Nancy Drew a Confession



She got the story: The Inky’s Nancy Phillips arranged Len Jenoff’s crucial meeting with authorities.

Sometimes, without intending to, reporters become part of stories. When they do, this often becomes part of other media’s coverage, and the reporter finds him or herself on the other side of the notebook or microphone.

But don’t expect to see Inquirer reporter Nancy Phillips on Philly After Midnight anytime soon. Phillips may have been on the scene when a man confessed to his role in a high-profile murder, but the Inquirer ain’t sharing.

On Tuesday, the Inquirer reported that two men had been charged in the 1994 murder of Carol Neulander, wife of prominent Cherry Hill, NJ, rabbi Fred Neulander. In 1998, Rabbi Neulander was charged with arranging his wife’s murder, but the first real break in the case came last Friday, when a private investigator, with Phillips present, confessed to his role in the murder.

An uncredited sidebar ran with Phillips’ story. It explained how the private investigator, Len Jenoff, asked Phillips during an interview to arrange a meeting with Camden County Prosecutor Lee Solomon. Phillips did, and stuck around as Jenoff unburdened his soul to Solomon and a county homicide investigator over coffee in a Jersey diner. Jenoff claims that Rabbi Neulander hired him to kill his wife for $30,000. Jenoff says he then subcontracted the job to his then-roommate, Paul Michael Daniels, who allegedly was the one who bludgeoned Carol Neulander to death in her home.

Neulander continues to deny any involvement in his wife’s death.

Phillips’ scoop presented Inquirer editors with an intriguing dilemma. Should they report her role in Jenoff’s revelation, or keep it to themselves? (As the Daily News proved on Tuesday, it was possible to report on this development without even hinting at Phillips’ part.) A story like this is like an alignment of the planets, and therefore rife with publicity potential, but would that be fitting for Philadelphia’s paper of record?

Curiously, the Inquirer seems to want to have it both ways.

City Paper’s calls to Phillips and New Jersey editor Julie Busby were returned by the paper’s ombudsman, John Bull.

"Our position," says Bull, "is if we have anything to say, we’ll say it in print. We don’t think we should be part of the story."

He was not swayed by City Paper’s noting that the Inquirer is part of the story — and the reason everyone knows this is because the paper made this part of its coverage.

Bull mentioned Chuck Stone, the former Daily News columnist to whom numerous suspects turned themselves in, and made it clear the Inquirer wants no part of any such journalistically sticky situations. Not again, anyway.

"I guess that’s OK for the Daily News, but we don’t think that’s something a daily newspaper should be doing." He also suggested that the next time Phillips speaks of the matter publicly will be "when she takes the witness stand."

City Paper wanted to ask Phillips for more about how the scene unfolded, how she felt when she realized Jenoff had decided to give it up — basically, the same prying, dopey questions reporters ask everyone else. As an experienced journalist, she could have handled it. But apparently, the Inquirer thinks she’s above all that.

City Paper also wanted to know why the Inquirer sat on the story; Jenoff confessed last Friday, but the paper waited until Tuesday, the day after he and Daniels were charged, to make it public. A call to Solomon’s press aide was not returned before press time, and there are only so many times you can listen to fellow journalists deflect questions.

—Frank Lewis