With Jabot co-CEO David Chow's death a few weeks ago, a thread of intrigue, deception and dysfunction began to unravel, exposing a pattern of backstabbing, double-dealing, deception and betrayal not only at America's richest cosmetic firm, but in the highest reaches of "polite" Society as well. Investigative Reporter Eleanor Sullivan surveys the damage...

The evening started on a note nothing short of enchanting as the creme of Genoa City, Wisconsin and beyond gathered to make merry and make money for the local chapter of PS Arts, an organization which funds Arts programs in underserved public schools. Its walls hung with paintings by PS Arts students, GC's Colonnade Room was transformed into a lively salon as partiers debated the nature of Art and Education and the necessity of funding both. The entertainment was enchanting, the food exquisite and despite some behind-the-scenes squabbles, a falling dollar and the rising price of crude oil, this summer gala was an unquestionable triumph, raising close to $1 million and further burnishing the reputations of Victoria Newman and Sabrina Costelana-Newman as socialite/activists to be reckoned with.

The evening was doomed to end in tragedy, however. Just after midnight, a chauffer-driven town car headed east on Old Genoa Road carrying Chow, and Costelana-Newman, new bride of billionaire businessman, Victor Newman, spun out of control just east of milepost 5. It is believed the car rolled several times before coming to rest on the road's north shoulder. According to a report issued by GCPD, the driver died instantly.

Arriving on the scene, police and ambulance technicians discovered Chow lying ten feet from the car, his pelvis fractured and his neck broken, dying from internal bleeding. Costelana-Newman, who had hitched a ride home from the party with Chow, had to be extricated from the wreck and was rushed to Genoa City Memorial Hospital, where X-rays revealed a long and worrying list of injuries including a lacerated liver and at least ten fractures. Doctors also discovered that she was four months pregnant.

Newman regained consciousness in the hospital to find she had lost her unborn baby. She clung tenaciously to life before succumbing to sepsis, leaving husband Victor Newman mad with grief. Chow's death on the other hand, left Genoa City mad with questions.

Among them:

• What caused Chow's car to spin out of control on a freshly-paved, well-lit road on a clear, moonlit night?

• How did Nikki Newman (Chow's wife and former wife of Victor Newman) who should have been in the car with her husband become - unknowingly, she maintains - inebriated on morphine and unable to leave the gala?

• And since the only reason Costelana-Newman ended up in Chow's car was because she had grown tired of waiting for the car her husband had sent to fetch her, where exactly was Victor Newman?

But the million-dollar question remains:

• Who exactly was David Chow and how was he able to charm (and murder) some of the smartest, richest and most desirable women in the world?

While an RS investigation was able to reveal some aspects of Chow's life not previously known, the people who could answer the most pressing questions - most notably his first two wives and Ji Min Kim, briefly the purported owner of Jabot Cosmetics, all seem to be dead under suspicious circumstances. Chow's third wife, Elizabeth "Bitsy" Hartford, who has made her home in Bermuda since the dissolution of her marriage to Chow, is emphatic on the subject of her ex-husband - once she's assured that in fact, he really is dead.

"He's a complete sociopath," she declares, speaking of him as if he still lives. "He could offer you his right hand to shake while he's using the left to plunge and drag a gutting knife through your back. I'm not even sure he understands there's a difference between the two gestures," she continues.

Whether Hartford is exaggerating or not, her fear of her ex-husband is very real. She openly admits she moved to Bermuda after her marriage to Chow ended in an attempt to place as many obstacles - international borders, ocean, fences, guards as possible between herself and her ex.

"Seriously," she says "even someone as smart as Nikki Newman wouldn't stand a chance against David. He really could charm the teeth off a shark. She was toast from the first 'Darling'."

Hartford would certainly know; even though she now lives the life of a brittle, secluded, but well-financed eccentric, at the time Chow romanced her, she was a "catch" in every sense of the word - beautiful, intelligent, accomplished in both business and academics.

While equally accomplished, Nikki Newman is no hothouse flower. As a young woman with little background and no prospects trying to survive, Newman managed to navigate a tough, ugly world and retain something of her humanity in the process.

It was that humanity that was probably her undoing with Chow, say intimates. "Nikki's very smart. And you don't survive the kind of young life she had without developing some very good street smarts," says her unnamed friend. "But through it all, you get the sense that Nikki resolved to remain a really kind person who believes in people, and that is exactly the part of her that David was able to identify, locate and exploit."

It's now widely accepted as probable that Newman came within a hair's breadth of joining the list of Chow's Dearly Beloved/Dearly Departed the evening of the gala; even so, her association with Chow continues to extract an enormous price in pain and humiliation as the facts bubble to the surface.

With much fanfare, Nikki Newman has been forced out of Jabot by major stockholder Jill Foster Abbott, who has installed her son, Ethan "Cane" Ashby in the CEO position Newman and Chow once shared. And while Abbott has made a public show of lambasting Newman for exposing Jabot to damage via Chow's gambling, insiders say Abbot was well aware of Chow's addiction and exploited it in order to weaken Nikki Newman's position.

But no search for answers can ignore the strange life of the man Genoa City knew as David Chow, Manhattan cafe society knew only as "Clark," and the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey knew as Angelo Serafini.

Though it's been home to such disparate characters as novelist Mickey Spillane, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff and actress Elizabeth Pena, Elizabeth, New Jersey's distinctly unglamorous, working-class vibe seems as unlikely a place as any to produce a high-level political operative or cosmetic company executive. Yet, it's here among the produce stands and meat markets of the neighborhood known as Peterstown that Chow learned the skills he needed to make his way in the cutthroat worlds of politics and beauty. For what Peterstown lacks in polish it more than makes up for in intrigue as the headquarters of New Jersey's only indigenous mob family, the DeCavalcantes, believed to be the models not only for the fictional Corleones of the "Godfather" movies and novel, but later, the inspiration for The Sopranos TV series.

But by the time Angelo Serafini was born to small time mob flunky Carmine Serafini and his wife, the former Helena Cundari, any glamour associated with New Jersey mob life was definitely on the wane. The Serafinis could barely make ends meet and Angelo had to borrow money to pay his son's tuition at St. Peter's Prep, the Catholic boys' school run by the Jesuits in neighboring Jersey City. Halfway into his freshman year though, Angelo relieved his family of that financial obligation when he was expelled after repeatedly being caught gambling during Study Hall.

It wasn't the first time Angelo had tangled with authority. "He had some problems," recalls Sister Zita Anthony Gambini, who taught sixth grade at St. Andrew's Catholic School in neighboring Bayonne, where Angelo lasted for three years before being expelled for disruptive behavior. "I don't think he was happy at home and even then, he seemed incredibly restless, as if he was in a hurry to grow up and get out in the world."

Read Part 2 Now!

When Restless Style launched, some said with Abbott at the helm, a better name for the magazine might be Restless Sociopath. Too harsh? You be the judge. Clarissa McGee reports...

Ladies and Gentlemen...

From the outside, it looks glamorous and glittery; fancy parties, exotic locales, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. But back at the office, it's still work and Restless Style is still a business and difficult decisions have to be made every day regarding what goes into the magazine and what doesn't.

And the battle usually comes down to Art vs. Commerce. Do we follow a higher calling and try to inform our readers as well as entertain them? Or do we pander to the lowest common denominator in all of us and create the print and online equivalent of a freeway pileup; titillating and awful, but you just have to look?

Driving this discussion at Restless Style are two opposing forces. On one hand, there's Phyllis Summers-Newman a successful internet consultant and businesswoman paired with Nick Newman, a distinguished, respected and successful scion from a prominent family; on the other, you have Jack Abbott, a failed politician and executive who, thanks to his own chronic duplicity, has been run out of almost every business, social and personal situation he's ever been in. Pair Abbott with Sharon Collins-Abbott, a Stepford Wife with no opinion of her own who blindly supports her scheming husband in every endeavor, and you've got the makings of a true farce.

Behind Mrs. Jack Abbott's back, RS staffers giggle as they whisper "I'll just die if I don't find that recipe," repeatedly, with a twitch, in reference to a scene in the original Stepford Wives movie where one of the wifebots short-circuits.

With Jack Abbott at the helm of any endeavor, Commerce need never worry - it will always win, and win big. With his hair-chewing child bride at his side, always ready to coo her undying and uncritical support no matter what, there is no check on Abbott's flights of fancy or folly.

He sees himself as a maverick, someone who doesn't play by the rules. That is certainly true; Abbott has always ignored the stodgy traditional ways of getting things done in business, unfortunately, more than once, he's also ignored the law as well the rules of basic human decency.

With Jack at the helm it's always scorched-earth and take-no-prisoners...

Abbott certainly wouldn't be the first media executive to turn the power of the press to his own advantage. He wouldn't even be the first media magnate to use his publishing holdings to bludgeon his enemies. But he might just be the first media exec to use innuendoes and smears to hurt rivals' loved ones. Last issue, Abbott did precisely that; unable to touch longtime rival Victor Newman directly, he used Newman's new wife, Sabrina Costelana-Newman to hurt his nemesis by proxy - an act of true cowardice if ever there was one.

In the process, a perfectly lovely human being who had nothing to do with any bad blood between Abbott and Newman was mercilessly dragged through the mud.

Additionally, Abbott opened the magazine not only to lawsuits from the families of Costelana and Newman but also from esteemed Art Historian Adrian Korbel, whose career could suffer irreparable damage thanks to Abbott's sleazy, last-minute story rewrite. In his haste to get any and all salacious details into the story, Abbott ignored basic concerns of accuracy and fairness and not only slandered Costelana-Newman's personal reputation, but by leaving Korbel's byline on the story, also compromised Korbel's professional reputation.

Costelana-Newman will never get the opportunity to defend her reputation. Tragically, she died from injuries suffered in a horrific car crash several weeks ago. Her new husband is said to be half-crazed with grief not only for his young wife, but also for their unborn son, who perished as well.

Doubtless, to Abbot the opportunity to further add to Victor Newman's grief is, as they say in New Orleans, lagniappe - an unexpected bonus. Common decency and good taste never stands a chance against a backstabbing snake who double-crosses his own partners to satisfy a long-standing vendetta against Victor Newman. In considering Jack Abbott, it's impossible to resist the temptation to refer to an ancient Greek axiom. It states "Those whom the gods wish to punish they first make powerful." Or, as we say in modern times, "What goes around..."

The impulse is understandable. To grow up in New Jersey at that time was to grow up in a sort of limbo. Sandwiched as it is between New York and Philadelphia, at times the state feels like one enormous bedroom community and this was before skyrocketing Manhattan real estate pushed hip urbanites (and the vibe which accompanies them) over the Hudson and East Rivers.

"In those days, the word 'condo' wasn't mentioned in mixed company over here," observes a childhood friend of Chow's who would only give his name as "Tony."

"Now, they're everywhere - and people here realize they're not a birth control method - but in those days, New York could have been a million miles away. Not for Angelo, though. Practically from the time he could walk, he was trying to get me to jump the PATH trains with him into Manhattan. He would always say, 'I don't care what I have to do, I'm getting out of here someday.'"

A lifelong addiction to gambling played a major role in the downward spiral that was Chow's life.

He would end up leaving Elizabeth - and sooner than he expected - but the further he got, the deeper his roots there grew.

By his junior year in high school, Angelo had morphed from a gangly, acne-plagued adolescent into a darkly handsome ladykiller. Frequent gym workouts had filled out his physique, and he modeled himself after rock star Bryan Ferry, himself the debonair son of a Welsh coal miner. "Women fell all over him," his friend recalls. "He'd go to the city on a Saturday night - he got into all the clubs - and he'd come home with a wad of Manhattan phone numbers. These women didn't even care that he was Bridge-and-Tunnel."

It's questionable whether they even knew; by this time, Angelo was known to his Manhattan friends as "Clark" and the foundation for a life based on deception and lies was established.

Why the lying? At the same time "Clark" was cutting a social and sexual swath across the upper echelons of New York cafe society, Angelo was amassing gambling debts - serious ones.

"He'd gamble on anything," his friend reports. "Meadowlands, Monmouth Park, Atlantic City, you couldn't keep him away."

And Manhattan socialites weren't the only ones who had noticed Carmine Serafini's handsome son; Carmine's bosses had also noticed and were patiently waiting for the opportunity to exploit not only Angelo's smoldering good looks, polish and access, but also his impending desperation over his debts.

"He was in a bad way," Tony reports. "Always asking to borrow money. I didn't have any and I had learned by that point not to loan what little I did have because I'd never see it. He told me people were starting to lean on him."

There were cryptic, anonymous phone messages. People waiting for him when he got home from a night of clubbing. Mysterious envelopes arriving with pictures from the previous night's activities.

While "Clark" was living a glamorous life, Angelo was in serious trouble, and he knew it.

"I didn't know it at the time, but now that he's gone, it all falls into place," says Madison Brill, a former designer and club promoter who knew Angelo as Clark. "He was always a bit guarded, edgy even, but at a certain point, he chilled out - bigtime - but became a lot more distant."

Though there's no proof, it's fairly certain that at this point, the man who would become David Chow had joined the mob payroll as a Contract Killer. "He was perfect," observes Josina Gallo, who grew up in a mob family herself and has made a career of explaining the quirks and vicissitudes of those who live the life of La Cosa Nostra which loosely-translated from Italian means "this thing of ours."

"He was handsome, and certainly more polished than most of the goombahs who would do that kind of work," she explains. "A guy like Angelo - or "Clark" or "David" if you will - could get into places and at people the average mob hit man couldn't get to if he was packing a bazooka."

With wife Nikki Newman at the Colonnade Room. Within an hour, she'd be inebriated and he would be dead.

"And, he had a fatal flaw - his gambling addiction - that was easy to exploit. It's not a new gambit for the mob," she notes. "Let a guy get so in over his head that the only way for him to get out is to sell his soul to you - assuming he has one."

Angelo/Clark/David, she observes, had the looks and polish that meant he was going places. "You figure it this way. Just because certain people are in the highest echelons of respectable society doesn't mean some of them didn't step on people to get there. I mean, who was it that said 'behind every great fortune is a great crime?' Whatever. All I'm saying is if you want to knock off say, a Jack Abbott or a Victor Newman, you're not going to send a guy with a name like Little Pussy Galante to do it."

A handsome guy named David Chow, on the other hand could travel up as easily as he travels down. Arriving in Genoa City, with a string of mysteriously-deceased ex-wives and an equally deceased girlfriend far behind him, David Chow set himself to the task of traveling up posthaste. He immersed himself in Genoa City politics where he demonstrated enormous talent for operating the slime machine that has become a de-rigeur accessory in any American campaign for public office.

What proceeded - Chow's meteoric rise in Genoa City political and then business and social circles is a matter of tabloid record. What took longer to surface was the string of dead ex-wives, Chow's murky past and a hellacious addiction to gambling which would have most likely cost him his marriage to Nikki Newman.

Chow has already cost his widow plenty. How the latest power grab at Jabot sits with COO Bradley Carlton remains to be seen, but insiders say it's unlikely he's pleased. In fact, several accuse Carlton of helping to undermine Chow's efforts to stay away from the track and the casinos by constantly tempting him with bad "tips."

"No question," says one Jabot employee "Brad definitely had it in for David and basically sabotaged him at every opportunity. It was like he was waving a bag of crystal meth and a glass pipe in front of an addict."

If, in fact, Chow's gambling relapse is the result of careful efforts on Carlton's part, his plan has exceeded his wildest dreams.

He declined to speak to Restless Style.

The Little Black Dress, From Simple to Sizzling, By George!

From shoulders to shoes, RS' own George Kotsiopolous shows you how to make a stunning statement and reveals the Stylist's Secret Weapon...

Okay, first, you're probably wondering what the Stylist's Secret Weapon is. It's not a personal relationship with Marc Jacobs, or a very large line of credit at Neiman Marcus. It's not even a long list of celebrity clients. While those are all good things for a stylist to have, there's one thing that's even more important; a good tailor. Unless you're handy with a needle and thread yourself, a good tailor is an indispensable part of any would-be Fashionista's style entourage. Surprised? Don't be. When it comes to Fashion, fit is everything. The reason those couture outfits start at $20,000 and go up from there? Partly, it's the luxurious fabrics high-end customers expect, but the real expense is the labor as each garment is literally "built" on the lucky customer's body. The result, a perfect, flawless fit. It takes hours and hours of work by a team of craftspeople to achieve this kind of perfection and it's the main reason those society ladies eat so much lettuce and so little else; gain an extra half-inch here or there and that flawlessly-tailored $20,000 Chanel dress is unwearable.

While most of us don't have twenty large lying around to drop on a single outfit (or the willpower to eat like a rabbit) we can still take a page from the Fashionista Handbook by recognizing that when it comes to looking truly great, fit is It. Good tailoring is what makes a simple, shapeless sheath from your local thrift, discount or vintage store look like it came from Balenciaga. And the best part is that joining the Fit Club is easier than you think; any local dry cleaner worth his or her spot remover either is a tailor or employs one.

But there's more: A good tailor can not only make a garment look great on you as it is, by employing some clever nips and tucks, she can transform your outfit!

What follows are three options starting with a simple, black, thrift shop sheath. At the very least, any dress like this will need some tailoring to fit perfectly. But rather than stopping there, I've done a few alterations taking things from simple to show-stopping! There's even one trick involving snaps that can take your dress from office proper to nightclub naughty and back again.

Total cost for this project can be anywhere from $20 up depending on what kind of deal you can get on your vintage dress, belts and how much you need to spend on tailoring. Total time to make can be as little as 20 minutes because there's only one part that requires some sewing. Or it may require no time if you take if to the tailor!

MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES

• VINTAGE BLACK SHEATH DRESS WITH BACK ZIP CLOSURE

• Shopping at Goodwill, flea markets or garage sales will get you the best price! But, you can go to a cool vintage store and spend a little more and they will do all the work! Look for a dress with a good thick fabric. Something like the black velvet I used- to give you extra support.

• STUDDED WAIST BELT - A good trick is buying belts in the kids department. I used two belts from the boys department at H&M. If you're larger, try to get studded belts from the men's department in a very small size (this can still be cheaper than shopping in the woman's department). Otherwise, there are also great belts at vintage stores but be sure to try them on!

INSTRUCTIONS

LOOK 1 "AS IS":

The dress "as is" with tailoring for fit. My equation for vintage is always $20 dress + $80 alterations = dress valued at 5 times what you spent! (And it looks like even more!).

SHOES: If your dress is black, consider punching it up with classic accessories in bright colors! Try some bright red shoes like these from Christian Louboutin.

LOOK 2 "SHORT & ROCK 'N ROLL":

You can shorten this dress by sewing snaps on the inside of the hem (you'll have two dresses in one!) Or if there's a basic black number in your closet you haven't worn in recent memory, why not do radical surgery and just cut and hem? (Figure out how short you want to go in a full-length mirror first.) The dress I'm using is very conservative and covers your chest/cleavage so you can go pretty short (if your dress has long sleeves you can go even shorter!) The rule with short dresses (provided you have great legs) is since you're baring lots of leg, keep your cleavage or arms under wraps or you run the risk of looking slutty, not sexy. Since the dress is pretty conservative, length notwithstanding, I "rocked it out" with a studded belt cinched at the waist. You can also wear it without a belt for a simpler look.

SHOES: Bring the Funk! This look calls for shoe-booties like these Louboutins in either black, red or fuchsia. Or, try something like these kick-a** ankle boots from Louboutin in either black or nude. They're totally hardcore and I'm obsessed with them. The nude boots look best with a bare leg. Pair the black with black hose or tights to make your legs look longer.

LOOK 3 "FRONT TO BACK PLUNGE":

Pretty. Daring. If you managed to get a dress with a nice long zipper in the back or buttons, simply slip the dress around and wear it front to back. If not, consult with your tailor and either create a new slit in the back or a new neckline in the front. If you're flat-chested, you can probably get away with minimal tailoring. Any cleavage though and this is job for the professionals! If your breasts are still "standing at attention," consider going bra-less, but if there's any sagging, opt for support and raise the plunge line to hide the undergarment.

SHOES: This is such a simple, sexy, yet elegant look that you can pretty much do any type of shoe or heel. But shoes like these strappy, chunky Louboutin peep toes or platforms add an extra edge to the outfit.