Danny Goldman’s Surfside kidnapping is solved 55 years later, thanks to cold case detectives, volunteer sleuths | Editorial

Tuesday night, Miami-Dade Police Cold Case detectives announced they had solved and closed the brazen kidnapping and murder 55 years ago of Danny Goldman, a 17-year-old banker’s son from Surfside.

For a group of his friends and a former mayor of the city where the crime occurred, it was a “Mission Accomplished” moment.

Outside of the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in June, the Goldman kidnapping in 1966 was the biggest story to hit sleepy Surfside.

Most South Floridians likely have no idea who Goldman was or his horrible end. But one local attorney and a group of five Miami Beach High grads who knew Goldman from school and the neighborhood could not forget about the case that shook up their the years of their youth. They became volunteer sleuths and worked the case for 10 years, uncovering a Mafia connection and much more.

Impressive work. And homicide detectives agreed.

In a video clip, Miami-Dade Det. Jonathan Grossman of the cold-case unit said that, while working the case, they contacted the lead volunteer sleuth, attorney Paul Novack, a former Surfside mayor, and the “volunteer investigation team,” as Novack calls them. They “provided critical information” that helped identify a man named George Defeis as Goldman’s kidnapper.

Defeis is long dead. A partial fingerprint, a handicapped gait to his walk and the taxi he took to the crime scene all helped build a case against Defeis years later, Goodman explained in the video.

And the group of friends — Novack, along with Anthony Blate, David and Joe Graubart and Harvey Lisker — unearthed a startling revelation. According to the sleuth team, Goldman’s abduction was a retaliation murder, a Mafia hit, made to look like a kidnapping.

It had nothing to do with ransom money and everything to do with Goldman’s father testifying days before the kidnapping in front of a federal grand jury in Miami about fraud at a bank where the elder Goldman was on the board of directors.

Novack said some involved with the fraud at the bank had ties to Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante Jr., Joe Cacciatore and Jimmy Hoffa, all who had connections to South Florida at the time. Defeis was linked to the Trafficante organization, the volunteer sleuths determined by poring through documents, interviewing relatives and friends and chasing leads that detectives back then had ignored.

“We uncovered an enormous amount of hidden information. This case has tentacles like you would not believe,” Novack told the Editorial Board. Among the findings is that corrupt sheriffs, with links to organized crime, may have “lost” evidence in the case.

So why the interest in the kidnapping of Danny Goldman? Novack says he was 8 years old and also living in Surfside when Danny was kidnapped.

“The crime affected the entire community. No one locked their doors before this happened,” he said. That changed because the Goldman kidnapper entered the home at 4:30 a.m. through an unlocked sliding glass door. He tied up Aaron and Sally Goldman, dragged Danny out and told the parents he wanted $50,000 and would be calling them later in the day. No call ever came.

Danny’s body was never found, but the theory is that his body was dismembered and dumped in the ocean. No arrests were made. Both Goldman parents have since died. Novack and the volunteer sleuths kept the case alive and shared their findings to cold-case detectives.

This was a gratifying team effort. Volunteer sleuths were tenacious, and cold-case detectives listened. The result is some justice for Danny Goldman.

This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 4:14 PM.