Murder of his lover in Miami four decades ago gets man a life sentence

Allen Bregman was living a double life back in the 1970s — one with his wife and the other with his lover.

Bregman ended up divorcing his wife, but he never married Debra Clark, a young nurse. Instead, he shot, strangled and beat Clark with a handgun 42 years ago at her Coral Gables townhome, a jury found, thanks to DNA technology that matched him to a strand of hair on her dead body.

On Friday, Bregman was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder with a weapon by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis, who reminded the 78-year-old that he had experienced a “wonderful second life” while ending Clark’s in her prime.

“Nobody wins here today,” Tunis said. “It’s another tragedy.”

During Bregman’s sentencing hearing, family members on both sides of Clark’s death offered starkly contrasting views of the man she once loved and thought she would marry before he killed her in August 1977.

Bregman’s only son, Brandon, a physician living in Texas, described him as a caring person to him, his family and longtime second wife, Peggy.

“He taught me the importance of being honest and hardworking and a good human being,” Brandon Bregman said, asking the judge to show mercy. “I was never exposed to any violence.”

But Clark’s brother, Brian Pantola, said that while he does not see himself as a vengeful person, Bregman “must pay” for the “utter fear she must have endured until her heart stopped.”

“There are no do-overs in life, unfortunately,” Pantola said.

When it came time for Bregman to speak, he choked up, cried and paused a few times to catch his breath.

“I’m truly sorry for their loss,” he said softly, turning to Clark’s family members in the courtroom. “I do hope they can now find closure in Debbie’s death. It’s been a long time.”

“I tried to be a good person,” Bregman said, as his defense attorney, Charles White, consoled him. “I did what I could for the community. ... This tragedy happened. I accept the jury’s verdict.”

In April, Bregman was convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm, and he was immediately taken into custody to await sentencing. The gun portion of the verdict was important. Had jurors convicted him of plain second-degree murder with no weapon, Bregman would likely have walked free.

The reason: Bregman had to be tried under 1977 Florida law, back when the statute of limitations for second-degree murder with no deadly weapon was only four years. The law has since been changed, and there is no longer a statute of limitations on the charge.

The trial was unique in Miami-Dade County history — prosecutors believe it was the longest stretch between the time of the murder and the killer’s trial.

Over the course of the two-week trial, prosecutors presented a circumstantial case that transported jurors back to 1970s Miami, and relied on a major piece of evidence: a single hair from Bregman, found resting on the inside of Clark’s arm.

“A little piece of the defendant — his hair,” prosecutor Rebecca DiMeglio told jurors during closing arguments. “What’s at issue is when the defendant’s hair fell out of his head. Based on where it landed on top of her immobile dead body, we know when — after he killed her. You can use your common sense and you can take that to the bank.”

White, the defense lawyer, told jurors that detectives ignored other possible suspects, and the hair was already in the bed because Bregman often stayed with his secret lover.

Clark’s murder went unsolved until 2016, when Miami-Dade cold case homicide detectives David Denmark and Jonathan Grossman arrested Bregman after the DNA match to the hair. Bregman is a retired real-estate agent who lived for years in Boca Raton.

Back in the 1970s, Bregman worked for his wealthy father managing real-estate properties. In 1977, he lived in an upscale waterfront home in Miami Beach down the street from the La Gorce Country Club and was an avid boater, serving as a volunteer with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. His wife was Florence Bregman.

Jurors heard that Bregman, then 36, was seeing Clark for more than a year. The 23-year-old hailed from Utica, N.Y., and had come to Florida to experience life outside her small town. Clark got a nursing job at Coral Gables Hospital but planned to enroll in law school to become a lawyer.

He vacationed with her, moved her into a townhome he owned near Coral Gables and promised he would get a divorce. Prosecutors said he was living a “double life.”

“He wanted a mistress and a wife. He didn’t want a divorce,” prosecutor Lara Penn told the jury.

Bregman was in New York for a Coast Guard training when a friend called to tell him Florence had discovered the affair and planned to file for divorce. On Aug. 4, 1977, he changed his trip itinerary and flew home to Miami.

There were no witnesses to Bregman arriving at Clark’s home that day. But prosecutors relied on a host of clues to prove he was in the house.

“He had a key,” Penn said. “He let himself in.”

Clark was dressed in nightclothes and was lying on the bed. Prosecutors theorized that Clark refused to leave the apartment, sending Bregman into a rage. They said Bregman shot her with a small handgun he had bought for her months earlier.

Then, they said, he strangled her, beat her with his hands and the pistol, so brutally that the gun’s grips fell apart and were found on the bed.

She was discovered two days later, when worried co-workers went to the home and called police. All of Bregman’s belongings — and even their photos together that had been on the wall — had been taken from the home.

For Clark’s family members — Pantola, his wife, Irene, and his stepsister Roxanne Euson, who all attended Friday’s sentencing — Bregman’s punishment lifted some of the heavy burden that has weighed on them since her death decades ago.

“Like the judge said, there are no winners,” Pantola said after the sentencing. “But if Debbie can rest in peace, that’s what it’s all about.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2019 at 12:46 PM.