Episode 601 - Bloody Bedroom

On any given day in southern California, hundreds of investigators are working more than ten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with a crime, and thousands of murderers who still walk the streets. Killers who may be your neighbor, go to your church, or could be dating a close friend. For the next two hours will highlight cases that have gone cold, baffled investigators, or just

needs that one witness to speak up. This is unsolved with Steve Gregory, Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide case number zero eight three DASH three four three one two DASH one three four nine DASH zero one one the murder of seventeen year old Christina Rosenberger. Cold case Detective Sean McCarthy is a friend of the show and a frequent contributor. He told us about a case from nineteen eighty three

that happened in the city of Arteesia. It seemed like a normal day for the young teen who went to school and worked at a large retail company. But little did the girl know that when she was dropped off at Cerrito's High school on the morning of December twelfth. That would be the last time anyone would see her alive. This is the case of the Bloody Bedroom. Christina

Rosenberg was a high school student. Her daily routine during the school year was to be driven to school by her mother approximately seven thirty in the morning. She attended classes until the late morning, approximately eleven forty five. She would generally return home, change clothes, and then go to a local Sears and Roebook department store. It was a big, big department store back in nineteen

eighty three. This particular day, December twelfth, in nineteen eighty three, all of those things happened up to the point of her leaving school in the late morning hours. At that point it becomes very cloudy what happened. The assumption was that she went home, and there is evidence that she went home and she did prepare for her job. But at that point, the preparation for leaving for her job is where things changed. And her mother, Rebecca,

returned home in the early evening hours and everything seemed normal. She assumed that Christina was at work. She had a brother who was also at home. He had a friend over there watching Monday night football. Everything seemed normal. It wasn't until and this includes her mother actually going into her bedroom for

whatever reason, and nothing seemed out of sorts. And it wasn't until her boyfriend at the time, and I only refer to him as Hector, called and inquired about Christina and her whereabouts, and the assumption was she was at work. Hector said he had been trying to get a hold of her and was unsuccessful. He actually well the family members, the mom, Rebecca and the brother, said they didn't know where she was at and could only assume

that she was at work. And at some point Hector actually came to the house, went into her bedroom, looked around, didn't see anything out of the ordinary, at least initially, and there was a bag of coins that she had, and he saw that the coins were missing, and he made the assumption, oh, she must be at the mall. She must have went to the mall or something, because the bag of coins are gone. And he left and went searching for in a local mall. And at some

point he comes back to the residence. He was unsuccessful finding her, went back into her bedroom and he found some blood stains on the wall, and he went he went and contacted Rebecca's a mother and said, are you aware of the bloodstains? And he brought her into the bedroom and he showed her bloodstains, and now she became concerned and everybody began taking attempting to locate her.

Rebecca had a brother in law who was a lieutenant on the Sheriff's department at Lakewood Station, which is Artisia is policed by Lakewood Station, and he called. She called lieutenant and told told him about what they had found, and she was concerned about it. And during the conversation with him, she was standing in the bedroom and she inadvertently h discovered the body of her daughter underneath the bed, and that's where the investigation began. The blood on the

wall. Detective was the was this blood splatter a blood smear? Blood spatter spatter? Yeah, based on something like that, on a splatter, what typically causes a splatter like that, Well, it could be a lot of

It could be a lot of things. It could be it could be if there's not and it clearly wasn't a lot because the boyfriend didn't even notice it the first time he was in the room until it wasn't until the second time that he came into the room after he went out searching for her at the mall that he discovered it wasn't it wasn't a large amount of blood on the wall when the body was discovered, and the body was covered well, at

least the perpetrator attempted to cover the body with a quilt. And you can see the quilt. And yeah, you're showing me now the photos of the scene where we see the uh, the young lady on the floor, and you also see the pictures where she was underneath the bed looks like a twin size mattress with frame and she's under there. And then that there's a light blue, dark blue, white striped afghan quilt. That's that was covering her,

presumably partially partially covering her. Okay, And for the sake of your listeners, since this is radio, it's clear to me, I think it's you don't have to be a homicide detective to surmise that the body was was purposely hidden hidden there, uh put there in attempts to at least delay the discovery of the body. So with your experience, then, does that indicate

that whoever did this was in a hurry? Possibly, But if you're going to take the time to take a full grown female and however you got her underneath that bed, whether you're drugging under there, pushing her under there, it's not something that that's it's gonna there's a process and it's going to take a few minutes. And just from looking at scene photos, whoever did this I don't think was in such a hurry that they felt like because if they

did, they would have just got out of there right away. I mean they would have just left the body. There's a part of me that says, why why. So we're going to explore that. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory k I am six forty Lives everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back. We're inside

the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. We're sitting inside of a conference room in the center of the operation where the detectives are working around the clock to solve murders in Los Angeles County, and one of those detectives is with the Cold case Unit. Sean McCarthy is a frequent guest and contributor to the show. He's brought us a case from nineteen eighty three, the death of

seventeen year old Christina Rosenberger in the city of Artesia. Detective before the break, we were just getting to the discovery of this poor young girl's body, and her mother found the body. You said, while she was actually on the phone talking about and talking to the sheriff's Lakewood Sriff's department, excuse me, the Lakewood sheriff station, your department, but that Lakewood station, and

trying to find out what to do and get some guidance. And in that phone call, in fact, I see a white, slim line old phone in the in one of these photos, so presumably that she might have been on that phone. How was she killed? She was stabbed to death. There was multiple stab wounds to the torso that's those certainly were fatal wounds. The corner determined punctured the lungs, so they were fat they were fatal wounds. But there was also evidence of petikia. And I think you know what

petiki is, but maybe your listeners don't. Patikia is the bursting. And I'm gonna make this clear, I'm not an expert, but I've done this job long enough to know what pitik is. It's very common in strangulation suffocation where the blood vessels inside the eyeball burst. And when you see petikia, the first one of the first things you think of is strangulation or suffocation.

So although the stab wounds were fatal, or at least some of the stab wounds were fatal, patikia also is an indicator that there may have been a struggle and that strangulation or suffocation was at least an attempt or a factor in the in the assault. Had there been any ligature marks or anything, No, there was, There was no visible evidence of strangulation, but it did.

You don't rule that out, especially when petikia is present. Now, there's other explanations for petikia, and this isn't the form to get into that, or this is a PARTI, but there's a lot of there's a lot of other ways that petikia can be present in a dead body. But the first thing you think of when you when there's petikis strangulation or suffocation. In the narrative you provided to me in advance, it also talks about blood force trauma. Right, So where was she hit. I'm not I'm not sure

about that. I'm not that I did see that in a in a in a report. I haven't done a deep dive on the Corners report. Uh. I go to the I go to the conclusion made by the by the but that but that's in the report that she is in bo in a report, in one of the reports. So is it safe to say that that was also present? Likely? Okay, no signs of burglary struggle. No, you already mentioned the struggle. The door was open, The door was open when I believe the brother came home first and the door was open.

But based on the case door, front door, the front door front But based on the case file and the re ports written and the interviews done, he didn't seem to be alarmed by that, because he went on on as if there was nothing wrong. I mean, the body wasn't discovered till several hours later, and he was sitting there with a friend watching the Monday night. But he did mention in his interview that the front door was open.

And although in nineteen eighty three wasn't the sixties or seventies, I don't know that anybody would be alarmed in a community like Arteaser was at that time that the door, the door would be open. I grew up in the same kind of case in twenty twenty three, that may be a bigger red flag, and then it would have been in nineteen eighty three. I remember the days when I grew up, when I was a kid, that you left him, went and had dinner somewhere and left your doors open, right or

left the keys in the car. Yeah, yeah, no, those are days are long gone. Detective. You mentioned in an earlier segment about a bag of coins. So and you said, Burkelary, there was no signs of bird. Did the back of coins have any relevance based on my review of the case file, I don't know that the coins were ever located, but she had been there, but they had been there in the past. The boyfriend when he surmised that, oh, she must be at the mall,

he was aware he there was. There were times where he spent the night, even even the night before she died, he spent the night there and he went to work the next morning, so he was aware of the coins when he when he surveyed the room and he saw that the coins were missing, he surmised Oh, she must be out shopping because the coins are gone. That's what he told he told the mother. But I don't know. I don't see anything in the case file to indicate those coins could have

could have been moved a week before that. He just made that assumption based on he knew that that she had these bag of coins. They weren't there when he initially surveyed the room, and he made the assumption that she she must have took the money and she's out shopping somewhere. Based on the timeline you provided, it says here that she left home at seven ten in the

morning, and she was in school until eleven forty five. Her mother returned home at around six fifteen, and then the body was discovered at eight fifty. That's all right, okay, So if she was last seen in class, so she was technically last seen at eleven forty five in the morning, right, And was there anything in the file to indicate her movements. The only thing in the case filed that I saw is they located one of her best friends and asked her if she had seen Christina, and she said,

she told them I have not seen her all day. Does that mean she was dropped off at school by her mother, because her mother is the one who out the school and she either didn't attend classes or she left class early. I don't know the answer to that because based on the friends statement is she hadn't seen her all day. Well, if she was a best friend and a classmate, if she was in school, she would have she would have known that. We're talking with Detective Sean McCarthy with the La County Sheriff's

Department's Homicide Bureau about the death of Christina Rosenberger from nineteen eighty three. More with Detective McCarthy, but first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory. Kay, if I am six forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved. If you're listening on the app, you can send us a tip about a case, a story, idea, or a comminent about the show. Just tap the red microphone on the app

and record your message. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Buau. We're in Monterie Park talking with Detective Sew McCarthy about the murder of a seventeen year old Christina Rosenberger from December twelfth, nineteen eighty three, and before the break a detective we were just kind of going over various parts of the scene. You had provided photos for me to take a look at here, and we're not you know, these are not photos we're going to post,

but just describing it. This young girl, Christina was found underneath her bed, this wooden framed bed and packed up against her body looks like clothes and this multi colored afghan quilt, and that she was found while by her mother who was on the phone with a Lakewood station, the Ella County Sheriff's Department's Lakewood station. So kind of going through different theories here. You said the boyfriend had actually helped the search. We're talking about a back of coins

that were unaccounted for. But then something interesting to me. You were talking about her best friend said that she never did see her, but she didn't seem to have any knowledge of her whereabouts. And as you mentioned, if you're the best friend, especially in high school it's seventeen years old, you usually kind of know the whereabouts of your of your best friend, usually inseparable. In this case, is that someone who's still around that you can talk

with. I've gone through most of the people that were talked to in this case, and I'd say it's about half and half. About half of them are deceased and half of them are still alive. The problem the problem with with the deceased ones, and this is inherently the problem with cold cases. And you and I've had this conversation I think before is as you're at the mercy of how the investigation was documented whenever it happened, and the longer a

case is cold makes that that much more difficult. When you do a homicide investigation, it's you and your partner, right, and unfortunately it should be thought of more, but it's not. You're not thinking twenty years from now, when a code case investigator picks up the case, is he going to be able to sift through this and get a grasp on and get a detailed

understanding. You have it in your mind, I'm going to solve this case, and it's never going to go to a co case investigator, right, So what may be in your head or what was said to you doesn't always get documented mented in detail. And then you take thirty years ago when you didn't have audio recordings and stuff like that. How well the case is documented goes a long way in assisting the cold case investigator in solving the case.

Right, So, now we got a thirty year old case. We've got a time when they're audio recording interviews was not the norm, it was the exception, and trying to to like, there's documentation that this best friend was interviewed, but other than her saying I haven't seen her all day, there's not a lot of other detail about what that was, what was asked in

that interview. So you're left to guests or you're left to hope that that witness is still alive and then hope thirty years later that their recollection is at least close to what it was back in nineteen eighty three. The best friends still with us? Yes? And have you spoken with her? No? And this is a case that was reopened based on a tip that I got less than a month ago. And you know, because I've done your show enough times, we didn't. We don't. We don't just have one case

we're investigating. I told you earlier today, we just had a case that came together that we made interested. You're juggling a lot of stuff. So so I apologize for not being able to give you more detail on witnesses in this case. But I also I also think it's important to get this out out to your audience because it's such an old case that the lack of information in the case file, somebody out there may be able to do. So. Was the tip a voicemail or did you talk to this individual? Talk

to this person and so tell us about the tip. Okay, the tip came from a family friend who talked to another family friend, and she was very clear in look and in this case case is full of speculations. It's full. We we can we can talk in general about some of the persons of interest, but in this case, but a lot of speculations, and and and when you get these phone calls, you're a lot of times you're getting it from a family member or family friend who are desperate to get this

case solved. And I asked, well, who did you get this information from? Well, I got it from a family friend. And who did they get from? They got it from a friend. And do you know the identity of this friend? Well, I have a first name, but

I don't have a last name. But what they did have based on on that chain of communication, was a name of a person that this original person who who started this, if you will, the identity of that person and as I as I took that information and then went back into the case file, that person is in the case file, the person that they're saying is the killer. And I'll go a little bit farther, and I can't go much farther, is that person was contacted multiple times and gave varying statements about

their whereabouts at the time of the murder, very conflicting statements. And I'm not saying that this is going to lead this is the killer, but it's certainly an optimistic clue that were going full full boron. And I will say this, there is DNA evidence in this case. And when you have DNA and you have a name of a person who who may or may not be

the suspect, there's one way to find out. And I'm going to explore that here in a little bit, but we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk more with Detective Seawn McCarthy about a case from nineteen eighty three involving a seventeen year old girl, but First, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homo Saint Bureau. We're talking with Detective Seawn McCarthy about a case from

nineteen eighty three having to do with the stabbing death Christina Rosenberger. It happened in the city of Artisia on the evening of December twelfth, nineteen eighty three. Detective, before the break, you're talking about a possible person of interest based only on a tip that you received last month, would be a month from this broadcast, And you said the tip came from a family friend and they heard it from another family friend. So when you hear a tip like

that, do you consider that credible? Well, on the surface, I'm gonna take that clue, especially when it identify somebody, and I'm gonna start looking at that person and what their relationship is with the victim, if any. There's a lot of factors and depending on what I find out, is gonna either magnify that person as a person of interest or potentially eliminate them as a person of interest. And as I said in one of the earlier segments,

is is when this name was given to me. I went into the case file and this name appeared multiple times in the case files as what doors who as a witness, as a witness, as a wit not to the murder. I mean, I think generally people think when we refer to somebody as a witness that they saw the crime. A witness could be somebody who saw the actions of the victim an hour before the crime. That's still a

witness. So this person was interviewed multiple times back in nineteen eighty three, and because the original investigators are not with us anymore, I can't go back and ask them, did you see the conflict inflicting statements that he gave? I saw that he was interviewed initially by a uniformed person, a first responder. He was on sene or close to being to the scene when the first deputies arrived, and they did a brief interview with him, and he gave

a statement. Okay, I got to unpact this. You're saying that this person that was a part of this tip was close to the scene of the murder. Yes, he actually lived in close proximity to the victim, same neighborhood. What's the age at the time, approximate age of the victim. So classmate, no, no, no, slightly older, the victim was in high school. Wait, I'm sorry. You said same age as the victim, which was seventeen, slightly older. He was slightly older. So

was he still he was an adult? Very No, he was nineteen years old, nineteen, so he'd be out of high school, so he wouldn't be a classmate, got it. But he was still in close proximity age wise. There, okay, And so when you say he was close to the scene, that just meant that's where he lived. But he wasn't like lurking around the scene or anything. Without going into too much detail, he was very close to the scene. The scene was indoors. He was in

close proximity to the residence when first responders arrived. But he lived in the neighborhood. So it wasn't like he could say, oh, this guy he lived in a neighbor He was volunteering information, but he also had a reason to be in that neighborhood because he lived in that neighbor Were there other witnesses, other people on the scene that were interviewed. A lot of people were interviewed, and what were they able to provide not a whole lot, not

a whole lot because the crime occurred inside the house. He made a statement in one of the interviews. And when I said, when I said to you, I can't go back and talk to the original investigators because I read all the reports. Well, you have patrol report first responders, they write a report, and you had the homicide investigators. They write a report. And he gave clearly conflicting statements about where he was at around the time of the murder. And did you establish a time of the murder? No,

okay, no, but it was it was. It was. It was a time parameter of four to five hours based on a window based on based on when she got out of school, when she went, and when she was discovered, and when she was discovered. That's about an eight hour. But then you have the brother come coming home two hours already. That cuts it down to six hours. So you see what I'm saying. So this

person gave conflicting statements, and I got to be honest with you. I wished I could ask the investigator, did you read the patrol report and see that he gave this statement to the patrol deputy. But he gave this statement to you about his whereabouts at the time of the murder. How conflicting were

the statements? Very conflicting. Oh. It claimed he was at work to the homicide investigators, but the first responders he said that he was in close proximity to his own home, which was in close proximity to the victim's home around the time of the Okay, Sean, I've asked you this question many times, a lot of times every time we do a case. So here it is again based on your experience. What does that tell you? Well, it tells me that I need to pursue this. Is this guy still

with us? Oh? Absolutely? You say that with the kind of confidence that maybe you've already spoken to him or no, I am not, Steve, I would tell you if I spoke to him. I have not spoken to him, but I certainly intend to speak to him. Is he local? Still still local? Same place? Close close? And let's see his age by now. If he was nineteen, then we're talking thirty years ago. If he was nineteen, he'd be forty nine, almost fifty, almost fifty. Yah, yeah, hmm. Do you know anything about him?

What can you share? This is where I'd like to pivot into that area that I had told you that I wanted to go into it a shot in my experience. Okay, if you want to take a break first, no, no, let's do it. Okay, let's do it in my experience. Well, actually no, let's take a break, okay, because we're running up on a break here, and I'll give you Yeah, we'll run up on a break and give you a chance to take another sip of your

whiskey and then your coffee rather and then when we come back. But the one thing about about you, Sean, I love the love the way you kind of hold everything back and then you make me, you make me get it out of you by the end of the show. So it's great. This is unsolved with Steve Gregory on k IF I am six forty Okay if I am six forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory,

and this is unsolved. If you're listening on the app, you can send us a tip about a case, a story, idea, or a comment about the show. Just app the red microphone on the app and record your message. Were in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments, Homicide Bureau and Monterie Park talking with Detective Sean McCarthy about the case of Christina Rosenberger, seventeen year old girl who was found stabbed to death December twelfth, nineteen eighty three,

inside of her home. She was discovered by her mother. This girl was underneath the bed with blankets and clothes pushed up against her. And we're just as we always do, detective when we speak with you, we're kind of digging deeper and deeper here. And we were talking a lot about persons of interest. And there was one guy that you talked about who lived nearby,

nineteen year old guy. On one hand, he was telling the first responding deputy one story, but then he tells the investigator a different story. You said, the two stories were a star different. And so now I ask you about other witnesses that were on scene as well. What does this tell you when this nineteen year old guy who lives nearby gives basically two conflicting

stories like this, how do you treat that? Well, anytime somebody gives conflicting, especially a significant conflicting statement that's going to raise red flags, you try to give them the opportunity to explain themselves at some point. It may not be right away, but at some point you're gonna you're going to confront them with the conflict conflicting statement. And like I said in the last segment, is I haven't even talked to this person yet, but I do intend

to talk to this person. But there are other There are other persons of interest in this case, and some of them who who were looked at as viable suspects back then. So I can't just take this investigation and focus on this one tip. I have to go back in the case, folency, Okay, were there other persons of interest or suspects and how thoroughly were they they investigated back in nineteen eighty three. You have the brother who was in

the house. You have his friend who was in the house. You have the boyfriend I talked about the mother, Rebecca, She had a living boyfriend at the time who was a suspect back then. He was a construction worker and he's no longer with us. He was killed in a boating accident in two thousand and three in another state. He was there, and it says in their notebooks he was their prime suspect. I can't quite figure out from

the case file why he was their prime suspect. I understand that he was a person of interest and should have a person of interest, but a prime suspect, there's no documentation in there that convinces me that he's a prime suspect. Now, if I could talk to these two original investigating officers, maybe they could clear that up for me and tell me why he was such a compelling prime suspect. But there's nothing in the case file other than the fact

that he had a somewhat seedy background. But he was the living boyfriend of the mother of the victim. In this case, there was another person of interest who I'm not going to talk in detail about, but I will say this. He was seen by a neighbor walking out of the house, the victim's house, in the afternoon and falling in the driveway. He was interviewed back then, he gave his explanation. He denied coming out of the house, but he gave an explanation of why he was there and why he fell

down in the driveway. And they asked him to take a polygraph test, and he never showed up for a polygraph test. That's where their investigation of him ends. I don't know why it ended. There might be a logical explanation why it ended, but there's I have to go within the case file and how well it was documented. So because I got this tip on this

new guy, and it's a very encouraging tip, there's other people. And this person who who was seen coming to the house and fell down in the driveway, he's still with us, and he's living in another state, and we're going to have to go to that state and talk to him, and we're going to have to get his DNA because the DNA is likely what's going to solve this case. But there's other persons of interest and other suspects in this case, not just the tip that we got a month ago, even

though it's an encouraging tip. So so what we look for, or in every homicide, at least what I look for in every homicide. And I know it's going to burst the bubble of I don't want, I don't want to put it on the media, but it makes for a better case on television or on the radio if the victim is a real victim, and what I mean by a real victim is they were just in the wrong place at

the wrong time, right. But the reality is is most murders there's some dysfunction in that person's life, and clearly in the life of the person who committed the crime. But I would say in about eighty percent, maybe more than that, there's some dysfunction in the victim's life too. Was there dysfunction in her life? That's where this case gets a little and I'll get into

that. So, so what I look for, where's the dysfunction in this person's life, drug addiction, drug sales, gang member, That's that's dysfunction. I mean, if you find a dysfunction, it's going to lead you to it, to the killer, or at least give you a shot at finding the killer. The problem with with an old cold case like this, this many years old, and at the time, and and and still our teachers are pretty low low crime area, and back then it was it was

a very low middle class low crime. In fact, I brought a newspaper article where they talk about the victim. It's an LA tiant article, and they kind of insinuate a lot of the neighbors that they talked to insinuate that they were concerned because the neighborhood was changing and it wasn't the the the pristine middle class community that had been for so many years, you know. So, so one of the first things I look for in this case is is

there any dysfunction in this case with the victim. Now it doesn't have to be the victim's dysfunction. It could be a family member's dysfunction that got the victim killed. You know what I'm saying is, somebody, if you've got a brother who's dealing drugs out of the house and I'm using a hypothetical here, there's CD people coming and going all the time. You're a sister who

has nothing to do with his lifestyle. But because you're living in the same place he did kill by association almost not only that is, the danger comes that much closer to you because of the lifestyle that he's leading. If he's a gang member, let's stop there. We're gonna come back and talk more with Detective Sean McCarthy. But first, this is unsolved. With Steve Gregory, k I am six forty. K I AM six forty lives everywhere on

the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved Welcome back to the Los Angeles County CHEFF Department's Homicide Bureau, talking with Detective Sean McCarthy about a case from nineteen eighty three, the stabbing death of Christina Rosenberger, seventeen

year old girl who went to Cerrito's High School. And before the break the detective you were passionately telling us about how usually there's a nexus between a suspect and some sort of dysfunction, and sometimes that dysfunction also is found in the victim. And you said what I think you said, close to eighty percent, if not more, of your victims have some sort of a nexus to

dysfunction. And it could be on all types of the spectrum, right, It could be their dysfunction, it could be someone closer to them, right, dysfunction. How many times you hear of a gang member whose family member gets killed because they lived in the same house with the guy in the drive by shooting occurred there, You've you search for the dysfunction and it generally will lead you in the direction of gives you a better opportunity to solve the case.

And when you have a cold case that's been cold for many, many years, and you start losing witnesses and people close to the case, it becomes harder and harder to find out where the dysfunction, if any, was in this victim's life. And I talked a little bit about the living boyfriend and he had a bit of a CD background and what I mean by CD.

That's an area of dysfunction that I'm going to look into, right, And he was a person of interest back then, But thirty years later and new eyes are on the case finding clear dysfunction that would lead you and it funnels down your the number of people you're going to look as potential suspects. If you find a dysfunction in their in their life, the odds of you

finding your suspect go way up in the pool of suspects narrow. And I haven't found and I haven't been investigating this case for very long at all. I haven't found a whole lot of dysfunction in her life, right, And I don't know if I'm going to write was there evidence of sexual assault? No? No, No. The the two witnesses you're talking about, the guy that lived nearby and then the other guy that you know was seen running

away from the house. You say you know the location of both of them, yep, And how soon do you think you're going to be able to go visit with them? Well, that's the million dollar question I've I've had. I've been on your show a lot of times and I've told you we're going to Atlanta to interview this guy, and then six months later he says

what happened in Atlanta? And I go, we haven't gone yet because something else in another cases can jump off overnight and then all of a sudden, all your tension is focused on that case, sure, and it delays everything else you're doing. And that's the frustrating part of this job is when it when a case comes together, that's when your job really starts, and all your time is tied up into arrest report writing, presenting the case to the

district attorney. And then once the case is filed, then you get into the court system. We've We've talked about this many times. It's a two to five year commitment once the case is filed. Murder murder trials don't go to trial for at least two years, and some don't go to trial for five, six, seven years, depending depending on the case and the courthouse. And then What makes it more complicated is when these people you need to speak with live in another state. Yes, you may not be able to

track them down, and it's more complicated. The great thing about it is, and I learned this coming back as a a hireback, the willingness of other agencies throughout the country to bend over backwards for you to help you out. That's that's I commend everywhere we go, we pick up the phone and say, hey, we we got a person of interest in a homicide and we need your help. Whatever you need, whatever you need, and yeah, it is. It's let's talk a little bit detective about the DNA you're

talking about. There is DNA evidence And I'm looking at the photos that you have been showing me throughout the show. Here would that include like the plaid shirt she was wearing because it's covered in blood? Is that the kind of DNA evidence you're talking about. The DNA evidence in this case was the result And I can't get any deeper into this in the post mortem examination by the

coroner's office. So when you say DNA evidence, this is someone, This is DNA evidence other than hers hers, and I can't get into a deep dive on DNA because number one, I'm not an expert, but a lot of times what happens is you'll call a criminalists out to a crime scene, they'll swab an area for DNA, and when they take it back and analyze it, they come up with the goal is to get a single profile.

That means that's one person's DNA, but more times than that you get what's called a mixture, and the mixture could be anywhere from one to three to four people. Like if you have a prostitute that gets murdered, and I have a case recently that's going to be going to trial here pretty soon, is we got a lot of DNA on her because she was out working that

night. Right, Fortunately, we had some other evidence that identified the suspect and then his DNA was found on her body where he couldn't he couldn't talk his way out of that. But if it wasn't for the other evidence that we found and out to be honest with his fingerprint evidence, right, and so he got his fingerprints and then his DNA, no defense attorney can say at that point, well, she was a prostitute and he was a client.

He was a client, and that doesn't make him a murder. Sure, Fortunately we had the other evidence and hopefully it will lead to a conviction. But what I'm saying is is that a lot of time, like the corner, we've had this discussion before, the body belongs to the corner. We can't touch the body until the corner does their investigation. So they'll do the rape kit. We have what's called a rape kit. When it appears that sexual assault was a factor, they'll do all the hair, the hair

samples, the fingernail clippings and all that stuff. That's where a lot of DNA is found. Sure, right, So in this case, DNA was found during the postmartem examination by the corner, and some of the DNA was female and it's highly likely it's her dna the victims, but there was also male DNA fhone. Okay, Now, male dna could be the perpetrator because she has a boyfriend. We talked about her boyfriend could be her boyfriends.

I have the crime lab right now. Because this was nineteen eighty three, right right, it's never been analyzed deeply so and we haven't talked much about the boyfriend. I want to do that when we come back. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on k IF I Am six forty. Kay if I Am six forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. If you're listening on the app, you can send us a tip about a case, a story, idea, or

a comminent about the show. Just tap the red microphone on the app and record your message. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments, Homicide Bureau and Monteree Park. We're inside sitting in the conference room that we've been here many times for with Detective Sean McCarthy, who's talking to us about a murder from nineteen eighty three, a seventeen year old girl who's found stabbed to death underneath her bed in her bedroom. And we're getting into DNA discussion now,

detective, and what we haven't talked about the boyfriend. You know, the boyfriend said he went in the bedroom, didn't see anything. They went back and then noticed the blood splatters on the wall. You know, it's usually someone close to her, like a boyfriend or or stepfather or father or something. That typically was the direction investigators have had was the boyfriend ruled out fairly quickly or ever a person of I don't think the boyfriend has ever been

ruled out. I don't think anybody in this case has ever been ruled out. And I don't think based on like I said, because it's thirty years old. In my opinion, some of these people that were involved in this incident, whether innocently or or whether they turn out to be the perpetrators, probably should have been investigated and may have been, but it was never documented. There's no evidence that any of these people were eliminated completely eliminated as suspect.

The rumors, the rumor mill is out of control in this case because everybody, when you have a seventeen year old middle class community, wants to help out, so the rumors are flying everywhere. Nobody's been ruled out in this case. That's why I can't take this one recent tip and just focus

on that it's it's going to be investigated. But there's other persons of interests who've never been eliminated in this case and can easily be eliminated at least for the most part, based on the DNA and has kind of the goal, right, But nobody's been eliminated because we talked about motivolity. There's no clear motive in this case. None. What's the clear motive in this It's based on what I told you, because when I told you, that's pretty much

it. There's there's a girl who was stabbed in her own bedroom, who was whose body was concealed underneath her bed, and it was a clear attempt to conceal it. And as I told you earlier and I never finished, my thought is why why It's one thing to take a body out to the desert and dig a hole and cover it up. The goal is it's never going to get found. But clearly the person who did this knew at some point this body was going to be found, So why not just get the

hell out of there? And h who cares if the Bible did they think that this girl was never going to be found. So listen, I mean again, based on your experience, that seems like maybe a panic or spontaneous act. Right absolutely that you that that was my thought right away is it

was it was the intent of the perpetrator wasn't to kill this girl. Something, whether it was a a burglary gone bad, whether there's some other reason the intent initially wasn't to kill and when they killed her, they panicked. And the fact that the irrational act of trying to conceal a body underneath a bed in the girl's own bedroom, when any logical person would say that body is going to get discovered at some point. So what's the point? It's

there's a certain amount of irrationality in it. Was it irrational because they panicked? Was it irrational because there was substance abuse along with panic? Uh, there's a lot of factors in there, and all those will be looked at. And some of these people that are persons of interest had substance abuse issues. The boyfriend's still alive, yep? Is that on your list? Yes?

But will I will say this, if somebody is a person of interest in a code case thirty years ago, what's the first thing I'm gonna do? If that person is still alive. You're going to go talk to him, Go talk to them. But what am I going to do before that? I'm gonna look at their background? There you go, and this guy has a very pristine background. In other words, he doesn't have a criminal history. But you know as well as I do, that doesn't mean it

doesn't. It doesn't eliminate him. But but generally speaking, a crime of passion, crime of passion if they're teenagers. But take take taken account Steve, what we talked about. Unless he's an Academy Award winning actor. He's the one who brought to the attention of the mom. I can't find Christina. And then he comes to the house and he searches in her bedroom. Right, the mom had already been in there, she'd already been concealed,

so well, he wasn't going in there concealed. Body was already concealed. And then he comes out and goes all the back of the coins is missing. I'm gonna go look for her at the malls. She's probably shopping. And then he goes out shopping, and then he comes back again and finds his blood spatter. That's a pretty pretty intricate scammy. He's if he's the

killer. I'm not saying he's not the killer, but I'm going based on their actions leading up to to finding the body, and if he was the killer and he went to all that trouble, I'm not gonna eliminate probably wouldn't have left the body in that condition. Or he wouldn't have tried to It wouldn't have it would have been there would have been more forethought in hiding the body. Then yeah, yeah, uh that that that's going to be the

interesting thing if we if we solved this case. One of the one of the questions I want answered by the suspect or evidence that we come up with, is what was the point of trying to hide the body? What was the point under the bed with blankets? And that wasn't like I said, wasn't like she was never going to be found. Well, I don't know, I could see it either way. You've got three, in my opinion,

you've got at least three pretty solid persons of interest. You say you've got more, probably, but these are the three we've been talking about. That's pretty accurate. Yeah, so in our all three alive, So maybe you'll get some any know. The boyfriend's dad he got killing the boy the mother's boyfriend's dead boyfriend he got killed in a boating accent another state in two thousand and three. But the girl's boyfriend, the girl's boyfriend's still alive.

The guy who fell down in the driveway, who was seen coming out of the house, is still alive and the current tip the guy still Okay. Did the case file show at all that young Christina Rosenberger might have known her attacker? Well, that's a difficult question because I always say this, the hardest part about a homicide investigation is you never get to interview your victim and

find out what was going on in their lives. But I'm going to answer that question based on the original investigation and my brief investigation is there is a little doubt in my mind that she knew the personal killer. And do you think that that person is among the three persons of interest that you're about to interview. Very possible, but it could be somebody, could be somebody totally

different. I've been proven wrong many times. When we come back, we're going to wrap this case up. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on I AM six forty KF I AM six forty lives everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back. We're wrapping up the case of Christina Rosenberger, a seventeen year old girl who was stabbed to death in Artisia on December twelfth, nineteen eighty three, Detective Sean

McCarthy with the La County Sheriff's Department's Cold Case Unit. It's been breaking down the case and we've been spending the last couple of hours, you know, going pretty deep on this. And you know, Sean, I know there's a lot that you can't tell me, but you've been really kind of giving us a better overview of this case. And the one thing's for certain that this seventeen year old girl, this was a tragedy. Are any of her

family members alive? Her brother's still alive, her mother is not her biological father, who was not around when the murder happened. He's still alive. He is, yes, the biological father, but he was not living in the home. They were already divorced. So do you talk to someone like that though? I mean, because would would they be? Would I would

be interested in talking to family members? And and the hard thing is you learn a lot about a victim to family members, but you also run the risk of family members being less forthright with you because they don't want to to reveal some of the dysfunction in their in their fair, in their their loved one, who they who they've lost lives. But but you're not going to know unless you talk to him. Right. Well, in this case with the brother being alive, though, is that is he also on your list?

Yes, yeah, that'll give you an opportunity to maybe learn a little bit more about that day. And and that's one of the things that sometimes I think you've told me before, as others have told me, investigators that even years later, sometimes they remember things that they never did remember that day, or they think back through it, or they're processing it differently and something

new comes up. I I just recently had a case, and it's amazing to me how much this witness, I mean the minute details that they remember and this happened in twenty ones or twenty two years ago. That ended that evidence ended up showing that they were exactly right right. So so a lot of times you get people in a flat I'll tell you that was twenty years ago, I don't remember, and then you have those other witnesses that their

detail is still still there. But I would like to say in this case, is your listeners might be saying, well, if this is the DNA case, find you find your find the donor of that DNA and you got your killer. Well that's not always the case that that you find who who, whose DNA is is you have to prove that that DNA wasn't left at that crime scene or left on that person's body, uh for for a for a criminal reason, and earlier that there could be there could be a logical

explanational reason why the evidence is there. So in this case, what we don't have. And trust me when I say this, you don't need motive. You hear that all the time. You don't need motive to prosecute a homicide case. But trust me, jurys want to hear a motive. They want to hear why did this person kill that person. I need to understand this. I need a logical explanation for And I always tell people, well,

murders not logical. You can make that. It's not it's not logical, But you find the motive, you present it and it's a it's a compelling motive. You you present it to a jury and they will convict perpetrators. And we don't have a clear motive in this case, we have DNA. So I'm doing this show to try to get information that will lead to a clearer motive. And that motive may explain that DNA and why that DNA

was left there by the purpeture. You showed me a newspaper article as well, so if anyone's that interested, they can go back and search the La

Times. It was the Saturday Sunday edition, Saturday, December thirty first, the Year's Eve edition of December thirty first, nineteen eighty four, and it talks about a little bit about the murder and what impact the murder had on the neighborhood, you know, And I'm scanning through this article real quick, and it's you know, the neighborhood created a neighborhood watch program as a result

of this murder. They're talking about that. You know, people are describing this Christina, she was known as Chris for short, as a very quiet person. So based on your experience, detective, when you look at these photos that are very graphic and show this seventeen year old girl having been stabbed multiple times in the torso then stuffed underneath her bed hidden by blankets, one thing I've always heard from investigators that's a stabbing like this seems very personal.

Would you agree, yes? So there's no clear cut motives as you've already mentioned, but I'm asking you, based on your many years experience, what do you think happened here. There's a lot of possibilities, but just based on my and I'm in the infancy stages of the investigation, I know we're going to make it very clear that I'm asking you to say this was some sort of a home invasion, whether a burglary, the victim came home from

school surprise the perpetrator or perpetrators. I believe it's possible that I can't get into detail, there was drugs involved in not on the victim's part, but on the perpetrators, and a panic drugs, meaning that the perpetrators most likely were using drugs and that panic, combined with the intoxication led them to assault her. And panic. I think that the hiding of the body in her own bedroom was just a panic reaction by somebody who was who was mentally mentally

affected by substance. How many times was she stamped? Three times? Three times? So it wasn't overkill, It wasn't personal to that extent. I think it was. I think it was panic and substance abuse may have been involved in it, Okay, in coordination with a home invasion, that the victim coming home was unexpected, and that's going to do it. Unsolved with Steve Gregory. The radio show is a production of the KFI News Department for

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