A 73-year-old Bronx man, Jeffrey Kolin, has been charged with the murder of his wife, 77-year-old Marsha Greenberg, after police and prosecutors said he attacked her with a kitchen pot and smothered her with a pillow in their apartment. The alleged incident took place yesterday morning, with law enforcement responding to a 911 call just before 7:30 a.m., finding Greenberg unconscious and unresponsive; she was later pronounced dead at Jacobi Hospital due to trauma sustained to her head, according to the New York Post.
Law enforcement sources indicated to the New York Post that the couple had a history of domestic incidents, noting that Kolin and Greenberg had been in a volatile relationship for over two decades with records of disturbances dating back to 2005, with the most recent complaint filed on June 25. Neighbors described a pattern of escalating tensions, sometimes public and loud, between the two. Kolin now faces charges including murder, manslaughter, two counts of strangulation, and criminal possession of a weapon.
While this brutal event has shocked the Pelham Parkway community, evidence of the couple’s strife surfaced with neighbors recalling their frequent bickering and mentioning that Greenberg seemed increasingly confused and in declining health, ABC7NY reported. Detectives spent hours at the crime scene within the couple's apartment, collecting bloody evidence. Various neighbors expressed their disbelief, one commenting horrified that the quiet man, who would warmly walk with his wife along Barnes Avenue each day, is now charged with her murder.
"I didn't think it was that bad that they would have, that something like that would happen," Luis Ortega, a neighbor, told ABC7NY, voicing a sentiment of unforetold tragedy while another anonymous neighbor pointed to more frequent and louder outbursts from the victim before the incident. Kolin, who has been taken into custody, had appeared to Ortega as a very loving, calm husband, causing him to doubt the charges and speculate that perhaps it was an accident, however, Kolin's alleged confession to the crime when he called 911 complicates such a narrative.
