26 DECEMBER 9, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Execution of Ridgewood woman grew to a cold-blooded slaughter
The front page of the April 15, 1982 Ridgewood Times shows the photos of Ridgewood’s Margaret Barbera and her friend, Jennie Soo Chin.
Ridgewood Times archives
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
One of the most infamous murder
cases in New York City
during the 1980s involved a
Ridgewood woman at the center of
a criminal investigation against her
employer, who made sure a professional
killer silenced her for good.
On April 12, 1982, 38-year-old
Margaret Barbera, who lived at an
apartment on Grandview Avenue
in Ridgewood, went to enter her
car parked at a lot on the West Side
of Manhattan. She was then approached
by a man later identified
as Donald Nash (aka Donald Bowers),
who fatally shot her in the head.
Weeks earlier, Barbera pleaded
guilty to federal charges for her
role in an embezzlement scheme
with her former employer, Candor
Diamond Corporation, owned by Irwin
Margulies. Barbera had agreed
to serve as a cooperating witness for
the government.
As an investigation would later
reveal, Margulies hired Nash to kill
her and another employee to prevent
them from potentially testifying
against him. But Barbera’s death
would come with even more tragic
consequences.
Three CBS employees were in the
parking lot and witnessed her execution.
When they went to intervene,
police later said, Nash turned his
gun on them, fatally shooting all
three men in the head before fleeing.
Details of the case were documented
in a front page story on Barbera’s
death in the April 15, 1982, Ridgewood
Times, excerpts of which follows:
Barbera, who was 38 years old
and lived at 613 Grandview Ave. in
Ridgewood, was found shot in the
back of the head in an alley in Lower
Manhattan. She had pleaded guilty
on March 29 to federal conspiracy
charges involving fraud and, according
to court records, had agreed to cooperate
with the U.S. Attorney’s office
in Manhattan in a continuing inquiry.
Miss Barbera’s lawyer, James R.
Coley, said last night that the U.S. Attorney’s
office had rejected a request
by Miss Barbera in February to be
placed in “protective custody.”
“She was afraid because of the investigation,
and now five people are
dead,” Mr. Coley said.
Miss Barbera and Mrs. Jennie Soo
Chin, the mother of four children,
worked for the Candor Diamond Corporation
at 15 West 45th St. until last
summer, when the company discontinued
doing business. A spokesman for
the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Joseph Valiquette, said that “activities”
at the Candor Corporation were being
investigated.
Federal authorities declined to
provide additional information about
the inquiry. But according to records
filed in Miss Barbera’s criminal case
in Federal District Court in Manhattan
and other records filed in a civil
bankruptcy procedure in the court,
Miss Barbera had knowledge of alleged
embezzlements in 1980 and 1981,
totaling almost $6 million.
Miss Barbera, who was the controller
of the Candor Corporation, admitted
in her guilty plea that she had
conspired with unidentified persons
to defraud a financing company, John
P. Maguire Inc., of 1290 Avenue of the
Americas.
Last year, in a civil suit in Federal
District Court, the Maguire company
accused the Candor Company and its
president, Irwin Margolies, of turning
over to it “ fraudulent and fictitious”
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
