Stories Of Abused Men In California

A young man married his high school sweetheart in San Jose, California, after their child was about a year old. They had been living together for about a year after high school before the marriage. Within two years after they married she started coming at him repeatedly with a knife. On the last occasion he was holding his daughter in his arms as she attacked. They are now divorced and he has custody of their lovely daughter because of her mental problems.

Betty Broderick: Divorce...desperation...death

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November 5, 1989 — As on the same locomotive course she had been the last several years she headed non-stop up the carpeted stairway to the bedroom [in La Jolla] where Mr. Big Shot and his new wife, that ex-airline stewardess cum secretary cum home-wrecker slept. And she pressed the trigger. The bimbo shook. Betty pressed the trigger again and the bimbo jumped this time never to jump again.

Now it was Mr. Big Shot's time. Awake in time to see the scorned ex-wife standing over him with smoking pistol, he muttered something, tried to roll off the bed, but took one of Betty's next bullets in the back. He yelped, coughed blood, gagged and continued to gag until he choked to death.

Bang-bang! went the echoes...bang-bang, you're dead!

For full, gender-biased story click here.

Woman charged with fire attack on her boyfriend in San Jose

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San Jose Mercury News

July 29, 1998 — A woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly poured a flammable liquid on her boyfriend and then set him ablaze, authorities said.

Beverly Cassidy, 40, was charged Monday said Assistant District Attorney Jean Daly

Wife charged in murder of husband then paying assassins to kill contract murderer

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Los Angeles Times

Wednesday, January 31, 1990 — A Sepulveda woman was charged Tuesday with soliciting her husband's murder, then paying assassins to kill the man who allegedly arranged her husband's death, authorities said. Two San Fernando Valley men were also charged in the second death plot.

Farrah Fawcett attacks her lover, he is convicted after mutual combat

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In August, 1998, during a trial in Santa Monica, California, in her testimony Farrah Fawcett described a fight with her lover, director James Orr, as follows: According to her, after dinner at his home he went in and laid down on his bed. Fawcett admits she started whacking the mattress with a fireplace poker. He stormed off to the kitchen; she followed and grabbed a drum stand. He picked up a bar stool. They faced off like lion tamers. Farrah then threw the drum stand and went off to the bedroom to pack. Orr drew her back into the fight by insulting her. She retaliated by kicking in a lead-plated window. As she left to go to her car, Orr grabbed her and spun her to the ground, fell on her, and her head hit the asphalt. Orr was convicted of assault for that. Fawcett, after getting up, ripped a sign out of his lawn and threw it through a window. Not content, the next day she smashed his car with a baseball bat. Note that the male is convicted, but who initiated and used the most violence?

Police arrest woman for attempting to kill ex-husband in Saratoga

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November 14, 2001 — On Halloween night, as costumed children made their trick-or-treating rounds, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office received a report around 7:30 PM that a Saratoga resident had shot her ex-husband.

The sheriff's office arrested Ellen Barrett, 40, at her residence at 14050 Marilyn Lane. Officers arrested her for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The complaint has gone to the district attorney's office for review.

Although the victim, whose name was not disclosed, sustained multiple wounds, none of them were life-threatening. However, it is believed he will be permanently disfigured and may lose vision in one eye, said Sergeant Ted Atlas of the sheriff's Westside Substation.

When officers arrived at the scene, the wounded victim was standing outside the house. An ambulance drove him to Valley Medical Center.

Ms. Barrett, who was inside the house, surrendered without incident. Following her arrest, she posted bail and was freed on a $100,000 bond.

Detectives are conducting an ongoing investigation to determine the suspect's motive, how many rounds were fired, and why Barrett's ex-husband was at her home. Atlas said that as far as he knows, Ms. Barrett has no criminal history.

During the incident, the former couple's 4-year-old son was asleep in the house, Atlas said.

Burney woman found guilty of killing husband

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Published April 08, 2004 — A Shasta County jury found a 34-year-old Burney woman Thursday not guilty of first-degree murder in the 1992 death of her husband, but convicted her of a lesser second-degree murder charge.

Kristi Lyn Lunbery, who was also convicted of using a firearm in the crime, is tentatively set to be sentenced on May 14 by Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman. She is facing a possible 20 years to life in prison.

Lunbery was arrested in December 2001 on suspicion of killing her then husband, 25-year-old Charles Albert Bateson, on April 17, 1992, after she confessed to the murder, a confession she later recanted.

Bateson's body was found inside his Fir Street home with a single rifle shot wound to the head, but the murder weapon was never recovered.

Marine arrested for DV while having fun with his wife

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A Sergeant of Marines stationed in 1995 at Camp Pendleton, California, and his wife enjoyed a little mild S&M during sex. About 10%-15% of couples behave in a similar fashion.

While they were enjoying themselves, she became quite vocal, and the neighbors called the police. The police entered the house, and their bedroom, unannounced.

Despite the entreaties of the wife, they arrested the sergeant for domestic violence on the basis of what they witnessed.

Marine sergeants don't have money for attorneys, so one more conviction, and another statistic. Was justice served? Also, under Federal law, he can no longer carry a weapon. What is a Marine without a rifle? What is our country without Marines?

Killer sentenced "to slow death" gets life for murder of her husband

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August 18, 1996, Fresno (AP) — Despite her pleas that "sending me to prison is sending me to a slow death," a woman was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for arranging the murder of her husband, a Lemoore Naval Air Station serviceman.

Susan Russo, 41, of Riverdale, insisted in a letter to Fresno Superior Court Judge Ralph Nunez that she is "not prison material."

But Nunez said Friday that he found the killing of David Russo while he slept in his home one of the most despicable crimes "one could imagine."

The judge ordered the life term in prison with no parole for special circumstances that David Russo's killer lay in wait and that he was murdered for financial gain.

A jury convicted Susan Russo of first-degree murder with those circumstances and also found her guilty of conspiracy to kill her husband.

Deputy District Attorney Timothy Kams argued during the trial that Susan Russo asked her boyfriend, Wesley Andrews, 23, and Bobby Leon Morris, 30, to kill her husband so that she would be able to cash in his insurance policy and purchase a new home.

The trial evidence included confessions by the defendants to investigators plus letters Susan Russo and Andrews wrote each other while they were in jail. Those letters blamed Morris for the July 14, 1994 killing, but Morris said Andrews actually did the killing.

The jury found Morris guilty of first-degree murder but was deadlocked on the conspiracy charge and special circumstances. The jury deadlocked 11-1 to convict Andrews of murder and conspiracy, but unanimous verdicts are required in California criminal cases, so he will be retried, Kams said. Sentencing of Morris is pending.

San Jose woman charged with fire attack

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July 29, 1998, San Jose Mercury News — A woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly poured a flammable liquid on her boyfriend and then set him ablaze, authorities said.

Beverly Cassidy, 40, was charged Monday, said Assistant District Attorney Jean Daly.

Ventura woman held in husband's murder after she shot him, dismembered him, and set corpse on fire

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February 24, 1999 (States News Service) —A Ventura woman is in jail for killing and dismembering her husband. Parts of Pedro Barragan's body were found on fire Monday night underneath a Ventura River bridge.

Witnesses reported seeing a woman dump trash out of her car window and then setting it on fire. A security guard discovered the man's body when he went to put out the flames.

Barragan's wife, Gladys Soto, was arrested yesterday morning. Police say Pedro Barragan died of a gunshot wound to the head.

The couple's five children have been placed with the county's Child Protective Services.

San Francisco woman sets boyfriend on fire while he is in bed

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July 29, 1998, Newswire — A San Francisco woman who allegedly poured gasoline on her boyfriend and set him on fire as he lay in bed has been charged with attempted murder. The 40- year-old woman is also charged with four other felony counts. The victim is in critical condition with third- degree burns over 50-percent of his body.

Teenager says mother asked him to accept blame for her murder of stepfather and half-brother

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November 12, 1998, Loncoln (States News Service) — A Placer County teenager charged with killing his stepfather and half-brother now says his mother committed the crimes. In court papers, Michael Southerland says his mother asked him to accept blame for the 1996 murders. Both victims were killed with a shotgun in the family's mobile home.

Salinas woman cuts off boyfriend's penis, given $200 fine and suspended sentence

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On November 16, 1999, Ms. Daisy Mascada was given a $200 fine and one year community service in a women's domestic violence shelter in Salinas, California for cutting off the penis of her boyfriend. She is to council other women about domestic violence! The judge, a male, said that she was no threat to society and that her eight year prison sentence was suspended.

The 'American Beauty' murder in San Diego

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The following story is abstracted from news articles in the San Diego Union-Tribune between November 2000 and March 2003

The articles were primarily written by Caitlin Rother (619) 542-4567

Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.

Jerome de Villers refused to accept a finding that his brother had committed suicide and pressed authorities for months until they arrested former county toxicologist Kristin Rossum.

Gregory de Villers, age 26, was found in the couple's La Jolla apartment November 6, 2000, on the floor with rose petals strewn around him after Kristin called 911. A wedding photo also had been placed next to the body.

De Villers and Kristin had shared the Regents Road apartment since 1995. The apartment is owned by the University of California San Diego (UCSD). De Villers graduated from UCSD with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1997.

Ms. Rossum and de Villers, both described by their co-workers as bright and ambitious, came from highly accomplished families. Rossum's parents are university professors. De Villers' father is a French doctor.

Events leading up to the murder

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Authorities said de Villers may have learned about an affair between his wife and Dr. Robertson, her supervisor at the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office where she worked as a toxicologist, in early October, 2000, when Kristin and Robertson traveled together to a five-day toxicology conference in Milwaukee, leaving September 30 and returning October 7.

De Villers' office computer at Orbigen Inc., a biotech company in Mira Mesa, shows he did some Internet research to help his wife prepare a presentation on cyanide for the conference, said his boss, Stefan Gruenwald.

Two days after she returned from Milwaukee, Gruenwald and police say the computer shows Ms. Rossum sent an e-mail to her husband at work that read, "You've hurt me beyond repair."

A shredded letter from Dr. Robertson was also found in a plastic bag in the couple's apartment. Rossum's parents say it was a love note from Dr. Robertson that Kristin had shredded in the days before de Villers' death. She told her parents that de Villers had sat at the kitchen table obsessively trying to piece the note back together.

Murder most foul

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At 9:20 PM on November 6, 2000, Kristin Rossum, age 24, called 911 and reported her husband was cold and unresponsive. University of California-San Diego (UCSD) police officers responded to Rossum's call because the complex where the couple lived is owned by the university and rented to married couples

Ms. Rossum said she had obtained Clonazepam and Oxyclodone years ago in Mexico and used them to bring her down after using methamphetamine, which she has abused intermittently since high school. She said she thought the drugs had been thrown away but she thought her husband had taken these and then gone to sleep. She told police he slept most of the next day, and after finding him cold and pale about 9 PM, she called 911 and then tried to resuscitate him. Paramedics found de Villers not breathing and unresponsive in the couple's La Jolla apartment. He was declared dead at a local hospital.

Ms. Rossum said she went home from work for lunch the day de Villers died. They had soup together and claimed he told her he had taken Clonazepam and Oxyclodone to help him sleep. She said he then went back to bed and she left to return to work by 1 PM. She said she checked on him several times during the day, first about 10:30 AM when she found him asleep, then again during the noon hour. She suggested to police that he overdosed.

Ms. Rossum told campus police she came home from work about 5:30 PM the evening of November 6^th . She claimed her husband was still asleep and she went out to do some shopping. She told police when she got home at 8 PM her husband was still breathing in the bed and she took a long bath. At 9 PM she went to bed and found de Villers was dead.

But Kristin Rossum's story quickly began to unravel.

Paramedics testified that they found de Villers on the floor of the apartment next to a bed, with rose petals sprinkled over his head and chest with a wedding picture near his body. UCSD Police Detective-Sgt. Robert Jones said Ms. Rossum told him when she pulled the covers back "she found rose petals on Greg and they were everywhere." Rossum told police she telephoned for help after finding her husband not breathing on the bed and that she found the rose petals atop him. She said she moved the body to the floor to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but paramedics and police officers noted that none of them saw rose petals on the bed, and that when they moved de Villers' body there were none beneath him.

Rossum claimed the last conversation she had with de Villers was during lunch on November 6^th , a few hours before his death. Prosecutors said that was impossible because medical experts believed de Villers was comatose at the time, considering the amount of drugs in his system and the fact his bladder was not emptied for 10 hours prior to his death.

An employee at the couple's apartment complex testified he saw Rossum drive quickly into the parking lot shortly after noon. Another worker testified that about 2:45 PM, Rossum's car was still parked in the same space. Terry Huang, who worked with de Villers, had called the couple's apartment at 7 PM November 6^th and spoke with Kristin, who told him de Villers was asleep.

On the night of November 6^th police say Rossum called Dr. Robertson to the hospital where de Villers had been pronounced dead, and he accompanied her back to the couple's apartment. The next morning, he called Gruenwald at Orbigen, Inc., and told him something had happened to de Villers. Gruenwald said Dr. Robertson told him to call Rossum's parents to get the specifics.

The campus police found no evidence of drugs or drug paraphernalia in the apartment but admitted they did not search two large garbage pails on the balcony for evidence. They also said they did not test for drugs in a glass that appeared to be half full of water on a nightstand near the bed as they first thought they were dealing with an accidental death or a suicide.

Rossum's phone records show she made four calls between 7:16 and 7:33 AM on November 6^th to a man in Mexico described as her drug dealer. Phone records show she, or Dr. Roberston, then called de Villers' voice mail at his office at 7:42 AM to report he wouldn't be in to work that day.

Three needle punctures were found in the left arm of Gregory de Villers during the autopsy. Chief Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne testified. However, the paramedic who inserted an intravenous line into de Villers' arm testified that he had made only one or two puncture holes in the arm. "I didn't do three," San Diego Fire Department paramedic Sean Jordan testified.

De Villers' skin, eyes and veins were removed for transplantation before an autopsy was conducted, but they were never used because tests showed he had been exposed to the hepatitis B virus.

Gregory de Villers' official cause of death was listed as acute fentanyl intoxication. Fentanyl, typically used to treat cancer pain, can be administered by injection, ingestion or patches. Fentanyl is a very potent, synthetic morphine used in surgery and by cancer patients. Authorities say it is an obscure drug, for which toxicologists do not routinely test in homicide cases. Russian commandos pumped fentanyl gas into a Moscow theater in October 2002 to sedate Chechen terrorists and free hundreds of hostages, but the gas ended up killing 120 civilians. An expert medical witness testified that the concentration of the powerful narcotic painkiller found in the body of Kristin Rossum's husband was higher than he had ever seen in his 30-year career.

The drugs Clonazepam and Oxyclodone were also found in de Villers' body. Clonazepam, also known as Rivotril, is classified as a date rape drug.

Blackbourne estimated that de Villers had been dead for an hour when paramedics arrived at the couple's apartment about 9:30 PM on November 6, 2000. He estimated that de Villers had been "stuporous, or semi-conscious or comatose" for a minimum of six to 12 hours and as long as 14 hours before his death.

De Villers' family blocks cremation

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The county's chief medical examiner said his former chief deputy gave hospital officials permission to proceed with organ and tissue donations shortly after de Villers was pronounced dead about 10:30 PM.

"At that time we didn't think it was an issue," Brian Blackbourne testified, conceding that he was not able to do a complete autopsy because some skin and bones, the heart and corneas had been removed. De Villers' family, suspicious of the death, got a court order to block Ms. Rossum from cremating the remains and thereby destroying evidence of the drug overdose.

Police videotape interview with Ms. Rossum

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In a videotaped interview November 22, 2000, with two San Diego police detectives, later shown to the jury, Kristin Rossum told police that de Villers might have taken pills, and covered himself with rose petals in a melodramatic cry for help to show how much he needed her.

On the tape, she cried intermittently and her voice ranged from normal to a high-pitched whine, which grew louder as she faced increasingly aggressive questioning by detectives about how her husband died.

Kristin told detectives she'd called in sick for de Villers that morning because he sounded drunk. She said he was groggy when she came home for lunch and he told her he'd taken some old narcotics she'd bought in Mexico years earlier to help her get off methamphetamine.

About 10 hours later, she called 911 to report he'd stopped breathing. "He said, 'those old prescriptions.' He fumbled on the names, but I knew what he was talking about," she told detectives.

Rossum named Clonazepam and Oxyclodone for the detectives but never mentioned fentanyl, the powerful narcotic painkiller that actually killed her husband. She also told them de Villers may have taken some cough medicine he had used in the past to help him sleep, or some Vicodin, another narcotic painkiller.

She told them she had informed de Villers she was leaving him to get her own apartment. Rossum said he attributed the move to her feelings for her boss, Dr. Michael Robertson. De Villers, she said, then gave her an ultimatum: quit her job or he would report her "drug history" to her superiors.

Rossum, whose husband had helped get her off methamphetamine, admitted she'd started using the drug again two weeks before his death. She also told detectives she loved Dr. Robertson, but only after being confronted with facts that proved her initial denials false.

During the interview, Rossum first characterized Dr. Robertson as a good friend and "a wonderful support to me...We would meet for coffee." Later in the interview police showed Kristin a love letter from Dr. Robertson, bemoaning that they couldn't be together over Thanksgiving. She said she'd never seen the letter and that Dr. Robertson often wrote her letters he never sent.

"I love him. He's a very wonderful person," Rossum said. "He's very dear to me." The detective then said, "Maybe you just had to get rid of Greg...People do it."

Kristin denied that. "That's horrible," she said. "That's ludicrous... Just because I wanted out of my marriage doesn't mean I am capable of hurting my husband."

Early in the interview, Rossum characterized her methamphetamine problem as being a "drug history." Later, she changed her story after an officer asked bluntly whether she was still using meth. "You don't have a drug habit at this time? Please don't lie," he said. Rossum then admitted that she had relapsed, but said she hadn't used any that day.

She told the detective she bought meth on the street from an acquaintance and was happy authorities had not found her stash in the kitchen the night de Villers died while they were looking for drugs that might have killed him.

Asked where the rose petals may have come from, Rossum said de Villers had given her 18 for her 24th birthday, 11 days earlier, but she thought she had thrown the last four away "the night before."

Kristin Rossum

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Kristin Rossum was 24 when she was charged June 25, 2001 with the murder of her husband. Prosecutors claimed that she stole a narcotic painkiller from the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office, where she worked as a toxicologist, and used it in a lethal cocktail to poison de Villers.

Kristin Rossum's methamphetamine addiction

Rossum spent years perfecting the techniques drug addicts often use to win sympathy and support from friends, family and co-workers.

In return for their kindness, she not only killed her husband, but also lied to her closest friends, got her lover fired and deported, devastated her husband's family, and tore apart her own.

Rossum's addiction to methamphetamine started in 1992, when she was a junior at Claremont High School in eastern Los Angeles County. A friend offered her some before a football game, and together they inhaled a few lines of the white powder.

"I remember it feeling good, kind of a euphoria," Rossum testified at her trial. "You feel very revved up and energetic and happy." A couple of weeks later, Rossum bought some methamphetamine from her friend's dealer and began using it regularly — by herself.

The 16-year-old spent less time with her friends, lost weight and watched her grades fall. What started out as a way to feel good became a necessity "just to feel normal."

Her parents became aware of her drug problem in April 1993, after they returned from a cruise and discovered credit cards, personal checks and a video camera missing. Kristin told them that her drug-using friends stole the video camera and credit cards, but that she did take some cash to buy drugs.

Her parents couldn't ignore her increasingly erratic behavior. One afternoon, her father tried to search her backpack and, as she struggled to get away, he pulled out a box containing drugs and paraphernalia. He was so angry that he hit her several times on the arm — hard enough to leave a bruise — and berated her for violating his trust. Rossum grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to cut her wrist. Then she ran upstairs and locked herself in a bathroom, where she made superficial razor cuts on her wrists.

Days later, police officers were called to her school on a report of possible child abuse. Officer Larry Horowitz, Claremont Police Department, testified that Kristin showed him her bruised arm and said her mother had "called her a slut and said she was worthless."

Constance Rossum told Horowitz that she and her husband hadn't taken Kristin for treatment for her cuts because they had been "afraid of what would happen if we took her to a hospital."

Rossum managed to stay clean the summer of 1993. But her sobriety didn't last long, and in January 1994 her mother called the police. When Officer Horowitz returned to the house, Constance Rossum handed him a glass pipe she had found tucked in her daughter's bra. Kristin, he said, was agitated and obviously under the influence of a stimulant. Horowitz handcuffed Rossum and booked her into jail for a couple of hours.

During Rossum's teen-age years her parents called a number of doctors and treatment programs, including the Betty Ford Center. Instead of checking her into a residential treatment center, however, they sent her to an eight-week, 12-step program of family group meetings with her father. They also pulled her out of Claremont High School and enrolled her part time at the University of Redlands.

Kristin and her father rebuilt their relationship as he drove her to and from her classes at Redlands in the spring and the 12-step meetings the summer of 1994. Her behavior improved so much that her parents allowed her to move into a dormitory at Redlands in the fall of 1994.

But it wasn't long before Rossum was offered methamphetamine at a party and the cycle began again. "Before big exams, I thought I could study harder," she testified, adding that she didn't "realize her limitations and how it could snowball." By mid semester, she was using the drug daily, and her grades plummeted.

In mid-December 1994 she left her dormitory without leaving a note, shortly before her mother was scheduled to pick her up for Christmas vacation. Her parents reported her missing to police, saying she was likely "suicidal and depressed." Kristin stayed with friends over Christmas, then, her whereabouts still unknown to her parents, she took a train to San Diego and the trolley to Chula Vista, where she checked into a motel. She smoked methamphetamine and headed to Tiajuana, where the drinking age is 18.

As she crossed the pedestrian bridge, she dropped her jacket and literally bumped into de Villers, then 21, as he bent to pick it up. They spoke French to each other, and "we kind of hit it off from there," she said. After a night of drinking and dancing, de Villers offered to let her stay at his apartment because he was concerned about her safety. She never left.

"There was no sense of permanence," she testified. "It was a very kind offer, and we were very interested in each other. It felt safe, and I didn't want to feel alone." A week later they confessed their love for each other. When she told him she had a drug problem, he said he wanted to help her kick it.

Christopher Wren, one of de Villers' roommates, described Rossum as quirky. She confided in him that she once had a methamphetamine problem and that she felt she should be with him, not de Villers. Wren said de Villers found that Rossum had taken several of Wren's personal checks, so de Villers ripped them up. Wren said de Villers also showed him a glass pipe he had found in Kristin's belongings. But de Villers insisted on sticking with Kristin and helping her kick the addiction. She did, for a while.

Kristin also never really broke up with her old boyfriend, Teddy Maya. He testified that they spent a night together in a motel a couple of weeks after she had run away from Redlands, but that she left while he was in the shower. When she saw Maya again several months later, she told him she had been kidnapped at gunpoint and driven around Mexico in the trunk of a car.

Kristin admitted using methamphetamine while working at California Pizza Kitchen in La Jolla in early 1995, where she was fired for what she described as billing errors, and the prosecution described as "running a little scam" on customers by double-billing them so she could use the money to buy drugs. Rossum admitted to charging "some people's credit cards for two meals instead of one."

When Rossum decided to transfer to San Diego State University, her mother filled out her application. To give her daughter a "fresh start," Constance Rossum omitted Kristin's academic probation at Redlands and the fact that she had left without finishing her second semester.

For a while, Kristin got the fresh start she wanted. The couple eventually moved into their own apartment in UCSD campus housing. De Villers helped her get clean, she excelled at San Diego State, graduating summa cum laude in chemistry, and landed a job she loved in the medical examiner's toxicology lab. The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office did not conduct background checks on job applicants.

Despite the fact that she claimed her relationship with de Villers lacked the passion she yearned for, she married de Villers in June 1999. Only a few months later, she was exchanging intimate e-mails with two men. These e-mails, dating from before and after her marriage, detail plans to meet them between June 1999 and the time she started the affair with Dr. Robertson.

Kristin and Joseph Rizzo, with whom she had worked as a student intern at the Medical Examiner's Office, exchanged e-mails as early as April 1999. In March 2000, Rizzo pleaded with her to come to New York for the weekend. She and Dan Dewall, with whom she had taken a class in 1999, exchanged e-mails in early 2000.

In the spring of 2000, she became infatuated with Dr. Michael Robertson, her married boss at the Medical Examiner's Office. Ms Rossum exchanged numerous passionate e-mails with Dr. Robertson on private and office accounts that started May 12, 2000, about two months after Robertson began working there, and ended November 20, 2000. They were filled with the phrases "I love you" and "You are my destiny." There were repeated references to a meeting place called "the willows."

The summer of 2000 was one of passionate e-mails and lunch-time trysts with Dr. Robertson. Rossum testified that she told Dr. Robertson about her drug history. But he didn't know she was using drugs again until the day before de Villers died, when Dr. Robertson found some methamphetamine residue in her desk. He tested the residue and then flushed it down the toilet, helping her cover up the drug problem that got them both fired a month later.

Records showed that the very first call Kristin Rossum made on a new cell phone was to Dr. Robertson at 9 PM the day before de Villers was murdered.

Two months after being fired from the county, Kristin Rossum started working as an assistant chemist for TriLink Biotechnologies Inc. near Sorrento Valley.

Rick Hogrefe, the company president, described Kristin Rossum as a rising star. He said he never saw any signs that she was using drugs. In fact, she consistently volunteered to work weekends, "whatever is necessary to help the team." She worked the day she was arrested.

Dr. Jack Stump, a medical expert, testified about the psychological effects of methamphetamine. He said it gives "supernatural pleasure" and then extreme downturns of depression, during which people need to use similar amounts just to return to near-normal functioning. Over the long term "...it actually changes the chemistry of the brain...People who use don't always return to the person they were before." Users can develop extreme paranoia, hallucinations and delusions. He said co-workers may not recognize someone is using a smaller amount and that family members have a tendency to deny a problem exists.

The picture that emerges is one of a young, attractive, upper-middle class female sociopath with wildly fluctuating emotions, a history of stealing to feed her methamphetamine habit, and an obsessive need for attention, love and approval from others.

Ralph and Constance Rossum

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Kristin's parents, Ralph and Constance Rossum, are both highly accomplished academics with lengthy resumes. He is a professor of political philosophy and American constitutionalism, as well as director of the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College. He also is on the faculty at Claremont Graduate University. She is a marketing and management professor and director of nonprofit graduate programs at Azusa Pacific University and also runs a consulting business. She is a senior research associate of the Rose Institute and has co-hosted a weekly TV show on business and public affairs on public television in San Bernardino.

They live in Los Angeles County with Kristin's two siblings in a Claremont home records show they purchased for nearly $700,000 in 1999. The Rossum's posted a $1.25 million bond for their daughter's release and picked her up from jail in a silver Mercedes. They ensured she had dress clothes and a string of pearls to wear for the television cameras.

Gregory de Villers

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Born in Illinois, Gregory de Villers was the eldest son of French-born parents, Marie and Yves Tremolet de Villers.

Greg was estranged from his father, a plastic surgeon who once had an office in Ventura County and now lives in Monaco. His mother resides in Ventura County. His parents are divorced and Greg shared an apartment in Palm Springs with his mother and two younger brothers after his parents split up in the early 1980s.

Bertrand and Jerome de Villers both described how their big brother's influence helped them. Without him and his support, Jerome said, they now have the sole responsibility of taking care of their mother, who is in fragile health.

A 1997 UCSD biology graduate, Greg was business development manager at Orbigen Inc., a biotech company in Mira Mesa. He was murdered a week before his 27^th birthday.

After Greg de Villers met Kristin Rossum in late 1994, he ignored brother Jerome's warnings about her erratic behavior and insisted on helping her kick her methamphetamine habit. Witnesses who knew de Villers said he had a distaste for drugs. Friends said he smoked marijuana only a few times, once on the night before his wedding.

De Villers had no history of psychiatric problems or suicidal ideation. De Villers' younger brother, Bertran de Villers, testified at Ms. Rossum's trial that he spoke on the phone with his brother the day before he died and found him tired but upbeat.

His younger brothers, Jerome and Bertrand, both pushed for San Diego homicide detectives to take over what initially was a suicide investigation by the University of California San Diego (UCSD) police. Jerome de Villers was credited by prosecutors for prompting the homicide investigation into his brother's death after it was initially assumed to be a suicide. He described to the judge the trauma of losing his brother, saying he was so angry and obsessed with finding the truth that he stayed up nights for months, pondering what could have happened.

Michael Robertson — the other man

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Michael D. Robertson, age 31 at the time of the murder, is an Australian citizen, and has a doctorate in forensic medicine from Monash University in Melbourne. He is widely published, and has given professional presentations on date-rape drugs according to his résumé. He came to the United States in 1996 on an H1-B visa to be a fellow and trainee in forensic toxicology at National Medical Services Inc. in Pennsylvania. He worked his way up to department director before coming to San Diego to work as toxicology lab manager — Kristin Rossum's boss — at the county Medical Examiner's Office.

Ms. Rossum admitted to police that she used methamphetamine and Dr. Robertson said he found methamphetamine in Kristin Rossum's desk November 5^th , the day before she murdered her husband.

Ms. Rossum was fired from the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office December 4, 2001, as was Dr. Robertson. During the preliminary hearing, Lloyd Amborn, operations administrator for the Medical Examiner's Office, testified that Ms. Rossum was fired because of her drug problem. Dr. Robertson was fired because he failed to report his knowledge of that problem to his superiors, Amborn said, which was described in his termination letter as "a key personnel issue with serious operational implications." His dismissal cost him his H1-B visa to work in the United States.

After two interviews with San Diego police, Robertson returned to Melbourne in May, 2002, where he said his mother was ill with cancer. He denies any involvement in de Villers' death. His wife, from whom he is separated, apparently is still in San Diego.

Authorities contend Dr. Robertson played a key role in Rossum's motive for killing her husband. But he has not been charged in the case, which is a necessary step for extradition proceedings to begin. Robertson still faces a civil trial in San Diego as a defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the de Villers family.

Arrest and preliminary hearing

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Around 7 AM on January 4, 2001, San Diego police came to Rossum's apartment with a search warrant. Rossum, who police said seemed "very fidgety and nervous," asked if she could speak to a female detective privately.

Kristin told the officer she had methamphetamine and paraphernalia in the bedroom. She opened a dresser drawer and pointed to a box containing a disposable lighter, a glass pipe and white powder. Then Rossum sat on the bed and started crying, police testified. "Please don't do this to me," she said. When the officer refused to flush the drugs, Rossum repeated the request several more times.

Police said Rossum's pupils were dilated, she had bad breath, and her lips were chapped. Several times she sobbed almost uncontrollably, then suddenly stopped as if nothing had happened. Rossum was then arrested for methamphetamine possession, testing positive for that drug and amphetamine.

Rossum's booking photograph shows her cheeks drawn, her eyes wide, and sores cover her face. That photo offers a sharp contrast to the healthy-looking, clear-skinned blonde in the photographs here and what jurors saw at her trial.

After being released on bail for the drug charges, and after an eight-month investigation, San Diego police arrested Kristin Rossum again on June 25, 2001, on suspicion of causing de Villers' death, and she again tested positive for methamphetamine. She was held without bail at the Las Colinas Detention Facility until a hearing October 9^th .

Rossum's statements revealed her motive. She told authorities about arguments she and de Villers had in the days before he died. Rossum, who worked for the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office, said she told de Villers she was going to leave him. In turn, she said, he threatened her.

"Greg was going to turn her in for using meth and having an affair" with her supervisor, Dr. Michael Robertson, the prosecution said at the hearing. "Those are Kristin's words."

The San Diego District Attorney's Office filed murder charges June 27, 2001, on charges she poisoned her husband, Gregory de Villers, November 6, 2000, using drugs she stole from the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. The former San Diego State University honors student appeared briefly in court and sobbed throughout the short proceeding. Her nose was red, as if she had been crying for some time.

She pled not guilty. Her trial was scheduled to begin June 3, 2002, but was rescheduled to October 4^th .

Ms. Rossum free on bail

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Bail for Kristin Rossum was set at $1.25 million by Superior Court Judge John Thompson at a hearing on November 26, 2001. She was released January 4, 2002, after her parents and supporters raised the bail bond.

Deputy District Attorney Dan Goldstein said he feared Rossum might flee while free on bail. "This is a woman who, every time the police have come into contact with her, was either under the influence of methamphetamine or in possession of methamphetamine," he said.

Her father, Ralph Rossum said the family had to put up a non-refundable $125,000 to secure the bail bond, but that was not all. The Rossum's also had to put up their home and the homes owned by Kristin Rossum's grandmothers as security. Her two brothers pledged their investment accounts. The Rossum's, and 17 friends of Kristin's, also pledged money market funds, stocks and bonds as collateral. Rick Hogrefe, Kristin's boss at TriLink Biotechnologies Inc., where she worked before her arrest, was the largest contributor.

The Rossums rode off in a silver Mercedes, with Kristin's teen-age brother, Pierce, driving. Ralph Rossum said the family took Kristin out for a sushi dinner. Within a couple of weeks, she went back to work as a part-time chemist for a former employer, TriLink Biotechnologies in Miramar, returning to full-time status when her June trial date was delayed.

Kristin Rossum and her parents use the "abuse excuse"

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While Kristin was free on bail the Rossums painted their former son-in-law as controlling and obsessed with his wife. They claimed he was overwhelmed by financial difficulties and problems within what they said was a dysfunctional family.

They claimed the man they had once seen as their "angel" for helping Kristin kick her methamphetamine habit had become increasingly sullen and depressed. When they took the couple to dinner three nights before de Villers died, they say, he acted bizarrely and drank more than usual. That Friday night, they say, he also spoke dramatically about the single rose that had survived from the dozen he had given his wife for her birthday. To Kristin's father the sprinkling of petals over the body signified the death of the relationship.

Kristin's parents said de Villers had spent a number of weekends in bed over the last year, telling Kristin he was suffering from chronic fatigue. They claimed they had been worried for some time that he might act rashly and hurt their daughter or himself, and that he had encouraged her to move out.

Melissa Prager, a close friend of Kristin since high school, testified that Gregory de Villers seemed overly possessive of his wife and discouraged her from seeing friends without him or his approval — so much so that it made Prager uncomfortable.

In August 2000, Prager claimed Kristin confided that she had fallen in love with Dr. Robertson. Prager said Ms. Rossum "seemed terrified" about discussing a breakup with de Villers.

During his opening statement at trial, Rossum's attorney claimed de Villers on several occasions said he couldn't live without Kristin. The defense attorney stated that on November 6, 2000, "he showed Kristin that he couldn't live without her."

Judge imposes gag order in fatal poisoning case

January 16, 2002 — The judge, upset about the publicity in the high-profile murder case placed a gag order on Kristin Rossum, her attorneys, the prosecutor and investigators in the case.

But Judge John Thompson expressed frustration that he had no power to muzzle Kristin Rossum's father, Ralph Rossum, whose recent media interviews prompted yesterday's hearing.

Ralph Rossum has given numerous interviews, proclaiming his daughter's innocence, to radio talk-show hosts and reporters since she was arrested in June 2001. His wife, Constance, also has spoken to the media, although to a lesser extent.

Kristin Rossum offers theories on TV in death of husband

April 11, 2002 — Kristin Rossum offered two possible reasons for de Villers death from a narcotics overdose.

"I don't know if it was a cry for help or an intended suicide. I really don't know," she said in a series of interviews that aired last night on the CBS television program 48 Hours. "I am not a murderer," said Rossum, "I did not harm my husband."

On the program one of Rossum's attorneys suggested a third theory: her husband was so distraught after Rossum said she was leaving him that he killed himself to frame her.

Rossum told investigators she pulled back the bedspread that night to find red rose petals covering her husband's chest. In the TV interview she said de Villers had given her a dozen long-stemmed roses for her birthday eleven days earlier. "He was making a big deal of the last rose standing, and I think he was just making a statement that he knew our relationship was over," she said.

Trial

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Rossum murder trial jury empaneled

October 12, 2002 — The jury selected for the Kristin Rossum murder trial included a cryptologist, a public-relations manager, a Neighborhood Watch captain, a retired travel agent and a software engineer.

Five women and seven men, with ages ranging from the 20's to 60's, made up the mostly white jury. Four alternates, two women and two men, also were chosen. The jurors were selected based on their answers to 105 written questions — many of them very personal — as well as follow-up queries in open court by Loebig and Deputy District Attorney Dan Goldstein. The 28-page forms included questions about fidelity in relationships as well as any experiences relatives or friends have had with domestic violence, drug use, murder, or suicide. One of the jurors chosen said his brother had used and sold drugs, including methamphetamine, but appeared to have learned from his mistakes.

Prosecutors asked several jurors how they felt when they heard the charges read — murder with a special circumstance of using poison. Jurors were also asked what they thought when they first looked at Rossum in court. The 25-year-old blonde dabbed away tears with a tissue as the four alternate jurors were being chosen.

Potential jurors were asked if they had studied pharmacology or toxicology and how often they watched television shows such as "Law & Order" or the Court TV cable channel. Those not chosen included those with legal backgrounds, a newspaper opinion editor, a few who acknowledged they leaned toward the prosecution, and a number who expressed frustrations with previous jury experiences or the criminal justice system.

Excerpts

Kristin told police she threw out the last of the red roses de Villers had given her for her birthday eleven days earlier the night before and said she didn't know the source of the petals she found on his chest. But paramedics who went to the apartment testified the rose petals appeared fresh.

In the prosecutor's opening statement he noted that Ms. Rossum had used her Vons supermarket card at 12:41 PM November 6, 2000, to buy soup, cold medicine and a single rose. Kristin bought the rose about the same time she told police she was having lunch with her husband in their La Jolla apartment. Kristin Rossum told authorities she found de Villers cold, pale and not breathing and covered in red rose petals around 9 PM that evening.

A campus police detective testified that he didn't collect several possible pieces of evidence from the apartment because he wasn't sure a crime had been committed. Robert Jones, a University of California San Diego detective, told jurors he conducted his investigation into Gregory de Villers' death based on the information Ms. Rossum gave him that night.

Jones said he did not look for fingerprints in the couple's La Jolla UCSD-owned apartment and did not view the death as a possible homicide until he discovered Kristin Rossum was having an affair with her supervisor, Dr. Michael Robertson.

The detective, who eventually passed the case on to San Diego police, said Ms. Rossum never mentioned she was having an affair with Dr. Robertson, who greeted the officer outside the apartment door the night of the murder, and then stood on the landing for more than two hours while Jones conducted his investigation.

Jones acknowledged he didn't collect two cups of clear, odorless liquid from the bedroom or sort through two brimming, 30-gallon trash cans on the balcony because "at the time they didn't present or represent any evidentiary value." Authorities never tested the contents of the cup, nor of a second cup of clear, odorless liquid authorities found in the room.

Asked whether he had initially thought de Villers' death was a suicide, Jones said he hadn't, and that it was an open question in his mind. "It was an equivocal death at that point" and he was uncertain, he told the San Diego Superior Court jury. "It was still under investigation."

Angela Riley, the medical examiner's investigator who arrived about 90 minutes after Jones, testified Thursday that she interviewed Kristin Rossum with Detective Jones present and came away believing de Villers died of a suicidal overdose. Riley testified that Ms. Rossum told her de Villers had taken two medications that were prescribed for her several years earlier "for pain." The only drug evidence Riley collected from the couple's apartment was an open bottle of cough medicine containing Vicodin, a narcotic painkiller, and antihistamine, neither of which was found in de Villers' body.

Detective Jones said he turned the case over to San Diego police after a November 8 phone call from county toxicologist Donald "Russ" Lowe. He told Jones that Kristin Rossum and Dr. Robertson were having an affair, a factor he thought would be pertinent to the investigation.

Jones said if he had known Rossum had been using methamphetamine at the time, that she was having an affair with her boss, and that de Villers had died of a fentanyl overdose, "we would have called them [San Diego police] immediately that evening."

Gregory de Villers had 57.3 nanograms per milligram of fentanyl in his blood, about 14 times the amount that would stop many people from breathing, Dr. Theodore Stanley told jurors. Fentanyl is generally injected, sucked in a lollipop or absorbed through skin patches. Dr. Stanley said fentanyl is 100 to 150 times stronger than morphine and causes unconsciousness in higher doses and is also tasteless and odorless.

"Say you've got 10 or 15 or 20 patches; you might get that blood level," said Stanley, a physician and anesthesiology professor at the University of Utah. "The key is, that's a lot of fentanyl."

A police audit found that a number of fentanyl patches were missing from the Medical Examiner's Office where Kristin Rossum worked in the months before de Villers' death. Methamphetamine, which like the fentanyl had been collected as evidence from several crime scenes, had also been discovered missing.

Stanley said de Villers most likely swallowed some of the fentanyl that killed him, based on the high level in his stomach and blood, as well as the chief medical examiner's estimate that de Villers was comatose for as long as 12 to 14 hours. But he said the drug probably was absorbed in a second form as well.

Intravenously, this could take only a few minutes, he said, adding that by swallowing it a person could see significant effects in 20 or 30 minutes. And through skin patches, depending on the number and potency, it could take several hours.

An emergency medical technician testified that Kristin was talking on the phone in the living room of the couple's La Jolla apartment when paramedics arrived in response to the 911 call. On the 911 tape played for the jury the dispatcher could be heard walking Rossum through the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation as the paramedics entered.

The paramedics found De Villers in the bedroom lying on the floor, surrounded by rose petals, with no signs of the redness on his chest that would be expected after somebody tried to resuscitate him. While the paramedics worked on de Villers, Kristin brought an empty prescription vial from the bathroom and told them her husband may have overdosed on some pills.

San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office a "candy store" for drugs

Testimony revealed that the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office was a virtual candy store for any employee tempted by drugs. Nor were there any background checks made on employees, which allowed Kristin Rossum easy entrance. One of Rossum's co-workers testified that she found a meth pipe in the lab area where Kristin often did toxicology tests on a machine with a hood that sucked up fumes. One of her co-workers nicknamed her "Li'l Bandit."

Bags of illegal drugs such as methamphetamine were left on desks or work benches, in an unlocked storage room, and in a drop box that was easy to reach into. Drugs and paraphernalia collected at death scenes are stored in the office. Small vials of drugs produced in laboratories were also kept on hand for use in toxicology tests.

Toxicologist Donald Lowe testified that illegal drugs collected from death scenes were placed in evidence envelopes and dropped in a locked box in the investigators' office. But when the box was full, envelopes could be pulled out of the slot. Lowe testified that when the drop box got full, the evidence envelopes would be taken to the toxicology lab, where they would often be left on a work bench or a desk before ending up in storage. Large amounts of drugs also were stored in a locked cabinet in a hallway. The key was kept in an unlocked desk drawer.

If the quantity of a drug was too big to fit in an evidence envelope, Lowe said, it commonly was placed in a large bag and taken to the toxicology lab's storage room. Lowe said employees routinely entered that room throughout the day and no one regularly kept track of drugs stored there.

In a videotaped interview with police before he was fired, Dr. Robertson, who was in charge of the toxicology lab, said he believed the procedures for storing drugs in the toxicology lab needed to be overhauled. "Quite frankly, it is a poor system," he said.

Lowe told the court that he conducted an audit in January, a month after Ms. Rossum and Dr. Robertson were fired on December 4, 2000. The audit showed that standards, vials of professionally manufactured methamphetamine and fentanyl used in toxicology tests, were missing. "The drug standard log should show what happened to those two (vials) and there were no entries," Lowe said. Lowe said that, to his knowledge, the audit he conducted was the first of its kind during his 32 years in the office.

Lowe said his audit also found that 15 fentanyl skin patches were missing from three cases Ms. Rossum worked on. The patches were not recorded in a log of drugs and other items that are destroyed when they are no longer needed. Methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, including syringes and metal tablespoons used for cooking drugs, were missing as well. In addition, Lowe said a glass pipe used to smoke methamphetamine was found in a small box in the toxicology lab. The pipe tested positive for Rossum's DNA.

Lowe said Ms. Rossum logged in a 10-milligram vial of fentanyl for testing purposes in October 1997, when she was a student intern. That vial turned up empty during the audit. Vials of cocaine and amphetamine were gone, as well as some Oxycodone and Clonazepam.

Lowe said methamphetamine disappeared from evidence envelopes from seven cases in which the drug was impounded between February and October 2000, while Kristin Rossum was employed there. Also gone were amounts a muscle relaxant, as well as cocaine and amphetamines.

Rossum's lover was present at hospital

Not only was Dr. Robertson present when UCSD campus police arrived at the couple's apartment but he went to the hospital with Kristin while she staged a dramatic parting.

According to hospital personnel Kristin Rossum wailed as she stood over her husband's body. Then Ms. Rossum touched de Villers, put her head on his chest and said, "I'm sorry," while her lover waited in the hallway.

Before she went in to view her husband's corpse, Dr. Robertson embraced Kristin and kissed her on the mouth. The witness also testified that she did not see Rossum shed a tear before going in the room where her husband lay dead.

Expert: Husband no addict, not suicidal or even depressed

None of the voluminous computer data gathered for the prosecution in the Kristin Rossum murder trial indicates that her husband knew anything about the three narcotic drugs found in his body. Two thick binders, including e-mails and snapshots of Web sites visited by Rossum, Robertson, and de Villers, were handed out to the jury.

Stefan Gruenwald, president of Orbigen Inc. where de Villers had worked since 1999, said he checked de Villers' home computer after his death. He tracked the Web sites de Villers had visited in his final days and saw he had researched methamphetamine abuse.

De Villers also had filled out a form requesting an appointment for a drug test at a lab near in Mira Mesa, near Orbigen. Gruenwald couldn't tell if de Villers submitted the request, which asked for an appointment a day or two after he died. The test could have been for de Villers or Kristin.

None of it, a computer forensics expert Robert Petrachek testified, indicated Gregory de Villers was suicidal, depressed, or liked drugs. And none of it indicates he was infatuated with flowers or roses.

Petrachek stated that he searched through e-mails, histories of visits to Web sites and other information stored on eight computers impounded in the case. He also searched through the main network used by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office.

Computers at Rossum's office and one of de Villers' work computers, which was in the couple's apartment, showed similar searches on methamphetamine addiction and how to make the drug. The home computer also showed that Internet searches on drug treatment and testing facilities were made two days before de Villers' death.

Affair continued after murder of her husband

Kristin Rossum was so romantically consumed with Dr. Robertson in the Medical Examiner's Office that she ignored her attorney's advice to avoid him while she was under investigation in the fatal poisoning of her husband on November 6, 2000.

Rossum confided in a co-worker at TriLink Biotechnologies about the continuing affair with Michael Robertson in the months before she was arrested for murder on June 25, 2001. Kristin told her friend that she was ignoring her attorney's warning to "cool things off" and not be seen in public with Dr. Robertson.

Closing arguments

The prosecution rested its case with the testimony of Jerome de Villers, the older of Greg's two brothers, who pressured San Diego police to look into his brother's death as a homicide.

During a conversation with Kristin that Jerome secretly taped two days after his brother's death, Rossum characterized her relationship with Dr. Robertson as an "emotional" one. He said she also told him she did not think her husband committed suicide.

Under questioning by the prosecution, Kristin Rossum was forced to acknowledge a history of lying about her drug addiction, thefts, and the affair with Dr. Robertson. In other instances concerning her truthfulness, Ms. Rossum countered by saying she'd been confused, ashamed or embarrassed, or that her words were taken out of context. Several times, she apologized for misstating the facts or telling partial truths.

Ms. Rossum's admitted lies ranged from statements to her landlord about a dog she said she was watching for her parents, to telling de Villers about a raffle at work because she wanted to go to a concert with Dr. Robertson. She also admitted purposely omitting mandatory information about her educational background on her application to San Diego State University, from which she graduated summa cum laude in chemistry in 1999.

The prosecution also questioned her about whether she dragged others into her lies, having her mother fill out the San Diego State University application and allowing Robertson to "cover" for her drug problem. She admitted that Dr. Robertson had found a nearly-empty plastic bag of methamphetamine in her desk, tested its contents and flushed it down the toilet before confronting her about it November 6, 2000, the day de Villers died. But Dr. Robertson never told their superiors. She also admitted she never informed her next employer, TriLink Biotechnologies, that she'd been fired.

Rossum was also asked if she had staged a suicide before. "I've never staged a suicide," she said. Prosecutors then called to the stand a police officer, Lawrence Horowitz, who investigated the 1993 incident at Rossum's family home in Claremont.

Horowitz said the family told him Kristin had attempted to cut her wrists with a knife and a razor blade after being caught with drug paraphernalia. Horowitz also testified that he arrested Rossum in January 1994 for being under the influence of methamphetamine, after Rossum's mother summoned him to the home.

The prosecution listed nearly a dozen points the jury would have to believe in order to find Rossum not guilty. Among them:

• That Rossum's testimony was credible even though she admitted to numerous lies to police, family and others, and repeatedly contradicted herself while testifying.

• That de Villers, who hated drugs, was suicidal and took drugs to kill himself and then hid the pill bottles, wrappers or syringes.

• That someone else stole all the drugs involved in this case, including methamphetamine, from the lab.

• That someone other than Kristin Rossum sprinkled the red petals over her husband's chest at a time when, according to a medical expert, de Villers would have been rendered comatose by the drugs in his system.

Kristin Rossum was convicted November 12, 2002, of poisoning her husband. The jury deliberated for 7 1/2 hours over three days.

On December 12, 2002 she was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. The 26-year-old is expected to serve her term at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.

De Villers family sues for wrongful death of their son

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The de Villers family filed a civil suit a year after his death asking for more than $2.1 million in damages. According to the claim, the Medical Examiner's Office acted negligently by hiring Rossum, a "known drug abuser," by not supervising her actions, and by not following its policies and procedures after de Villers' death. The suit claims the county Medical Examiner's Office did nothing to stop Kristin Rossum from donating the skin, eyes, veins and organs of the husband she has since been convicted of poisoning.The suit claims the donations hampered a subsequent "seven-minute autopsy" exploring the death. And only an injunction prevented Ms. Rossum from having her husband cremated before tests could be run.

Chief Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne conducted a seven-minute autopsy on what remained of the body, recording the death as a suicide; his employees, including Dr. Michael Robertson, were allowed access to the crime scene and evidence, says the claim by Dr. Yves and Marie de Villers. "We knew from what happened that there was a lack of supervision and control, but the depth and extent of it was surprising," the de Villers family's attorney said.

The claim also alleges that the county failed to supervise and control Kristin Rossum's and Dr. Michael Robertson's access to powerful narcotics, which allowed them to poison de Villers.

Apparently the wrongful death lawsuit is still pending as of December 2003.

Los Angeles woman who poisoned her husband sentenced to death, apparently also killed her baby

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Angelina Rodriguez, age 32, was taken into custody February 7, 2001, and pled innocent in an arraignment later that month.

A Los Angeles coroner's report said her husband, Jose Francisco Rodriguez, 41, died from a combination of antifreeze, which Angelina spiked his Gatorade with, and the highly poisonous flowering oleander that grows across California, which she put in his food.

Angelina and Jose Rodriguez wed in April of 2000; Jose Rodriguez's body was found September 9, 2000, in the Montebello apartment the couple shared. This was Angelina's fourth marriage; her first husband died unexpectedly, but there was no suspicion of criminal action at the time.

The couple met while both were working in a rural area of San Luis Obispo at the Angel Gate Academy, a bootcamp for troubled juveniles from the Los Angeles unified school district. Angelina was terminated in March 2000 shortly before they married.

Jose Rodriguez was a 16-year Navy veteran who later served in the Army National Guard. Prosecutors argued Angelina Rodriguez wanted a $250,000 military insurance policy that did not name her as the beneficiary.

A Los Angeles jury convicted Mrs. Rodriguez of first-degree murder in October, 2003, and on November 12, 2003, recommended the death penalty.

On January 12, 2004, Superior Court Judge William Pounders sentenced Angelina Rodriguez to death, stating: "I've never seen a colder heart. She seemed to have no feeling for the agony her husband suffered. I have no doubt of this defendant's guilt."

Based on testimony and evidence at the penalty phase of Rodriguez's trial, Judge Pounders said he believes Rodriguez also murdered her 13-month-old daughter, Alicia Nicole Fuller, in 1993.

The baby died when the nipple of her pacifier separated from the base and lodged in her throat. Angelina Rodriguez then sued the maker of the pacifier and received a $200,000 settlement.

San Diego, California, judge arrested for domestic violence on basis of hearsay

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According to the San Diego Union-Tribune of May 16, 2001, Superior Court Judge, Geary Cortes was arrested and jailed for causing corporal injury to his wife, Deborah Brickner.

Cortes' lawyer and his wife deny the charges against the judge.

Ms. Brickner said, "Geary didn't do anything to me, Geary wouldn't touch me. He is not that kind of a person... It's just completely untrue." She went on to suggest the charge was concocted by on "a bunch of drunks" that she said falsely accused her husband after a confrontation in the street near their home earlier.

Police barged into the Cortes-Brickner home to make the arrest, even though Brickner told them she wasn't hurt and they were not needed.

In November, Cortes pled guilty to one misdemeanor related to domestic violence. As part of the plea agreement, three of the four misdemeanor charges Cortes was facing were dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea. The charges stemmed from a series of alleged incidents on May 6, 2001, at his home and at the home of a neighbors in La Jolla.

As a result of the plea, Cortes was sentenced to three years' probation and was ordered to undergo 52 sessions of domestic violence counseling and perform 25 hours of community service work. However, he was not required to step down from the bench and is, in fact, running for reelection in November, 2002.

Woman jailed over false abuse claim in Oroville

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By Terry Vau Dell — Staff Writer

Chico (California) Enterprise Record

Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.

August 16, 2001, Oroville — A Gridley woman was jailed Wednesday for filing a phony spousal abuse claim which reportedly left her husband facing criminal charges and with no place to live but his car for five months before the lie was uncovered.

According to court records, Estella Rodriguez, 52, took photos of a bruise to her thigh she received in a fall from a ladder, using it later to try to prove her husband had kicked her and thrown a metal file at her.

In asking the court to impose the maximum sentence, her husband, Jan Rodriguez, told the court the lie ruined his reputation socially and at work, cost him untold legal expenses and left him homeless and living out of his car for five months.

Even though the domestic violence charges have since been dismissed against him, he said he is unable to get his property and clothing back because his wife has rented out their house.

"This is a sick woman," the outraged husband said, telling the judge, "I want my things back... I want my life back."

A private investigator for the Gridley woman said she told him she went to such lengths when her husband allegedly broke her nose previously but police didn't believe her.

But the husband angrily denied ever striking his wife. "I've never hurt a woman in my life," he told the judge.

Court records show that one day after the court refused to grant her a restraining order against her husband, she took the photos to Gridley Hospital, claiming her spouse had thrown a metal file at her.

One week later, she returned to the hospital with the same photos, saying her husband had broken into her house and pushed her to the floor and kicked her.

He was charged on April 18 with a single count of domestic violence. The requested restraining order was imposed, locking him out of his house.

Though she did not file the charges, deputy district attorney Kelly Malloy said when she was preparing the spousal abuse case for trial, "something just didn't seem right."

She said she couldn't understand how the victim could have sustained two identical injuries to her thigh in two separate incidents.

DA investigator Donna Dulyea got Rodriguez to admit she had fabricated the charges "to get him (her husband) out of the house," according to court documents.

At her sentencing hearing Wednesday, the prosecutor argued the 60-day jail term recommended by the Probation Department was not sufficient punishment for what Rodriguez had done.

By bringing a lie into the court, she has torn down a cornerstone of our justice system," Malloy asserted.

Calling her a "conniving" and "dangerous woman," the prosecutor asked the judge to sentence her to six months in jail "one day for each day her husband suffered" as a result of her filing the false police report.

Defense attorney Mark Stapleton said that while he wasn't "excusing" what his client did, the court "does not know the couple's marital history."

Regardless, the judge told the Gridley woman, "You don't get revenge by using the justice system as a hammer."

By its very nature, Kelly noted "domestic violence laws empower people to point their fingers at someone else."

"Law enforcement has better things to do than to take false reports," the judge chastised the Gridley woman.

Rodriguez was placed on three years probation, ordered to serve 150 days in jail and make restitution to her husband in an amount yet to be determined.

The judge also ordered her to return her husband's clothing, though conceded he wasn't sure if that was legally enforceable except through a divorce court.

Bakersfield, as compared to soviet methods

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Marina was born in Belarus, a country that used to be part of the Soviet Union. "President" Lukashinko, who makes a habit of rewriting their constitution according to his latest whim, currently heads the government. Marina only recently immigrated to the Unites States. America, land of the free and home of the brave, is very different from her country, or so she thought.

Marina remembers back to a particular police raid that happened in 1999. Marina had just been married in a small ceremony at her future husband's house. The house was almost barren of furniture since the police had assisted in confiscating most of the contents of the house a year earlier after a former girlfriend, who now stalks her husband, Mr. Bukmop, made a variety of false allegations. The happy couple couldn't afford much of a wedding since local laws required them to pay for the confiscated property — even though they would not be getting it back.

After the wedding the newlyweds planned to go on a honeymoon but Marina's mother-in-law received an order to appear for interrogation. The honeymoon plans were put on hold so that Marina's husband could attend the interrogation and make sure nothing went wrong. Things did go wrong, but at the time no one realized just how wrong. At the deposition her husband was threatened and the police held him for a while, but eventually they just told him to leave the interrogation. The inquiry was short, just a few probing questions about the family and about Marina's recent marriage, and then everyone was released.

Three weeks had passed since the wedding and the newlyweds were again ready to go on their honeymoon. The happy couple discussed their plans late at night before going to bed and drifting off to sleep.

They awoke to the sound of police batons pounding on their door. When Marina's husband answered the door, an armed mob of half dozen or so officers stormed in. The lead officer undid the strap on his holster and held the handle of his gun as he ordered the couple around. Another officer controlled a German Shepherd dog while the remaining officers searched the house. They found what they were looking for: guns. Marina's husband showed the officers his permits and explained that he had permission from a judge to have the guns. The officers laughed and said that the permission was now revoked.

New orders had been issued without a hearing. The couple didn't even have the right to be heard before the police raided their house near midnight and took their property. The state can, and regularly does, take people's possessions — guns, houses, cars, children. The State takes as they wish with no hearing required or desired. In Marina's case, police took the guns and the permits and left.

Under California criminal law a special night time search warrant is required before officers can enter a citizen's house at night. The court must make a specific finding that a night time search is required in order to prevent the destruction of evidence or to prevent a suspect from fleeing. Marina wonders how that requirement is waived when someone is not accused of a crime?

Marina was terrified. She cried. She asked "How could this happen? How could this happen? How could this happen in America?"

But those of you who have been subjected to the same emotional terrorism as Mr. Bukmop by an ex-girlfriend or wife will know exactly how this happens in America.

To defend herself and her husband, Marina has now filed a writ of habeas corpus. Under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA), anyone can request orders against anyone else. A former girlfriend, for example, can claim a husband is abusing his wife and get a restraining order against the man with or without the cooperation or knowledge of the wife, as happened here.

It turned out the woman stalking them had requested that the court issue orders against him to protect his wife. Since the commonly perceived use of DVPA orders is to protect a wife from her abusive husband, the court had no problems issuing an order against him in favor of his wife without regard to the fact that they were requested by the woman stalking them.

In her writ Marina [the citizen's names are changed] states that:

"My husband, Bukmop, got a restraining order against the woman who stalks us, Mary Magdelene. During our honeymoon, the court gave Ms. Magdelene an illegal order and the police came into our house at night and took our guns. Ms. Magdelene then asked Commissioner Compton to keep our guns. He denied her request. On August 29, 2000, Commissioner Goldner ordered that my husband was not allowed to live with me. I did not ask for the orders; I did not want the orders; I was never served copies of the orders. I want to be with my husband and he wants to be with me. Commissioner Goldner has no right to keep us apart. As I understand it, by federal law, if we are not allowed to be together, I am not allowed to be in the country. The court has illegally issued orders that place me in constructive custody without giving me a hearing."

In this case the wife has no other remedy and the court is required to hear her as a writ of certiorari if they determine that she is not in constructive custody.

Because of the restraining order against Bukmop forbidding him to have contact with his wife at the end of October, 2001, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) held a hearing as to whether Marina would be allowed to stay in the United States.

They are under investigation because Commissioner Theresa Goldner issued orders that Bukmop not be allowed to be with his wife, as noted above. Therefore, Marina is subject to removal proceedings under INS regulations.

Because of Commissioner Goldner's gross incompetence, the INS has two good arguments for deporting Marina:

1. How can their marriage be valid if they are not allowed to live together? (To defeat this argument Bukmop is required to willfully disobey the California court restraining order.)

2. The California court granted Bukmop a fee waiver because his net earnings (after subtracting legal fees, etc.) is less than the poverty level. To sponsor an immigrant under INS rules a person must earn 125% of the poverty level. The INS asks how can someone be over and under at the same time? (Because his legal costs exceeded 50% of his take home pay when he qualified for the fee waiver.)

They thought they won the hearing, but the INS magistrate ruled that their "application is deficient" and the investigation will continue. It appears the couple did not win and did not lose, but rather the INS is simply bewildered.

We are bewildered too.

When asked if Marina was ready to move back to Belarus, where the regime is supposedly more draconian, Bukmop replied: "

"Things appear to be more severe here. We have a much higher incarceration rate and a much higher percentage of the population incarcerated. However, jail here isn't too bad.

She would like for us to move to someplace more civilized, but to leave could easily lead to us losing our house. Right now, we can't sell it because of documents the stalker keeps filing. If we were gone, the stalker could simply sue us for it, and we would have no reasonable way to defend ourselves."

California mother's triple murders show cost of ignoring female abusers by Glenn J. Sacks

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It is a well-known story--a violent husband abuses his wife and others, the wife stays with him out of fear or shame, and in the end the husband kills the wife, or the children, or both. We shake our heads and say "If only we could have protected her."

Such is the scenario of the Socorro Caro triple murders, except that this time the genders are reversed. The Southern California case is an extreme example of the price children, fathers, and our society as a whole sometimes pay for our refusal to acknowledge female domestic violence.

Socorro Caro, according to testimony by several witnesses, including her husband Dr. Xavier Caro, had violently attacked her husband or others on eight occasions prior to the night of November 22, 1999, when she shot and killed three of her four sons. In these previous incidents Ms. Caro had used weapons and the element of surprise to her advantage, and had caused several injuries, including serious eye damage to her husband.

Why didn't Dr. Caro leave her? Why didn't he tell anybody what was being done to him?

"I was ashamed. I was embarrassed," he testified recently during the penalty phase of Socorro Caro's trial. According to other reports, he was also skeptical that authorities would believe him.

Thanks to the noble efforts of women's activists, had Ms. Caro been the victim of abuse at the hands of Dr. Caro, help would have been available. Ms. Caro could have moved with her children to a shelter. Using the legal services of the shelter, she could have filed a restraining order against her violent husband, and filed for divorce. She would have received custody of her four children, their home, half or more of the family's financial assets, and substantial child support. In addi