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Defining Double Murder

Paul Vitello

June 8, 1990

Double murders are sometimes less emotionally complicated than murders committed one at a time.

This might not be scientifically provable, but it seems true often enough: the double murder is the finale of the drug deal, of the love triangle, of the armed robbery interrupted.

One murder is anger gone mad, double murder is anger harnessed by someone's desire to get away with murder.

Martin Tankleff's defense has implied this all along. It points the finger at a defaulting business partner of Seymour Tankleff as the much more clearly, and coldly, motivated killer of Seymour and Arlene Tankleff than their son, Martin, a teenager with a brand new nose job and money to burn and a habit of hugging and kissing his parents on his return each day to their vast home on the water.

Is young Martin capable of murdering one parent, then the other - while naked to avoid blood stains - then washing the weapons in the shower along with his cold-blooded self?

"Call Martin Tankleff," said the defense lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, yesterday. It was the first day of defense testimony.

Gottlieb presented Martin, the Foolish; Martin, the boy who would not only buy the Brooklyn Bridge but jump off it if the confidence artist on the case were a cop.

" . . . I was brought up to always trust and believe cops," said Martin, whose defense is built on the premise that cops lie and cheat and that, as a result, innocent people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit.

The defense presented Martin, the Squeamish.

"I pushed down once and ran away," Martin said yesterday, describing his initial effort to help his fatally wounded father after finding him in the den, stabbed.

Why did you run away? Gottlieb asked.

"I was scared."

It is probably unfair to judge a person by how he behaves on the witness stand when charged with murdering his parents, though that is what the jury must do. Martin Tankleff must by now have carefully wrapped his emotions.

When Gottlieb tried to elicit from him the emotions he felt on the day of the murders, he was blocked by the prosecutor. When he tried to elicit how Martin felt about his parents in general, he got strangely willful replies, but not emotional ones.

"I loved my mother," said Martin, eyes wide. "I loved my father, too."

Jurors hoping to see Martin Tankleff break were disappointed.

" . . . I saw his throat was cut and I dialed 911," Martin said, describing his dying father.

When he discovered his mother, she "seemed lifeless" so he "ran out of there, screaming."

His testimony was void of emotion at all times except when he referred to the now-retired homicide detective, James McCready, who tricked him into confessing to killing his parents by telling him that his fatally wounded father had revived and told police Martin did it.

When speaking of McCready, Martin's face twisted with an imitation of a cop's bullying sneer.