A Bizarre Halloween ‘Trick-Or-Treat Murder’ Haunts LA Residents Decades Later

The motive for the murder could be summed up in one word, they said: “jealousy.”

The Fabianos were having marital issues and briefly separated. During their separation, Betty stayed with Rabel, who was divorced and living alone.

The Fabianos eventually reconciled, on one condition, Betty later testified at a court hearing: Her husband demanded that she completely sever her relationship with Rabel and never see or speak to her — or about her — again.

Betty agreed and returned home. It was inconceivable that her ruptured friendship with Rabel would make her so furious that she’d want to murder her husband, she told police.

Rabel herself denied having any connection to the murder and said she was at home when Fabiano was shot.

But a friend of Rabel’s, Margaret Barrett, contradicted her account.

Barrett told detectives that Rabel had borrowed her car on Halloween night. Rabel insisted she’d only driven about four miles, but Barrett had monitored her car’s odometer, and it showed that Rabel had logged 37 miles. It was more than enough for a 26-mile round trip from her West Hollywood home to Sun Valley.

Moreover, investigators noted that Brennan’s car matched the description given by the young man who was still trick-or-treating when he saw the automobile speeding away from the Fabianos’ neighborhood.

The car yielded another clue, investigators said: A police chemist found similarities in samples of dirt collected from the vehicle and the soil outside the Fabianos’ home.

Rabel was arrested on Nov. 13 on suspicion of murder. After a court hearing, she was released on bail of $8,000 pending an arraignment scheduled for the following month.

Then a police tip took the case in a completely new direction.

The tipster led investigators to a downtown department store pay locker, where they found a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. It contained a single bullet.

Ballistics tests confirmed it was the gun used in the murder, detectives said.

They traced the revolver to a gun shop in Pasadena. Records showed it had been purchased by a woman, along with just two bullets — but that woman was not Joan Rabel.

Instead, receipts indicated that Goldyne Pizer, 42, bought the firearm, saying she needed it for “home protection.” Like Rabel, she was divorced and lived by herself.

When questioned by police, Pizer made a full confession. She had fired the gun that killed Peter Fabiano — a man she had never met or even seen before.

Her motive was as bizarre as the crime itself.