A former plastic surgeon convicted of throwing his wife out of an airplane has confessed after maintaining his innocence for over 30 years. ABC News reports that Robert Bierenbaum, who is serving 20 years-to-life in prison for murdering his wife Gail Katz, confessed to the crime during a Dec. 2020 parole board hearing. Katz disappeared in 1985, and her body was never found. Bierenbaum was convicted on circumstantial evidence but has finally confessed to the heinous crime. “I wanted her to stop yelling at me, and I attacked her,” he said in hearing transcripts obtained by ABC News. He claimed he strangled his wife then threw her out a plane window because he was “immature” and “didn’t understand how to deal with his anger.”

What stunned prosecutors most was that his confession was identical to the theory prosecutors presented in a 2000 murder trial. “I was stunned because I always thought that day would never come, that he would own up and take responsibility for having killed his wife,” said Dan Bibb, one of the prosecutors.