True Crime Campfire - Episode 23: They Brought Work Home: 3 Killer Morticians, Pt 1

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Morticians. The gatekeepers to the ever-after. The ones who comfort our families, help plan our funerals, and spruce us up to face the world one last time. The vast majority of them are kind professionals who took up this tough line of work because they want to be there for people in their darkest hours. A small handful probably got into it because they enjoy the spooky atmosphere. Still harmless. But a tiny number of morticians have taken it upon themselves to create their own business rather than waiting for nature to take its course. Join Katie and Whitney for a grab-bag of three wild stories. Sources:Book: Love Her to Death by M. William PhelpsOxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Rose Vincent and Mark Bowling"Investigation Discovery's "The Perfect Murder," Episode "Silent Killer"http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/08/robert-girts-four-marriages-pair-of.htmlhttps://fox8.com/2015/12/18/former-parma-funeral-director-admits-to-poisoning-wife-will-be-released/Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Morticians. The gatekeepers to the ever after. The ones who comfort our families, help plan our funerals and spruce us up to face the world one. last time. The vast majority of them are kind professionals who took up this tough line of work because they want to be there for people in their darkest hours. A small handful probably got into it because they enjoy the spooky atmosphere. Still harmless, but a tiny number of morticians have taken it upon themselves to create their own business rather than waiting for nature to take its course. This is they brought work home with them, three killer morticians. Mortician murderer number one, the Poisoner, September 1992, Parma, Ohio.

Chad White, an employee at Gert's funeral home, answered the phone to a puzzling call. It was the employer of his boss's wife, Diane. She hadn't shown up for work and she hadn't called, which was really unusual for Diane. Chad hadn't seen Mrs. Gertz, but agreed to go to the Gertz house, which was just down the street, and check on her. Robert Gertz, Diane's husband, was in Chicago visiting his brother, and he left Chad in charge. Chad found Diane's car in the driveway. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so he led himself into the comfortable suburban home of Robert and Diane Gertz to find that everything seemed in order. Her curling iron was plugged in and hot.

it looked like she might be getting ready to go out, but she wasn't answering him. And then, a horror scene. Chad found 42-year-old Diane in the bathtub dead. In his shock, Chad noticed something odd about her body. Her skin was a startling cherry red. So, so weird. So weird. I know. I'd never even heard of that before.

Police found no evidence of foul play. No signs of forced entry, no obvious signs of physical trauma on Diane. and also there were no obvious indicators that Diane had taken her own life. No suicide note, no pills. It seemed like Diane had simply passed away while taking a bath, cause unknown. Weird. The medical examiner, of course, immediately noted the bizarre cherry red color of her skin and wondered whether she may have succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. They took samples of the bathwater and of some drool on her mouth and chin. So, police called Diane's husband Rugged. at his brother's house in Chicago, and he sounded absolutely devastated and said he would catch the first plane back.

The M.E. took Diane's body back to the morgue in the meantime to try to determine what on earth killed the seemingly healthy 42-year-old woman. And I got to tell you, this is my age, so this freaks me right out. And I can tell you, again, you're a lot younger than me. The older you get, the more you start to freak out anytime somebody anywhere close to your age dies. And it starts happening distressingly, like, more and more often. Oh, God. Yeah, no, I'm already like that. Yeah, no, anytime somebody my age drives, I'm like, oh, God. Why?

What happened? How? Yeah, you start freaking out. And it was really sad. Diane Gertz was somebody who was much beloved. She was a sweet, intelligent woman. She was close with her parents and her brother and sister-in-law. But despite the fact that she was considerably beautiful, like model pretty,

Diane had always had trouble finding love until she met Robert Gertz. According to her friends and family, one of the big reasons for that, apparently, was that she was really tall. And even though she was gorgeous, she thought that her height may have intimidated a lot of men, and it affected her confidence quite a bit. So, Katie, you are tall. Yes. Right? How tall are you? I'm six foot zero inches.

That's badass. So can you relate to this? like to me it seems like you own it like a queen but like well could you relate to this at one point in your life yeah so i you know i kind of learned growing up my dad's six five my mom's five six so i clearly got it from my dad oh wow yeah he's he's a tall guy so growing up people kind of take it for granted and they say shit to you when you're tall like oh it's too bad you can't wear heels just like it's like a fact of life that you're tall so you can't wear heels so you can't yeah it's too bad you can't wear heels who the hell says i can't right exactly and so it took me a while

to figure out and this is thanks to my mom actually because i remember i offhanded said oh i really like those shoes but i can't wear those and she's like why not and i was like because they're heels i'm too tall and she's like no no they're not you can wear those and i was like oh my god of course and so um but now i just wear heels and tower over everyone and laugh but yeah I think there is a, with a lot of gentlemen collars, there's this like, oh, you're too tall. You can't be taller than me or else my little man ego will be bruised. I once had a guy that I told, tell me I wasn't allowed to wear heels. Oh, goodbye.

Yeah, it was immediate. Bye. And we're shutting it down. So I get this. I think it's, I think it's entirely we live in a. a society where, oh, you have to be a tiny little woman. And you know what? Yeah, you have to be dainty.

Yeah, be you, it's fine. To be feminine. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm five, six, so I certainly cannot relate. But I think everybody can relate to having, you know, looks and insecurities. I certainly can. Just not related to height.

So, anyway, this was the thing for Diane. And so she dated off and on, but she never really had a serious relationship. She lived with her parents into her 30s, in fact, and she worked as a branch manager at a bank where she was really well liked and respected by the people that she worked with. And then when she was about to turn 40, a co-worker set her up with Robert Gertz, a charming man that she had met when he opened an account for his funeral home at the bank. And it was a big account. So obviously, she's like, ooh, this guy has money.

And, you know, Diane's co-worker was really impressed with this guy. He owned his own business. I mean, granted, it was a funeral home, but it's still a lucrative business, right? Seemed charming, not too tough on the eyes. pretty much a catch was her thinking and so she set her up with her buddy and their first date was a huge hit Robert Gertz was impressed

by the fact that Diane didn't seem put off by his line of work. A lot of women were but Diane just seemed to think it was cool and interesting. I think I probably would too honestly if I went out with a funeral director like tell me everything this sounds fascinating she asked him a lot of questions about it and that was

pretty much a first for Robert so Katie I'm curious would you date a mortician okay you're the single one of the two of us so the answer is yes because i don't think you know careers should preclude anyone from dating me but yeah just don't tell me the the gory details please don't tell me the details yeah i think that's probably where i come down on this too because Whitney knows this but i'm really squeamish despite my fascination with true crime so there are things that i make her read because i can't deal with it it wasn't just the j smith letters in that patreon episode no that's

just because I was afraid my mom was going to listen. Oh, Lord. I got in trouble with my mom for that episode. And if you're not a patron, this is what you're missing out on. Yes, us giggling like middle schoolers about J. Smith's disgusting letters. My mom said, we sounded like a couple of immature fifth graders, bless her heart. She was very upset with me for that episode. Oh, no.

And bless my mom's heart. She actually listened when I was like, please don't listen. But anyway, yeah, I get squeamish. We love you, moms. Yeah, we love you. We couldn't do it without you. But, oh, man. So you're squeamish.

So you just wouldn't want to hear the gory details. No, but it's interesting because I'm in a couple. So this is also maybe two inside baseball. But I'm in a couple mortician groups on Facebook because I think it's so interesting. And the stuff they share is not usually too gory because they say, they usually at least give you a content warning if it's going to be like nasty. But some of the stuff they deal with is so like human and it's very fascinating. day. Yeah, I think it must be a really interesting career. So, anywho, Diane and Robert got serious fast, and they got married less than a year after that first date right around Diane's

40th birthday, and she was thrilled. She'd always wanted that white picket fence and the husband and the kids. But now, of course, at 42, those dreams had died right there in the bathtub, along with her. So back in Parma, Robert told police he couldn't understand it. They asked him, some standard questions. They said, okay, was Diane having health problems? Robert said, no, none that he knew of. Was she depressed? No, he didn't think so. Were they having any marital problems? Nope, we were happy. No infidelity? Absolutely not. Robert said not on her part and not on mine. Could he think of anyone who might want to hurt Diane? No, absolutely not. Everybody loved her. So just really kind of baffling. And after giving his initial statement to police,

Robert went to the home of Diane's brother and sister-in-law to tell them about her death in person and they all cried together. Her brother and sister-in-law were just absolutely devastated. They were both really close with Diane. But sitting there in their living room and crying with her husband and Diane's husband, Robert, Diane's sister-in-law had a sinking feeling starting in her stomach,

one she initially kept to herself because she didn't want to upset her husband in the middle of his grief over losing his sister. But the sinking feeling did not go away, and it was about Robert. Now, another friend of Diane's had a different bad feeling. A few days after Diane's death, she called police to report that Diane had had a heated argument with someone the day before her body was discovered. Now, obviously, that's always going to perk up a detective's ears to hear that. Oh, sure.

And who was that someone that she'd had this heated argument with? None other than Chad White. Robert's right-hand man at the funeral home and the one who discovered Diane. and's body. So now we've got two red flags because they always suspect the person that finds the body. So detectives perked up at this and started doing a little digging into this Chad White. Chad had worked for Robert for nine years ever since graduating from college and by all accounts he was Robert's protege. In fact, many people thought their relationship was a little odd. It was kind of a father-son, mentor, mentee relationship, but Chad seemed to take it a little bit

further than that. Chad pretty much worshipped Robert. He hung on his every word. He was fiercely loyal to him to the point where he wouldn't hear a word spoken against him like this was not the kind of work environment where you could go into the break room and say, God, Mr. Gertz

is really busting my balls today because Chad would shut you right down. He wouldn't hear a word against the boss man. So basically the kind of guy who couldn't hear his own name because he had his head too far up his boss's butt, you know. and it seemed to be based not in necessarily a desire to get ahead but in a genuine like admiration and almost hero worship of this guy and so that's odd right and some people perceived that chad had been resentful of diane pretty much from day one possibly because she was a rival for robert's time and attention also possibly because he perceived her as a rival for future control of the business which was weird because she had her own career. I mean, she was in banking. She wasn't interested in running a funeral home. And yet, this was people's perception that he thought she was going to, like, move in

on his territory. And on the day before he found Diane's body, Chad had gotten into a shouting match with her over some personal errands that she'd asked him to run for her. He was just indignant at her asking him to, like, drop off her dry cleaning or whatever. And he said, I work for Robert. I do not work for you. And Diane had been disturbed. enough by his really intense reaction that she called her friend and she referred to Chad as that creepy guy

and she wasn't the only one other people also described Chad as weird and creepy so interesting right yeah lots of red flags popping up so detectives hauled Chad in for an interview and he admitted to the argument but said he didn't kill

Diane and it turned out he actually had a pretty decent alibi though they couldn't rule him out 100% until they were sure about Diane's time of death. And that wouldn't be certain until the Emmy finished her autopsy. So that's going on in the background. And then Diane's funeral rolled around. And Robert was front and center. And just get a mental image of this. Okay. He played their song on a boom box and stood in front of her casket and sang along. Oh, God. Which maybe I'm just soulless and maybe you're thinking, oh, that's sweet.

But to me, this, I just feel like this must have been excruciatingly awkward for everybody there. It just seems cringy to me. Like, if I went to a funeral and the person's husband got up with a boombox and sang a song, I think I would probably want to crawl into the casket myself. It just seems awkward and weird and hard to watch. I mean, unless the guy was like a professional singer or something, which obviously Robert Gertz was not. and, in fact, people who were at that funeral said it was weird as hell. Yeah, it's not normal. That's not normal.

Yeah. Yeah. And then 10 days after Diane's death, Robert showed up at the police station with a note. He said that he found it in their house. And again, this house had already been searched. Like there's a, you know, investigation going on. But he said he found it in the house. It looked like a suicide note in Diane's handwriting. And it said, I hate my life. I hate Cleveland. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my myself. Robert told him that Diane had had two miscarriages in the past two years, and this was hard on her because she really wanted to be a mom. And he said, you know, I thought she was handling the miscarriage as well, but now I think she must have been more upset than anybody

realized. And he also pointed out that for the first time in Diane's life, she had been struggling with her weight recently and was having a hard time with that emotionally, and she'd apparently been resistant to moving to Parma as well. This is all according to Robert, anyway. Right, and cops don't just take people at their word when they come forward with stuff like this. They try to verify it. So the police went and talked to Diane's family. Did they think she was depressed? They said, no way. And what's more? The suicide note didn't sound like her at all. She didn't hate her job. She loved it. She was bummed out about the miscarriages, but not depressed. She liked Cleveland.

She was an upbeat person. It didn't make sense. And as they got up to leave, the sister-in-law took them aside to tell them about her sick feeling about Robert. He did something to her, she said. I know it. Listen to that gut feeling like we tell you to me, right? That little voice, man. Mm-hmm.

Soon after this, cops got another visit. This was from a young woman who said that until recently, she was Robert Gertz's mistress. here we go here we go she ended it when she found out he was cheating on her too oh my god oh it gets worse because he was cheating on her

with her best friend oh well isn't that just delightful yeah what a champ like holy shit right and okay I don't know why she'd be surprised but I mean you know because like again if they'll do it with you he'll do it to you

Relationship advice from True Crime Can't Fire This is Also Go fuck yourself if you sleep with your best friends man That's low Right seriously that is breaking the code right there Do not be sleeping with your best friend's boyfriend Holy shit

Absolutely not cool But This woman said He'd been promising to leave Diane and marry her He told her They all say that ladies and gentlemen and non-binary folks. They all say that.

He told her his divorce was about to be finalized, which was ridiculous because he never even filed for a divorce, which the cops told her. And she wasn't surprised. She said he's a liar, a fake. So they talked to the current mistress, the first one's best friend, or, I mean, I'm assuming former best friend, Yeah, it's a former.

She told them that Robert had recently said that he and Diane would be divorced within a couple months. Soon after he said that, Diane showed up dead. After Diane died, Robert told her she died of an aneurysm. This was very interesting, given that the autopsy results weren't back yet at that time, which I think this is like the third case this season, where somebody has, like, talked about the cause of death before the results come back? It comes up a lot. It's one of the sort of top ten bonehead moves that killers tend to make.

It's so stupid. So dumb. Don't murder anybody. But so stupid. So cops also heard from Diane's friend, Kathy. About six months earlier, she'd met Robert for lunch one afternoon. and he propositioned her. He said, hey, I got us a room, let's go.

Which, wow. Just like Matt Baker. Seriously, dude? It's very Matt Baker. Very Matt Baker. And she never told Diane. Yeah, that floors me that she never told her. Although, I mean, if you think about it, I guess telling your friend that her husband just tried to sleep with you can be pretty risky.

Because sometimes that stuff just ends up back. firing on you. Yeah. And it doesn't always go as you think it's going to go. Right. And people tend to get their first reaction is denial. And so they blame you for it. And that's not a comfortable situation. Even if they believe you, it's like, well, you must have let him on or what were you wearing or whatever, you know, just because they don't want to face what's going on. So yeah, you might just end up losing a friend. Yeah. If you do it. So it sucks. It's a sucky situation. Mm-hmm. Well, soon, after these revelations, the results of the autopsy came in.

Now, Diane's carbon monoxide levels were normal, but the toxicology screen turned up something chilling and unexpected. Poison. Diane had died from a dose of potassium cyanide. And here's where the investigation really ramps up. It wasn't a massive dose. And that's significant to investigators, because when people commit suicide by poison, they tend to take a huge dose. They want to be as effective and quick as possible with as little suffering as possible.

On the other hand, when people commit murder, they tend to want to fly under the radar, so they tend to use smaller doses of poison. Diane had died from the minimum lethal dose. And on top of all of that, the detectives soon found out that Robert had a past. His first wife, Terry, had died at 25. Terry's brother said that the family always suspected that Robert killed her, but they couldn't get police to listen. One minute, Terry Gertz was a perfectly healthy, 25-year-old, and the next, she was in the hospital in a coma. at 25. Yeah.

Highly unusual. Yeah, that's bizarre. So doctors were confused and wanted an autopsy, but Robert forbade it, which I didn't realize you could do that. That's a massive red flag, yeah. I wouldn't have thought you could either, honestly, just for like a spouse to say, no, you can't do an autopsy. But I know it's come up, so obviously, you know, maybe it differs from states. the state? I don't know. Maybe it has to be...

Yeah, it comes up. Maybe the cops have to order it for you to not be able to do it. But... Yeah, possibly. That's just... As soon as the spouse is like, no, autopsy, you should call the cops. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So, they never found out what the definitive cause of death was. The death certificate lists her cause of death as a swollen heart, which is not an actual cause of death. What the, so she died of melancholia. She had the vapors. What are you talking about? What did this woman die from? She's 25.

Yeah, I don't know. Why? Good job, medical examiner. I know, right? Good job. As for Gertz's second wife, she divorced him. The divorce papers accused him of physical abuse. So, now detectives are suspicious.

And they start casting a round. trying to figure out where Robert could have gotten the cyanide. So they knew he was a national guardsman, so they thought maybe he got it there. So they talked to his commanding officer, and they found out that he was just a pencil pusher with no access to chemicals. But they soon got a call from a woman who served with Robert. She was a chemist in her civilian life, and back in April, Robert had started bugging her about needing some cyanide to kill a groundhog that was digging up.

his backyard. He said, Diane and I have both twisted our ankles in the holes. I've got to get rid of this thing. And she told him cyanide would be an absurd amount of overkill for a groundhog. But he kept pestering her about it. He badgered her for weeks until she finally gave in and got him some. Leave the poor little groundhog alone. Get a humane trap and take him out to the country if you must.

Geez, poor babies. They're so cute. They are really cute. So, as a thank you for getting this poison for him, he gave her a box of chocolates with a note that said, thanks for the KCL. Now, KCL, of course, is the chemical abbreviation for potassium cyanide. And when this fellow guardswoman found out that Robert's wife had died of cyanide poisoning, she freaked out, contacted an attorney, and then called the police. Yeah, that's probably exactly what I would do. And in that order, I think.

Freak out, call an attorney, and then call the police. That's just the smart thing to do. Always get a lawyer campers, no matter what. So, as if all of this wasn't juicy enough, the police also learned that Robert had a $50,000 life insurance policy on Diane. They hauled Robert in, and he didn't. everything, including asking the fellow soldier for cyanide, which is just stupid, Robert. For God's sake, yeah, that is a bonehead move. Never put yourself in a situation where a prosecutor

is going to say to you, so everybody's lying but you? Is that what you're asking us to believe? That is not a good look. Because what possible motive could this fellow soldier have to lie and put herself in the middle of a murder investigation? I mean, very few people are going to want that. So that was just stupid for him to say, no, I didn't like, really, Robert? Wow. Wow is right. But he lied because he's a dipshit. Then he flunked a polygraph and a voice stress analysis. And the detectives arrested him and charged him with murdering Diane. While in jail awaiting trial, he allegedly confessed to a cellmate.

Smart. So smart. Robert. Wow, he's a dumbass. He so is. It's just baffling. If we were playing dumbass killer bingo, we'd have a blackout. It'd be disaster. So it was a strong circumstantial case, and the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life with the possibility of parole in 20 years. And I wish the story ended there, but it doesn't.

Robert appealed, and two years later, his conviction was overturned, and it had to do with the jailhouse snitch's testimony. So the state retried him. He'd taken the stand at his first trial, but this time he didn't. And for some amazing reason, the prosecutor implied that this meant that he was guilty. Oh, for God's sake. Which you are not supposed to do. Okay. When people talk about pleading the fifth, this is what they're talking about. This is what the Fifth Amendment protects us from. It says, no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

Right. Which basically means you don't got to take the stand if you don't want to or if you feel like it would incriminate you. Even if you're innocent, you might. Correct. That's the thing. Like, it doesn't mean if you're guilty, you don't take the stand. Even if you're innocent, you can still say something. that can be twisted or that can be misinterpreted or that makes you look guilty. Yes. Correct. This is basic first-year law school stuff. Mm-hmm. A jury shouldn't infer anything from that because it's your right.

Yeah, exactly. And this is why, campers, we can't have nice things. Mm-hmm. Because prosecutors do dumb shit like this way too often. Yep, way too often. Anyway, Robert was convicted again, and 12 years later, that conviction was overturned because of the dipshit prosecutor. Blah, blah, blah. So the court ordered him to stay in prison, but stipulated that if the state didn't retry him by 2008, he could get out on a $100,000 bond.

And what do you think happened, campers? well the state missed the fucking deadline and this asshole walked out of prison in 2008 oh my god just one stupid screw up after another and and this guy is dangerous obviously so he he moved to a small town nearby and kept filing motions one of these was to prevent a third trial on double jeopardy grounds. It was never likely to work, but he filed it anyway. And while he was waiting for that to move through the courts and reporting to a probation officer, he met and married a woman named Ruth. Ruth, girl. Ruth. Ruth. What are you doing? Oh, Ruth. Pro tip campers. Maybe, just maybe, avoid marrying a guy who's been twice.

convicted of murdering one wife and most definitely allegedly murdering another yeah but like you know for sure he just got out of prison you know like i mean it's just that's just a suggestion right i don't want to tell you how to live your life i'm just saying just saying consider that just file that away to to to as food for thought and unsurprisingly a few years into the marriage ruth quit her nursing job because she had to go into hiding from Robert. I, for one, I'm shocked to hear this. It's absolutely shocking because he was stalking her, and she was afraid for her life. Her supervisor called the police, who checked on Ruth, and Ruth told them Gertz had been

threatening to kill her. Yeah, and initially the court decided not to revoke Gert's bond, which, you know, great job, great decision. The judge just limited his travel and told him not to contact his wife. I'm sure that'll be fine. I'm sure it'll all work out. Great. Good job, Yanna. So, unsurprisingly, Robert Gertz did not abide by those rules, and soon he started coming to visit Ruth at her new job, which must have been a delight for everyone. He was bringing her coffee. And on two occasions, after drinking this coffee, Ruth got violently ill. I wonder what it could be. Very puzzling.

Yeah, this is a case for the century. It's a thinker. So police investigated and found internet searches for, or anti-freeze poisoning on Gertz's computer. So they arrested him, and he broke out a big bag of bullshit about how he was worried that his dog might have licked antifreeze, and then that he'd been planning to kill himself with antifreeze, and blah, blah, bullshit, nobody bought it. So in 2015, in an effort to avoid a third trial for Diane's murder, Gertz made a deal. He pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and admitted to Diane's murder.

In an open court, he explained how he put cyanide in. in her salt shaker before he left on his trip to visit his brother. He said, I knew my wife liked to salt her food. And his tone, as he described the murder of this innocent woman, was so matter of fact it was like he was just describing a trip to the movies or something. And it's really chilling. Yeah.

There's, you know, video of it that we'll try and find. And despite his admission of premeditated murder, the judge sentenced him to time served. Which, by the way, the prosecutors were not expecting. They actually went into that thinking he was going to go back to prison. So this was like a nasty shock for the prosecution. And Robert Gertz just walked right out of prison, a free man. And he's walking around out there now, as far as I know, unless he's died.

We can only hope. Hope springs eternal. And we know he likes to meet women online because that's how he met Ruth. So all I can say is watch your mom's like a hawk. If you're our age or near our age, and if you're Robert's age, avoid this man. Okay. If you see a Robert Gertz on plenty of fitness. or Christian Mingle or wherever the hell, just no.

Google a picture of the man and stay away from him. He's dangerous. Okay, so moving on. Mortician murderer number two, the unfaithful. So it's July 22nd, 2008, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A 911 call came in late at night. Michael Roseboro, a prominent local funeral home owner, came out to extinguish some teaky torches around his swimming pool

before going to bed and found his wife, Jan, floating face down in the pool. And he told the dispatcher she wasn't breathing. He'd pulled her out of the pool. And he told the dispatcher that he had gone to bed and left Jan sitting in a lawn chair by the pool. He woke up an hour or two later,

noticed that she hadn't come to bed yet, saw the lights by the pool were still on, which was weird. So he went out and he found her. And the dispatcher started to walk him through CPR and he said, hang on, I need to get her out of the pool. That probably just caught your ear because of something I said a second ago, right?

And the dispatcher was confused and said, I thought you said you already got her out, and he said, no, she's still in. And then when the dispatcher's confusion was still evident, he said, oh, my God, I'm sorry, she's out, she's out, as though he was just so overwhelmed that he got confused there for a second, right? However, for the rest of the call, he was very calm.

So not flustered at all. Now, the dispatcher also noted that he would seem to do things, much faster than she would have thought possible. He said that he'd checked her pulse and there's no way he could have done it that fast. He said he completed 30 chest compressions, way too fast, etc. Shades of Matt Baker yet again, if you've listened to that episode. And I want to point out another red flag from his 911 call.

So a minute ago, I said he had sort of told the dispatcher this whole big story about how, well, I went to bed, and then I woke up an hour or two later, and she hadn't come to bed yet, and I saw the lights run, and it was kind of weird, and I went out, and I found her. That's a lot of information to give a 911 dispatcher. It might not seem that way, but this is a very common thing that investigators have learned to look for because in case after case after case, you see this sort of flood of information instead of doing what most people in an emergency do, which is just say, my wife's not breathing help, or my wife's in the pool, and I don't think she's breathing.

I think my wife might have drowned. Just get here, get here. Most people do not launch into an explanation chronologically of what led up to the situation. Right. So that, just remember for the future, that's a red flag. It doesn't necessarily prove anything. It's just something that investigators know to look for. Okay.

So EMTs and police showed up to find 45-year-old Jan Roseboro, unresponsive by the pool. Her glasses and her cell phone were still in the pool. And this is interesting. Michael had told the 911 dispatcher that he needed to stop CPR to vomit at one point and he was just gone for like a second and they heard the blah noise right and then he was back but nobody found any vomit in the area and there wasn't time for him to like run inside and do it so that was weird right like why is there no puke so they managed to get Jan breathing again in the ambulance with the help of a ventilator and when she started breathing blood came gushing

out of the back of her head, and they realized that she had a really deep gash. So they rushed her to the hospital, but unfortunately she was pronounced dead on arrival. A friend of Michael and Jan's noticed at the police station later that night that Michael had a bleeding scratch on his face and wondered how he got it. Before Michael was notified of Jan's death, his friends were struck by the fact that he was behaving as though she was already dead, despite the fact that she was breathing when they arrived, albeit with a ventilator. But he was acting like she was already gone. Also interesting to note is that

three of the kids were home at the time and all slept through the entire thing, which is very odd given the amount of commotion that would have surrounded this event with the EMTs and the police and sirens and lights and everything. So that was weird. And they stayed asleep,

even as police did a consensual search through the Roseboro home after the ambulance left. So they also slipped through investigators traipsing all throughout their house and looking and lights on and everything. So hold that in your head because we're going to get into that more later. Friends noted Michael's stoic reaction to the news of Jan's death, although his family claimed later that he broke down in private and that this was normal for him to be stoic in front of people.

So a lot to sort of keep in your head. Now let's talk a little bit about Jan. Jan Roseboro had been a lovely person. She was a stay-at-home mom. She was a gregarious and supportive friend and daughter and sister and much, much loved. And I think this story kind of illustrates who she was as a person. Jan had a nephew who she was really close to and who really loved her and trusted her. And this nephew at one point came out to her as gay.

And after that, Jan was the one in the family who had his back and talked the rest of their conservative religious family around to support. him, which I think is lovely. And despite her in Michael's wealth, she was really down to earth. She was a t-shirt and jeans kind of person. She was unpretentious. She was generous. So the loss of this woman was a true tragedy. It looked like an accidental drowning, or possibly a heart attack slash drowning, which

happens sometimes. But when the medical examiner did Jan's autopsy, that all changed. He found significant bruising and trauma to the back of Jan's head. She'd been beaten And also he found clear signs of strangulation by carotid chokehold Which is just a kind of chokehold where you are basically cutting off the carotid artery Right Lastly he found foamy water in her lungs consistent with drowning

So Jan had been beaten, strangled and held underwater Just a brutal death I mean I can't imagine many worse ways to die than that Just awful Beaten strangled and held underwater so the medical examiner took fingernail scrapings and there was some obvious skin under her nail she'd obviously fought with her attacker there were no signs of sexual assault now once the m e realized that this was a homicide that changed everything so cops began their investigation by canvassing

the neighborhood had anybody seen or heard anything that night and michael and jan had created this sort of oasis slash family playground in the backyard of their big gorgeous house and the Roseboro kids played outside day and night in the summer of 2008, so much that neighbors had seen the lights on pretty much nonstop since the pool was completed and the summer months were in full swing. But that night had been different. Three different neighbors had noted that the lights were off that night and it was pitch black and this was really, really odd. This contradicted Michael's story that he'd woken up to find the lights still on by the pool. Right? And also, one neighbor heard a high-pitched shriek right around the time of the murder. So we've got the lights off for the first time that entire summer. We've got Michael saying he was woken up by the fact that the lights

were still on, and we've got somebody here in a shriek. Not looking good. No. So cops began to dig into the Roseboro's lives, and as always, they looked into the husband first. Michael and Jan had been married for 19 years at the time of her death,

and friends described them as Ken and Barbie, you know, just the perfect, from the outside. What do we always hear on Dateline? From the outside, they were the perfect couple, right? If anybody describes you and your significant other as the perfect couple, you're screwed, just so you know. So screwed. Yeah, and you're screwed if you light up a room. You're screwed if you'd give anybody the shirt off your back if they needed it. Just try not to do any of those things because if you do, you're going to end up on our podcast. Yeah, don't be a good person is what we're saying. Just have a little bit of an

edge on you, is all I'm saying. Just enough to keep things interesting and spicy. But Michael and Jan were described as Ken and Barbie. They were the life of every party. Their families got along. They had four beautiful kids. Gorgeous house, successful business. Everything looked great.

But under the surface, police soon discovered that Michael had, let's just say, a roving eye. And that is an enormous understatement. They eventually determined that during his marriage to Jan, Michael Rose had had more than a dozen affairs. We're talking about 19 years of marriage. So he was pretty much always cheating on her with somebody. One of these was with a teenage girl.

Charming. And there was another teenage girl. This one only 15, Michael. A pig. Who reported that Michael Roseboro had smoked, just buckle up for this, okay, embalming fluid-soaked weed, with her and offered to pay her for sex.

So, Katie, just, we need to sit for a second with the fact that people apparently soak joints in embalming fluid. Everybody just wrap your head around that bizarre little facts. So I googled this. Hello, FBI agents. Of course you did. Right. I'm on every watch list.

We're on every list there is to be on, I am sure. So, okay, apparently it's called smoking wet. Don't. Which is just gross. That's just a gross thing to say. It's disgusting. And apparently it's supposed to enhance the effects of weed, but it can also do some big badness to, like, your respiratory system?

I would think so. That just seems like the kind of thing that just would be obviously a bad idea. Like, maybe don't ingest embalming fluid. It's just, you know, like you said, we're not trying to tell you how to live your life, but just maybe do not take embalming fluid into your lungs, your delicate pink lungs. Yeah, don't do it. But if you're going to do it, don't call it smoking wet. Please don't.

Call it doing an autopsy because that's way cooler. Hey, don't Bogart the Deddies. Pass that over here, man. Okay. I just sound really dirty just then. I apologize. All right. I'm much cooler than I sound.

I promise. So Jan did not know about the teenage girls. I want to make that clear to everybody. She didn't know about those. She didn't know about most of them. But she had caught him in one of his affairs five years. earlier in 2003, and the way she caught him was through his cell phone bill. She was devastated, humiliated, the way that most people feel when they realize that they're

being cheated on, and she told him that the only way she'd stay with him was if he agreed to counseling and completely cut things off with the mistress, and he agreed, because for Michael, a divorce would mean losing a lot. They co-owned the funeral business, and Michael had a shiny reputation, and it meant a lot to him. Shades of Scott Peterson. None of the couple's friends knew about his extramarital shenanigans, supposedly. A few family members knew, like Michael's cousin Sean had heard whispers about this, as had a few others, but no one was totally certain how serious or how many. So Michael and Jan went to counseling, and he towed the line supposedly for five years. Give him a cookie. But then, let's talk about a little peach called Angela Angie Funk.

Angie lived across the street from the funeral home where Roseboro worked as a director. She met Michael Roseboro five years before their affair began at a parade, which is just so like Middle America, I can't even stand it. And later on, he told her that once he met her at that parade, he just couldn't get her out of his head. Must have been a hell of a parade, you know. Took him long enough to act on it, though, five years, but he was trying to be good because Janet threatened to divorce him and take his money. So, Angie was raised Mennonite. She had two kids.

She worked part-time, and she was married to a well-to-do architect named Randy, who bless his heart, I got to say, is a doormat, but we'll have more on that later. And Angie's friends said she had a history of setting her sights on a man and planning a way to snag him. And she had a whole lot of trouble being faithful in her relationships. Now, this had already ended her first marriage, so Randy was husband number two. and apparently she set her sights on Michael quite a while before their affair began. And she used to sit on the front porch with her friend and say, that man is going to be mine. Super classy.

Super classy. I don't know. Isn't it gross? Oh, man, Angie. So she seemed to like attracting the attentions of married men. She'd brag about it to her friends. She'd also brag when she could convince men to do stuff for her, like quit drinking. or smoking. Because apparently those things are offensive to her

Mennonite sensibilities, but like sleeping with married men is not for some reason, I guess. Yeah. I mean, those other two things smell bad, Whitney. It's an interesting philosophy that she's cobbled together for herself, is what I'm saying. Yeah. So Angie and Michael were both apparently fixated on each other from the moment they met at that parade. But they didn't do anything about it for a while other than stare at other from across the street and at the convenience store where they both went for coffee every morning. Angie noticed Michael driving by her house a lot, which he didn't need to do to get to the

funeral home, and she'd often sit on her porch at time she knew he'd be driving or walking by. In May 2008, Angie arguably made the first move by starting to talk to Michael at the convenience store most mornings. And one day, she gave him her phone number and told him he could call her sometime if he wanted. On May 29th, Roseboro called her at work and asked her to lunch. She said yes, but later they both realized that it would be a bad idea for them to be seen having lunch together in public. So they just kind of talked on the phone a lot that week. And by the end of the first week, they were already talking about being together, leaving their spouses and building a future as a couple.

Again, too fast. Too fast is always a red flippin' flag campers. Just tuck that away for future reference. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And by the way, Jan lost her mom a week and a half before that first phone call. Oh, my God. I forgot about that.

Oh, he's an asshole. She was in deep grief as her husband embarked upon his latest affair. Prick-faced asshole. Fuck this guy so much. Oh, my God, that's horrible. Yeah, he's the worst. So we'll leave it there for part one, campers. But because we release both parts on the same day,

go right ahead and listen to Part 2 now if you want. Or save it for later, whatever works. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extra,

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