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

  Just after 11:00 a.m., to the strains of Johann Sebastian Bach, Professor Rossum escorted his daughter down the white satin aisle. Kristin looked beautiful, in a lacy white gown with a décolletage. Her long blonde hair was braided above her head, held in place by a matching white headband, and she wore a single string of pearls. She was also holding a bouquet of a dozen white roses, her favorite flower.

  Greg turned to look at his bride for the first time in her wedding dress, and a smile lit up his face. Then the music stopped as the priest began the ceremony to join Greg and Kristin together for life in holy matrimony.

  After a moving liturgy, the priest asked Greg if he took Kristin to be his wife until death they did part. He smiled at her nervously, before replying, “I do.”

  “Kristin,” continued the priest, “will you have this man to be your husband?”

  “I will,” she declared as the priest placed her gold wedding band on her finger.

  It was all over in twenty-five minutes, and now Kristin and Greg were man and wife, after a four-year engagement.

  “It was a perfect wedding,” Professor Rossum would later say. “The weather cooperated. The liturgy was beautiful. The music was sublime.”

  The Rossums’ official wedding photographer, Christopher Michael, thought it a really classy affair.

  “It was a gorgeous wedding,” he remembered. “Kristin was beautiful and very pleasant and quite shy.”

  Then, after taking the official photographs of the bride and groom, everyone adjourned to the Padua Hills Theater for the formal sit-down luncheon. After the lunch was served, best man Jerome de Villers stood up to launch the official round of toasts. Although Jerome did not particularly like Kristin or approve of the wedding, he said how happy he was for his brother as he raised his glass for a champagne toast.

  Then the emotional bridegroom stood up to address the wedding guests.

  “Kristin is the most wonderful person I’ve ever met,” he said, looking at his new bride with love in his eyes. “[She’s] incredible in so many ways ... so intelligent, kind and caring ... I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her.”

  The newlyweds flew off that night to honeymoon in Whistler, British Columbia. They had a marvelous time hiking and snowboarding, before returning to San Diego to start married life.

  Less than two weeks after the wedding, Kristin e-mailed her secret boyfriend Dick Henderson, saying that she still loved him although she had married Greg.

  “Congratulations,” Henderson e-mailed back from New Jersey on June 19. “I really can’t wait to see you, too ... I was really worried that you didn’t love me anymore.”

  Henderson then told Kristin that he was due in San Diego in August, and would call her when he arrived.

  That summer, Kristin took classes at SDSU to complete credits for her Bachelor of Science degree. She was still interning at the medical examiner’s office, where she had been given additional responsibilities for analytical work.

  Soon after the marriage, Greg told Kristin that he wanted a baby girl, and even went as far as naming this imagined first addition to their family Isabelle. But Kristin had no intention of becoming a mother, trading her studies and future career in forensic toxicology to be a stay-at-home mom. And that soon became a major issue between the newlyweds.

  “[I was] developing more confidence,” she would later explain. “I was thinking a lot about who I was and what was important to me in life. I think that Greg felt very threatened by that.”

  In early September, Kristin saw the Kevin Spacey movie American Beauty and adored it. The film, which would go on to win five Academy Awards the following year, tells of the obsessive crush an older married man (Spacey) has on his daughter’s best friend (Mena Suvari), and his fantasies of her lying naked covered in red rose petals. It struck a real chord in Kristin, who would see it again and again, telling friends it was her favorite movie.

  That fall, Greg helped organize a fishing trip off the coast of Mexico for six employees at Pharmagen.

  “Greg said the fishing is better when the water is cold,” said his boss, Dr. Gruenwald, who went along. “It was quite a long trip. We left at midnight and went all day and came back in the morning.”

  Kristin and the other spouses were all invited, but none attended.

  While Greg was away, Kristin met up with Dick Henderson when he visited San Diego. Later, on October 25, he e-mailed her to thank her for the wonderful time they had spent together.

  “Hey, sweetness,” he wrote. “It was great to see you, although I wish we had more time together.”

  The previous March, Frank Barnhart, who had brought Kristin into the ME’s office two years earlier, left after twenty-nine years to start working for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s Regional Crime Laboratory. He had become good friends with Kristin, watching her excel as an intern. And in September he suggested his “Li’l Bandit,” as he had affectionately nicknamed her, apply for a full-time job at the sheriff’s department, promising to give her a good recommendation.

  With her graduation in sight, Kristin eagerly filled in the official job application form on September 13, but this time her mother was not there to help her. And when she filled it out, she admitted to having been arrested and jailed for possession and being under the influence of a controlled substance. She also admitted using methamphetamine between thirty and forty times between September 1993 and May 1995, snorting cocaine twice between September and November 1993, and smoking marijuana twice between September 1993 and June 1994. And she further owned up to having been fired from the California Pizza Kitchen “because of bill discrepancies and mistakes,” explaining that drugs had “influenced my performance.”

  “She went overboard in her honesty,” her mother, who had lectured on ethics, would later contend. “She had filled it out before talking to us.”

  Not surprisingly, Kristin was rejected by the sheriff’s department as unsuitable, but though she had signed an authorization to release her personal information, word of her past criminal history never got back to the ME’s office.

  That Thanksgiving, Greg and Kristin went to Claremont to celebrate the holiday with the Rossum family. After only five months of marriage, Constance detected subtle strains in the relationship.

  “He was obviously very much in love with her,” she remembered, “but it wasn’t as happy as it appeared to be earlier.”

  And Kristin’s 14-year-old brother Pierce also complained that Greg had changed, no longer wanting to play games and watch movies with him.

  “He stopped playing video games,” Pierce would later testify. “Stopped talking with the family. [He] just became overprotective of Kristin and very clingy. He followed her from room to room.”

  At Thanksgiving dinner, Constance asked her new son-in-law what he wanted for Christmas. He told her he wanted framed baby pictures of Kristin as a 3-year-old, including one special one. After dinner, Constance took out the family album so Greg could select some.

  “He had [a] special request, but I couldn’t find that photo,” she remembered. “I gave him the promise that he’d get it a little later.”

  Greg then selected a composite of Kristin’s modeling pictures, as well as a few others.

  If Greg ever suspected Kristin’s affair with Dick Henderson, he never confronted her about it. And by December, when she finished her classes at SDSU, things had definitely cooled down between them.

  “Merry Christmas,” Henderson e-mailed her on December 17. “I miss you terribly and think about you all the time. I’m truly sorry we have grown apart.”

  But unknown to Henderson, Kristin had now embarked on a passionate new adulterous affair to provide the excitement fix she was craving. Although she dutifully sent out wedding pictures to all their friends and family as Christmas cards, Kristin had moved on from her marriage.

  Later, Kristin Rossum would claim that it was at this point that she and Greg started drifting apart. And although she had been un
faithful with two ardent admirers whom she’d actively encouraged, she appeared to blame Greg for all their problems. At the beginning of January, Kristin had her first serious conversation with Greg about the state of their relationship.

  “I told him that I was concerned ... with how I was feeling about the marriage,” she would later say. “Like I was not having enough personal space and not enough room to develop on my own.”

  And when her mother remarked how exciting it must be “to be newlyweds facing the new Millennium,” Kristin came right out and told her they had “no future” together.

  By mid-January, Kristin had embarked on a new affair with a student named Jack Hawkins (not his real name), with whom she had taken a class at SDSU. On Wednesday, January 26, 2000, Hawkins e-mailed Kristin.

  “I like you a lot. [I want to leave] you with a burning desire to see me again as soon as possible. I promise that the next time you tell me you are tired, I will slow the pace and hold you awhile so you can rest.”

  Two days later, Hawkins e-mailed Kristin to fix up a rendezvous, saying the following Monday would be good, as his girlfriend would be working.

  On Monday, January 31, Hawkins wrote: “Let’s meet in the park, 12:10. I’m about to leave the house, so I’ll see you there.”

  But a couple of days later, Kristin was back in touch with Dick Henderson.

  “Hello,” she e-mailed. “Is anybody home? Missing you.”

  Henderson, now working for a New Jersey law firm, replied immediately, saying he missed her “terribly” and thought about her whenever he heard “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.

  A few days later, he followed up with an e-mail beginning: “Hello Gorgeous.”

  “I miss you, too,” he wrote. “I’ll be in San Diego in either June or July. We’ll definitely get together.... How is married life? School? The M.E.’s Office? ...”

  In early February, Kristin submitted her official application to become a full-time toxicologist at the San Diego ME’s Office. There was one available toxicologist position and Kristin had no doubt she would be accepted. In the formal application, she was never asked if she had a prior criminal history or whether she had ever been involved with drugs. And unlike the police department and other government organizations, the ME’s office did not conduct background checks.

  In her new job, Kristin would have easy access to many dangerous narcotics and stimulants, and temptation would always be there.

  “I fell in love with the job,” she would later tell Homicide detectives. “It was something I really loved, because it was something I was really close to. Close, probably too close.”

  On March 1, Kristin Rossum was formally offered the position of Toxicologist 1 by the ME’s operations administrator, Lloyd Amborn. The new job paid $23,448 a year, with an increase of 3 percent on July 1. Kristin was jubilant that she would now have a career in forensic toxicology, and she called her parents immediately.

  Later that day, Amborn sent her written confirmation of the job, and she began working full-time at the ME’s office on March 10. Among her new responsibilities was to maintain the drug log, recording and managing samples of every illegal narcotic that came into the ME’s office. She was also given a key to the office and could now come and go as she pleased, 24/7. Later, some would liken it to giving an alcoholic the keys to a brewery.

  Things were also looking up for Greg de Villers. On February 16, Dr. Stefan Gruenwald left Pharmagen to start up a new biotech company he christened Orbigen. It was an ambitious endeavor with its stated mission of “Enabling the Proteomics Revolution,” initially only employing a handful of people. But Dr. Gruenwald had given Greg the heads-up that if all went well, he would soon be hired.

  With their demanding jobs, Kristin and Greg saw less of each other than ever. They both worked long hours, and by the time they got home, they were tired, speaking little about their deteriorating relationship.

  On Monday, March 27, a couple of weeks after Kristin started full-time at the ME’s office, Dick Henderson e-mailed her, asking, “Hey Stranger, is there anybody out there?”

  Kristin immediately replied: “I have been thinking about you so much lately. I graduated in December am now a fully fledged TOXICOLOGIST here!!! ... I miss you terribly.”

  The following day Henderson invited Kristin to fly to New York and spend a romantic weekend with him.

  . Kristin e-mailed back that it sounded like “great fun,” and she would give it serious consideration. Henderson promised to take care of everything, if she could get away from Greg.

  “Don’t I wish that was possible,” she replied a few minutes later. “That might be a bit difficult to explain ... But hey—a girl can dream can’t she.”

  Henderson then e-mailed Kristin: “I am getting excited just thinking about it ... My heart is racing and my palms are sweating.”

  But Kristin had no intention of flying to New York to see Henderson. For she was more interested in a tall, handsome 30-year-old Australian doctor named Michael Robertson, who had just been hired at the ME’s office as chief toxicologist. She was attracted to her new boss from the moment they met, and before long, sparks would fly.

  Chapter 9

  Dr. Michael Robertson

  Dr. Michael Robertson was the “golden boy” of international forensic science, and looked set to go right to the top. After graduating from Australia’s Monash University with a Ph.D., Dr. Robertson worked at the coroner’s office in Melbourne, where he was soon on the fast-track to success. He was viewed as a highly gifted toxicologist whose easy charm and unlimited confidence won him respect wherever he went. But there were others who thought him arrogant and self-serving.

  Dr. Robertson had a major flaw: he loved to play the field. He had several affairs at the coroner’s office before and after he met his wife, Nicole.

  “Michael Robertson is a player of women’s emotions,” said a friend who knew him in Australia. “He has been since a young age. I think he is driven by the need for everyone to like him, and will compromise everything and everyone to achieve this.”

  Before meeting Nicole, he reportedly had “multiple” girlfriends, often beginning new relationships before ending old ones. He soon won a reputation at the coroner’s office as a sexual adventurer. But he was hard-working and serious about his career in forensics, and his superiors turned a blind eye to his extra-curricular activities.

  In April 1996, Dr. Robertson’s old teacher at Monash, Dr. Olaf Drummer, recommended him for a forensic toxicologist position at National Medical Services (NMS) in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, the world’s leading independent toxicology laboratory. He was interviewed and then hired by NMS founder Dr. Frederic Rieders, and he and Nicole emigrated to America to start a new life.

  “He wanted to come here for a residency,” remembered Dr. Rieders, “in order to qualify for board certification in forensic toxicology.”

  Starting as a junior resident, Dr. Robertson learned and performed forensic toxicology, preparing reports and giving testimony in court as an expert witness. His attractive young wife also found a job with a pharmaceutical company near Philadelphia, doing research work.

  Dr. Reiders, who viewed Nicole as a daughter, fondly remembered her as a “very bright and charming woman.” He knew nothing about Dr. Robertson’s extra-marital affairs, during the four years he worked there.

  His Australian friend claimed that within a few months of moving to America, Dr. Robertson had started sleeping with one of Nicole’s friends, as well as with another female NMS employee.

  “He looks for women that are needy, and then is very supportive and friendly,” said the friend. “They all fall for him.”

  Later, San Diego police would interview Mary Wright (not her real name), one of Michael and Nicole’s closest friends, whom he had had an affair with. After it burned itself out, Wright had gotten married, but stayed in close touch with Robertson via e-mails for the next few years.

  Most of Robertson’s friends knew of his wom
anizing and never condoned his behavior. They found it easier to ignore it, puzzled as to why he would cheat on his beautiful young wife.

  But Robertson was also highly ambitious, joining the Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT), and becoming a regular presenter at their annual meetings. Over the next few years, he chaired SOFT meetings, covering everything from date rape to rave drugs, befriending some of the nation’s most distinguished toxicologists.

  Dr. Daniel Anderson, of the LA Coroner’s Office, first met Robertson at a SOFT conference in Denver soon after he had arrived from Australia. It was the first SOFT meeting for both of them, and they became good friends, discovering much in common professionally.

  “He was charismatic, young and energetic,” remembered Dr. Anderson. “He had it all going for him. He was an up-and-coming star.”

  From then on, Dr. Robertson would be a major presence at annual SOFT conferences, holding forensic toxicology workshops and presenting papers. The other toxicologists all liked him, agreeing that he was the life and soul of the party during the conferences’ many social events.

  In early 2000, Dr. Robertson accepted the position of forensic laboratory manager at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office and he and Nicole moved to La Jolla, just a few blocks away from Kristin Rossum.

  When Dr. Robertson arrived at the San Diego ME’s Office, he was still awaiting a work visa, so he spent the first two months as an unpaid visitor, learning the ropes. But it was common knowledge among the other employees that he would take over as forensic laboratory manager as soon as the Immigration and Naturalization Service rubber-stamped his papers.

  Although still not an official employee, Dr. Robertson soon became a major presence in the ME’s office, dispensing advice and helping with analytical procedures. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to revamp the ME’s toxicology section, which he felt was old-fashioned and sloppy.