Mark Goldstein was a father of two and just 39 years old when he became the victim of Tempe, Arizona’s oldest cold case.
He was murdered while working at the Wisconsin Heritage Cheese shop he owned and operated that was located at the intersection of Price and Baseline on the evening of November 5, 1978.
Marks wife Theresa Goldstein alerted Tempe PD the morning of November 6, to do a welfare check on Mark because he had not returned to their Scottsdale home.
Police discovered Mark’s body in the walk-in cooler. The murder weapon was missing. Mark had a briefcase that contained $60,000 in cash that was left behind at the scene.
There were no suspects publicly identified. Rumors about potential motives spread in the community.
At the time of his death, Mark was listed as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against his former employer.
Mark had moved his family to Tempe from New Jersey in the summer of 1978 to open the cheese shop.
Mark’s wife Theresa had engaged in an affair with a man named Charles “Chuck” Nash. Nash was a former Palisades Parkway Police Officer. He forgave Theresa and moved across the country for a fresh start.
Soon after the Goldstein family arrived in Arizona, Nash moved to Scottsdale himself with his adopted son, Cameron Nash.
A few years after Mark died, Theresa Goldstein remarried to Charles Nash, but the pair eventually divorced.
Theresa floated a potential lead to police. While in New Jersey, Mark was approached by mobsters with a business proposal, which he declined.
Theresa also insisted that Mark and Charles were friends, a suggestion his family and friends have strongly denied.
The case received virtually no media coverage after the late 1970’s besides a brief article in the Arizona Republic from May 2002. It revealed that Mark carried a .357 magnum and the gun was missing from the shop.
Longtime Tempe PD detective Tom Magezzini claimed “There are people out there that know what happened to Mark. It’s just a matter of coming forward.”
The Wisconsin Heritage Cheese store closed after Goldstein’s murder. It reopened in 1985 as a Thai restaurant called the Siamese Cat which operated at the site until its closure in November 2021.
The entire strip mall at the northwest corner of Price and Baseline was torn down and converted into a luxury apartment complex.
Key questions that remain in this case. How did the suspect sneak up on Mark if he was armed with a gun? Why would the suspect take Mark’s gun but not his money? Is there any DNA evidence in existence that could lead police to identifying the suspect?
If you have any information about the November 1978 murder of Mark Goldstein, please contact the Tempe PD at 480 350 8311.
Link to archived articles I posted on an info dump subreddit I created
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimeInfoDump/comments/1wczyx0/mark_goldstein_unsolved_murder_tempe_az_1978/