Suspect in Slaying Mistook Concern as Love, Lawyer Says

Gerald Goldfarb, a 49-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer and author who was shot to death in Newport Beach, was slain by a woman who apparently mistook his friendship and legal counsel as love, the assailant’s attorney said Thursday.

“She referred to Goldfarb as her man. . . . You could tell if she wasn’t in love with him, she was darn close to it,” said Robert Legate, a Laguna Hills attorney who has worked for Pamela P. Ayers, who is charged in Goldfarb’s death. “He was her boyfriend, at least in her eyes.”

Then Shot Herself

Police said Ayers, 45, is suspected of murder in the Wednesday slaying of Goldfarb at Ayers’ condominium. She allegedly shot Goldfarb with a shotgun, then turned the weapon on herself.

Goldfarb died from multiple wounds to the head and body, and Ayers underwent surgery for a wound to the abdomen. She was in serious but stable condition Thursday at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center. Her bail was set at $250,000, police said.

Police said there was an argument between Goldfarb and Ayers shortly before the shooting. Ayers allegedly fired 10 shots from a 12-gauge shotgun that she had bought just hours earlier, police said.

Goldfarb, an appellate lawyer in Los Angeles, had married someone else on April 16. He was prominent in the holistic health movement and a columnist for the Whole Life Times.

Robert Hertzberg, a friend of the victim, said Goldfarb had co-written a best-selling book, “Winning With Your Lawyer,” designed to acquaint lay readers with the legal system. He was also host of a show on Century Cable TV.

Police said Goldfarb and Ayers had been longtime friends but would not further characterize their relationship. Hertzberg said Goldfarb “has been happy as a clam lately. . . . He was only married months ago.”

Newport Beach police said Ayers bought the shotgun and ammunition at the Grant Boys store in Costa Mesa at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday.

In California, there is a two-week waiting period before a buyer can take possession of a handgun, but a shotgun can be bought and taken home the same day. The shotgun used still carried price tags, police said.

Legate said that until the early 1980s, Ayers owned an interior design company, Pamela Ayers & Associates, which furnished model homes for developers.

“She was very successful,” he said, and added that since then, Ayers has been living on investments and savings.

Hertzberg, a lawyer who rented office space to Goldfarb on Wilshire Boulevard, said that Ayers was one of Goldfarb’s clients and that he was concerned about her emotional health.

Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz of The Chabad of West Los Angeles, who performed the wedding ceremony for Goldfarb and his bride in April, said he understood that Goldfarb and Ayers were longtime friends.

Schwartz said he had met Ayers twice.

Legate, who advised Ayers on legal matters relating to her real estate holdings over the last three years, said she suffered a nervous breakdown about Christmas.

“She was crying and very upset” when she called from the hospital, Legate said. “But she couldn’t tell me what was wrong. . . . She kept saying, ‘Oh, Bob . . . Oh, Bob’ and whimpering.”

During the phone call, Goldfarb entered Ayers’ room, apparently to comfort her, Legate said.

Legate said that until that incident, Ayers had “seemed completely stable.”

Schwartz said he thought that Goldfarb, who had become deeply religious in the last three years, felt sorry for Ayers and had been trying to help her for some time.

Hertzberg agreed, saying: “I think it was a mission of mercy. . . . My instinct is that he went down (to her condominium Wednesday) to help.”

Goldfarb’s associates describe him as an outgoing man who had many friends and did not like to see relationships end. “He did not like separation,” Schwartz said.

Hertzberg said that Goldfarb remained close friends with his first wife, Gail, and that the newly married couple had been planning a trip with his ex-wife and her boyfriend.