On the morning of June 25, 1981, a maid and a security guard entered the Las Vegas home of Jack and Xenia Rabinowitsch after neighbors were disturbed by barking dogs and newspapers had piled up. The couple, both 72, were found in their bedroom, bound, gagged with duct tape and shot once in the back of the head with a .22-caliber handgun. A pillow with powder burns lay nearby. The house had been ransacked, four safes had been forced open, yet more than $250,000 in cash, art, jewelry and rare coins were left untouched.

Jack’s 1969 Lincoln was later found abandoned at McCarran Airport with a parking ticket timestamped at 1:00 a.m., and calls to Jack on the night of June 23 involved people claiming they needed a ride from the airport. No fingerprints were recovered and the killings have been described as professional; investigators treated the case as an execution. The Rabinowitsches, Soviet emigrants active in helping Jews leave the USSR and outspoken critics of the communist regime, were considered possible targets of a politically motivated attack, and FBI personnel were involved in the inquiry.

No arrests have ever been announced and the case remains unsolved with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Did anyone in Las Vegas at the time hear about strangers at McCarran or see that 1969 Lincoln around June 24–25, 1981?