True Crime Campfire - The Ties that Bind: The Story of Pamela Buchbinder

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

In the story of Pinocchio, a wooden puppet dreams of becoming a real boy—a real son to his maker, Geppetto. He’s a bit of a mess—always getting into mischief, lying and hanging around with the wrong crowd. But when he learns how to really care about people, the good fairy finally grants his wish, making him fully human. It’s a pretty powerful lesson: That what makes us whole, a lot of the time, is learning how to care for other people. Protect the people we love. Sacrifice our own comfort for theirs. It’s a noble impulse. But in the hands of a manipulator with ulterior motives, it can get twisted in all kinds of terrible ways. And the puppet can end up not a full-fledged human being, but a tangled mess of wood and string. Join us for the disturbing story of Dr. Pamela Buchbinder, a prominent New York psychiatrist who manipulated her troubled young cousin, Jake Nolan, into the attempted murder of her ex. Sources:Various articles, NY Post: https://nypost.com/tag/pamela-buchbinder/CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dr-pamela-buchbinder-jacob-nolan-did-psychiatrist-brainwash-cousin-to-kill-ex-lover/https://demo.socastcms.com/2021/05/08/new-development-in-case-of-a-man-who-claims-psychiatrist-convinced-him-to-kill/CBS's "48 Hours Mystery," Episode "The Psychiatrist and the Selfie"Court documents: https://casetext.com/case/buchbinder-v-hochul-2Court documents: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2018/30222-17-30207-17-3160-17-101651-17-101532-17.htmlhttps://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/jacob-nolan-michael-weiss-crime-scene-photos-nyc-sledgehammer-attack/11/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/nyregion/jurors-reject-brainwashing-defense-in-attempted-murder-trial.htmlFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. In the story of Pinocchio, a wooden puppet dreams of becoming a real boy, a real son to his maker, Juppetto. He's a bit of a mess, always getting into mischief, lying and hanging around with the wrong crowd. But when he learns how to really care about people, the good fairy finally grants his wish, making him fully human. It's a pretty powerful lesson. That what makes us whole a lot of the

time is learning how to care for other people, protect the people we love, sacrifice our own comfort for theirs. It's a noble impulse, but in the hands of a manipulator with ulterior motives it can get twisted in all kinds of terrible ways and the puppet can end up not a full-fledged human being but a tangled mess of wood and string this is the ties that bind the story of pamela bookbinder So campers, for this one, we're in New York, New York, the city so nice, they named it twice. It was Monday, November 12th, 2012, a crisp sunny fall day in the Big Apple. And on the 12th floor of a swanky high-rise on West 57th Street, two men sat slumped against the walls of a hallway. They were both covered head-to-toe in blood, their clothes dripping wet with it.

From the offices around them, 911 dispatchers were getting bombarded with frantic calls from people who'd heard screams and sounds like, of a violent struggle. Police and EMTs were rushing to the scene. One of the bloody men, a young guy with dark hair and big blue eyes, took his phone out of his pocket. To call for help? Nope, not exactly. He started taking selfies of his own haggard, bloody face.

This was Jake Nolan. The other man, older and bigger, was Dr. Michael Weiss. Just a few moments after Jake started snapping the selfies, first responders arrived on the scene. As they rushed down the hall toward him, Jake pointed a shaky finger at Dr. Weiss. He stabbed me, he said. The EMTs took both men to the hospital, and it didn't take investigators long to put together a quick sketch of what seemed to have happened here. The bloody men had been sitting against the wall in the hall outside Dr. Weiss's psychiatric office.

Jake had come in and attacked him, and Dr. Weiss had defended himself, the struggle eventually shifting out into the hallway. Inside the office, they found a blood-covered stake-null. knife and startlingly a sledgehammer. In the bathroom connected to the office, they found more chilling evidence, a gem bag full of zip ties. Jake Nolan was arrested, handcuffed to his hospital bed and charged with attempted murder. So who were these two guys, and how in the holy hell did they end up here, bloody and struggling for their lives with hammers and knives beside million-dollar offices and apartments? Well, in 2012, Jake Nolan was 20 years old. a good-looking, athletic kid from a close-knit, well-to-do family.

On the surface, he seemed like he had everything going for him. But under that surface, Jake was troubled. He had struggled with mental illness for years. Jake was a smart, creative kid and a lot of fun, but when he was 14 or 15, his parents noticed his personality starting to change. Jake began experiencing intense mood swings, yo-yoing from highs to lows. In high school, in Miami, he and a friend invented an iPhone app to help kids study. winning a contest and making the local news.

And then a few weeks later, he was so depressed he couldn't get out of bed, no matter how much his parents begged him. Jake was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, illnesses that only got worse as he got older. When he was 17, Jake grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and took it to his room, threatening to end his own life. This led to a hospitalization, and soon after that, there was a further diagnosis, bipolar disorder.

So Jake was very sick, and unfortunately, he didn't respond real well to medication. By the time he started college in New York, he'd tried something like 30 different meds and was taking five or six at once. He was also drinking a lot and using recreational drugs. The drinking in particular was a really bad idea because the psychotropic meds he was on

can enhance the depressive effects of the alcohol, which was absolutely the last thing he needed. Yeah, it's such an easy, casual decision to make, like to have a drink while on certain meds. Like, you don't even think about it. But it can fuck you up really badly. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, you understand it's like when you're that depressed, you're and you're yo-yoing between manic and depressed.

Like, you might really feel like you need to self-medicate. And then you can just get interactions between things that can be really, really dangerous. So Jake was in trouble, struggling to get to his classes and in clear danger of spiraling out of control. His parents were worried sick about him. And then, swooping in so serendipitously that she might as well have been wearing. a supergirl outfit, came Dr. Pamela Bookbinder. Now, Pamela was actually Jake's cousin, but was more than twice his age and had known him all his life. She was close to his parents' age, so she and Jake were more like auntie and nephew than cousins.

Pamela was a psychiatrist with a successful practice in Manhattan. The plan she offered Jake and his parents was this. Jake would stay part-time with Pamela in her apartment, where she would give him therapy sessions and monitor his meds, and all she asked for in return was that Jake would help out with child care for her four-year-old son called her. So Pamela was somebody both Jake and his parents knew and trusted. She was close family. And her plan seemed like a great idea. One of the biggest challenges people with depression and bipolar disorder face is keeping up with their treatment.

Sometimes things can seem so hopeless that it just doesn't seem worth the trouble or the effort it takes to go to your appointments or take your meds. It just seems impossible. Yeah, and sometimes people just hate the way the meds make them feel. I mean, there's a whole host of things that can interfere with treatment. Finding the right med regimen can take a lot of trial and error. And when you're really depressed, it's hard to motivate yourself to try stuff. And the time it takes for the medicine to take effect as well. Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, you and I have both been in that situation ourselves, right? Like, we've had to do trial and error for meds. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it can take like eight weeks. And eight weeks seems like forever, especially when you're depressed. Yeah, absolutely. So Jake's parents figured if he were living with his psychiatrist, she'd make sure he got the care he needed. Live in mental health care.

Not many people have access to a luxury like that. Jake was all in, grasping at his chance like a drowning man grabbing at a rope. He would later say he felt like Pamela was going to save his life. And initially it seemed like Pamela's plan was working like magic. Jake seemed happy and stable. his parents felt like they'd finally gotten him the help he needed, and that everything was starting to come together for their boy. On the surface, Dr. Pamela Bookbinder seemed to have her shit together.

She was a successful professional. She made money. She was blonde and pretty with a kid she adored. But Pamela had her problems. Specifically, she had problems with Dr. Michael Weiss, her ex-boyfriend and Little Calder's Daddy. Dr. Weiss was a psychiatrist, too. also successful. Two smart people with a lot in common, so they must have gotten along great, right?

Well, yes and no. And by yes and no, I mean a hot, codependent toxic mass. The relationship was on again, off again, dramatic breakups, followed by equally dramatic reconciliations, and given their similar careers, each of them must have known that they were bad news for each other. but they just couldn't stay apart, drawn together again and again like two needy little magnets. Although the charges that were filed always ended up dismissed, both Pamela and Michael had been arrested once or twice. Pamela for assaulting Michael with broken glass. He ended up needing stitches for that one, and Michael for threatening to assault Pamela. I mean, this was just a shit show, toxic with a capital T.

If this relationship were a horse, you'd shoot it. Put it out to pasture at least. It's got four lame legs. It's not running anywhere. The final nail in the coffin for Pamela and Michael's relationship was the birth of their son, Calder. Shocker. That a tiny, needy human would break up to adult needy human. But soon after he came into the world, they went Splitsville for good, with Pamela moving out of their apartment and taking Calder with her.

Now it was all about the custody battle. Sounds like fun, huh. Ugh. Two psychiatrists, both experts in human relationships. You'd think they could come to some equitable compromise, right? Yeah. Yeah, not so much. As Michael Weiss's attorney told 48 hours, there was no communication.

They fought each other through their pricey attorneys, and it was as petty and bitter as Paramore's misery business. But back when they were together, they were a big part of each other's life. Michael had even come with Pamela to Jake's bar mitzvah. He knew Jake and they got along really well. There's video from that bar mitzvah. You can see it on 48 hours. Pamela and Michael are there, slow dancing and smooching up on each other on the dance floor with him like looming over her because he's a huge guy. Has kind of like an Arnold Voslu from the mummy look or like lurch from the Adams family thing going on. Anyway, they look like two lovebirds. Happy as a Disney

prince and princess, and it seems impossible that their relationship could be anything other than perfectly rosy. Of course, it's not unusual for couples in toxic relationships to put on a happy face in public. How many times have we seen that on Dateline? But it's also possible that the lovey-doveiness was for real, at least in that moment. The high-drama relationship often comes with low lows and high highs after all. But now, slow dances and smooches were in the rearview mirror. Now all they had was fighting over Calder. Not long before she suggested that Jake come live with her part-time, Pamela had asked Jake to be called her's godfather, something that seemed really nice at the time, but in retrospect struck Jake's mom as the opening move in Pamela's plan to get a nice, firm grip on Jake's mind. Jake was haunted by insecurity and self-loathing, and now here's this woman he trusts and admires, a doctor, for God's sake, telling him she trusts him to take care of her son, letting him know he's important to the kid, that he matters.

really giving Jake a shortcut to a sense of value and achievement, something that taken alone could be really good for him. That is, if there was no quid pro quo coming, if there was no ulterior motive lurking just around the corner. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, folks. You don't get something for nothing. Remember that. Jake adored Calder and vice versa, and he threw himself into his role as godfather and part-time caregiver.

Couldn't be happier about being in this kid's life. and if you were to squint at life in Pamela Bookbinder's apartment during this time, you'd see something that looked very much like a vanilla nuclear family, two grownups and a kid. To Jake, who'd been lonely and drifting, this faux family was like rain after a drought, the kind of happiness and security he hadn't thought would be possible for him. Of course, unless there's the sound of banjos playing in the background, the grownups in that vanilla nuclear family aren't usually going to be cousins, and the relationship between them is going to be a little more.

intense than like housemates slash patient therapist, which brings us to the tricky question of just what the hell was going on between Jake and Pamela while he was living there. Now, Jake has said that there was never anything sexual or physical at all between him and Pamela, and I think, I hope that we can take his word on that. He definitely hadn't been shy about any other aspect of this case and I'm pretty sure if his, you know, downstairs area had been involved, there's a pretty good chance we'd know about it. Not that the Downstairs zone has to be involved for things to get sexual, you know, whatever. I wish you'd just say his dick. I'm trying to be delicate, damn it. But his dick, okay. But there's something that feels just off about the whole thing. For example, there's a picture from the evidence files with the three of them in bed together, like Jake, Pamela and Little Calder.

Pamela is in the middle, and she has her back to Jake. And they're like under the covers and, like, kind of tousel hair. And it looks very much like they all just woke up. Yeah. Jake would later tell 48 hours that it was pretty common for Pamela to invite him into bed in the morning to quote, share that familiar moment. You know, really feel like a family together. All righty. Not a thing I would do with my cousin, but okay. And I mean, that really may have been all that Jake got from those little early morning moments. I'm just saying if you're an experienced woman and you're inviting a 20-year-old man to snuggle up behind you in bed while you're laying there in your t-shirt, panties, that's not innocent, okay? She's playing with the dude's mind, is what I'm suggesting. At the very least, it's going to build some degree of intimacy with, I think, the promise of even more intimacy down the road.

It's seductive, you know, and the fact that the dude involved seems fairly clueless about sex stuff doesn't change that. I think Ms. Pamela knew exactly what she was doing. Yeah, even if there was no sexual aspect to it, it's really obvious. obvious that Pamela was building some kind of quasi-romantic relationship with Jake. Yes. These are some of the texts she sent him. You're just the most fun person to love.

You're so beautiful. You are remarkable. You are brilliant. I have so many thoughts about you. So many thoughts. Yeah, that's nice and open-ended. I have thoughts about you. I thought some of them are fond.

Those are the kind of text couples send each other, right? I mean, most of us are not texting our friends. I have so many thoughts about you unless we're trying to be more than just buddies. Yeah. This feels like intimate, romantic communication. You know what I think about it? I think that I have so many thoughts about you is this week's, you make me think of cupcakes. If we can just throw back to bunny and snuggles.

No, don't remind me. I just bleached that from my mind. They're going to haunt us for the rest of our lives. I know. That clip is going to be played in my funeral. I can feel it. Now, there are different levels of grossness about this whole situation. For one thing, they're cousins.

Don't get into bed with or send kissy texts to your cousins. Yeah. Have you seen those old portraits of like Europe's great royal families? Stay away from your cousins, y'all. Yeah, the Habsburg jaw is a warning. Exactly. Another thing is the age difference. Jake was 20. Family was 43. And look, I'm sure there are couples who make that age difference work.

So I know you're warming up your fingers, your typing fingers. You don't have to send us a pissed off email if that's you, okay? We're happy, we're happy for you. Absolutely. But for it to not be creepy, it has to be a relationship of equals. And this was not that. Yeah, this was a very young 20 and a very mature 43 in a definite position of authority and trust. Exactly.

There's an enormous gap in life experience and worldliness there and no doubt about who was in charge. Jake was insecure and naturally kind of submissive. And that made him about as malleable as a worldliness there. a wad of silly putty. She could mold him however she wanted, and I think she knew that very well. Which brings us to the grossest aspect

of the whole thing. Jake did not just wake up one morning and think, hey, it would be wizard keen to go stay with my fun cousin, Pamela. He was there because he was seriously ill and needed help. This was supposed to be

a therapeutic situation. He was Pamela's patient. Right. And he was an especially vulnerable patient. The nature of Jake's illnesses, his feelings of hopelessness and self-discussed, made him entirely susceptible to the carefully crafted love bombing that Pamela was throwing his way. She was a psychiatrist, and she knew Jake. She knew exactly what to do to get him wrapped around her little finger. Let him play man of the house. Let him take on the role of Calder's guardian and protect her. Make him feel

important and necessary. Pamela gave this troubled, desperate guy a sanctuary of happiness and stability that depended 100% on her and Calder. What would he do to protect that? What wouldn't he do? And Calder was central to the whole deal. Right after Jake moved in, Pamela started in on her favorite pastime, bitching about her baby daddy, Dr. Michael Weiss. At first, her beef with Michael seemed like the usual stuff a parent in a custody battle would complain about. Michael wasn't making his child support payments, stuff like that. But soon, the conversation got a whole lot darker. You know, Pamela started confiding in Jake that Michael Weiss was molesting Calder,

something nobody's ever come up with one tiny atom of evidence for. But Pamela started bringing it up to Jake every single day. Every day, this woman he trusted and depended on, bombarded him with horror stories about how this monster Dr. Michael Weiss was abusing this kid he adored. Like anybody would be, Jake was horrified. Furious. I mean, think about how you'd feel

if you found out somebody was abusing like your niece or your nephew, a little kid in your life who you care about. So it's not hard to imagine how he must have felt. So when Pamela turned to him one day and started talking about how much better their lives would be if Michael Weiss were out of the picture, Jake agreed. It would be better.

Of course it would. The guy was a sub-sumption. human pervert piece of shit. And before long, hypothetical talk about how great it would be if they didn't have to deal with Michael turned into a straight-up murder plot. How would he suggest they get rid of him? Pamela would ask Jake. Terminate him. That was the word she used. Austela vista, baby. And it might seem like a small thing, but think about how this little strategy of involving Jake and the planning, getting him to offer up ideas fit into her flawless grooming of this guy. Save us, big protector man. She made Jake feel like the murder plot was as much his idea as it was hers.

But of course, it wasn't. Pamela was the one behind the wheel, like she always was. And according to Jake, she wanted Michael to suffer in ways that would give Hannibal Lecter the hebe-jeeps. She wanted Michael injected with poison. She wanted him burned alive in front of a crowd. She wanted his balls cut off. Now, after Jake was arrested, Pamela Bookbinder would deny any involvement in the attack, but that's a pretty hard sell, to say the least, thanks partly to the miracle of CCTV technology. The night before the attack, security cameras in a Home Depot store caught Pamela buying, with cash, the sledgehammer and zip ties that Jake would take to Michael Weiss's office the next morning. Pammy hasn't offered any reasonable explanation for why she needed a sledgehammer and zip ties that day, and in 2012, who buys that stuff with cash unless they're trying to avoid leaving a trail?

Great job on that, by the way, Pam. You don't think Home Depot has cameras? She got it half right. She paid in cash, but, you know, po, but he's nerficked. And she's not in Mensa that we know of, campers, but she does have an MD from the University of Chicago Medical School, which is not nothing. So yet another entry in the ever-expanding list of very smart people acting like massive dipshits when they get within a country mile of a crime. Bless their hearts. At some point, the sledgehammer had become a central part of the plan to kill Michael Weiss. Pamela wanted Jake to smash Michael's head in with it. She even played the Beatles song Maxwell's Silver Hammer on repeat in the apartment,

I suspect, to try and hype Jake up for the job or maybe make the whole thing seem kind of fun. You know, there's nothing like injecting a little whimsy into your murder plus, right? It's not one of my favorite Beatles songs, but the lyrics are definitely relevant to what Pamela wanted from Jake. So it goes, bang, bang, Maxwell's Silverhammer came down up on his head. You remember that song? Clang, clang, Maxwell's Silverhammer. I made sure that he was dead. That's the part he got wrong.

He didn't make sure he was dead. It's creepy. She was playing that like ad nauseum, like in the days leading up to this. And you imagine maybe they were dancing around. It's, ah, that gives me the creeps. The next morning, just a couple of hours before the attack, Jake says he woke up to discover he was not alone. Pamela was there in bed, he told 48 hours,

rubbing my back, telling me how much she loved me, that I was a savior. that I was the greatest person ever, that no one else understood her. Ugh, gross. But this, I think, is a perfect little portrait of everything Pamela had been working toward with Jake. She was practically tying a cape around his shoulders and telling him he could fly. He was a hero, and he was going to save her and called her from the evil Dr. Weiss. A little later, Pamela was weeping as she packed the sledgehammer, zip ties, and kitchen knife into a duffel bag. She also gave Jake a hand-drawn map, which showed the different entrances,

to Michael Weiss's building. She's really thought this through. Jake says Pamela said goodbye to him with these words. Today's the day. Life is going to be so much better after Michael is terminated. And out he went. A duffel bag of weapons over his shoulder and a map in his hand like a soldier going off to war. Jake went into the building through the business entrance,

signing in that he was going to a tutoring center called Bright Kids. Pamela had written the name of the place on the map. Jake went up to the 12th floor and walked straight into Michael Weiss's office. But Weiss was with a patient, so Jake backed out and waited in the stairwell. He was scared, thinking about backing out, he said later. But he just couldn't face going back to Pamela without doing what she sent him to do. After Dr. Weiss's patient had left, Jake went in. To distract Dr. Weiss, he said he'd come to pick up some paperwork for Calder's school.

Michael was a little suspicious from the get-go, but for the wrong reasons. He thought Jake might have some kind of bugging equipment in his duffel bag that Pamela might have sent him to plan it in his office. Apparently, she had a habit of recording their phone conversation, so Michael was a little paranoid about that stuff. God bless, sorry, he had no idea. Mm-mm. While Michael was finding the papers, Jake went into the bathroom and shrugged the duffel bag off his shoulders.

He took the kitchen knife and put it in his pocket. pocket. Then he grabbed the sledgehammer, stepped out of the bathroom, and swung for Michael Weiss's head. Just imagine what this was like for Dr. Weiss. You're in your office, in the middle of your workday, doing an annoying little chore your ex sent you, then suddenly a dude with a sledgehammer is trying to cave your head in. It'd be like getting dropped into the middle of a horror movie. Fortunately for Michael Weiss, he has good instincts, and before he could even put a thought together about what the hell was happening, he ducked. So the sledgehammer hit him in the shoulder instead of the head, and Michael started yelling for help. Jake dropped the

hammer, pulled the knife out of his pocket, and started stabbing Michael. Michael Weiss's fighter flight response clearly picked the box mark, fight. He went for Jake, struggling for the knife and getting stabbed seven or eight times in the process. But he was a big strong guy. He managed to get control of the knife and caught up in this wild battle for survival, stabbed Jake just above the collarbone. It was at that moment that Michael Weiss looked down at the knife in his hand and recognized it. It was one he'd bought for Pamela Bookbinder when they were living together. Oh. And you've got to think that at that moment, everything came into focus for Michael. Yeah. He knew his ex had sent Jake here to kill him.

Jake, badly hurt and bleeding profusely, stumbled out into the hallway and collapsed against the wall. Michael, still calling for help, crawled out into the hallway too. And like we told you at the start of the episode, at that moment, Jake, bloody and horribly wounded, lifted up his phone and took a selfie because you never know when your next profile pick is coming from. He texted it to Pamela. his way of reporting back, asking what he should do next. Yeah. Pamela didn't text back. A little while later from the hospital, Jake texted Pamela again.

In hospital, please come, Michael bleeding badly, same. I walked into office, he stabbed with my knife, in the heart. This time, he got a one-word response. Where? Pamela came into the hospital, but they didn't let her see Jake, who, hot, Hospital records describe as being in a manic state. Michael had stab wounds to his stomach, back, chest, and legs. But none were life-threatening, which is just lucky as hell.

If you get stabbed eight times and are able to walk out the next morning with only stitches, then fate is smiling on you. And that's not to understate the severity of the attack, though. Michael was scarred, physically and mentally. He'd gone through a horrifying ordeal, a literal life-and-death struggle, with a young guy he'd liked and trusted. And if Jake had been just a little bit handier with the hammer and the knife, Michael would have been dead. Jake was worse off, with wounds to his hands and chest that kept him in hospital for four days, under arrest and cuffed to his bed.

When he left the hospital, Jake was released on $200,000 bond and allowed to go stay with his parents in Florida. I can't even begin to imagine what this must have been like for his poor parents. God Almighty, like after they let him go live with that harpy, thinking she was going to help him. Ugh. And Pamela, well, for the moment, Pammy was free as a bird. Not that she didn't suffer any immediate consequences, thank God. Right after the details of the attack came out, Michael sued for full custody of Calder, alleging that Pamela was behind the attack. And a family court judge after looking at the evidence, and especially, it seems, after seeing that Home Depot video footage, agreed. Michael Weiss was granted full custody of his son, and Pamela was barred from any contact

with Calder for five years, which is just poor kid, Jesus Jones. Like what a four-year-old boy is supposed to make of all this? I have no idea. You know, all he knows is that he's lost his mom and his cousin Jake, who he adored. It's just, it's so unfair to him. But I mean, obviously, he can't be around her because she's like seriously dangerous. I get it, but it's just, it's so sad. This family court hearing also established that Pamela was trying to alienate Calder from his father, telling the poor kid that Michael was trying to put her in jail, which I think you've got that taken care of yourself, Shammala, and interrogating the poor kid about Michael's personal life whenever he came back from staying with his dad, which is just

so gross. Please don't do this. Please don't try to make your kids your spies, people, for God's sake. If you absolutely must know what's going on in your ex's life, open your damn wallet and hire a private detective, or, you know, maybe just consider moving on with your life instead. But Pamela's still hadn't been charged with anything criminal. And when pressed about that, the DA's office would either offer no comments at all or put out terse little statements that the investigation is ongoing. Well, dang it, we want to know when you're putting the bitch in jail. They didn't want to tell us. Meanwhile, Jake was with his parents in Florida waiting for trial, and to say he was not doing so good would be just a little scotch of an understatement.

I mean, dude had been groomed into committing an almost murder. He'd almost died himself. He'd been basically abandoned by Pamela. I'd be amazed if he wasn't a mess. While he waited for his trial, he spent a lot of time getting treatment for both his mental illnesses and his drug and alcohol addictions. In 2015, he poisoned himself, attempting to end his own life and ended up in a coma. But he survived and recovered, and in March 2016, his trial began. And this was, as you can imagine, a tough rote-a-ho for his defense team. There was really no argument to be made about the most fundamental facts of the case that Jake could come into Michael's building with a bag of weapons and attacked him. in broad flip and daylight, in a busy office building with like a hundred people watching.

That was backed up by witnesses and video evidence. So the only questions were about his motive and his state of mind. And an intriguing little wrinkle had come to light about the possible motive for this stupid little scheme. Michael Weiss had a $1.5 million life insurance policy with his son Calder as the beneficiary. And just three days before the attack, Michael had agreed that Pamela could be the errone. revocable trustee of the policy. Meaning, if he died, Calder got the money, but until he grew up, Pamela would control it, and Calder was four years old. Now, granted, Pamela had started priming Jake to attack Michael long before this change to Michael's insurance policy, but it might have been that

this inspired her to actually go ahead and pull the trigger on the plan. Jake claims he had no idea about the insurance plan, or any financial motive at all. He says his only motive was to protect Calder from Michael Weiss's supposed abuse, which I think is probably true. Jake doesn't strike me as a guy who can keep a secret. Right, and to be honest, his family seems like they've got more than enough money to go around, so I don't think he'd be super motivated by greed. I think he really did just believe Pamela's big bag of bullshit about the abuse, and he wanted to protect Calder. Given his background and the circumstances of the case, it shouldn't surprise us that Jake's defense decided to plead diminished capacity. This meant that they'd admit Jake committed the crime, but they'd argue

that he didn't have the capacity to establish intent to kill, so the jury shouldn't hold him criminally responsible. Defense psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Barty got up on the stand and argued that Jake was basically a member of a two-person cult, with Pamela Bookbinder as the leader. Pamela had indoctrinated Jake, manipulated him into believing that Michael Weiss was the devil in a three-piece suit, and some night and shining armor needed to take him out. Right up to the castle, slay the dragon, save the princess, and her little boy from evil. Yeah, exactly. It's a fascinating idea, and you can see where he's coming from, but would the jury bite? Would they believe that Pamela had so effectively brainwashed Jake that he wasn't capable of making his own decisions,

that she'd basically just taken this vulnerable guy and weaponized him? A big problem the defense had was a pre-trial interview Jake had done with the prosecution psychiatrist, clips of which were played for the jury. In the video, Jake has asked what the zip ties in his duffel bag were for. He says Pamela wanted him to use them on Michael and then torture him. But, he said, he'd already decided he wasn't going to do that. He was willing to kill Michael, but not torture him. So he was able to draw a line on his behavior, even able to go to.

against Pamela's wishes, but he still made the decision to try and kill Michael. After a two-week trial in less than an hour of deliberation, the jury found Jake guilty of attempted murder. He showed no emotion as the jury foreman read the verdict. His mom, watching from the gallery, burst into tears. Oh, poor mama. At his sentencing hearing, Michael Weiss read a victim impact statement. He actually forgave Jake for trying to kill him.

What he said he couldn't forgive him for was the trauma called her would have to go through someday when he found out that his mother and the cousin he'd idolized had plotted to murder his father. But he still asked the judge to show leniency toward Jake. To his mind, he said, the main villain here was Pamela Bookbinder. She was the mastermind. She'd used Jake to get what she wanted. And I think that made an impression on the judge, because Jake was sentenced to nine and a half years. He could have gotten 25. And Pamela, she was still free as a creepy little bird. And when some journalist or other would pester them about it, D.A.'s office was still coming back with either no comment or the investigation is ongoing, no doubt infuriating Facebook detectives

everywhere. And as it turns out, they weren't lying. In October 2017, it was time for Pamela Bookbinder to feel the good old habeas gravis. At long last, our girl was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Handcuffed, looking gaunt, and kind of haunted, detectives led Pamela through the hallway outside the courtroom while reporters took pictures and called out questions. I'm innocent, she said. Hey, little Miss Pris.

When they dragged her in, she had her own passport and birth certificate on her and called her's passport, too. And when one of the arresting officers asked for her a drug, she gave him one on West 9th Street. The detective told her he'd already been there and he knew that wasn't where she lived. So she gave him a different address. Do you

want to be denied bail? Because this is how you get denied bail, just so you know. Combined with the fact that her family had gobs of money, all this was more than enough to convince a judge that Pammy was a flight risk and should be held without bond. Dr. Bookbinder was going to Rikers Island. And as far as we can tell, there she still sits,

still waiting for trial, four and a half years later, which is not great in a country with a constitutional right to a speedy trial. But I imagine it's probably because COVID has caused such a big slowdown just all around the country with, you know, court cases. I can't think of any other reason it would be taken this long. But in a court filing dated 2021, which is the most recent thing we could get our hands on about her, Pamela was still being referred to as a prisoner at Rikers. So yeah, seems like this one is just taking its sweet time through the courts. Yeah, just FYI. The female facility on Rikers, the Rose M. Singer facility is notoriously grim.

A lot of people are calling for it to be shut down and prisoners to be moved. 16 inmates have died this year, and that's the most since 2013. And they are severely understaffed. Like, the halls are filled with trash and debris. Like, it's not a really great place to be. I'm not saying that prisons need to be club med, but we do need to treat prisoners with dignity, I think. Yeah, Rikers is not a nice place. So this is, in a lot of ways, a tragic case that could have been obviously a lot more tragic if Michael Weiss had died.

Jake Nolan was a vulnerable young guy, drawn into the web of a woman with the professional skills to warp his mind and the complete lack of ethics to not hesitate to do it. If Jake had never gone to stay with Pamela, I seriously doubt he'd have ever heard a fly. Maybe himself, but nobody else. He doesn't seem like an inherently violent guy. Jake's not a psychopath. He's been turned inside out by enough psychiatrists to make a convention by now. If he were, one of them would have figured it out. As we've pointed out plenty of times before on this show,

people with mental health issues are way more likely to be victims than perpetrators. And it's important to point out that even most people in Jake's situation would never have tried to kill anybody. So I think this was just a perfect storm of a situation with a very smart and manipulative woman in the center. As for what Pamela might have actually felt for Jake, consider this. For all their planning, her scheme didn't seem to include any instructions for what Jake should do after the murder. Nothing on how he should try to escape the office building or, you know, get away with the crime.

If she'd really given half a shit about him, wouldn't she want him to walk away? But no. There was none of that. The plan ended with Michael Weiss lying dead at Jake's feet and presumably the cops swooping in to take him away, at which point she would have thrown his ass under the bus so fast you wouldn't have even seen her arms move. Jake now thinks that Pamela's plan after the attack was just to drop him, to dismiss him and deny any involvement. Oh, he's very mentally ill, you know, long history of mental health issues, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I've become a little concerned that he might be obsessed with me. I can just see it now, can't you?

It's just very similar to what our nerds attack Queen Clara Schwartz tried to pull with Kyle Holbert a few dozen episodes ago. And if Pammy had been just a little smarter in covering her ass, it might actually have worked. that's the scary thing. If all they'd had to go on was Jake's sketchy-ass, sometimes shape-shifting evidence, chances are prosecutors would never have charged her. Of course, the real victim in this case is Dr. Michael Weiss, who was bludgeoned and stabbed and very nearly murdered. If that first blow from Jake's hammer had come in just a little faster and caught Michael on the head like it was supposed to, he'd be dead. If those stab wounds had been a couple inches deeper, he'd be dead. The scars, both on body and psyche, are something he's going to have to

deal with for the rest of his life. Not to mention what Calder's going to have to deal with when he gets a little bit older. And why? Well, pick your poison. Some combination of Pamela hating him and wanting that $1.5 million in insurance money, although I think the hate probably wins on this one, because you don't need to cut a guy's balls off to inherit your life insurance cash. That's rage. Plus, Pamela already had money. So here's a brilliant, successful woman throwing away her future and wreaking havoc through the lives of everybody else close to her, all for petty revenge on an ex. Just what a waste. And what a dumb ass. Wow. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get

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