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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

I Worry My Husband Will Stab Me, Said Wife in Unsolved Murder

By  James Fanelli and Murray Weiss | October 26, 2015 7:32am 

 Gail Mark
Gail Mark
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Courtesy of Gail Mark's Family

MURRAY HILL — A married mother who was brutally murdered 33 years ago by someone wearing her child's “E.T.” mask had voiced fears that her husband would stab her, DNAinfo New York has learned.

The case of Gail Mark's unsolved killing was recently reopened by the NYPD and Manhattan prosecutors following an exclusive story by DNAinfo in which a sister of Gail's husband, Franklin Mark, claimed in court documents that she believed he was responsible for Gail's death.

A 1984 court filing unearthed by DNAinfo shows the detectives who originally handled the 1982 murder had many reasons to eye Franklin.

The filing, which revealed key details of the closely guarded police case, showed that a confidante of Gail Mark told detectives that Gail said she feared her multimillionaire husband would attack her with a knife.

 Gail Mark, a housewife and mother of a 3-year-old, was murdered in her bedroom on Dec. 30, 1982. Investigators have never solved her case, but the sister of Mark's husband has come forward to say he had a role in her death.
The Murder of Gail Mark
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Gail, 28, was found stabbed and strangled by an unknown assailant in the bedroom of her Murray Hill duplex on the morning of Dec. 30, 1982.

READ DNAINFO'S COVERAGE OF THE GAIL MARK MURDER
My Millionaire Brother Is Responsible For His Wife's Murder, Sister Says

The detectives on the case back then also learned that police and hospital records showed Franklin Mark had assaulted Gail several times before her death and that she had once filed for divorce but hadn't followed through, according to the filing.

NYPD investigators quickly suspected Franklin, but never arrested or charged him.

Detectives interviewed him twice about the murder, but he never incriminated himself.

They also interviewed Franklin and Gail’s 3-year-old daughter, Dawn, whom the killer locked in the apartment's bathroom during the murder.

The little girl told detectives that the killer, who was wearing the child's "E.T" mask, wasn’t her father, court documents show.

She said, "E.T. did it."

There were no other witnesses.

A BANK'S SUSPICIONS
The 1984 court filing was from a civil case that Franklin brought against Metropolitan Savings Bank after it refused to pay him $40,000 from life insurance policies he had taken out on Gail.

Bank officials denied the payout after they spoke to detectives and determined that they had reason to believe he had a role in his wife’s death.

The bank was worried about double indemnity. If the bank paid Franklin and he were later convicted, then it would have been liable to pay the claim again to the secondary beneficiary, the Marks’ young daughter, Dawn.

Franklin sued the bank for the money in 1983, but the case turned into a three-year legal battle — and nearly a de facto criminal trial.

Franklin Mark and his daughter, Dawn. (Facebook)

After Franklin filed the lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court, the bank’s lawyers persuaded the judge to appoint attorney John Easa to represent Dawn and protect her interests. For Easa, that meant determining whether Franklin, who was now living in Long Island's Atlantic Beach, was the murderer.

“A review of the records indicated that in order for me to properly protect the rights of my ward, I would have to prove that Franklin Mark killed his wife and therefore my ward would be entitled to the proceeds of the policy,” Easa said in one legal filing in the case.

Easa said that he could only make the determination if he had access to the police file on Gail’s murder.

He obtained a court-ordered subpoena to look at the file, but detectives refused to let him see it. Instead they read him portions of the file.

Easa later submitted an affidavit with the details he learned.

In the affidavit, he said it was the opinion of the NYPD that Franklin did murder Gail, but the evidence was insufficient to sustain an indictment.

But Easa said that there was a “very strong possibility” that Metropolitan Savings Bank could win the case and not have to pay Franklin because there was a lower standard for proving wrongdoing in a civil court.

Easa continued to press the NYPD for access to the full police file. Finally, in December 1984, an agreement was reached in which counsel for the NYPD would let the judge, Alexander Berman, see the case. 

After viewing the case, Judge Berman urged Franklin to settle — and he did, agreeing to gift the insurance payout to Dawn and putting it in an account for her.

'ANY SUM OF MONEY SHE DESIRED'
However, after the settlement was inked, Franklin cried foul, claiming he never agreed to the court monitoring of the account. Rather he said he believed he was allowed the take the money out of the account and do what he wanted with it.

He said he was told he would have full control over Dawn's account. The only consequence, he said, was that if he used the money, Dawn could sue him for it when she became an adult.

“Since my daughter will be the object of all my wealth when I die, I would leave her all of the sums of money and if she decided to bring any action against me during her life, she could do so and certainly recover any sum of money she desired plus interest,” Franklin said in a July 31, 1985, affidavit.

Franklin appealed the settlement, and eventually was awarded the money. 

Many people involved in the case, including Easa and Berman, have since died.

Franklin Mark did not respond to a request for comment.

CLOSED, OPENED AND REOPENED
This month's probe of the Gail Mark murder is the second time the NYPD has re-opened the case.

Detectives and prosecutors spent two years re-investigating the murder in 2000 after a neighbor of Franklin went to police to inquire about the case.

The probe fizzled out after investigators learned two key pieces of evidence — a swatch of a blood-stained carpet and the “E.T.” mask — had gone missing.

In one final move, investigators went to speak again to Franklin at his Midtown office. But the Garment Center executive did not stray from his initial accounts.  

As they got up to leave, Franklin then steered them to a nearby staircase that he said would be a shortcut to getting out of his warehouse-sized business.

Pulling open the metal door leading into a dank stairwell, according to sources Franklin paused and said, "Wouldn't this be a good place for a murder?"