When a 9-year-old girl found her mother dead in her bathtub with a gash on her head on New Year's Eve, police initially believed the death was accidental. But a medical examiner ruled that Shele Danishefsky Covlin was actually strangled to death. According to the Post, the family had her body exhumed after suspecting her death may not have been an accident.
The day before her murder, UBS executive Danishefsky Covlin was allegedly supposed to meet with a lawyer to remove her estranged husband, Rod Covlin, from her will. She was also in the middle of a custody battle with him over their two children. Authorities now want to speak to Rod—chairman of the US Backgammon Federation—about Danishefsky Covlin's death. Police initially didn't suspect murder because the gash on the back of her head was "consistent with a fall," and no autopsy was performed because Danishefsky Covlin and her family are Orthodox Jews. However, the DA's office issued a court order for her body to be exhumed, given the suspicious circumstances of her death.
The family's lawyer said, "Clearly, it's a bittersweet finding. They needed to know and they wanted to know how their daughter and sister died. We look forward to the truth coming out." Danishefsky Covlin and Covlin were married three years before she filed for divorce. Covlin then moved across the hall in their West 68th Street apartment building.
