Deadly American Beauty (St. Martin's True Crime Library) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  ST. MARTIN’S TRUE CRIME LIBRARY TITLES BY JONN GLATT

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 - The Golden Girl

  Chapter 2 - Claremont

  Chapter 3 - Trouble in Paradise

  Chapter 4 - Redlands

  Chapter 5 - Greg

  Chapter 6 - San Diego

  Chapter 7 - The Medical Examiner’s Office

  Chapter 8 - A Blushing June Bride

  Chapter 9 - Dr. Michael Robertson

  Chapter 10 - Destiny

  Chapter 11 - Betrayal

  Chapter 12 - Disintegration

  Chapter 13 - The SOFT Conference

  Chapter 14 - The Devil’s Drug

  Chapter 15 - “My Husband Is Not Breathing!”

  Chapter 16 - “The Patient Can Give No History Due to His Condition”

  Chapter 17 - Autopsy

  Chapter 18 - “Suicide Is Not an Option”

  Chapter 19 - Under Suspicion

  Chapter 20 - The Investigation

  Chapter 21 - The Net Closes

  Chapter 22 - In Limbo

  Chapter 23 - Arrest

  Chapter 24 - “She Will Be Held to Answer”

  Chapter 25 - A Last Gasp of Freedom

  Chapter 26 - The Trial

  Chapter 27 - In Her Own Defense

  Chapter 28 - “I Wasn’t Telling the Whole Truth”

  Chapter 29 - Guilty

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader:

  The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martin’s True Crime Library, the imprint the New York Times calls “the leader in true crime!” Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martin’s is the publisher of bestselling true crime author and crime journalist Kieran Crowley, who explores the dark, deadly links between a prominent Manhattan surgeon and the disappearance of his wife fifteen years earlier in THE SURGEON’S WIFE. Suzy Spencer’s BREAKING POINT guides readers through the tortuous twists and turns in the case of Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five young children in the family’s bathtub. In Edgar Award-nominated DARK DREAMS, legendary FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood and bestselling crime author Stephen G. Michaud shine light on the inner workings of America’s most violent and depraved murderers. In the book you now hold, DEADLY AMERICAN BEAUTY, veteran scribe John Glatt details the sordid underside of a “perfect” marriage gone horribly wrong ...

  St. Martin’s True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martin’s True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because ii’s all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure it’s got the St. Martin’s True Crime Library logo on the spine—you’ll be up all night!

  Charles E. Spicer, Jr.

  Executive Editor, St. Martin’s True Crime Library

  CRITICAL PRAISE FOR THE TRUE CRIME WRITING OF JOHN GLATT

  INTERNET SLAVEMASTER

  “A blockbuster.”

  —The Globe

  “An exhaustive account ... A creepy but mesmerizing read.”

  —Woman’s Own

  FOR I HAVE SINNED

  “A shocking expose of clergymen who kill.”

  —National Examiner

  EVILTWINS

  “Fascinating reading.”

  —Arizona Republic

  ST. MARTIN’S TRUE CRIME LIBRARY TITLES BY JONN GLATT

  For I Have Sinned

  Evil Twins

  Cradle of Death

  Blind Passion

  Internet Slavemaster

  Cries in the Desert

  Twisted

  Deadly American Beauty

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  DEADLY AMERICAN BEAUTY

  Copyright © 2004 by John Glatt.

  Cover photograph courtesy AP/Wide World Photos.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-98419-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / March 2004

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Gail Freund

  Acknowledgments

  This book is the result of over a year’s work and intensive interviews with many of the key people involved in the Kristin Rossum Case. I owe a great debt to the de Villers’ family civil lawyers Craig McClellan and Cindy Lane for their unstinting patience and invaluable advice. I would also like to thank Jon and Sharon Van de Grift and their children Jacob and Jenna for being my point people in San Diego and guiding me around the city.

  I would like to thank Deputy DA David Hendren and public defender Alex Loebig for spending many hours giving me their own unique insights into the trial and background.

  And much gratitude goes to: San Diego Court Reporter Thorn Mantell, Daniel Anderson, Dr. Susan Gloch, Claire Becker, Kevin Cox, Meredith Dent, Dr. Milder, Officer Laurence Horowitz, Sgt. Bob Jones, Teddy and Karen Maya, Michael Christopher, Jenn Powazek, Dr. Frederick Reiders, Michael Robertson, Greg Schoonard, Gary Scott, and Elke at SDSU Library.

  As always, I would like to thank my editor at St. Martin’s Paperbacks, Charles Spicer, along with Joseph Cleemann and Josh Rubins, and my agent, Peter Miller, Nathan and Lisa.

  Thanks also to: Roger Hitts, Daphna Inbar, Danny and Allie Trachtenberg, Cari Pokrassa, Benny Sporano, Virginia Randall, Jeff Samuels, Annette Witheridge and Wensley Clarkson.

  Prologue

  It was a perfect Sunday afternoon in June 2001, with temperatures in the low 80s, when Kristin Rossum set out from her San Diego apartment to score methamphetamine in Tijuana. Earlier she had called her Mexican drug dealer, a taxi driver named Armando, to arrange the deal, withdrawing $100 from her bank ATM. It was a routine she had followed numerous times over the last year.

  During the short drive south on I-15 toward the San Ysidro border crossing, the beautiful 24-year-old hazel-eyed blonde’s mind was racing in so many different directions.

  Since her husband Greg’s mysterious death eight months earlier from a massive fentanyl overdose, Kristin had become the prime suspect in his murder. As a toxicologist in the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office, Homicide detectives knew she had access to the highly restricted pain-killing drug, a hundred times stronger than morphine. They also knew of Kristin’s passionate affair with her dashingly handsome Australian boss, Dr. Michael Robertson. During an interview, she had admitted asking Greg for a separation two days before his death, saying that he had reacted angrily by threatening to expose her drug use and her unprofessional relationship with the chief toxicologist.

  There were numerous unanswered questions surrounding 26-year-old Greg’s untimely death the previous November. Initially it had appeared to be a suicide. His body had been found on the floor of their modest student apartment surrounded by 30 red rose petals, their wedding picture by his head and Kris
tin’s personal journal, chronicling her dissatisfaction with the marriage, conveniently open nearby. It all seemed too perfect, and detectives suspected that it had been staged.

  On that Monday night, a hysterical Kristin had dialed 911, saying her husband had stopped breathing. She later told campus police that he had been sick all day and had taken some of her drugs, which he’d been secretly keeping for years.

  Greg’s death would have been ruled a tragic suicide but for his younger brothers Jerome and Bertram, who refused to believe Kristin’s story. Greg had an almost pathological hatred of all drugs, and besides, as the ambitious business manager of a biotech start-up company, he was on a roll at work, and optimistically looking forward to the future and the prospect of starting a family.

  Homicide detectives also noted Kristin’s romantic streak and an obsession with roses, shared by her lover. She’d made no secret that her favorite movie was American Beauty, and the similarities between it and Greg’s macabre death scene did not escape police attention. For eight months now they had been playing out an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with her and Robertson, hoping that one of them would break. Eventually Robertson had fled to Australia in May, leaving Kristin to face the music alone.

  Kristin was well aware she was under suspicion, and that it was only a matter of time before she was arrested. Now, while proclaiming her innocence, she was making preparations for that eventuality.

  But she felt confident of at least one more week of freedom. Her lawyer Michael Pancer had just left for a short vacation, assuring her that police would not make their move while he was out of town. So she had decided to have one final methamphetamine binge to de-stress. One week, deduced the beautiful toxicologist, should be more than enough time for her body to purge all traces of the drug.

  “It was one of the most stressful times of my life,” she would later explain.

  As she walked through the metal turnstile of the border crossing, the exact same spot where she had first met Greg de Villers six years earlier during another drug run, Rossum tried to blend in with the other day-trippers and Mexican workers returning home. It was easy. Walking across the bridge into Mexico and returning to the United States carrying drugs had never been a problem either. That is, if you looked like the all-American girl, as Kristin did.

  She walked briskly past the Mexican police chatting by their ramshackle headquarters and into Mexico. Up ahead she could see a bustling square full of drug stores advertising Viagra, HGH, and other prescription drugs sold over the counter, no questions asked. It was a busy Sunday afternoon and the square was in motion. Car horns blasted impatiently and everyone was in a hurry.

  Kristin looked across a square and was relieved to see her dealer waiting for her by the edge of the taxi rank. She got into the back of his battered yellow cab for the ten-minute ride to Revolución Avenue, the main tourist drag in the center of Tijuana. There he would make the connection for what he cheerfully called “Christina”—the stuff her petite body so desperately craved. Although Rossum had been a sporadic methamphetamine addict since her early teens, she had never needed it more than now. For something told her it might be the last score she’d ever make.

  The following morning, Kristin prepared some meth in a glass torch, smoking it before leaving for work. She had been “tweaking” through the night and had hardly slept a wink. But just as she was walking out the door, she received the call she had been dreading. Her lawyer Michael Pancer informed her that the San Diego Police Department had issued a warrant for her arrest and he urged her to surrender at police headquarters. Tearfully, Kristin agreed, but there was something she had to do first.

  It was just a short drive from her apartment in Golden Hill to TriLink BioTechnologies in Sorrento Valley, where she had found a job as an assistant chemist, after being fired from the medical examiner’s office along with Dr. Robertson. She arrived at 10:15 a.m., parking her white Toyota Cressida in the back lot. She looked terrible and knew it. Her current methamphetamine binge had ravaged her looks. She had scabs all over her face and she’d picked her nails to the quick.

  Carefully applying her eye makeup in the car mirror to hide her bloodshot, teary eyes, Kristin composed herself and walked into the sleek white building. Then she breezed through front desk security and into the laboratory, sitting down at her work station.

  “She was in a panic and was crying,” remembered her best friend Claire Becker, who sat directly in front of her. “I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she’s just heard they had put out a warrant for her arrest. And she was freaking out.”

  Wiping her eyes, Kristin cleared her desk scooping up some gifts that she had proudly placed there several weeks earlier: a small stuffed koala bear, a card, some love letters and photographs.

  “Please hang on to them,” she begged Becker. “They’re from Michael.”

  The English-born Becker had become her confidante in the last few months, and knew all about the murder investigation and her affair with Michael Robertson. It was common knowledge at TriLink that Kristin was under a cloud of suspicion, but her bosses were convinced of her innocence. They viewed her as a dedicated hard-worker, feeling very protective, and believed she had been persecuted by the police.

  “We all believed her,” said Becker. “Later I found out she was two very different people.”

  Half an hour later, Kristin Rossum was still high when she returned to her apartment to find detectives waiting for her. She was then driven to police headquarters and arrested on suspicion of killing her husband. She sat impassively as she was read her Miranda rights before being fingerprinted and photographed. Later that day, in floods of tears, she was taken in handcuffs to Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility to await her fate.

  Chapter 1

  The Golden Girl

  Kristin Rossum was the academic equivalent of an army brat, changing location numerous times during her childhood, as her ambitious father carved out a distinguished career as a nationally renowned expert in constitutional law and juvenile delinquency. Ralph Rossum was a self-made man, and strove for perfection, always placing high demands on his daughter and her two brothers. Highly intelligent and stunningly beautiful, Kristin would always try to please him, but always fall short.

  Born on December 17, 1946, Ralph Rossum grew up on a small dairy farm in rural Alexandria in central Minnesota, the elder of two brothers. His hard-working father was a farmer who eked out a living from the land. There was little money in the household, so Ralph won a series of scholarships and got the best education possible.

  He was the first in his family to ever go to college, securing a place at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. And in 1968, after paying his way through college with a variety of summer jobs, he graduated summa cum laude.

  He then transferred to the University of Chicago, doing post-graduate work as an instructor of Behavioral Sciences for the Department of Police Academy Services, getting his M.A. in 1971.

  A year later, Ralph fell in love with an attractive blonde journalism student at Indiana University. Her name was Constance, and she was two years younger, intelligent and highly ambitious. Soon, they were married.

  A year later, after getting his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Ralph moved his new wife to Grinnell, Iowa, where he got his first teaching job at Grinnell College as an instructor in the Department of Political Science. But before long, they moved to Memphis, Tennessee, so he could take up an assistant professorship at Memphis State University.

  Soon after arriving in Memphis, Constance became pregnant, and on October 25, 1976, Kristin Margrethe Rossum was born. She was a beautiful baby and her parents were thrilled when they soon realized that she was exceptionally intelligent.

  Ralph Rossum was now on the academic fast-track and making a national name for himself. In 1977, he was promoted to associate professor of the university’s Department of Political Science and was granted tenure a year later. Constance was also busy, studying journalism
and communications, and her sister Marguerite Zandstra would baby-sit on weekends. Kristin’s Aunt Marge would later fondly recall how the cherubic little girl had had a passion for music and dancing from the beginning.

  In early 1979, Constance gave birth to a baby boy named Brent, and Kristin’s earliest memory is of her brother being born in the Memphis suburb of Germantown. From the beginning, Kristin bonded with Brent and they would always remain close.

  A year later, the Rossums moved to the northern Chicago suburb of Wilmette, when Professor Rossum was appointed associate professor of Loyola University’s Department of Political Science. Within a year he’d made associate dean of the graduate school, publishing well-received books and monographs on the American Constitution and the criminal justice system. Among his published works at that time were Police, Criminal Justice, and the Community, and The Politics of the Criminal Justice System.

  In Chicago, four-year-old Kristin’s reading and writing skills were well advanced for her age. When she started school, she stood out from all the other little girls with her radiant beauty, natural curiosity and enthusiasm to learn.

  One day her Aunt Marge came to school to collect Kristin for a trip to the circus.

  “I noticed when I went into her classroom,” recalled her aunt, “Kristin was in the front row with her hand real high, waving. She seemed to have a very good rapport with everyone.”