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SABRINA: A Decade Of Doubt And Pain

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By THOMAS W. KRAUSE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 21, 2007

Special Report: Aisenbergs' Interview, Previous Coverage, New Photos

BETHESDA, Md. - This week, two Hillsborough County sheriff's detectives are sifting through stacks of evidence, following phoned-in leads and reviewing notes from interviews to find a missing 5-month-old girl. It is their only active case.

Last month, the girl's parents appeared on "The Montel Williams Show," pitching their Web site and asking for the public's help. Whenever they travel, they return home with a trinket so that, some day, they can show their daughter they have been thinking of her.

The couple's attorney, Barry Cohen, blasted the sheriff's office again this week for what he calls a myopic investigation that faults the parents in the girl's disappearance.

It has been this way since before the war in Iraq, before the Sept. 11 attacks, before the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Until something breaks, there is no moving on from the Aisenberg case.

Ten years ago Saturday, Sabrina Paige Aisenberg disappeared from a crib in her parents' Valrico home. The mystery surrounding her whereabouts has only two possible explanations.

An innocent couple have endured excruciating hell: their infant daughter abducted, their integrity questioned, their reputation ruined, their faith in law and order destroyed.

"It's sort of like going through a haze," Steve Aisenberg said last week from suburban Washington, where he and his wife moved their family to avoid the scrutiny that comes with a national news story. "You don't believe it. You expect to see her in another room. She's not."

The other explanation is that the Aisenbergs committed a crime - and have gotten away with it for a decade.

A Mother Finds An Empty Crib

At 6:42 a.m. on Nov. 24, 1997, Marlene Aisenberg said, she walked into her 5-month-old daughter's bedroom and was stunned to find Sabrina and her yellow baby blanket gone.

"I just screamed," she said during the recent interview, sitting next to her husband and holding his hand tightly. "I just hysterically screamed."

A 911 call was followed by calls to family and friends. The Aisenbergs walked the neighborhood, knocking on doors along Springville Drive.

Many neighbors jumped in with help and comfort.

Some, however, wondered why the Aisenbergs were not awakened by their dog if, as the couple suspect, a stranger walked into the house. Others said the Aisenbergs did not seem to react with much emotion.

The woods behind the Aisenbergs' home were searched by 50 officers, 16 FBI agents and cadaver-sniffing dogs. The story got national attention. The Aisenbergs appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the cherubic photo of a black-haired baby girl spread from coast to coast.

They say they still believe she will turn up.

"Somebody, somewhere has to piece together something," Marlene Aisenberg said. "We want her home."

Within two days of reporting Sabrina missing, the Aisenbergs were interviewed by sheriff's detectives, together and separately, for three hours. They hired Barry Cohen, a Tampa lawyer known for taking cases that get media attention.

"The supervisors and the sheriff at that time had decided that the Aisenbergs were guilty," Cohen said last week. "They had no other leads because they weren't looking for any other leads."

Not so, said Tony Peluso, an attorney for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and a member of the current team investigating Sabrina's disappearance. Peluso said last week there is no blind focus on Steve and Marlene Aisenberg.

"That is not a scientific way to approach it," he said.

Confidence Remains In Solving Case

Peluso said the case remains a priority. The two detectives working on Sabrina's disappearance, he said, are assigned no other cases. A third detective, a sheriff's office veteran, works with them part time to provide institutional memory.

The sheriff's office constantly receives new information in the case. Investigators are reluctant to reveal it, hoping to fend off false leads, Peluso said.

"We have a vast amount of physical evidence," he said. "We have a large amount of documentary evidence as well. I'm being intentionally vague."

Peluso, a former prosecutor who was not involved in the case in the beginning, said he is confident it will be solved.

Why?

"Both because of what we know and because of what we can find out," he said.

Are the Aisenbergs still suspects?

"Until we can clear them from the case, yes."

The sheriff's office has other suspects, too, Peluso said.

"We are serious about this. A 5-month-old baby is missing from her crib. There is no lawful explanation for this."

If Sabrina, one day, is found alive, Peluso said he would be ecstatic.

"I'd be the first person to say 'God bless you, Aisenbergs.'"

Parents Were Taken To Court

Authorities' attempts to prosecute Steve and Marlene Aisenberg escalated in the weeks and months after the disappearance, then collapsed.

Three months after Sabrina disappeared, federal authorities subpoenaed the Aisenbergs to appear before a grand jury. Cohen fought it but they were compelled to testify.

In September 1999, the Aisenbergs were indicted on federal charges that they lied to investigators. The indictment focused on audio tapes recorded secretly from bugs placed in their kitchen and bedroom.

"For us," Marlene Aisenberg said, "it was just another thing they were doing to us."

A federal judge later determined that investigators lied to obtain warrants keeping the listening devices in place. The resulting tapes, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday ruled, were inaudible.

Federal transcripts quote Marlene Aisenberg saying Sabrina was "dead and buried." They quote Steve Aisenberg saying "I wish I hadn't harmed her. It was the cocaine."

But no one, other than those responsible for transcribing the tapes, could decipher those quotes - not the judge, the Aisenbergs, their attorneys or members of the media.

The indictments were dismissed.

Last week, the Aisenbergs said the allegation of drug use was preposterous.

"Steve and I, which is funny for our generation, have never done any kind of drugs," Marlene Aisenberg said. "Not even pot."

Eventually, the U.S. government paid $1.5 million in legal fees.

Steve Aisenberg said his father was refunded some of the money he paid Cohen. Cohen's firm got the rest of the money. Since then, he said, Cohen has represented them but never billed them.

In 2005, the Aisenbergs dropped a lawsuit they filed against the sheriff's office. They said they wanted to give investigators more time to find Sabrina.

"It's not about money," Marlene Aisenberg said. "It's about getting Sabrina home. Ultimately, they have to get Sabrina home."

Neighbors Divided On Theories

The mystery of Sabrina's disappearance broke the Valrico neighborhood into factions.

Mari Ray, a family friend who lived down the street, said Marlene Aisenberg was extraordinarily patient with all the children in the neighborhood. She said she couldn't imagine the Aisenbergs doing anything to hurt a child.

Ray, who now lives in Peachtree City, Ga., said she and Marlene have not seen each other in a few years but added: "If we were to see each other now, it would be as if we saw each other yesterday."

Ray said she remembers asking Marlene Aisenberg about the disappearance.

"She looked at me straight in the face," Ray said. "She looked at me in the eyes and said 'If you think I know where my daughter is, I don't. I don't know where she is.'"

Investigators were searching area ponds with cadaver dogs. Ray's children watched through the fence as they worked.

"I remember them both saying, 'Sabrina, where are you?'" Ray said. "'Where are you, Sabrina?'"

Ten years later, Ray said, she sees the world through more mature eyes.

"Back then," she said, "I believed that she was kidnapped and that she was alive. I told the police that."

Now she is not sure.

Is Sabrina dead?

"I don't know," Ray said. "I believe that something happened to that little girl."

Other neighbors have questions about the Aisenbergs' story.

"From the day Sabrina went missing, I believed there was foul play," said Scot Middleton, a retired Tampa police officer who lived across the street from the Aisenbergs and is now facilities manager for The Tampa Tribune and The News Center. "Something just wasn't right."

On the morning of Sabrina's disappearance, Middleton's wife answered a knock at the door. He was standing at the top of the stairs.

Middleton said he heard his wife talking to Steve Aisenberg. Outside, Marlene Aisenberg was waiting. Middleton said he was surprised how calm they both looked.

"My wife was hysterical," he recalled.

A couple of years before Sabrina disappeared, Middleton said, the Aisenbergs' other daughter, Monica, walked out of the house through a sliding glass door. She was found a short while later in a neighbor's yard.

When the Aisenbergs realized she was missing, they ran from the house yelling, Middleton said.

"There was hysteria in their voices," he said. "This was a child, their child, and she was missing. That just never happened with Sabrina."

Within about six months of Sabrina's disappearance, Middleton moved from the area. His son, 4 at the time, couldn't stand to be in their house anymore. He had to watch his father set the burglar alarm every night before he would go to sleep.

The Aisenbergs said their oldest child, William, also had to watch them set the alarm every night. Eventually, they moved the control pad into the boy's room so he could see the light.

Family Has Survived The Trauma

The couple know what many people think of them. They try not to dwell on it. But they reject any inconsistencies others see in their stories.

The time young Monica wandered out of the house, Steve Aisenberg said, Marlene was not home. He alone was yelling for her. When Sabrina disappeared, he said, he reacted with the same fear and hysteria as in the earlier disappearance. He was in shock, trying to keep calm, by the time he reached the Middletons.

Friends, Marlene Aisenberg said, have told her they would have had a nervous breakdown had their child disappeared.

"How can you have a nervous breakdown when you have an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old at home who need you?" Marlene Aisenberg asked.

Now, Monica, 14, is a freshman at Walt Whitman High School and an officer in student government. William, 18, is a senior who plays lacrosse and excels at computer design for his high school newspaper. He is shopping for colleges.

The Aisenbergs said their relationship has survived the trauma, as well.

"We had a really good marriage before this happened to us," Marlene Aisenberg said. "There was never any blame about what happened."

The garage door, left open the night Sabrina disappeared, is an example. Marlene said Steve often forgot to close it and was warned by neighbors. She said she couldn't be mad at him for the one time it may have aided a kidnapper.

Over the years, several former neighbors have said the Aisenbergs kept a dirty house. Last week, Marlene laughed off the suggestion, saying the front playroom was often full of laundry.

"It was more important for me to take my kids out and have fun with them than to do laundry."

Steve Aisenberg rolled his eyes and quipped, "Still is."

Marlene leaned over and pretended to push him. They hugged gently and laughed.

Life For Aisenbergs Goes On

Last week, a cool rain fell on the Aisenbergs' Bethesda, Md., neighborhood.

The couple moved the family there in 1999, to the house where Steve Aisenberg was raised. It is owned by a family trust so they spent less than others to move into the posh neighborhood, where houses go for an average half-million dollars.

The Aisenbergs met while attending the University of Maryland. They had always expected to move home.

Upon arriving, Marlene Aisenberg said, she walked barefoot in grass, softer than the stiff blades she remembered in Florida.

There were other reasons to go home.

"We have to raise our kids to respect the authorities," Marlene Aisenberg said. "We can't do that in Florida."

In Maryland, they had the challenge of telling neighbors about Sabrina.

"Everyone that William and Monica were friends with, we let them know," Marlene Aisenberg said. "They needed to know that if they came and played at our house, they would be safe. We tell them, our child was taken, the police think we had something to do with it and we didn't."

Sabrina is a presence throughout the house.

Next to each picture of William and Monica, in various stages of growth, is a picture of Sabrina - forever 5 months old.

Marlene Aisenberg works at the airport and flies free now. For the first time, the family vacations often.

"When we go on vacation," she said, "we come back with something for her."

In a bedroom dedicated to Sabrina, she points to a ceramic senorita and says they bought it in Mexico. She points to a toy canoe and says it was from Arizona. A model of a British phone booth was bought in London.

Steve Aisenberg said the room is Sabrina's but it is also a family room. The other children play there and study there.

"It's not a shrine," he said.

Marlene said she thinks about Sabrina and wonders whether she has curly hair like hers or wavy hair like Steve's. When she works as a substitute teacher at the local elementary school, she looks at girls Sabrina's age and wonders what she's like.

"I wonder if she's reading that book."

Steve and Marlene Aisenberg said they have their own theory about why Sabrina was taken.

"The only thing we can think is that they wanted a child to love and couldn't have one," Steve Aisenberg said.

If she came home today, Marlene said, emotions would burst.

"Oh, my God," she said. "We'd hug her."

News Channel 8 reporter Jeff Patterson contributed to this report. Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at tkrause@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7698.

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