Jeff Pearlman is a critically-acclaimed sportswriter, with bestselling books about the Mets and the Lakers to his credit, but some ten years ago he found himself out of his element when he came face to face with a murderer. That’s where this insane true crime story begins.
Apartment 515 is a podcast exploring how Pearlman first encountered a part-time professional backgammon player named Rod Covlin while both men were waiting to pick up their young children from preschool inside a Jewish Community Center in the upscale suburb of Scarsdale, New York. Pearlman thought of Covlin as “Mr. Balloon Animals” – the single dad whose special talent was tying balloons into funny shapes for the kids. It was then that Pearlman heard a story – one that was just rumor at the time – about Covlin allegedly committing a shocking crime.
Pearlman would spend the next decade, off and on, investigating the case, tracking down witnesses, running down leads, and ultimately confronting a murderer in prison about his victim. By turns surprising, emotional, and thrilling, Apartment 515 takes twists and turns listeners won’t see coming. It’s the kind of tale that makes you wonder: how many of your friends, family members and neighbors are wearing a disguise? How far will they go to hide their true face? And what lengths are you prepared to go to uncover who they really are?
What would you do if you found out you were living in a real-life murder mystery? Apartment 515 is a true-crime podcast about Rod Covlin, a part-time professional backgammon player in wealthy Westchester, NY, who stood trial for the murder of his millionaire ex-wife. It’s also the story of Jeff Pearlman, the veteran sports journalist and best-selling author of such books as “Football for a Buck” and “Showtime,” who discovered his single-dad neighbor was actually an accused wife-killer.
In this thrilling podcast, we follow Jeff as he becomes obsessed with the case, tracking down every sordid detail of his neighbor’s secret life and alleged crimes – and finally confronting Covlin face-to-face in prison to find out the truth behind all the stories.
My Review
As a newly converted fan of True Crime Podcasts, I listened to Apartment 515 narrated by Jeff Pearlman who over 7 episodes tells us about a fellow father at his son’s preschool, Rod Covlin, a single dad rumoured to have killed his wife.
Jeff begins to look closer into Rod’s background and investigates the rumours in more detail uncovering some shocking revelations about the Covlin family and the tragedy that befell Shelley Covlin, leaving her young children motherless.
I really enjoyed this podcast and found it both fascinating and truly awful, especially listening to some of Rod’s psychopathic outbursts, his heinous ideas of destroying his parents using his children as bait in order to take control of his wife’s money.
Jeff Pearlman narrates the story with compassion and retells this tragic story with both emotion and fact, highlighting the terror that Shelley went through living with a violent, abusive psychopath.
