20/20 - The After Show: What the Killer Left Behind

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

A 20-year-old aspiring artist is found dead in her apartment. When police revisit the crime scene, they find a haunting clue, hidden in plain sight, that leads them to her killer.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I mean, that's why you come to us every week on 2020 on Friday nights and here to this program. And, of course, we often try to take a deeper look at certain issues that we think might be appealing to you. And today, we are going to talk to an expert who has spent her career peeling away the layers of these kinds of crimes that we cover and looking at the police investigation and how they can conclude certain things or what they may have missed or what different things say on the crime scene. You're going to find this one fascinating, and we're going to talk to her about our most recent 2020 episode, which was the case that involved a 20-year-old aspiring artist and waitress, Amanda Plas. This was a very, very sad and tragic story. She was found dead in her apartment. In Massachusetts, she was stabbed multiple times, found on her kitchen floor. And what was so alarming about the case was that there was key evidence hiding right there in plain sight.

The case turned completely when police began to look at some of the crime scene photos a little closer. So the big question is, what was it that finally led to the arrest to crack this case? Well, to talk about this is a woman, some of you might have heard of before. I certainly have here at 2020. We have talked to her about some of our stories. I'm going to bring in criminologist attorney and host of the podcast, Criminal Appeal, Dr. Casey Jordan, who is going to help us understand the story a little more. Dr. Jordan, great to see you. It's my pleasure to be here, Debra. Good to see you again. Let's talk

about a criminologist. So many people are fascinated and we hear the term thrown around even on television shows. What does a criminologist do and what do you bring to an investigation that the investigators may not be able to necessarily do? Well, criminology is an interdisciplinary social science. All right. We're using, here it is, in a nutshell, we are looking for the why behind the crime. And to answer the why, we can use sociology, psychology, politics, economics. But what we really specialize in is the theories of why people commit crimes, different than criminalistics, but forensics does feed our knowledge base. So when I do criminology, not only do I teach it and have taught it for 38 years, but I work

sometimes as an investigative profiler, and I gather all of the information from the actual crime scene technicians, from the detectives, from the families, the friends, people who knew the victim, And you put it all together. And it's like, you know, arranging pieces of a puzzle until sometimes things kind of shift and click and fall into place. And we try to not just, you know, understand who did it, but the why. And when we understand why, Deborah, perhaps we can prevent it. It is always with an eye towards prevention. Let's talk about the case of Amanda Plas. You were not involved in the investigation of the story, but you, of course, know about it. And there are so many red flags in the story and so many twists and turn. that obviously you have seen before. So let's start off with the most obvious. She's found stabbed to death, brutally, multiple times on her kitchen floor. What in the beginning does that say to you? Well, the fact that she was stabbed is very important because, first of all, everyone has knives in their home. So one of the things we first look for is, is this an organized or a disorganized killer? Did they come with the idea of murder? Did they bring the weapon that they

used or was it a weapon of convenience, something they may have found. And in Amanda's case, she was found on her kitchen floor. And of course, kitchens have knives. Now, we have no indication that the murder weapon was left at the scene. We don't know if there was a knife he found there or he brought the knife there. But when you have a knife, first of all, it's a weapon of convenience because almost everybody can access a knife. It's not a gun. It's not like a kill kit with rope or strangulation and zip ties and things like that. So stabbing is a very personal way. That's what I've always heard. As that knife is penetrating the body, you were going to have cast off blood. It is messy. You can actually smell the copper in the air from the blood flow. So it is emotionally,

you have to be really determined to stab somebody. It's very easy to just pull a trigger and close your eyes from 20 feet away. But a knife is personal. And you have to keep doing it. You have to keep doing it. If you stab them over and over again. And in this particular case, Amanda Plas was stabbed multiple times in her sides, both right side and left side, and through her heart. And initially, does that tell you had to be somebody who knew her? There had to be something emotional going on here, maybe some anger. Yes. And well, statistically, I'm going to tell you that about 80 to 85% of women who are murdered, the culprit is going to be somebody they know and know or knew intimately, boyfriend, husband, ex-husband, ex-partner, some kind of stalker. But somebody that

they know, right? It's very rare, only about 20% of the time, that it is an absolute stranger. So the first thing we think is this is going to be somebody in her inner circle. In this case, Amanda had a relatively new boyfriend by the name of Seth Green. He was the one who actually placed the call to police and he stumbled upon found her body and he's obviously traumatized, but police began to look at him and his interrogation led them to feel like he was a little suspicious. He was sort of a little bit over the top they felt with his grief. Did that say anything to you initially? I mean, ultimately, they cleared him, but...

Yeah, when I first heard, wait, she has a boyfriend and he's a carpenter, he's a roofer, he has tools and utility knives. I've got to tell you statistically, Seth Green is your guy. In most cases like this, the new boyfriend, the guy she's been dating for a week that she may not have known very well, may not have vetted, he is usually going to be the killer. even though he called police first to say that he had found her body. Well, killers do that all the time. They think that's the ultimate, what we call contraindicator, that if I'm the first one to call the police, if I'm the one to find the body,

they'll never think it was me. But when police arrived, Seth had gone to her house to see her, found her dead on the kitchen floor, called police. And when they got there, he was literally on the steps, curled up in the fetal position,

you know, racked with grief and, you know, out of his mind with, how could this have happened? He was absolutely in shock. He was a new boyfriend. Is that a little strange? Absolutely. They had only been dating for one week, right? So we don't know that she knew him that well. And to be so grief-stricken over a dating situation that was only a week old, they were wondering if that may be over-dramatization, again, to throw them off. But then we see the police interrogation, let's call it an interview with Seth Green, and he's answering their questions. And he is being very forthright, but he does admit he has knives.

But then he keeps telling the police, Deborah, I would never kill anybody. I loved her. I loved her more than anything. So it's eventually he has an alibi. He was at work. He could not be the guy. We spoke with him and he talked about how tough that was for him and the trauma and so forth. But is it important that police cast a wide net in the very beginning?

or to go very close, like you just said, with family members and people who knew the person. Well, logically, they're going to go with the most statistically likely situation. So they had to look at Seth first. Yeah. Well, so they eventually rule him out and now they have no suspects. And we talk a lot in our 2020 episodes about DNA, the importance of DNA. You've got DNA in this case, no suspect. And obviously with the blood and so forth, they've got something there to look at.

Where do police begin once they've ruled out that suspect and they've got to keep looking and they've got something here but they have nobody to match it to? Well, I mean, they did rule out Seth relatively quickly and they keep interviewing. I think they said up to 200 people who knew her. All of her friends, all of her coworkers, and there's just nothing under the sun that is leaping out at them as suspicious. Everyone has an alibi. They're probably just thinking it's got to be a stranger at this point. But if you don't get anything new in the first year, the case will grow cold. I mean, these same detectives are getting new cases all the time thrown at them.

So eventually this case with no new leads is going to be put on the back burner. And that's kind of what happened here. Well, this is fascinating stuff. So I know you're not going anywhere. And don't you go anywhere? Because when we come back, we're going to talk to Dr. Jordan not only about more in this case and how police were able to track down a killer, but how there was a clue that was right there in plain sight not too far from where, Amanda's body was found. Dr. Jordan's going to give us her take on that, so don't go anywhere. The NBA is happening now on ABC and the ESPN app. And right now, this season is unpredictable.

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Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I am speaking with the fascinating Dr. Casey Jordan, a criminologist, about the most recent story that we covered here on 2020, which involved an aspiring artist and a woman who is a waitress by the name of Amanda Plas, who was found murdered in her home. And police were stalled in their investigation for a couple of years before they finally landed on a suspect. Amanda's mother, Michelle, was just relentless in her desire to, find justice to find this killer. And I've covered stories where the mom has been the center and the focus of an investigation will not give up and will not let police give up. That's critical in these kinds of

cases, right? Well, if you want that case to be solved, it is so often the family members who are calling those detectives asking them, you know, are there updates, are there updates? And I mean, Michelle, Amanda's mother, she sponsored public events. She handed out flyers. I mean, she was like a junior profiler herself. She wanted this solved and she would not let the police let it go cold. She constantly contacted them and told them, please keep working on it. And I've seen that before in other stories that I have covered. They have stayed for years sometimes these family members have stayed on these cases. And sometimes they can actually help with the investigation, right? Sure. We see it all the time. They remember something that just, you know, in the middle of the

night, something will ping in their head and then they will remember, wait, she had a friend or, oh, this happened, or, you know, and that memory, we've seen memories come back a year, two years later that can actually help lead the investigation. But in this particular case, I think she was just like, don't give up. Yeah. And the officers decided they would keep looking over the evidence and see if anything jumped out. And something finally did jump out. So they're looking over the evidence. And it turns out, Michelle actually had possession of a whiteboard, her daughter's whiteboard. So you're right, in a totally different room, not anywhere near the body, was a whiteboard that was on the wall. I mean, how many of us have that to make notes to ourselves?

And it was full of doodles. We don't want people to think it was a big billboard, you know, that was on the wall. It was full of little doodles and sketches because Amanda was an artist. And written on the side vertically, up the side of that whiteboard, in smaller letters, was Dennis was W-A-Z here, kind of graffiti-like, if you will. But here's the most important thing. It had a date. August 11, 2011, 8-11. And so it may have just gotten lost.

They thought it was more doodling. But when they went back over the photographs, they zeroed in on that writing. They called Michelle, Amanda's mother, and they said, do you still have the whiteboard? Please say yes. And she did. And she did. To the credit for police, you can't just say, like, wow, they just missed this glaring thing. Because she was an artist and you see, you know, this, I mean, I guess it is possible that just could have been doodling that was not significant at the time.

But it turned out to be quite significant. They get this whiteboard and they see this dentist and then they begin looking in her life to find out who is Dennis. Is there anybody in her orbit who is a dentist? And initially they can't, it doesn't make any sense. Family members don't know anybody. Here's the key though. Was he there when she was there or was he somebody who came into her apartment when she wasn't there and was leaving her an ominous message? They began to comb through her phone records and they eventually tracked down this guy, Dennis Rosa Roman, a 19, 20-year-old kid.

who is known in the area to be a low-level drug dealer, mostly marijuana. But they think he does know her. We don't think his name Dennis was in her contacts, but that number had gone into her phone or she had made a call to his number at some point because police basically used local databases to search for anyone named Dennis in the area. But a Dennis came up two blocks away, Dennis, Rosa, Roman.

And so they finally do with Dennis Rosa Roman. and they bring him in for questioning. And you see in our 2020 episode, he was a little slippery. You know, he starts off saying he doesn't know her, the interview, interrogation, however you want to frame it, sort of goes on. And, you know, he's sort of all over the map in terms of how he knows her or doesn't know her. And that's pretty significant when you're doing these kinds of investigations, right?

Well, absolutely. Because it's not just the content of the words that are coming out of their mouth that you analyze. It is the entire body language. It is the micro-expressions. It is the, if you will, the route that they're navigating on trying to come up with their story. Are they making it up on the fly? Is it rehearsed and most important? Are there inconsistencies and does the story change? Because that is going to be your biggest signal that this person is lying. They're being deceptive.

They are trying to cover up the truth. When you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said. You have heard that. Yeah. So when he starts saying, well, I was there, but, you know, somebody else killed her and that's how much. my DNA got under the finger. I was trying to protect her. I mean, it's just the shifting and winding. He is cagey. He is slick. But the police know they've got their guy. Yeah. And then eventually, and again, and so many of our stories turns on DNA. Of course, they've got DNA here. They eventually are able to access his DNA and connect him. And there were also bloody footprints at the scene. He's wearing these shoes that appear to match.

Yeah. And, you know, in a nutshell, size seven and a half men's shoe is relatively rare. But, you know, the most important thing is that we don't really have any evidence that he was stalking her or came there on purpose to actually murder her that day. And I can come up with a number of scenarios about how it went down, but only he knows the truth. But one way or another, police believed that they had their person. And that was the big moment when they saw those shoes. Correct. Well, there was so much more for us to talk about. Just don't go anywhere because Dennis Rosa Roman was arrested. And we want to talk more about that arrest and also the court case. So stay with us.

with Acrobat. Welcome back to 2020, The After Show. I am sitting here with the fabulous Dr. Casey, Jordan, a criminologist, and host of the True Crime podcast Criminal Appeal. You've been helping us look at this episode, the one involving Amanda Plas and how police were able to finally solve her case. She was found dead in her apartment. She was this aspiring artist. She was brutally stabbed. A man by the name of Dennis Rosa Roman was arrested. He was the prime suspect in the case. Psychologically, for you, if you had been involved in this case, what are you thinking motive-wise? The note that had said Dennis was here was left before. So we have to think he had been in that apartment before. Whether she was there or not at the time, we will never know. But for whatever reason,

he had an interest in Amanda. And when you see somebody stabbed so many times, more times than is necessary to actually take their life. You see anger. You see somebody who is acting in a crime of passion and is doing overkill. And to me, that suggests rejection. Perhaps he made a pass at her. Perhaps he wanted, you know, made a sexual overture at her. And she resisted. And that is when the knife, which we don't know if he brought it with him or whether it was a weapon of convenience found in the kitchen, but he used a knife to take her life. He was convicted. Correct. A jury did by the prosecution's case. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2016. Jury didn't seem to be to conflicted about that. But during the trial, they were shown some pretty disturbing images of the

crime scene and all of that. That's sometimes a tactic by prosecutors to really drive home how intense this case was. And in this case, it seemed to work. Yeah. And a stabbing of this nature is incredibly graphic and horrible. There's going to be a lot of blood. And, you know, here's the thing that bothers me. She had stabbing on both her right and her left side. Now, if she was facing him, it would all be on her left side. but I suspect that she would have spun around, probably trying to escape. Trying to get away. And he kept stabbing her, and then she was penetrated on her right side. But then, again, fighting him off, getting his DNA under her fingernails, which was key,

she spins around again and he lands the knife in her heart. When you put this evidence in front of a jury, this is something that the intent is right there in the photographs. And as you said, the DNA under her fingernails. I mean, it's sort of hard to argue with. that. Well, these are two young people. I mean, obviously just so tragic for her death, but also just sort of tragic. This young guy would, you know, resort to something like this. Rosa Roman was convicted. He was 20 years old, though, at the time of the murder. So it looks like he could potentially be eligible for parole in 2028. We don't know for sure that he'll be paroled, but to be eligible,

but he was 20 at the time. Your thoughts on that? So when he was convicted, he was given a life sentence, but then the Massachusetts law changed. Based on a lot of developments we've had in understanding brain science of young people, they think that people under the age of 21 are not fully formed adults yet. So the law changed, and apparently he wasn't grandfathered with the old law. Under the Massachusetts law, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment for someone to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. They're applying it to him. And anyone under the age of 21, and Dennis was just a few months, shot. of being 21 can no longer be sentenced to life. They find that to be unfair. In 2008, Dennis will have

served 15 years in prison. So under the new law, that's how Dennis is now eligible for parole. And you can imagine how Amanda's family feels about this. I suspect that they will be at every parole hearing, making sure that they lodge their protest to this. Do you have thoughts about that? Because it is a very interesting concept when you think about the brain and you think about a 20-year-old. I've got 20-plus-year-old grown children in my life. Do you have any thoughts about that? I mean, when they look at the, obviously, you're looking at the victim, and that's what the family's focused on, but when you look at the assailant and you think about the age, do you have any thoughts about that based on a lot of the cases that you've been involved with?

I'm very open to new findings, progressive findings, in brain health and neuroscience. However, I am fundamentally after studying hundreds of crimes and defending people on mental health defenses. I have to tell you that I'm essentially a choice theorist, that above a certain age, unless you are intellectually disabled, you know right from wrong. And I would argue, you know, from the time you're seven, you know right from wrong. And then it's kind of like this trajectory of how much you do understand the complexity of right and wrong. But I would argue that a 20-year-old knows right from wrong. I actually think that from age 18, everyone should be treated as an adult. I'm not a fan of this new law, to be honest.

And I think it sends the wrong message. 20-year-olds are not children. They know right from wrong. And if it had just been a few months in the future, life in prison would have stuck. And have been a very different case here. Well, we'll see what happens because eligible for parole and gaining parole are two very different things. Yes, they are.

So we'll be following this case and we will be following you, Dr. Jordan. This was really a pleasure. And tell us about your podcast again. Criminal Appeal with Dr. Casey Jordan. We have a YouTube channel if you actually enjoy watching the visuals of a podcast, but it's also available in audio anywhere you get your podcast. And the difference between me and all the other true crime podcast is that I am dissecting, peeling back, the layers of cases that I know firsthand that I have covered as either a criminologist, a defense attorney, an investigative

profiler, a victim advocate, or even a consultant for the media. Oh, Dr. Jordan, such a pleasure when you bring such insight to our reporting. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Such a pleasure to meet you. We thank you for joining us today. We hope you found this as fascinating as we did. And who knows, we'll probably be talking to Dr. Jordan again because there's so much more to talk about. Thanks again for being here. We hope you'll catch the latest 2020 on Friday nights, of course, at 9 p.m. Eastern. And of course, you can stream episodes like this on Disney Plus and Hulu. See you next time.