Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of I Heart Radio. The
Speaker 1: following episode contains material that may be unsuitable and difficult
Speaker 1: for some to hear. Previously on Paper Ghosts, among the
Speaker 1: cult cases, twenty year old Susan Lorosa banished on a
Speaker 1: trip to a story in Rockville in my sister Sue
Speaker 1: was not a good mother. She was She's a horrible mother. Actually, Uh,
Speaker 1: she went off on a little one and she backhanded him.
Speaker 1: Kame was bleeding profusely. Police used to handle domestic violence
Speaker 1: just for the warning. They would tell husbands, you know,
Speaker 1: control your wife, or I'll go back inside. Don't call us.
Speaker 1: So the theory the family has is that either okay,
Speaker 1: he went off on her because he couldn't take it
Speaker 1: anymore and he was trying to protect his kid. He
Speaker 1: either took a piece of type that he always had
Speaker 1: in the house because he always collected it and knocked
Speaker 1: her with it, or he just knocked her down and
Speaker 1: she smashed her head against the top. My name is
Speaker 1: and William Phelps. This is paper Ghosts dying right? What's
Speaker 1: going on there? How the fighting is Dingleverever never the
Speaker 1: I got this because he has commany lo jinky dark
Speaker 1: you need you were your mom? What's his name? What
Speaker 1: is his name? Your father's name? That voice you here,
Speaker 1: begging the operator for help is from a six year old.
Speaker 1: There can be no doubt what she is witnessing. Her
Speaker 1: stepfather is beating her mother and siblings, which she had
Speaker 1: been doing continually for years. It was the call became infamous,
Speaker 1: changing the way in which we as Americans thought about
Speaker 1: domestic violence. Go back fifteen years from there, and mentioning
Speaker 1: this sort of thing or talking about it to anyone
Speaker 1: in the seventies was unheard of. For that reason, among others,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been easy to get direct family members to
Speaker 1: talk to me about what happened to night Susan Larrossa disappeared.
Speaker 1: It's taken months, years even to build the relationships I
Speaker 1: have and gain their trust enough to get the true story.
Speaker 1: I've now spoken to two of Susan's sisters and have
Speaker 1: gotten a better understanding of who she was, both as
Speaker 1: a mother and a wife, and that her own family
Speaker 1: believes she was murdered by her husband, Bob, in an
Speaker 1: attempt to protect their child from abuse. It's really difficult
Speaker 1: to imagine how bad things were behind closed doors inside
Speaker 1: that apartment, or what life was like for a child
Speaker 1: to grow up in such an unhealthy environment. That being said,
Speaker 1: I was finally able to track down an important Larrosa source,
Speaker 1: someone unafraid to confront her past, a primary witness who
Speaker 1: claims to have been in the room a June the
Speaker 1: night Susan Larrosa was murdered. The story has always been
Speaker 1: that Susan left her apartment to call her mother, as
Speaker 1: she did just about every night at the same time,
Speaker 1: to pick up diapers and formula at a nearby drug store.
Speaker 1: But according to this witness, Susan Larrossa's only daughter, her
Speaker 1: mother never left their apartment alive. Good morning, Hi, Stacy,
Speaker 1: how are you? Stacy LaRosa is Bob and Susan Lerossa's
Speaker 1: oldest child, now in her mid forties. She lives nowhere
Speaker 1: near New England these days, for reasons that will become
Speaker 1: abundantly clear. You guys grew up on Ward Street. Um,
Speaker 1: do you have many memories about Ward Street in the
Speaker 1: household before this? Um? Just a rocking chair in the
Speaker 1: window we sat at now to night that night. That's
Speaker 1: my memory that night, That's the only memory actually have
Speaker 1: of my mom, which is messed up. In the days
Speaker 1: after Susan LaRosa went missing. Days literally, Bob LaRosa separated
Speaker 1: his three children, Stacy, Robert, and Moe and sent them
Speaker 1: to stay with different family members, which is, for me,
Speaker 1: in and of itself, strange behavior. Families generally bond stay
Speaker 1: close and connected during such a traumatic time, especially so
Speaker 1: early into it. Stacy, the oldest of the Larosa's three kids,
Speaker 1: wound up with their godparents in western Massachusetts. She was
Speaker 1: three years old. The documents I have describing this period
Speaker 1: of time are incredibly detailed, not to mention alarming. Exactly
Speaker 1: three months to the day Susan went missing, Stacy's godmother
Speaker 1: called Vernon police and said, quote, the child has brought
Speaker 1: up the subject of her missing mother. That alone might
Speaker 1: not sound like much, but it's what Stacy says next
Speaker 1: that is both chilling and revealing. I have night tears.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what they call them, their thread Back
Speaker 1: then they were just scary dreams, but I mean the
Speaker 1: proper terminologies, their nightcars. Night terrors are a type of
Speaker 1: sleep disorder in which a person is suddenly awakened in
Speaker 1: a state of fear. Uncommon, they predominantly affect young children,
Speaker 1: they're unlike nightmares. I eat bad dreams. They can result
Speaker 1: from a number of reasons, but in Stacy's case, that
Speaker 1: fear is directly related to what she witnessed as a
Speaker 1: three year old. To tell me about that, So, how
Speaker 1: does that start for you? It always starts the same
Speaker 1: way with Robert and me, you know. Like Robert and
Speaker 1: I are arguing over his truck and he pulled my hair, okay,
Speaker 1: and I screamed, and I see my mom she's changing
Speaker 1: my wan and changing thing, that table thing, and I
Speaker 1: scream and she just kind of left. Mo. I mean
Speaker 1: back then, I guess I didn't realize all this was
Speaker 1: going on. But an adult now you can see it better.
Speaker 1: But she turned around and she stopped my brother in
Speaker 1: the face and right on the nose, and it bled,
Speaker 1: it bled, it was bleeding. In the police report of
Speaker 1: this incident, the fight between Stacy and her middle brother
Speaker 1: Robert is outlined. A bloody nose, however, is not only
Speaker 1: a cut lip, the kind of cut quote caused by
Speaker 1: a tooth sticking into the lip from inside the mouth.
Speaker 1: It's obvious but important to point out a cut lip
Speaker 1: and bloody nose will produce vastly different amounts of blood.
Speaker 1: So Robert wiped his hand on his nose. He touched
Speaker 1: the wall, so there's a bloody hand print. Okay, my dad,
Speaker 1: he wasn't the kitchen. In one law enforcement document written
Speaker 1: the day after Susan went missing, the Vernon p D
Speaker 1: reported how Bob the Rosa told one of Susan's sisters
Speaker 1: that quote, Sue swiped the child in the face, causing
Speaker 1: him to strike his head on the stove. Su then
Speaker 1: grabbed the child by the hair and dragged him into
Speaker 1: a bedroom and threw him against the wall. I asked
Speaker 1: Stacy about this bullshit. She said she remembers none of it.
Speaker 1: I should note that Bob Lerosa never told that story
Speaker 1: again and actually changed his story several times throughout the years.
Speaker 1: Stacy continues explaining what she does recall about her dad.
Speaker 1: He used to clean metals, um, he used to return metal. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's cleaning this this long like silver pipe thing. So
Speaker 1: he comes in and her back was towards him, you know,
Speaker 1: and he just he was angry. Like I always thought
Speaker 1: it was an accident. I really did believe that in
Speaker 1: my heart. I think I needed to And he just
Speaker 1: took his arm and he had the pipe and he
Speaker 1: just hit her. He hit her hard, and my mom
Speaker 1: just fell, like totally just fell. And I remember, I
Speaker 1: even know what I'm wearing, Hike, I know what I'm wearing,
Speaker 1: and um and knelt down by her head and there's
Speaker 1: all this this blood. You know, to me, it was
Speaker 1: just red, geeky stuff. But there was all this blood
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of blood. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of blood, Dad said, because she was sleeping, and
Speaker 1: I kept mommy, Mommy, wake up, Mommy, wake up, Mommy,
Speaker 1: wake up. My mom wasn't moving, you know, like there
Speaker 1: was no twitching there was. My mom just didn't move.
Speaker 1: Some might not trust what a three year old says.
Speaker 1: Others have judged Stacy's memories, viewing what she recalls through
Speaker 1: a lens of a substance abuse problems she develops later,
Speaker 1: and psychological issues she deals with throughout her life. They
Speaker 1: can have their opinions. For me, however, I tend to
Speaker 1: lean more toward professional analysis. A three year old cannot
Speaker 1: make up what Stacy reported at that age. They do
Speaker 1: not have the mental capacity. Stacy had no idea. I
Speaker 1: had the documents in front of me as we spoke.
Speaker 1: She's never seen these reports and act no one outside
Speaker 1: of law enforcement has. And the psychologist who treated Stacy
Speaker 1: right after she began having night terrors, he said, the
Speaker 1: child is too young to fantasize. And what she tells
Speaker 1: me next, well, listen for yourself. The gentleman and that
Speaker 1: was there that showed up. He has on a red
Speaker 1: and black checkered um flannel shirt kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: the black T shirt thing underneath with a podcast thing,
Speaker 1: and he really smells. He smells like a very strong
Speaker 1: and it's definitely cherry tobacco, very strong smell like I
Speaker 1: even now to this day, I can't smell that smell
Speaker 1: without like freezing. Stacy is referring to someone she claims
Speaker 1: showed up after her father allegedly killed her mother, a
Speaker 1: man who came by specifically to help Bob dispose of
Speaker 1: Susan Larosa's body. So and my dad, Um, they brought
Speaker 1: my mom at her house and that's last time I've
Speaker 1: seen my mom. Stacy's story has not changed since she
Speaker 1: was three years old, according to the report from the
Speaker 1: child psychologist at the time. Quote. The child then stated
Speaker 1: that her daddy and some man carried Mommy to the
Speaker 1: car end quote the shirts he wore, the SeMet, the
Speaker 1: cherry to thecklasm. I know that that's the person that
Speaker 1: was there. I can describe what he's wearing. I can
Speaker 1: smell him a mile away. The smell is very very strong.
Speaker 1: I can't. I want to see his face, and I
Speaker 1: just never did. I never saw. I mean I did
Speaker 1: at that time, but for some reason, I can't see
Speaker 1: his face when I when I go into this this
Speaker 1: state that I mean, actually right now, I can't see
Speaker 1: his face. Months after Susan went missing, Bob LaRosa took
Speaker 1: a polygraph test administered by police. He passed, but exactly
Speaker 1: nine months to the day Susan disappeared, Bob took a
Speaker 1: second test. The one question Bob failed, do you know
Speaker 1: for sure who killed your wife? His answer no. About
Speaker 1: a year after Susan Leros's body was found, Bob married
Speaker 1: a woman he began dating only weeks after his wife
Speaker 1: went missing, and yet one police source has told me
Speaker 1: it was weeks before. The fact is if Bob had
Speaker 1: a girlfriend before Susan went missing, that creates the oldest
Speaker 1: motive in the Idiot's Guide to Murdering your Spouse handbook.
Speaker 1: After living with her godparents for nearly a year. Stacy
Speaker 1: moved back in with her father and his new wife,
Speaker 1: but according to Stacy and other family members, Bob would
Speaker 1: also send Stacy to live with other people from time
Speaker 1: to time. I have to say at this point during
Speaker 1: our interview, the next moment opens up a thread with
Speaker 1: alleged accusations so horrific as both the father of four
Speaker 1: myself and an investigator who's thought he's heard everything, what
Speaker 1: I hear next is deeply disturbing, but also vitally important
Speaker 1: within my investigation. My dad was not a very good man.
Speaker 1: My dad was bad with me. My dad didn't stop
Speaker 1: touching me. Tis twelve, I see, my dad gave me
Speaker 1: to somebody kind of like like I had to live
Speaker 1: with friends and his and um I was nine the
Speaker 1: first time, No, seven, seven the first time, and then
Speaker 1: I didn't tell us I was twelve, you know. But
Speaker 1: this guy, his name was armand Llard, my dad's friend
Speaker 1: was friends with him. We had a lot of male
Speaker 1: friends and we we were told to call them uncle's,
Speaker 1: you know, like we had lots of uncle's, lots of uncles.
Speaker 1: And I had to stay with him. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but I lived with them for a year. While staying
Speaker 1: at this man armand Rullard's house, Stacy recalled horrendous abuse.
Speaker 1: I was being hurt. There, really bad things, you know,
Speaker 1: like things, and and I still to this day believe
Speaker 1: my dad gave me to him for some reason. But
Speaker 1: I pretended I was sick one time, you know, like
Speaker 1: I pretended I was sick. I was pretending I couldn't
Speaker 1: move my net and and I got I got to
Speaker 1: go home. I got to go back to my dad's house,
Speaker 1: you know. And um, when I was nine, this guy
Speaker 1: he came to live with us, you know. And I
Speaker 1: never told. I never told. I'm told Bob Larossa actually
Speaker 1: turned the guy in. Armand Ruellard was sentenced on May
Speaker 1: one after being found guilty of molest in several young girls,
Speaker 1: including Stacy. He served nineteen of a thirty three year
Speaker 1: sentence and recently died of natural causes. This was a
Speaker 1: time when amber alert, serial killer, stranger, danger, and abduction
Speaker 1: were not part of the everyday global news cycle. There
Speaker 1: was no such thing. This type of crime was not
Speaker 1: discussed socially inside homes or openly in neighborhoods. There was
Speaker 1: no internet, There were no task forces and FBI databases
Speaker 1: of serial offender stats and profiles, no sex offender registry.
Speaker 1: It was a period when sex trafficking and the idea
Speaker 1: of missing people and murder, especially young females, were so
Speaker 1: outside the norm. Few considered such a dark element of society.
Speaker 1: Committing these crimes could infiltrate what was a safe image
Speaker 1: of rural America. And when I speak of sex trafficking
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies, especially in the cases I'm investigating,
Speaker 1: I am referring to an unorganized system of passing kids around.
Speaker 1: Stacy had confided in an adult she was close to
Speaker 1: and explained the allegations against armand Roullard and her father,
Speaker 1: And I told him that Dad was hurting me, spit
Speaker 1: in my face, slapped me across the face, and called
Speaker 1: me a liar. After Bob heard of his daughter's allegations,
Speaker 1: Stacy claims he told her brother to pack her suitcase,
Speaker 1: a factor brother later confirmed from me Stacy was not
Speaker 1: part of the family anymore, and she was then forced
Speaker 1: to leave and Dad brought me to Hartford I'm Marshall
Speaker 1: Street and freaking left me there twelve years old. Left
Speaker 1: me there, okay, I'm gracious to God that I'm alive
Speaker 1: because of me and could have killed me because he
Speaker 1: knew I told on him. There's some dispute whether Stacy
Speaker 1: was twelve or fourteen, but still Marshall Street, Hartford is
Speaker 1: in the Asylum Hill section, very dangerous in some areas.
Speaker 1: According to Stacy, Bob dropped her off on the street,
Speaker 1: said good luck, there's a woman's shelter up the road,
Speaker 1: and drove away. Stacy found the shelter and began life
Speaker 1: on the street on her own. She spent the next
Speaker 1: ten years surviving anyway she could. I just wanted dead
Speaker 1: to stop. I wanted you need to stop. I wasn't
Speaker 1: his stating he was, And even as an adult when
Speaker 1: I kept trying to forgive him, and I really do
Speaker 1: look to God, and I really I know God says
Speaker 1: were supposed to forgive it. I kept trying, kept trying
Speaker 1: to have some kind of a father relationship, you know,
Speaker 1: but the man will kiss me in the lips, and okay,
Speaker 1: that would freak me up because you're my dad. You
Speaker 1: don't need to be doing that, you know. And and
Speaker 1: just weird things that and my dad was just he's
Speaker 1: not a good He wasn't when I keep do not,
Speaker 1: I know I'm being recorded, but my brothers can't know
Speaker 1: that I wanted him dead. I really did. No charges
Speaker 1: for sexual abuse or exploitation were ever filed against Bob
Speaker 1: the Rosa. He died in two thousand and eighteen. From
Speaker 1: what I've been told, is a combination of heart disease
Speaker 1: and other ailments, so he cannot dispute his daughters and
Speaker 1: other family members allegations. But documents and witnesses corroborate Stacy's story.
Speaker 1: Many of Bob's siblings and relatives refer to Bob as
Speaker 1: a pervert. They have told me stories of him coming
Speaker 1: on to them as young as twelve years old, thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, which I find very interesting. What Stacy says
Speaker 1: next changes things from me. It becomes a factor in
Speaker 1: the disappearances. I cannot overlook or underestimate. I know my
Speaker 1: dad like young girls. I know my dad liked young girls.
Speaker 1: Bab Lar Rosa is someone I am now focused on.
Speaker 1: So I meet with Stacy's brother, Bob, and Susan's youngest son,
Speaker 1: Maurice Molarosa, to ask what he remembers about his father
Speaker 1: and what he has to say about Bob immediately spurs
Speaker 1: my interest. More. Let me ask you what did Bob
Speaker 1: do for a living during the seventies. During the seventies,
Speaker 1: he did a lot of scrap metal. Mo was nine
Speaker 1: months old when his mother disappeared. Today he is a
Speaker 1: heavy set guy. He sports a thick goatee, short brown
Speaker 1: hair buzz cut. He has a charming disposition. Knowing now
Speaker 1: what I learned from most Sister Stacy, I have several
Speaker 1: new leads in mind that I'm hoping Moe can help with.
Speaker 1: Did your dad ever have a model of a station wagon? Um? Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: we owned a Stacia wagon. I'm told Bob LaRosa often
Speaker 1: wore khaki pants and khaki shirts, kind of like blue
Speaker 1: collar or workers uniform. More than that, Bob drove around town,
Speaker 1: sometimes with one of his kids, nieces or nephews in
Speaker 1: the station wagon. He collected what he could find and
Speaker 1: salvaged it at the junkyard. I mean, what do you
Speaker 1: think happened to your mom? I honestly, I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened to her. I just don't think my dad
Speaker 1: had anything to do with it physically, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he didn't, I don't know. How
Speaker 1: do I want to say, I don't know if he
Speaker 1: doesn't know the person that did, but I don't think
Speaker 1: he had anything himself physically to do it. As I
Speaker 1: listened to MO, I take note of his trepidation, his uncertainty,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he was just nine months old
Speaker 1: in diapers when his mother went missing. I understand his conflict,
Speaker 1: especially when you put it into a box of family secrets,
Speaker 1: discourse and disunity. But what I think is, I keep
Speaker 1: my investigator's cap tight. He secured. Is maybe how Bob
Speaker 1: lar Rossa might have spent a lifetime convincing his youngest
Speaker 1: son that he had nothing to do with it, and
Speaker 1: an even bigger red flag from me. Mola Rossa is
Speaker 1: now the second person to suggest Bob lar Rossa might
Speaker 1: not have acted alone on the night his wife Susan
Speaker 1: disappeared far and away. Most sexual assaults and sexual violence
Speaker 1: are perpetrated by men and typically arise within asymmetrical power dynamics,
Speaker 1: where the perpetrator occupies a more powerful or dominant position
Speaker 1: in relation to the victim. That is a quote from
Speaker 1: an article written by lynnonic Board, certified in Clinical social Work,
Speaker 1: published in Psychology Today. It is a contextual piece of
Speaker 1: information from me within the framework of what you are
Speaker 1: about to hear. Hello, Hi, Bernard That yes, Hi, it's
Speaker 1: uh M William Phelps. Call me Matthew, Matthew okay. Bernardette
Speaker 1: Gonthier is one of Susan Loross's other sisters. At the
Speaker 1: time of her death, Susan was twenty years old and
Speaker 1: living with her husband, Bob, and their three children in
Speaker 1: a three bedroom apartment on Ward Street in Rockville, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: just a fifteen minute drive away from Crystal Lake. How
Speaker 1: was your sister right around that time? How was she
Speaker 1: doing great? I mean, she um was doing good. She
Speaker 1: you know, she was, Oh my god, she was. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess she was too. When she come
Speaker 1: to our house. She was. She seemed to be up
Speaker 1: to part of that. Then I was, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, burking in fourteen, and she didn't do
Speaker 1: a lot of talking to me, you know, she did
Speaker 1: to my mom. I mean, because back then you didn't
Speaker 1: do that, you know what I mean, back in those
Speaker 1: days between mom and daughter or but it wasn't the
Speaker 1: whole family. Bernadette has a way of not holding anything back.
Speaker 1: She will tell you exactly how it is no bullshit. This,
Speaker 1: for one, I can relate to, and two I greatly appreciate.
Speaker 1: Bullshit is nothing but a waste of everyone's time. The
Speaker 1: world needs to hear truth, not a watered down version
Speaker 1: of what might offend someone. I asked her about Bob
Speaker 1: and Susan's relationship, and she reveals something I find very interesting.
Speaker 1: They seem to argue a lot, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: When it came to the kids and stuff, they seemed
Speaker 1: to argue a lot um. She she would throw things
Speaker 1: at him, but most of the time, when she got
Speaker 1: pissed off, she'd go for a walk, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. She and she always took This is the
Speaker 1: weird thing. She never went anywhere without the baby, Maurice,
Speaker 1: never except for this one day, supposedly the day she disappeared.
Speaker 1: She didn't have the baby with her, right, so tell
Speaker 1: me about that. Tell me about the day she disappeared.
Speaker 1: We had been at my uncle's house up in Wales
Speaker 1: math Um. We came home later that early evening and
Speaker 1: my mother got a call from Bob. I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it was Bob that called and said,
Speaker 1: have you heard from your daughter? And my mother. Susan
Speaker 1: always knew, I mean mostly every Sunday we want my
Speaker 1: uncle's in math and I soon knew when we were
Speaker 1: there and when we come home, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And this one day, my mother didn't get her phone call.
Speaker 1: Bernadette mentions a cop who worked a beat just up
Speaker 1: the street from the apartment, a cop who was familiar
Speaker 1: with Susan because he saw her every day when she
Speaker 1: would walk to the drug store to make her daily
Speaker 1: phone call to her mom at six pm. And he
Speaker 1: never saw her that day. And the pharmacist, Now back
Speaker 1: then you could buy cigarettes in a pharmacy, and the
Speaker 1: pharmacist just dis sumed my sister all the time, and
Speaker 1: he never saw since dead day. And so the night passes,
Speaker 1: the next day comes, and what happens. My mom didn't
Speaker 1: sleep much, let me tell you, you know, she just
Speaker 1: was up constantly waiting for Sue to call, to see
Speaker 1: if maybe she had gone off somewhere or whatever. Bernadette said.
Speaker 1: The days after Susan went missing were absolute torture on everyone.
Speaker 1: The family on edge, we eating, wondering, everyone that is,
Speaker 1: except Bob LaRosa. Apparently Bernardette knew this because with my
Speaker 1: brother in law to take care of the kids. Bernardette
Speaker 1: was only fourteen when she had to move into Bob
Speaker 1: and Susan's home just days after her older sister went missing.
Speaker 1: They lived on the second floor of what was an
Speaker 1: old colonial home converted to several low income apartments. What
Speaker 1: Bernardette saw when she stepped into the apartment, it's something
Speaker 1: she's never forgotten. What did you see when you went
Speaker 1: there the first time after she went missing. Blood on
Speaker 1: the floor, on the wall, on the door, down the stairs, everywhere. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was well, there was trickles going down the stairs,
Speaker 1: you know. Now they had a living room kitchen combination. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it was just one room open. The blood was
Speaker 1: over near my nephew Roberts bedroom, A big pool of
Speaker 1: it was on the floor and the door and all that.
Speaker 1: And he gave me a putty knife to clean it up.
Speaker 1: I kind of clean it with a putty knie because
Speaker 1: it wouldn't come off. Bernardette says she had to scrape
Speaker 1: what she believed was her sister's blood off the floor, walls, door,
Speaker 1: and down the stairs. So she got on her hands
Speaker 1: and knees and went to work. Let me just ask
Speaker 1: you when he gave you the putty knife to clean
Speaker 1: up the blood, where did he say the blood came from?
Speaker 1: He said it came from my nephew. He said, my
Speaker 1: sister slapped them in the face and he got a
Speaker 1: bloody nose and a bloody lip. Well, I didn't see
Speaker 1: anything that could have blood like that. I'm not stupid.
Speaker 1: He had a little boo boo, But way with that
Speaker 1: amount of blood come out? So that blood? When when
Speaker 1: when you started to clean that blood up with the
Speaker 1: putty knife, what were you thinking? I was fourteen. Wo
Speaker 1: did you expect me to think? You know, back then
Speaker 1: we were clean living, you know, we didn't think that way.
Speaker 1: What a sobering statement. In this same situation today, your
Speaker 1: mind would go right to murder. In the seventies, murder
Speaker 1: was not thought of in the same way or reported
Speaker 1: by the media as headline news like it is today.
Speaker 1: But as it was cleaning and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, well, this is a
Speaker 1: lot of blood from coming from Robbie. I said, put
Speaker 1: the hell oh well, he lent really hard and this
Speaker 1: and that and um, what did you do with the
Speaker 1: party knife? Give me back to him? Did he ask
Speaker 1: for it back. Yes, Bernadette was not questioned by police then.
Speaker 1: That came many years later. In fact, the Vernon Police
Speaker 1: Department never went into the LaRosa residence after Susan went
Speaker 1: missing or after her body was found. As Bernard that
Speaker 1: stayed at the apartment. Days passed and with them came
Speaker 1: additional odd behaviors on Bob Lerosa's part, and that's when
Speaker 1: the card disappeared. One day Bob had the vehicle, the
Speaker 1: next he didn't. When asked, he said he'd sold it.
Speaker 1: Did Bob ever act weird around you while you were there?
Speaker 1: He was always kind of weird. I mean I was
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and it was dead of summer, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, in June and it was really
Speaker 1: hot in the city. And he had taken all the
Speaker 1: fans in his room. He was a freaking pervert. And
Speaker 1: he said to me, I said, Bob, can I have
Speaker 1: the fans please? If he goes, you know the the way
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a fan if is if you come
Speaker 1: in here and sleep with me. And I looked at
Speaker 1: him and I said, what is You're freaking problem? Is it?
Speaker 1: No way? No way? Thanks anyway, keep them. Days after
Speaker 1: his wife goes missing. The guy is asking his fourteen
Speaker 1: year old sister in law, who'd scrape blood off the
Speaker 1: floor and walls on her hands and knees with a
Speaker 1: putty knife to have sex with him. Bernadette told nobody
Speaker 1: about the blood. She was terrified. As years passed, she
Speaker 1: eventually let family members know and finally went to the police.
Speaker 1: Her statement led the Vernon p D to take another
Speaker 1: look at Susan Lorosa's murder in the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: which put Bernadette back in the l Rosa's apartment all
Speaker 1: those years later. I think it was a detective coughed
Speaker 1: saying that they would like me if I was able to,
Speaker 1: They would like me to go back to the house
Speaker 1: and where the blood was that I cleaned and insane.
Speaker 1: If the police found one droplet, it would corroborate Stacy
Speaker 1: La Rosa's statements to police from Anne Bernardette Gauthier's later statements,
Speaker 1: both of which would be huge, big enough in fact,
Speaker 1: to possibly charge Bob la Rossa with murder. In the
Speaker 1: next episode of Paper Ghosts, it's like she dropped off
Speaker 1: the face of the earth, and if you tried to
Speaker 1: say anything to them about her, they didn't like that.
Speaker 1: They would walk away or you know, they didn't like it.
Speaker 1: So you have the more intelligent ones saying, oh, she's missing,
Speaker 1: and then you have the ones over here that are saying,
Speaker 1: we've seen her. There was a child abuse going on
Speaker 1: in New Yorkhanas and I know, I know for a fact.
Speaker 1: So that was enough for me. So somebody do something.
Speaker 1: Get over here. I want him to tell you, guys,
Speaker 1: what he told me, what happened. Paper Ghosts is written
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me and William Phelps, with help
Speaker 1: from producer Christina Everett and sound editing by Pete Cardi
Speaker 1: from Backroom Audio. A special thanks to Abu Safar and
Speaker 1: Will Pearson from My Heart Radio. The series theme number
Speaker 1: four four two is written and performed by Tom Mooney
Speaker 1: and Thomas Phelps. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.