Stan Cohen Murder Case I

What happens when a prominent construction magnate is found murdered in his own mansion? On this episode, we unravel the chilling mystery of Stan Cohen's sudden and violent death. As Officer Catherine Carter steps into the dark and eerie Coconut Grove home, she is met with a growling Doberman and the hysterical cries of Joyce, Stan's wife. The tension is palpable, and the scene is set for an investigation that will peel back the layers of a life filled with secrets and hidden motives.

Join us as we follow Sergeant Watterson, a seasoned detective, through the labyrinth of the Cohen murder investigation. You'll be gripped by the emotional turmoil of Joyce and the heart-wrenching reaction of Jerry, Stan's daughter, who races to the crime scene only to have her worst fears confirmed. This episode delves into the chaos, the high-stakes nature of the investigation, and the complex puzzle of suspects and motives that emerge as we seek to answer the burning question: who wanted Stan Cohen dead, and why?

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Chapters

• 1:23 The Murder of Stan Cohen
• 15:38 [Ad] Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
• 16:15 (Cont.) The Murder of Stan Cohen
• 18:07 The Cohen Murder Investigation

Transcript

Kiara: 1:23

Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and we're starting a new case Stan Cohen. Stan Cohen was a Miami success story, a hometown boy who made millions in the rough and tumble South Florida construction trade. At 40, rich and charismatic, he met and married Joyce MacDillon, a beautiful 24-year-old divorcee struggling to support a young son. Stan adored his young bride. Together they lived and spent lavishly Expensive jewelry, furs, cars, a beautiful home in the fashionable suburb of Coconut Grove, a penthouse condo on Biscayne Bay, a 650-acre vacation treat in Colorado, parties, nightclubs, yachts, a private yacht to take them wherever they wanted to go. After 11 years of marriage, stan Cohen was at the peak of his profession and Joyce had blossomed into an exotically beautiful socialite with exquisite taste and a unique style. But the Cohens' fairytale lives were shattered In the early morning of March 7, 1986, when Stan was shot to death with his own gun as he lay nude in the master bedroom of the Coconut Grove home. The brutal crime rocked the city. Who had wanted Stan Cohem dead, and why? Let's begin.

Kiara: 3:24

The first call was logged by the Miami 911 emergency operator at 525 that Friday morning, march 7, 1986. A woman's voice was screaming, hysterical, nearly unintelligible. She was saying please somebody help me. And there was a burglar alarm that was shrilling, sounding really loud in the background, loud in the background the miami police department dispatcher radio, all units. A 332 woman shot at 1665 bay shore drive, coconut grove. And then they corrected it and say a 332 men shot, men's shot, qth in other words, same address, 25,. And there was an alarm and then they said again QTH.

Kiara: 4:17

Miami Patrol Officer Catherine Carter, a two-year-old veteran, was riding alone in Sector 70, coconut Grove, which is an affluent Miami neighborhood that meanders gracefully along Biscayne Bay just south of the city. The address on South Bayshore Drive was an enclave of the historic mansions set on a small limestone cliff called Silver Bluff and it overlooks the bay, limestone cliff called Silver Bluff and it overlooks the bay. Officer Carter took the call and within three minutes she arrived at 1665 South Bayshore Drive, a large, old native limestone house looming above the cliff, screamed from the street by yew trees and heavy tropical undergrowth. It was a perfect setting for a murder mystery. Officer Carter parked her patrol car in the gravel driveway behind a new Jaguar and a Tan Bronco, and Carter approached the rear of the two-story house using her heavy flashlight to pick her way past an open gate and through thick foliage, and she could hear the alarm still ringing throughout the dark house.

Kiara: 5:38

She turned a corner and found herself in a small paved courtyard with a reflecting pool in the center and playing her flashlight along the stone walls. She found an open door. The glass pane of the door was smashed out and there was a large chunk of limestone lying nearby. Beyond the door, in the dark kitchen, stood a large Doverman pincher, teeth bare, growling. Of course Carter froze then approached the dog slowly. She started speaking softly and somehow she persuaded the big dog to let her pass. There was no light inside the house. Flashlight in hand, carter worked her way cautiously through the kitchen and into the shadowy dining room beyond and suddenly the police radio on her belt came alive with sharp static and patrol officers know had arrived at the house and he was trying to get in through the front door at the house. And he was trying to get in through the front door.

Kiara: 6:50

As Carter crossed the dark living room she was startled by a figure bolting down a narrow stairway near the front door. It was a small white woman with thick, disheveled dark hair swirling about her face and she was crying. She was hysterical. The frantic woman threw open the front door and Officer Snow stepped into the foyer, babbling incoherently. She raised the head of the two officers up the steep stairs to the master bedroom suite on the second floor. The Doverman pincher trailed behind the Doberman Pinscher trailed behind.

Kiara: 7:37

At the top of the stairs was a large room dominated by a huge brass bed against a smoke mirror wall. Clothing was strewn everywhere, an overturned brass table lamp lay on the hardwood floor next to the bed. In the faint light the officers could see a husky white man lying face down on the bed. He was nude, the pale yellow bedclothes pulled up just to the crease of his buttocks, and there was a blood-soaked towel that was covering the back of his head. And Officer Carter thought he's dead, dead. She didn't touch him and this sobbing woman ran to the bed and she said is he dead? Is he dead? Let me touch him. I know if I touch him I can wake him up. And carter thought this woman is going nuts on me. I got to get her out of here. So she, you know, led the hysterical woman firmly back down the steep stairs and officers now radio for paramedics and then follow the two women into the living room and now they turn some lamps on. They turned some lamps on and once the lamps on you could see the room was pretty large. There was a limestone fireplace on one wall and there were candles and a candelabra on the mantel. Dark oak wainscoting lined the walls and heavy dark wooden beams traced the ceiling. There were three banks of French doors that led from the living room to the rear courtyard, to a separate wing of the house and to an enclosed sun porch filled with television and stereo equipment. The dark-haired woman sat cross-legged on a sofa facing the stone fireplace, with paramedics on the way.

Kiara: 9:34

Officer Carter's immediate priority was to get enough information to put a bolo. You know, be on the lookout for suspects. She eyed the woman curiously probably mid-30s, not much older than herself. She had this luxuriant shoulder-length dark hair, but her face was a mask of grief. It was red and puffy from crying, large dark eyes brimming with tears. And Officer Carter started talking to the woman softly and finally calmed her down and she told her story. Her name was Joyce Cohen, 35. She was the wife of Stanley Cohen, the man in the bed upstairs. Her 52-year-old husband was a builder, owner of Satt Construction Company in Miami, although the names meant nothing to Officer Carter. She could see that the Cohens were rich, that the Coens were rich. You know the big old house and the fancy neighborhood, a new Jaguar in the driveway, the gold Rolex watch. Jace Coen and her husband had been alone in the house that night and that's what she was telling Officer Carter.

Kiara: 11:01

While Stam slept upstairs, joyce was in the downstairs bedroom of her son, sean, who was away at school sorting clothing for a garage sale Mischief. The government pincher was with her in the bedroom and suddenly she was startled by a noise and there was this loud banging noise. The dog bolted toward the kitchen and Joyce followed him. A rock had been thrown through the kitchen door which was standing open. Joyce found her heavy brass key ring with the key to operate the burglar alarm and she set off the alarm. She knew the alarm company would call the police.

Kiara: 11:49

Then Joyce said she heard somebody running down the stairs from the bedroom. She saw two shadowy figures rush out the front door. She hurried upstairs and found her husband lying on the bed, blood seeping from his head. She tried to rouse him but he didn't answer. She panicked. She ran to the master bathroom for a towel to stand her husband's bleeding head and then she waited for help to arrive and that's that was all she remembered. And you know, officer Carter said well, two shadowy figures is not going to be enough for the Bolo. But she still had some questions for Mrs Cohen, why was the house, the home's alarm system, turned off that night? Because Joy said she was moving around the house gathering clothes for a garage sale and she didn't want to set off the alarm system's motion sensor accidentally. Then the other question was why didn't the Doverman Pinscher catch the intruders as they broke in the kitchen? And Joy said because she had kept the dog with her as she worked in her son Sean's room on the other side of the house. She didn't want mischief to bark and awaken her husband.

Kiara: 13:14

Suddenly Joyce was on her feet, darting restlessly around the house. She wanted to show Officer Carter her son's room. She wanted a drink of one lichen. Then she needed to use the bathroom. Officer Carter waited patiently in the hole outside the downstairs bathroom, then led Joyce going back to the living room and finally Joyce settled back down and again she sat with her legs crossed you know what they call Indian style crisscross on pillows near the windows at the front of the house. She seemed calmer, she sat quietly. She was like rocking back and forth, staring at the distance. And then she began to talk aloud to herself, as she had forgotten that Officer Carter was sitting next to her. And so Officer Carter was observing her and listening. And she said what am I going to tell the kids? Stan's daughter, jerry, she's getting married on Saturday. I don't know what I'm going to tell the kids. And then she said something else, something startling, as she was gazing ahead and said something that Officer Carter heard, and heard these words clearly, but she wasn't sure what Joyce Cohen meant. She leaned forward to ask her, but then at that moment the phone rang and distracted Carter to answer the call. So the moment passed Then abruptly.

Kiara: 15:30

The Cohen home at this point it was filled with noise and strangers. Joyce Cohen was no longer in control of her own life. The phone rang repeatedly. Officer Carter answered each time, telling callers that Mrs Cohen was unavailable. And for Carter it was a little odd that several of the calls came from someplace in Colorado, where it's about like two hours earlier than Miami time. Who would be phoning Joyce Coim?

Kiara: 16:05

At 4 am, officers now stood outside the front door calling directions to paramedics trying to find their way up from the street through the dense undergrowth at the front of the house. Three paramedics from Miami Station 8 burst in, with Miami homicide detective Sergeant Tom Watterson right behind them, and the four men follow Officer Snow to the upstairs bedroom and the paramedics lug in their heavy equipment up the narrow stairway. The paramedics roll Stanley Coyne onto his back on the bed and immediately attach electrocardiogram leads to his chest and paramedic Yewitt officers know in Watterson that he thought that there was some action, so they're going to have to move him to take a good look. The cops knew what he meant. The crime scene was about to be immediately altered in the effort to save Cohen's life If there was any life left to save they tried to fix a mental picture of the victim's position on the big brass bed. Blood soaked the pale yellow bedding and pillowcase. Blood soaked the pale yellow bedding and pillowcase. The designer's signature, diane von Fustenberg, show on the pillow beneath Cohen's head. The paramedics roll Cohen over twice across the bed and then lay him on his back on the hardwood floor to the left of the bed where the light was better. They needed a hard surface to support Cohen as they work over him. Once more, they monitor the leads and got nothing but a flat line and they officially said yeah, he's gone. So silently the paramedics repacked the equipment, headed back down the narrow stairs.

Kiara: 17:58

Whitman headed back down the narrow stairs Sergeant Watterson, who has been a detective for two years. He knew that the first few minutes at the scene of a crime were the most exciting part of an investigation, because you never knew what you might find. And he liked that uncertainty, he liked the action and the sense of time racing and he liked being in charge. So his adrenaline was already pumping and he went downstairs and he walked over to Joyce Graham and Officer Carter. To Joyce Graham and Officer Carter and Joyce asked is he gone? And Watterson nodded and Joyce then began to scream. Watterson watched her silently for a moment and then he launched into his standard speech. You know, although it's a difficult time for her, she has to pull herself together because what she could tell him now might make a big difference in finding out who had done this to her husband. So finally Joyce calmed down enough to repeat for Sergeant Watterson what she had already told Officer Carter. She added that earlier in the evening she and her husband have investigated a noise in the backyard but found nothing.

Kiara: 19:21

Joyce walked Sergeant Watterson through the house showing him where she and her she had been sorting clothing in her son Sean's bedroom in a separate wing of the house, how she crossed to the kitchen with the dog after she heard the banging noise. As they walked, watterson noticed mousetraps scattered about the old house and he thought that that was peculiar. They were polished hardwood floors, they were expensive carpets, but yet there were mousetraps everywhere. He listened to Joyce intently, asking few questions. Then he excused himself to use the kitchen telephone to call Miami Homicide Commando Lieutenant Edward Carberry. It was nearly 7 am time for the shift change and Carberry told Watterson just hold the scene, we're going to call in the day shift on this one because it's going to be too much overtime for you guys.

Kiara: 20:24

Watterson had mixed feelings about relinquishing the case to the day shift. The 3.32 call had come in near the end of his 11 pm to 7 am shift shift the midnight shift while he was cruising nearby on Southwest 17th Avenue wishing it was time to go home and get some sleep. He was exhausted, not ready to take on a fresh homicide at that hour. But this was an interesting case. By Miami standards. This was not a run-of-the-mill druggy murder. This was the slaying of a good-looking, wealthy man, a man of substance. The case would attract attention. This kind of case could make a detective's reputation.

Kiara: 21:12

Joyce Cohen. She was still sitting in the living room when Watterson answered a knock at the front door. It was a man identifying himself as an attorney asked to see mrs and Watterson said well, she's not available at the moment and he thought these lawyers, how do they show up so quickly? Can they smell blood? Next, technicians from the identification section, midnight shift. They arrived to begin the tedious job of processing the scene for evidence. Watterson explained that day shift homicide detectives would be handling the case, since each shift has its own team of technicians. That meant the day shift ID people would be working the scene. So the midnight shift ID techs could go home.

Kiara: 22:09

Watterson sent officers to interview the Coham's maid who lived in a small cottage about 10 feet from the main house. She was still asleep when they knocked on her door and she heard nothing unusual during the night. According to her, no shots, no screams, no breaking glass, no barking dog. Even the ringing alarm had not awakened her. Lieutenant Edward Carberry, homicide commander, arrived at the Cohem home with Major William Starks who was in charge of all investigations. Watterson promptly guided the lieutenant and the mayor on a VIP tour of the crime scene. A perimeter of bright, yellow crime scene tape was set up around the grounds of the Coyne's house. Dark, blue, uniformed Miami police officers kept the curious outside the tape. The roadway began to fill with people and television stations mobile units. Sergeant Watterson came outside looking for relatives and friends of the dead man Across town.

Kiara: 23:25

The phone rang in the bedroom of Jerry Cohen. Phone rang in the bedroom of Jerry Cohen, stan Cohen's 27-year-old daughter by a prior marriage. She was still half asleep when she picked up the phone. It was a co-worker at Miami's Channel 10 television station. Jerry Cohen was a well-known news reporter for Channel 10. Someone had contacted the station. The caller said they were asking for her home telephone number and Jerry asked who was it? And she said well, it was somebody named PJ Carroll. He says he's a friend of your father's, something about an accident involving your father. He wants to talk to you. Should we give him your number? And Jerry said yeah, give it to him.

Kiara: 24:29

And Jerry Cohen was instantly awake because she recognized PJ Carroll's name. He was indeed a friend of her father's. He was a prominent Miami attorney. So she hung up the phone and waited, apprehensive, for someone to call her back. And the phone rang again and it was PJ Carroll. And it was something about her father. He had been shot. Jericho couldn't seem to make any sense of the words. She only knew that she had to get to her father. She had to get there and she started to pray please don't let him be dead. I have to talk to him, I have to tell him.

Kiara: 25:12

And when Jerry Cohen pulled up in front of her father's house in a Porsche driven by her fiancé, Steve Helfman, sergeant Watterson recognized her immediately as the attractive news reporter he regularly saw on Channel 10. She always looked great on television, he thought, but now her face was red, swollen, blotchy from crying. Her thick, dark hair was disheveled and she ran toward him. What happened to my father? And he said well, he was shot, shot, he's dead. I'm sorry. His wife saw two men run out of the house and Jerry collapsed and started sobbing oh, no, no, no, no, no. And she fell heavily against her fiance, steve Healthman.

Kiara: 26:03

And suddenly Jerry recognized Barney Haddad, who was a television cameraman for Channel 4, the Miami station where Jerry had begun her broadcasting career years ago, and she thought, oh my God, he must be filming the crime scene for a live broadcast. And she called him Barney Barney. Barney, please don't run the film, my grandmother's alone and she'll see it. It will kill her. And Jerry was, you know, begging him. But Barney Haddad didn't recognize this young woman shouting at him. She tried to ignore him and so she'd have to say Jerry, it's Jerry Cohen, barney, please, it's me Jerry. It's Jerry Cohen, barney, please, it's me, jerry. And then Haddad was so distraught because, you know, he was shocked. Her appearance was very different and she wouldn't have believed she could look like that. And just then the front door of the house opened and Joyce Cohen ran down the steps to Jerry and the two women fell into each other's arms, clinging together, hugging, sobbing, and Joyce was just babbling incoherently.

Kiara: 27:20

In the meantime, in downtown, in the Miami Police Department, homicide detective John Spear parked his car in the personnel parking garage, headed up the walk to the building's rear door, the cop's entrance, and he was about 10 minutes early for the beginning of his 7-to-3 shift the day shift and he was already deeply preoccupied with unsolved homicides that he was investigating. And before he reached the door he ran into an officer who he knew. He said hey, john Vincent's looking for you. And he said already so where is he? Vincent and Rossello are at a scene. He said. And there was a homicide at 5.30 this morning in the Grove and it's your case. And he's like no way. If it happened at 5.30, that's midnight's case. What's going on? And you know he was already frustrating and so he hurried into the building and Spears thought about the homicide cases awaiting his foster. And you know there was the bodies of two young Latin males that washed up on the Julia Total Causeway this is a highway that runs from downtown Miami to the narrow sandstrip of Miami Beach and they were working on on that case and they thought at the beginning there were just the bodies of illegal immigrants that drowned. But it had gunshot wounds, so it's a double homicide, and so he had been working on that case. So now he has this one that they're assigning to him. So he's a little frustrated.

Kiara: 29:26

So he drove up the Cohen house on South Bayshore Drive and he recognized, you know, the impressive old place immediately and he said I thought I would never be investigating a murder here. He parked on the street outside the yellow tape perimeter. He stomped up the stone steps to the front door and inside the house was Sergeant Watterson and he briefly greeted him, introduced him to Mrs Cohan and then gave him a quick tour of the house. And as they walked, watterson summarized Joyce Cohan's account of the murder. Speer asked a few questions and, despite his anger and frustration, he was becoming intrigued of the murder. Spear asked a few questions and, despite his anger and frustration, he was becoming intrigued by the case. And finally they headed upstairs and where Stan Cohen's nude body still lay, spread eagle on his back next to the bed, blood from his head wounds make deep pools on the polished wood floor, running off into little rivers and low spots.

Kiara: 30:32

Spears stood silently at the right side of the bed where the killer must have been standing, where he pumped bullets into Stan Cohan's head. He gazed at his own reflection in the smoke mirror wall behind the bed. The killer must have come face to face with his own image as he stood over his victim and he thought did he watch himself kill Stanley Cohen? Spears stared at the lifeless body still bleeding on the floor After nearly 17 years as a Miami cop and more than a decade as a homicide detective. He never really got over this moment. It wasn't so much the blood he had learned to handle, the sheer horror of the sight. It was something else. It's a sense of the fragility of life, the finality of sudden, violent death. As always at the homicide scene, spears thought about the victim, trying to imagine his life as well as his death. He found himself wondering what Stan Cohen had planned for that day, for the weekend. For the rest of his life he had never met Stan Cohen, but he knew he would have to learn everything he could about the man's life to unravel the mystery of his death.

Kiara: 32:03

Outside, on the streets, stan's friends and neighbors of the Cohen were already giving quotes to the reporters. Stanley was very strong. He was a fair person, excellent businessman. This is a terrible shock. He was one of the most well-thought-of people in town and a friend described the coin's 11-year marriage and they said they were devoted to each other. This was a Cinderella marriage. And when the press contacted Stan Coen's ex-wife, martha, she said I just have no idea why anyone would do this. I can give you no reason why or wherefore, but someone had won Stan Cohen dead. Thank you for listening to the murder book. Have a great week.