CAMDEN, N.J. (Court TV) — The son of a prominent New Jersey rabbi on trial for ordering the hitman killing of his wife testified Thursday that two days before his mother's murder, his parents had a vicious argument over the fate of their marriage.

"Pretty much from when they walked in the door I noticed there was a problem between the two of them," testified Dr. Matthew Neulander, who at the time was working as an volunteer emergency medical technician and living at his parents' two-story home in Cherry Hill. "Your father's leaving... he's leaving the house," Neulander told the jury his mother said to him. "This was a tremendous surprise and shock since I was not aware of any marriage problem they had had."

Fred J. Neulander, 60, the former rabbi and founder of the successful M'Kor Shalom congregation, swiveled back and forth in his seat during testimony from his son as the rest of the courtroom remained still. Neulander is charged with capital murder for allegedly paying two men, Len Jenoff and Paul Daniels, $30,000 to kill his wife on November 1, 1994, and disguise the slaying as a murder. The popular rabbi was arrested four years after the slaying when Jenoff confessed his involvement.

Prosecutors say Neulander was pressured by Elaine Soncini, a former Philadelphia radio personality with whom he had a two-year affair, to leave his wife, choosing instead to have her killed. Soncini testified Tuesday that she made the rabbi an ultimatum: Leave Carol Neulander, 52, by the arrival of the 1995 year or the affair would be over.

Neulander and his attorneys claim that the rabbi had nothing to do with the killing, which Jenoff and Daniels could have carried out in effort to get at large amounts of cash that Carol Neulander frequently brought home from her successful cake-making business.

Now a resident physician in Charlotte, N.C., Matthew Neulander was supported in the courtroom by his sister, Rebecca Neulander, who testified Wednesday and a bevy of other family members and M'Kor Shalom congregation members.

In a morning ruling, Judge Linda Baxter ruled that Matthew Neulander would be allowed to describe how his father reacted the evening of the murder, but not how he dealt with the loss in the following years. "Different people deal differently with loss," Judge Baxter said after reading from cases with related decisions.

Even with the scope of his questions restricted, First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch was able to elicit poignant testimony from the younger Neulander about the days leading up to and following the murder.

Neulander told the jury that in the years leading up to his mother's death, his parents' relationship had deteriorated. "Their relationship over the years had grown increasingly distant," he testified. "They were clearly spending less and less time with each other, they were squabbling more and communicating less friendly when they were in the house."

The first time they mentioned divorce, however, came during the fight that ensued when his parents returned home in the evening of Oct. 30, 1994, during one of the worst arguments his parents had ever had.

At one point during the 15 to 20 minute fight, Neulander testified, his mother asked the defendant a series of questions: Whether he wanted to save the marriage, whether he wanted to get marriage counseling, and whether he wanted a divorce. His father remained silent, Neulander told the jury. "My mother was extremely upset, very emotional, angry, and my father was quiet, had very little to say, spent most of the time we had together looking down and not responding to what she was saying or what I was saying," he said.

The argument paused for a few minutes when Carol Neulander went down to the basement. She was carrying suitcases when she returned.

In the next two days, Matthew Neulander said, he repeatedly questioned his father about the fight that evening, pressing him for details about what had caused the dispute. "I wanted to know what was going on between the two of them, where things were going," he said. "This was an almost surreal point of time. This was not a logical succession. This was: They were fine, essentially, but they were not fine." But despite Neulander's insistence, he testified, his father remained reticent.

Then came the murder. After hearing of an accident at 204 Highgate Lane, his home address, the younger Neulander hopped in his ambulance and sped home. The seven-minute drive was a crescendo of fear and disbelief, as the police calls blaring over the radio became more and more serious. Some mentioned knife wounds, some mentioned gunshots, some that the accident was a possible suicide.

"I don't believe I had ever heard the urgency and increase in intensity of the voices that were discussing what was going on at the house," said Neulander, who had two years of experience on the force.

He arrived to find police cruisers lining the street, and the tell-tale sign of a dreadful event: A paramedic vehicle that had arrived flipped on its headlights, turned around, and left, ostensibly because the police had determined its services were no longer needed.

Neulander found his father waiting for him. "He appeared calm and collected, but he was not looking at me as I would have expected him to and he was not answering my questions as I asked them," Neulander testified.

"Dad, what's the matter, what's wrong, where's mom, is she dead, did you see her?" Neulander told the jury he asked his father, rapid-fire. But his father budgeted his words. "He had one response to all my questions, which was 'everything is going to be okay.'"

During this poignant exchange, sniffles could be heard from the gallery, where the defendant's daughter, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, dabbed at her eyes with a white Kleenex. The rabbi sat back from his desk, in which he usually sits hunched over, scrawling on a legal pad or clasping his hands under his chin. He swiveled back and forth in his chair.

Matthew Neulander also testified that in late 1997 he had a heated fight with his father after receiving a subpoena to appear in front of a grand jury investigating his mother's death. The rabbi wanted him to get in touch with a lawyer that he had picked out, but Matthew Neulander said under the circumstances he would prefer to get his own counsel.

"He was furious with me," Neulander testified. "I can't recall him ever being that angry, or me with him. [He said] that I was ungrateful, that I was disloyal, and that if I wasn't going to agree to use the lawyer that he had set up for me that he was going to withdraw financial assistance he was giving me."

On cross examination, defense lawyer Jeff Zucker tried to show that Matthew Neulander was influenced by prosecutors into concluding that his father was involved in his mother's murder. He noted that Neulander was fiercely protective of his mother, and would even call to make sure she got to and from work each day.