it wasn't long before Sandler turned to Robinson for help with his domestic troubles as well. Glenn Sandler, after he'd known Chris for a while, asked Chris if he could throw a birthday party for his wife. That was the terminology he used to throw a birthday party. Was there any doubt about what that meant?

It became clear that he wanted his wife killed, and Chris Robinson said that he and his brothers could get it done. What would they do? They hatched a plan that Chris and his brothers would take two stolen cars and they would ram into Betty at an intersection and flee. And how do you know you're going to kill her that way? I don't know. But that was the plan that Glenn gave Chris a $5,000 deposit to enact.

And, well, it was like the killer cake recipe. It just didn't come together. No one will ever know whether Chris Robinson really would have carried out that plan, because before he could actually carry it out, he got arrested on a drug charge, unrelated. And sent off to jail. And sent off to jail. And I guess he realized that he had a bargaining chip. And he summoned a detective and said, hey, you know, I got some news for you. There's a guy out there and he's trying to have his wife whacked.

The cop was Palm Beach detective Jason Latoyle. I got there and soon realized that this was some good information and that we needed to act upon it. And quickly, because drug dealer Robinson revealed that Sandler had been shopping around, that Sandler told him he'd already been jilted by yet another hitman named Meats. Meats was some kind of biker who was supposedly part of the outlaw motorcycle gang. And apparently, Glenn Sandler asked this guy Meats if he would kill Betty.

And he gave Meats a $5,000 deposit. He was serious. He was serious. But then nothing ever happened. Meats rode off into the sunset. But was Sandler still looking for a hitman? Maybe the cops could replace Chris Robinson with their own fake hitman. Like, for example, an undercover FBI agent whose identity we agreed to conceal.

Anyway, this agent called Glenn Sandler on the phone. The name he gave himself was Fred, his supposed role, drug dealer Chris Robinson's fed-up streetwise boss. Yeah, I'm looking for Glenn. That's me. Hey, Glenn. This is Fred. How you doing? Right here began a precarious dance between the FBI agent and the man who always liked to call the shots. A man who didn't know that this time the shots were being called on him. Assuming that in this dance, the would-be hitman could win Sandler's trust. How do you go about making that happen?

There's things about somebody you can talk about, open conversation with, makes you agreeable and understanding that you can talk. What kind of bike you got? Harley. Which one? Roadster. Ooh, that's a bike. Dude, you're living the world, baby.

Huh? You're living the life, ain't you? Well, I'm trying. I've always, you know, worked and done my best. As Fred, the agent arranged a face-to-face meeting. And then I met Mr. Sandler in a parking lot a day or two later. This is where he would begin fishing for the job Sander had earlier offered the now jailed drug dealer.

Hey, this is awkward for me, bro, because I don't usually meet people. Listen, I don't either. Chris has become a real f*** up for me lately, and I don't know what to do about him. Then Sander told Fred he'd also become fed up with drug dealer Robinson. And I know that, but you know what? I need a job done.

Fred dismissed Robinson's plan to kill Betty in a car wreck as laughable. This guy wants her f***ing done. He's going to have a f***ing bed ridden with a back problem next to you being a wheelchair the rest of your life. You f***ing hit her with a T-boner and she ain't done it. What the f*** good is that to the guy?

So now Fred proposed a different plan and a new price, $20,000 less the $5,000 Chris Robinson had already taken. Fred told Sander that his own recipe for murder had one key ingredient. How much does she weigh? She's very muscular. She's only 5'3", 120. Dude, that's eight bags of s***, 50-pound bags of lime. That's all it is in six weeks. So if they ever find her, it'll look like she got raped or...

They wouldn't find her. The lime takes the bone and all. That's why you use lime. Lime's a mother f***er. So you told him quite specifically, it might be, you could say, a chilling detail, what you would do to make sure she disappeared forever. Only I would know where she's buried, and she'd be buried with Lyme, and it would take care of all that. Fred's act, bizarre though it may sound, was deadly serious because he knew that if he did not win the job to kill Betty Sandler, someone else might. I'm sitting in a position where I want to make sure that somebody else hasn't gotten hired in the time that it's taken me to sit in that chair and talk to him.

Gland Sandler hated losing. Hated it so much he'd already given a man $5,000 to kill the wife who'd rejected him and was demanding millions of his money. But he had no idea that the man now offered to do the job was an undercover agent from the FBI angling to get the contract on Sandler's wife. The angry husband and the phony hitman hit it off, with Sandler often venting to his buddy about his trouble. Was it hate or just greed? Probably both at some point,

but he's losing his airplane, he believed he was losing his home, his business, and he was concerned that the money was never going to be enough that he was paying her. Sandler also told Fred, the name the undercover officer went by, that his wife Betty could reveal some very compromising information. He was concerned about her blackmailing over issues that they had, some kind of other illegal activities. Illegal activities? Yes, sir. Like what?

I didn't know at the time. Quickly, Fred became the only one who could know the depths of Sandler's desperation. I have private strips all over the country that I own. She's black to male in the academy. I can't deal with her at all. She wants so much money, money I don't even have. I think that Fred really tapped into Glenn Sandler's vulnerabilities there, because as Glenn Sandler's former employees will

attest he didn't have any friends well here comes Fred who seems like a cool guy um he's calling him brother and I think that Glenn Sandler felt that you know he had finally met someone that he could relate to. It was a precarious balancing act. Fred quickly set up a plan telling Sandler he needed to do surveillance on Betty. Sandler supplied details of their Aero Club life, even maps showing his home's location. I needed some things. Something to really understand what her daily pattern's going to be.

Where she shops, where she goes to the gym. And let them know there's going to have to be some legwork done. What Sandler didn't know was that Fred had helpers. Fellow detectives like Jason Latoil. We used our, what we call our TAC team to conduct surveillance. And determine whatever information we could and provide that to the undercover officer. Such that he could go back to Mr. Sandler and make it seem like, well, I know she goes here, and last week she was here kind of thing. There was a dog or two that were involved.

It seemed like the dog traveled with her a lot. So I made mention of that when I met with him. What did you say? That dog was always with her. That was enough for him to understand that things were going in the direction he wanted them to go to. And he was excited about that. Several weeks went by, and Fred knew Sander had come to trust. He was the man for the job.

He became very comfortable. I could tell that he was accepting what was being said to him. He was very satisfied. I could tell that I was being hired. But what about Betty? Surely she should know her husband was cooking up more than just pastrami sandwiches. Now, did you also go up to her and say, look, I hate to tell you this, but your ex-husband wants to kill you and I'm a cop. I'm going to prevent that from happening. Not at that time. Why not? Detective Latoyle and I sat and talked about that we have

no idea what they were involved in, what he kept making statements about. She'll give me up to the police or she'll testify against me. And we didn't know quite what that was. And if it was something that was going to be bigger than what he was involved in, she could go back and tell him. So you didn't know for sure whether or not she was just an innocent bystander here or whether she may be involved in some activity. Correct. There was another reason to play along with Sandler. Detectives had a hunch they wanted to see where it went. In one of their parking lot meetings, Fred had schmoozed about the drug business.

Let Sandler think he not only sold drugs, but transported them, too, by airplane. What he didn't expect to hear was Sanders' reply. He volunteered to fly the drugs himself in his own plane. This may be your past, but I'm your future. If you ever knew my history, you'd be bros. What's your capacity of your plane? My capacity? It's 200 pounds. It's a kilo plane. No, no. Then, another surprise. Sanders seemed to have done this before. He boasted about his smuggling back in those seductive Miami Vice days.

Only then a speedboat was his transport of choice. I mean, I had a couple of customers to snatch. But I'd get a thousand a key, customers in Snatch, but I'd get $1,000 a key no matter what, just to transport, right? Okay, and I always had a minimum of $100, so I'd get $100 grand just to get out of bed. Was it true? As if to establish his credibility as a criminal,

Sandler claimed he'd once been charged with cocaine trafficking and then bought his way out of trouble. Was Sandler still in the game? Was his some unknown drug ring? Now Fred had to improvise, had to play not only hitman, but drug smuggler. The case was becoming more complex than anyone imagined. I was there for one criminal activity, and all of a sudden the second criminal activity really popped its head up.

Am I sitting with a major smuggler? Now, to keep his credibility with Sander and probe Sander's possible connection with the drug business, Fred would have to stage something that looked like a real drug run. Probably two or three times that he'd ask me for crack cocaine, I had to tell him why it wasn't available. When it was available before, I let him believe that I receive kilogram amounts of cocaine from subjects in Georgia. And I meet him halfway, and I pick it up. And that if they saw me arrive in this aircraft, they would give me a lot more. So he agreed to fly you in his airplane to a meeting place?

Yes, sir. To get cocaine? Yes, sir. So the hit on Betty was delayed while Fred organized a drug run from Sebring to Palm Beach. The whole thing is sham. Only Sandler had no idea he was being played. What was real was the fact that in that little airplane, Fred's life would be in the

hands of pilot Glenn Sandler, a desperate man, perhaps capable of anything. Were you concerned about your own safety? I mean, here's a man who wants somebody killed. Maybe he wants you killed, too. I'm always concerned about my safety. Who among the loyal patrons of the gourmet deli would have believed it? What resident of Florida's exclusive Aero Club community could even imagine? That one of their own had put out a contract with a hitman to kill his wife and now was ready to use his own plane to run cocaine. It seems to me like he had just come out of a period of really stable,

possibly boring stage of his life where he'd been married to the same woman for years and years, doing the same business day to day for years and years, and maybe missed those Miami Vice type of days. And now he was getting to live them all over again. Yeah. Assuming that is that the FBI man who called himself Fred didn't blow his cover. Because your face reads what's going on in your soul and you have to be careful. You're like, what did he say?

Partly because now the undercover team expanded along with the risk. The deal was set up to happen in Sebring, Florida, at the Sebring Airport. I had agents that I worked with here locally also went to Sebring Airport. So Sandler took off for the Sebring Airport,

the undercover agent still posing as Fred in the seat beside him. As the little plane soared into the air, Sandler was enthusiastic. Fred remained cautious. After all, he couldn't know if Sandler had bought his act or had seen through it. And after all, a plane ride would be just the place to shoot Fred and have his body disappear into the ocean.

Any time you were going to cover us, there's a sense of danger. When I flew up to Sebring with him in his aircraft, I was by myself and, of course, concerned. Once in Sebring, they met the supplier. Fred called him T-Bone. He was actually another federal agent. Over coffee, Fred put everyone at ease. Then, on cue, T-Bone excused himself, went to the bathroom. He left the bag between Sandler and I. I opened it up to see how many were in it. He looked over and saw the five kilos.

Leaned back and I said, oh, good, there's five kilos. I was a little excited there was five. He said, I didn't care if it was 15. He made that statement to me, and he was comfortable. The plan was to fly the goods back to North Palm Beach Airport. Fred said T-Bone needed to accompany his cargo. To make things look real, Fred told Sandler he wanted to have a little fun with T-Bone, whom he said was afraid of small planes. In fact, T-Bone's fear of flying was also a cover.

T-Bone was himself a pilot. But Sandler didn't know that. No, sir. As insurance, Fred made sure T-Bone sat up front next to Glenn Sandler, still in that little plane. Sandler was the one in control. In control of several kilos of coke and two undercover FBI agents. I studied the aircraft. I knew what the turnoff key was. I knew, of course, he was bigger than I was.

So the second person I brought in, they could handle themselves. They could handle the aircraft. But I suppose if you've got five kilos of cocaine in your airplane and a guy you think is a bad guy in the plane with you, you just shove him out the door and you've got the cocaine all to yourself. A lot of things could happen. But the aircraft landed safely in North Palm Beach. I had him land at the North County airport, let him think that my guys were going to be there and a guy from Georgia will get out there and I'll meet him later at the house. And then Fred proposed to Sandler that he abandon his plan to kill his wife. Why? Well, for one thing, Fred didn't want some defense

attorney later on to claim that he had encouraged Sandler to commit murder. And for another, it seemed to him that Sandler still had real feelings for Betty. He also seemed to have something of a jealous streak. Glenn had heard she'd been out at a bar in town. And this drove him crazy. Sort of advertising her newly single status.

She's no doubt big. She's the new single status, yeah. She's no doubt big. She's the new playgirl in Wellington, you know. She's a party girl. So, Fred suggested, why not use his beloved airplane to run enough drugs to allow him to pay off Betty instead of killing her? It's a shame, man, because we can pay some money and pay good. But Sandler

wasn't buying it. He wanted her dead. It's like somebody that blackmails you. You can't let it happen. Once it starts, it never

stops. They don't go away. What was Sandler's big secret, the one he couldn't afford to have Betty reveal? It was a tax issue from a business that they owned together, and it's a cash-type business,

and he was concerned that she was going to be able to testify to a large amount of income that weren't being taxed on. Was that a reason to kill? Still, Fred held off, giving Sandler every possible chance to change his mind or reveal some darker source for his murderous intent. I want to know for sure that's what he wanted to do. Or was there a poke in his beard or somewhere pushing him to do this? Was there something on the outside, a girlfriend that's telling me he had to go do this now because she was tired of it. In Palm Beach, Florida, the FBI undercover man who called himself Fred probed around gingerly for any motives Glenn Sander may have had to kill his wife.

Was it merely Sander's determination not to lose in the divorce battle with Betty? Was it his fear she'd expose his secrets to the IRS? Was it something else? Or someone else? Was there something on the outside? A girlfriend that's telling me he had to go do this now because she was tired of it. That never came up. Sure.

It was self-driven. It was him. There wasn't somebody pressing him. It was him that wanted it done. How many times did you propose to him that he didn't need to kill her? You could do something else that was less severe. Several different times. Putting her in a trunk of a car and driving around for several days, pulling her out and

threatening her that more would come next time. That wasn't good enough. Burying her alive, pulling her out of the hole, threatening her, this goes any further, this will get finished. That wasn't good enough. At some point he had told me that. He had offered her $2.5 million and $5,000 a month, and that wasn't big enough or good enough for her.

In the divorce, any offer that Glenn made financially, she said, it's never enough. It's never enough. And then when Fred promised to have her killed, there's this point where he said, I promise the last words she's going to hear are, is that enough? Chandler liked it. Tell me, what do you want me to ask this bitch tomorrow when I'm putting her in? It won't matter. Other than, is this enough?

Okay. Because of the only things I ever want. It's not enough, and I want more. So now, it was time. Just how he'd do it, Fred didn't say. But he told Sandler he'd use a code to reveal that the murder had happened, that Betty was dead and buried under lime. It's going to be done.

They're going to say something like, they said the weather's good up north. All right, the weather's good up north. She's already fertilized her and the problem's over. On the morning of November 8, 2005, Detective Jason Latoil followed Betty's car to a stoplight, pulled her over, and gave her the news. I told her her husband had hired someone to kill her. Fortunately, it was an undercover police officer. How did she take it?

She really wasn't surprised. You're kidding. She didn't sort of break down in hysteria or no um and that's what really surprised me but she acted sort of um really exasperated and just kind of a you know what now so to sort of thing just like she has just had grown tired of his um shenanigans so so to speak. This is just like the latest in a series of behaviors she's had to deal with, but she wasn't surprised. Eddie Sandler cooperated fully with Detective Lutoyle as he went about arranging her disappearance.

We basically took her into custody and staged her death by collecting some personal belongings of hers. I drove her car and parked it in a grocery store parking lot in a conspicuous location so that it would look like she was basically abducted during her normal daily routine. With Betty safe, Fred called Sandler. The weather's good up north, he said, which meant she's dead. The next day, Fred arranged to meet Sandler at a parking lot to collect the 15 grand Sander had agreed to pay his wife's killer. And there, Fred confided to his new friend that even he, a hardened killer, found murdering suburban housewives disturbing.

I said, you know, even though I've done this before, I'm a little uneasy and I need to go settle down. You know, he thinks I just came back from burying her and I had taken a shower and just met him. Dude, she's dead. She's gone. We'll talk about it later. I know. I need to get out of here and get a couple of drinks in my butt. He said he was a little uneasy too, but he's glad it was over.

Glad she was dead. He made mention of what was said to her. But when you said, is this enough? He said, what? She was more concerned about kids, man. She was just concerned. I mean, that was her big thing. It wasn't going to happen to her kids. You know, she ain't going to see her kids. You're going to grow up. Fred gave Sandler Betty's car keys and her cell phone, proof, he said, that she was dead. You want this?

Can we get the audio? You have the phone. He wanted to look at her cell phone to see who she'd been calling. He was jealous even then. Apparently. He seemed to have no remorse at all. None. Cold.

Cold, excited. Excited. Yes. He was happy that this was over. But of course, it wasn't over. Glenn Sandler had been a man who wanted to control everything. But what he didn't know was that now, perhaps for the first time in his life, he would have no control over what would happen next.

Nice little bit of sun. Yeah, thanks. Adjust my mirror. See you, bro. In a suburban parking lot near Palm Beach, Florida, Glenn Sandler chatted with the man he'd hired to kill his wife. As life went on around them, the two discussed future drug deals, Sandler's airtight alibi for that day, and the need for secrecy.

Nobody else knows about this, right? Nobody knows. I don't care about it. That's why it's been f***ing killing me, you know, to hold it in. You know, because you want to talk about it so bad, but you don't. You can't, bro. Yeah, I know. And then... It's nice to have a bit of sun.

Yeah, right. I need sun. I'm going to adjust my mirror. Talk to you later. See you, bro. Just at that moment, Glenn Sandler discovered the truth, and down came the squat team. The game was up, and Sandler finally understood he'd been tricked.

Big time. How did he react to that? He became quiet. Here's a guy who goes from wanting to have his wife killed to being happy that she's dead, to then discovering that he has been hoodwinked by an undercover cop. What, did he just give up at that point? Was he remorseful? Was he sorry?

Was he what? He became quiet. Just, he became quiet? He did. He became quiet. From reading his body language, his gestures, the way he cooperated, what he said, he was more upset that he was arrested.

He wasn't making any other statements besides just being upset that he was arrested. He wasn't making any other statements besides just being upset that he was arrested. Glenn Sandler had been duped by a master, an agent who'd been working undercover for 24 years. He is a master actor, a great improviser, and obviously must have nerves of steel to be able to get in a situation like this and just act on it on the fly. It must have taken a lot of bravery. Around Palm Beach, people who knew the Sanders were, quite understandably, stunned. I just said, no, it can't be. You didn't believe it, but it happened.

I don't know where that would come from. The Palm Beach authorities carefully crafted their case with a slew of tapes recorded by undercover agent Fred. And Glenn Sandler, though briefly he considered an insanity defense, he ultimately pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit first-degree murder and trafficking in cocaine. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. So what do you think about this guy now? I don't know what to think of it because I don't know that Glenn Sandler. I know the Glenn Sandler that taught me a tremendous amount of things about business,

you know, cutting-edge things. But I don't know the Glenn Sandler, the killer Glenn Sandler. Did anyone, which is why Sandler's one-time colleagues were a little guarded more than a decade ago when they told their stories about the man who would kill rather than lose. And knowing that he's capable of that makes him very capable of remembering everything he knows after 10 years and wanting revenge. Do you worry a little bit about, you know? Yes, yes.

Why? Why? I don't know. Hopefully he comes out being a nice guy. But? Who can say? Glenn Sandler came out of prison in 2018. Betty Sandler sold the house at the Aero Club years earlier, moved away, but tragedy would not let her go. Neither Betty nor Glenn. Glenn had two sons while Glenn was in jail. One of them died in a motorcycle accident.

His father died and his mother's died. In the end, the bitter financial fight sputtered out. Sandler's claim that he had hidden lots of money from the IRS seemed essentially faceless. I believe that the police seized his plane and his motorcycle because they were used in the course of running drugs. And then I presume she got the house. He got the restaurant. She got the golf cart. But all that cash that seemed to flow from the gourmet deli? When it all played out in divorce court and was said and done, considering

that his assets had been seized, she ended up being entitled to $100 a year. That was it? That was it. As for the deli, it has a new owner now. And that creamy chocolate cake, the cake to die for, the killer cake, not on the menu.