He checked no luggage and accepted a lift from a 19-year-old American drifter, Michaiah Shobek. During the drive east of Nassau Shobek produced a knife, made sexual overtures, and when Bernstein tried to flee chased him down and stabbed him repeatedly.

Bernstein’s body was found at dawn on January 18 on Yamacraw Beach, naked except for socks and shoes and riddled with stab wounds. A pen and sunglasses belonging to Shobek were beside the body; police recovered Bernstein’s papers and Shobek’s Wisconsin driver’s license eight miles away. Shobek was later charged, tried only for Bernstein’s killing, convicted by a Supreme Court jury in May 1974, and sentenced to death. Did anyone who knew Bernstein or saw him in Nassau in mid-January 1974 notice what he was wearing or who he was with before he left the airport?