Murder on steroids? Detectives reopen 1980s throat-slashing case connected to Hollywood bodybuilding gym

Shira Moolten, Angie DiMichele, Rafael Olmeda, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Updated ·9 min read
Murder on steroids? Detectives reopen 1980s throat-slashing case connected to Hollywood bodybuilding gym
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The first of five infamous murders connected to a Hollywood bodybuilding gym, long believed by many to be solved, isn’t after all, Miramar detectives announced Wednesday. They are asking the public to help find the killer or killers.

Billy Halpern, 28, trusted whoever was at his door when he opened it in broad daylight on Oct. 2, 1986. But then they tied him up and beat him, his throat “slashed ear to ear,” Miramar Detective Danny Smith said at a news conference Wednesday.

His death was soon followed by four others, all connected to the Apollo Gym, a popular bodybuilding gym in Hollywood that attracted both cops and criminals.

Detectives believe Halpern overheard something at the gym that lead to his murder.

“We believe Billy heard something he shouldn’t have heard and saw something he shouldn’t have seen,” Smith said. “And we believe Billy was killed to keep him quiet and for nothing else.”

For a long time, the public believed the men responsible were locked up: Gil Fernandez Jr., a former Miami-Dade cop and bodybuilder with mob connections who owned and ran the gym and had competed in the Mr. Florida contest, and the weightlifting coach who gave him orders, Hubert Christie.

But new technology allowed detectives to reopen the case and create DNA profiles for multiple suspects they believe were at Halpern’s house that day, who killed him to keep him quiet. Those suspects remain unaccounted for, though detectives said they may be in prison or dead.

“We haven’t solved this case yet,” Miramar Police Chief Delrish Moss said Wednesday. “Many believed this case had been solved and the perpetrators were behind bars. That’s not the case. But we are a step closer.”

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The Apollo Gym

The Apollo Gym and Fitness Center between Stirling Road and Griffin Road opened in 1980 and quickly became home to the most determined bodybuilding men and women, along with paramedics, firefighters and police officers. An ad in the newspaper the year the gym opened boasted it was the “ultimate exercising facility in the country.”

Among the dedicated lifters at the gym, however, were drug dealers. By 1990, the gym’s reputation had gone south. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in July 1990 that the some of the gym’s more upstanding citizens were quitting.

“Hollywood Police Chief Richard Witt told his officers to find another gym,” the Sun Sentinel reported. A former Hollywood police officer told the Sun Sentinel at the time that he quit going before his membership ended.

“After I left, a lot of people told me it was a good thing I did because a lot of bad things were going on there,” the officer told the newspaper. “A lot of people had bad reputations.”

Contributing to the gym’s decline in reputation were the murders of five men in the course of a year, the first of which was Halpern. Months after his death, an acquaintance of his, Charles Hall, 26, and Hall’s girlfriend, Charlinda Draudt, 23, were murdered in the same fashion, arms bound and throats slit, at Hall’s home near Tamarac.

A week later, two others, Harry Van Collier, 28, and another of Halpern’s acquaintances, James Hinote Jr., 31, were shot in their heads in Hinote’s home. Collier and Hinote were both bodybuilders; Hinote also went to the Apollo Gym.

Police said at the time that the five murders were connected. On July 7, 1987, they said that Collier had killed Hall and Draudt.

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Here is a timeline of five murders:

Oct. 21, 1986: William “Billy” Halpern, 28, murdered at his home in Miramar.

May 6, 1987: Charles Hall, 26, and Charlinda Draudt, 23, murdered in Hall’s home near Tamarac.

May 14, 1987: Harry Van Collier, 28, and James Hinote Jr., 31, shot in their heads at Hinote’s home in Pembroke Pines.

May 18, 1987: Police confirmed that the five murders of Halpern, Hall, Draudt, Collier and Hinote were connected.

July 7, 1987: Police said that Collier was the person who killed Hall and Draudt.

Who was Billy?

William “Billy” Halpern grew up in South Florida and attended McArthur High School. He was known to head straight to the beach after school to surf or play paddleball with friends, the Sun Sentinel reported in 1987.

Girls flocked to the large group of young, attractive guys hanging out near Garfield Street, his father Saul Halpern told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 1987.

On Wednesday, his sister, Lori Halpern, described him as “a family guy” and “a loving, wonderful brother.”

Halpern stayed in touch with the social group from his youth, including Hinote and Hall. He became a Hallandale Beach firefighter turned self-employed art-and-coin seller after seven years on the job.

And Halpern was also a bodybuilder, a regular at the Apollo gym, where he occasionally worked.

Bodybuilders at the gym used their brawn as part of a mob ring involving drugs, murder-for-hire, extortion, and selling protection, police say.

At the time of his death, police thought Halpern might be involved in the drug dealing, but on Wednesday, they said he was innocent.

Many of the gym’s members would go on to attend the funerals of the four members who were murdered, according to Sun Sentinel stories from the time.

Hinote attended Halpern’s funeral. Then he went to Hall’s funeral. Five days later, he, too, was killed.

‘Operation Muscle’

At the center of the gym’s dark underbelly was Hubert Christie, a cocaine dealer and title-winning bodybuilder, and a man who worked for him, Gilbert Fernandez Jr. — a 6-foot-tall, 260-pound bodybuilder with his nickname “Hulk” tattooed on his burly bicep.

Christie and Fernandez both served as owners of the gym at different times, though Christie called the shots. He became Fernandez’s weightlifting coach, and Fernandez became the man who collected his debts, the Sun Sentinel reported in 1990.

Fernandez competed in the Mr. Florida and Mr. USA contests and worked as a Metro-Dade police officer until he resigned in May 1983. Christie, meanwhile, had won titles in the Mr. Kentucky and Mr. All South contests.

Police called the initial investigation into the men “Operation Muscle,” according to a Sun Sentinel article from July 4, 1990.

They believe the two men operated the criminal enterprise that involved extortion, drug dealing, and murder. Witnesses were too terrified of them to cooperate at the time, Smith said. But now that time has passed, they have come forward.

A Metro-Dade Homicide detective told the Sun Sentinel at the time that Fernandez was “one of the most dangerous individuals we’ve had to deal with.”

The mere mention of his name caused a man who Fernandez was accused of extorting to “break out with goose bumps,” according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office detective.

Hall was murdered days after he had called the Sheriff’s Office and Miramar Police, telling them he had information about another of the killings, according to a Sun Sentinel article from the time. Police thought it was possible that one of their own could have mentioned the calls to Fernandez or Christie, perhaps at the Apollo Gym.

The rumor circulating at the time was that Hall was planning to tell the police about Halpern’s murder, Smith said. But Miramar Police have no documentation that he ever gave them information.

In September 1991, Fernandez was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in the murders of three other men: Walter Leahy Jr., 25; Richard Robertson, 26; and Alfred Tringali, 31. He was 38 at the time.

Christie, Fernandez’s co-defendant, was also charged in the killings of Leahy Jr., Robertson and Tringali. The Office of Statewide Prosecution prosecuted the case.

“A jury concluded that Christie planned the drug-rip off and murders of three men in April 1983 and that Fernandez carried out the executions,” a Sun Sentinel article on his sentencing said.

But their followers remained loyal; two bodybuilders were planning to sell T-shirts at the gym that said “Free Gil Fernandez” to raise money for his defense attorney after he was arrested, according to a Sun Sentinel article.

After their arrests in those murders, Fernandez and Christie became suspects in the murders of Hall and Draudt, as well as Hinote and Collier, officials who asked not to be named told the Sun Sentinel in August 1991.

Several other men who worked out at the Apollo were murdered between 1985 and 1987, according to a Sun Sentinel article about their sentencing. Those cases remained unsolved.

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Who else could be involved?

Christie died in prison, but Fernandez is still alive and is now cooperating with detectives in their investigation into Halpern’s death, Smith said on Wednesday, though he wouldn’t say what they spoke about.

Fernandez also remains a suspect in Halpern’s death.

The former mobster “found god” in 1989, according to a Sun Sentinel article about his arrest in the three killings. Once in jail but before he was sentenced, he ministered to other inmates, his defense attorney said in an article about his triple life sentence on Sept. 27, 1991.

On Wednesday, Smith said he believed the men killed after Halpern were murdered in a systematic fashion in order to be kept quiet. That means the four other victims could have had a hand in Halpern’s death.

“Anyone that was killed after Billy Halpern is potentially a suspect also,” Smith said Wednesday.

He doesn’t think Halpern was the first victim; in fact, he believes there are anywhere from 12 to 30 murders connected to his. One of those could be Tommy Felts, another Hollywood bodybuilder killed in 1985 and linked to the other five murders.

Detectives have DNA profiles but need to identify suspects before they can see if there’s a match. They are continuing to test over two dozen pieces of evidence, a lengthy and expensive process. Smith believes they’re 99% there, but they still need people to come forward with that last 1%.

Police are offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

“Come forward, call Danny, call the city of Miramar,” Lori Halpern implored the public on Wednesday. ” … it won’t bring Billy back but it’ll give me closure.”

Anyone with information should contact Det. Danny Smith directly at 954-602-4113.

Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.