Dateline NBC is re-examining the brutal murder of Shele Danishefsky that took place on December 31, 2019. The upcoming episode will dive deep into the case to uncover details of the gruesome crime. It will air on the network on Friday, December 22, at 10 p.m. ET.
Initially, authorities believed that Danishefsky’s death was the result of a tragic accident. As per reports, her minor daughter found her body and immediately called her father, Rod Covlin. Covlin tried to save his wife’s life by performing CPR but couldn’t revive her. Soon after, her body was buried without an autopsy. However, the victim’s family realized that Danishefsky’s death was not an accident. They exhumed the body and sent it for autopsy. The autopsy revealed that someone strangled Danishefsky to death. As a result, authorities started investigating the case, and after almost six years, they arrested Shele Danishefsky’s killer. The police apprehended Rod Covlin for the murder of his wife and put him on trial.
The jury found Covlin guilty and sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison. During the trial, the prosecution unveiled many details about the troubled married life of Danishefsky and Covlin.
Let’s dive deeper and get to know more about Shele Danishefsky’s murder case.
Shele Danishefsky’s murder case: Who was the killer?
As mentioned above, the police took Rod Covlin into custody after the authorities started building a case. Covlin and Shele Danishefsky met in 1998 and instantly fell in love. Six months later, the couple tied the knot and embarked on a new journey. Two years later, they welcomed their first daughter, Anna. However, Danishefsky suffered a miscarriage before welcoming their son, Myles, in 2006. But things began to go downhill as time passed, and the victim started complaining about Covlin’s out-of-control anger. The issue got so bad that the couple decided to get a divorce. Apart from that, Danishefsky also decided to cut him out of her will. According to the prosecutors, this became the reason for Danishefsky’s death.
Covlin did everything to get himself away from Shele Danishefsky’s murder case. As per reports, the killer tried framing his nine-year-old daughter, Anna, for the crime. He forged a false written confession, and in that confession, he wrote that Anna allegedly pushed her mother after a big fight about Danishefsky’s dating life. He wrote, “All of these years I have been so incredibly afraid and guilty about the night my mom died. lied. She didn’t just slip. That day we got into a fight about her dating. I got mad so I pushed her, but it couldn’t have been that hard! I didn’t mean to hurt her! I swear! But she fell and i (sic) heard a terrible noise and the water started turning red and I tried to pull her head up but she remained still.”
Covlin alleged that the prosecution fabricated evidence
However, the authorities found that Rod Covlin wrote that note to save himself. During the trial, some key witnesses testified about how Covlin wanted to kill his wife. His children never wanted him to go to jail and even begged the jury to free him so that he could live with them. However, the prosecution ruthlessly proved that Covlin was not sorry for what he did. Eventually, the jury found him guilty and sent him to prison. In September 2023, the culprit noted that he was attempting to have his conviction overturned. During an interview, he revealed that the prosecution team fabricated the evidence in order to prove that he was responsible for his wife’s death.
