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

by John Glatt

  “He seemed happy,” Jerome said. “Appeared healthy.”

  Judge Thompson then recessed for lunch and Professor Rossum gave an impromptu interview to reporters outside the courtroom. He described the case against his daughter as “a house of cards,” that would come crashing down.

  After lunch, Jerome retook the stand and Deputy DA Goldstein took him through the emotional night of his brother’s death. Jerome said he had been in his Thousand Oaks apartment when his mother called, saying Constance Rossum had phoned with the news that Greg was in the hospital, after having a bad reaction to medication. Later that night, at his mother’s home, he heard that his older brother had died.

  Jerome said that the following day, they had gone to Claremont to see Kristin, and a couple of things she’d said had made him suspicious.

  “She told me Greg was upset because she wouldn’t stop seeing a past relationship,” he told the court. “She told me that she didn’t mean to hurt him. I remember when I tried to get more detailed information ... she was crying. I couldn’t get specifics.”

  Jerome then explained how he had never believed that Greg had committed suicide, and had come to San Diego with his father and brother to investigate. He spoke of his horror at learning that Kristin was planning to have Greg’s remains cremated as soon as possible.

  The atmosphere in court was electric as Jerome described how Bertrand had gone to Kristin’s apartment three days after Greg’s death to find Michael Robertson there. He had then decided to record the conversation on microcassette, as he had done earlier when he met County Medical Examiner Dr. Brian Blackbourne.

  Jerome’s tape of his and Bertrand’s emotional meeting with Kristin was then played in court in its entirety. As the tape ran, Kristin broke down at the defense table in tears.

  After the tape was finished, Alex Loebig cross-examined Jerome. Loebig asked him about Greg’s demeanor at the wedding, and what he had spoken about.

  “Having kids,” said Jerome. “He really wanted to get a house. Kristin said she wasn’t ready to have kids.”

  Loebig then noted that Jerome had “no fondness whatsoever for Kristin” after his brother’s death.

  “I thought she had something to do with my brother’s death,” he replied resolutely. “So obviously, it wasn’t a fondness issue.”

  Then the public defender asked if Greg had wanted to be with Kristin as much as possible.

  “It appeared to me that he was in love with her,” said Jerome. “If she was having affairs and other things that he found out about, maybe it was more that he didn’t want her to be alone.”

  Then, after hearing testimony from several La Jolla del Sol apartment complex employees on how Kristin was rushing around on the day of Greg’s death, his boss and friend Dr. Stefan Gruenwald took the stand to give critical evidence. He testified that he had met Greg at Pharmagen and hired him when he’d set up Orbigen. Describing him as “rational” and “a problem solver,” Dr. Gruenwald said that Greg had had no enemies and was very popular.

  Dr. Gruenwald said that when Greg didn’t turn up for work on November 6 without calling in, he and General Manager Terry Huang had both become worried, telephoning his home many times that day. Kristin finally answered one of his calls at 9:30 p.m., while the paramedics were trying to save Greg.

  “She was totally in tears and a little bit hard to understand,” he said. “Something severe must have happened.”

  He then described receiving a call from a stranger named Michael Robertson the following morning, telling him to call Kristin’s parents. Constance Rossum had then told him the “sad news” that Greg had passed away from an allergic reaction to pills. He then called his employees together to tell them.

  Later they had checked Greg’s computers, including the office iMac he’d used at home, discovering e-mails between Greg and Kristin, including the one where she wrote, “You have hurt me beyond repair. You make me feel so uncomfortable, so alone.”

  Then Judge Thompson recessed, saying they would resume the next day at lunchtime. That night, Kristin returned to her detention center cell, confident that the judge would decide there wasn’t enough evidence to bring the case to trial. But she still had to endure another three days of testimony before it would be resolved one way or another.

  On Wednesday afternoon, Kristin Rossum seemed composed as she took her place at the defense table dressed conservatively in a white blouse and blue blazer. Prosecutor Dan Goldstein resumed questioning Dr. Gruenwald, asking about the Web sites someone had visited on Greg’s home iMac the weekend before his death. Dr. Gruenwald said that someone had hit a couple of sites that dealt with drug abuse and how to synthesize methamphetamine.

  “There was at least thirty or forty clicks around that site, regarding methamphetamine,” he said, adding that most of the searches had been done on the Saturday before Greg’s death, with just a few on Sunday.

  In his cross-examination, Alex Loebig asked Dr. Gruenwald if Greg had been nervous during the last week of his life. Greg had been “more hyper,” Dr. Gruenwald said, as he was upset because a friend of his had ended up costing Orbigen $30,000.

  “That was something I found kind of unusual,” he said. “He was so mad the last day ... because he said, ‘He used to be my friend, and he had kind of screwed me over many times.’ ”

  Dr. Gruenwald said that he and Greg had never discussed his marriage to Kristin, except that when Greg was working late, he would say he had to go home because Kristin would be mad if she had cooked a meal.

  In his redirect examination, Goldstein asked Gruenwald about the letter Orbigen employees had written to San Diego Homicide.

  “We believed that it was definitely not a suicide case,” said the doctor. “Because Greg did not appear to be a suicide candidate.”

  Later that afternoon, Greg’s Palm Springs High School friend Christian Colantoni took the stand. Describing Greg as one of his closest friends, he said he had often stayed at Greg’s family summer home in Canada in the early 1990s. Greg and Kristin had also stayed at his house when they’d attended Aaron Waldo’s wedding in Palm Springs.

  “He seemed in a good state,” Colantoni said. “Just seemed normal Greg: happy, positive, outgoing.”

  Then Goldstein asked him about Kristin’s strange comments about the best way of using drugs to kill someone, while they were watching the Office Space video.

  “She mentioned a specific combination of drugs,” he said, “that would, if taken, end your life in a non-painful and undetectable way.”

  Eriksen tried to counter Colantoni’s damaging testimony, asking whether he had discussed the fact that Greg had died of fentanyl poisoning with the friends who had been at his home the night of the video. He said that he had, but could no longer remember the exact drugs Kristin had mentioned.

  The prosecution then called Bertrand de Villers to testify, asking him about his brother’s mental state prior to his death.

  “Greg seemed to be normal,” replied Bertrand. “I think he was actually excited about his life at the time.”

  Bertrand said his final conversation with Greg was on the Sunday afternoon before his death, when he’d called about setting up an America Online account for his mother. Greg had sounded fine, but tired, and Bertrand had asked why.

  “He had told me that he and Kristin had been drinking the night before,” said Bertrand, “and that he felt tired in the morning.”

  Bertrand said he had never known Greg to use drugs, and that he hated to be around chemicals.

  For the defense, Alex Loebig got Bertrand to admit that Greg had once tried marijuana in his presence, but had disliked it.

  The next witness was toxicologist Donald Lowe, who said he had been acting laboratory manager at the ME’s office prior to Michael Robertson’s appointment. Then Lowe had started reporting to Robertson. Lowe had worked with Kristin Rossum from the time she had first joined the ME’s office as a student worker in 1997, until her firing.

  Lowe sa
id that she was responsible for the High-Pressure Liquid Chromatograph machine (HPLC), where she often worked alone in its special room. The prosecutor then asked him about his recent drug audit. Lowe said a large quantity of fentanyl was missing, including fifteen Duragesic patches, designed to slowly dispense the lethal substance and a small vial of the drug.

  The senior toxicologist also testified that quantities of methamphetamine and amphetamine were missing from the lab’s office. All of them had been logged in and signed for by Kristin Rossum. An evidence envelope containing two syringes, a plastic bag with a black tar substance and white granular powder were also missing.

  A few months after she had been fired, Lowe said he had been given a glass pipe that had been found in the HPLC room by Rossum’s replacement. It was later tested and found to have Kristin’s DNA on it. In December 2000, Lowe testified, he was cleaning out Dr. Robertson’s desk after he had been terminated, and discovered articles on fentanyl.

  In his defense cross, Eriksen got Lowe to admit that other employees used the HPLC room at various times, and his client did not have exclusive access. Lowe also agreed that office procedure was lax during that time at the ME’s office and that drugs recovered from death scenes often overfilled the lock box where they were stored. They were then brought into the laboratory and left on workbenches or desks.

  “It was possible that someone could reach in and remove evidence from that lock box,” said Lowe. “Even when [it] was locked.”

  Lowe also said that his 2001 audit was the very first he was aware of in the thirty-two years he had worked at the ME’s office.

  The final witness on the second day of the hearing was Lloyd Amborn, who ran the day-to-day operations at the medical examiner’s office. On Goldstein’s direct examination, Amborn confirmed approving county funds for Rossum and Robertson’s travel and hotel for the Milwaukee SOFT conference the previous October. He also testified that after Greg’s death, he had ordered Dr. Robertson not to have anything to do with the toxicology, which was being sent out to avoid any possible conflict, as Kristin was an office employee.

  But the following day, Dr. Robertson had ignored Amborn’s instructions, viewing Greg’s stomach contents.

  “When I questioned him why he violated my instruction not to be involved,” said Amborn, “he said he was feeling an obligation to keep the Rossum family out of the case.”

  On the third day of the preliminary hearing, the county chief medical examiner, Dr. Brian Blackbourne, who had performed Greg’s autopsy, was the first witness. He testified he could not determine a cause of death until later, when it was discovered that Greg had died of acute fentanyl intoxication. His lungs were very congested and there were signs of early pneumonia, suggesting that Greg had been in a coma for up to twelve hours before he died.

  Dr. Blackbourne said that the bladder was also very distended, filled with 550 milliters of urine.

  “The first thing we think of,” said Dr. Blackbourne, “is someone who has been unconscious for a period of time.”

  He also confirmed finding three needle puncture marks on Greg’s left arm, although paramedic Sean Jordan had earlier testified that he had only made two, as he tried to set up an IV line.

  Responding to Goldstein’s questioning about fentanyl, Dr. Blackbourne said there would have been two methods of administering it: by Duragesic patch or intravenously.

  “Like the NicoDerm patch, there’s a fentanyl patch called Duragesic,” he said. “Usually it’s placed on the upper chest of cancer patients, someone with chronic intractable pain.”

  Dr. Blackbourne said that the fentanyl levels found in Greg’s blood and urine were “excessively high,” and could have killed him many times over. Additionally, clonazepam and oxycodone were also found in his body.

  In his cross-examination, defender Eriksen tackled Dr. Blackbourne about the congestion and early signs of pneumonia in Greg’s lungs. The medical examiner agreed that Greg may not have been in an actual coma six to twelve hours before death, but his breathing and heart functions had certainly slowed down. And then, attempting to neutralize the prosecution’s theory that the third puncture wound on Greg’s left arm was where fentanyl had been injected, Eriksen asked if there was any way of knowing when the marks were made.

  “No,” said Dr. Blackbourne.

  The next witness was San Diego Homicide Detective James Valle, who had questioned Rossum and Robertson with his partner, Det Laurie Agnew.

  A tape of the first interview with Dr. Robertson was then played in court and Goldstein asked Valle what Robertson had told them about his relationship with Nicole.

  “One of the areas we were trying to ask him was if he in fact [had] separated from his wife,” said Valle. “He would deny that. He had difficulty admitting he’s separated.”

  The detective testified that in Dr. Robertson’s second interview in January, he had admitted staying over at Kristin’s apartment three or four times after her husband’s death. But Robertson had emphatically denied having a physical affair with Kristin, either before or after Greg’s death, although he admitted they were very close and had discussed starting a relationship once they had left their respective marriages.

  After the afternoon recess, Det Laurie Agnew took the stand, testifying how she’d first gotten involved with the case when Jerome de Villers telephoned a couple of days after his brother’s death. Jerome had told her he was suspicious about how Greg had died and wanted an independent autopsy.

  Then, after hearing that Kristin and her boss were having an affair, Agnew put a hold on the body to stop cremation and took over the investigation from the campus police.

  She described her November interview with Rossum at the Homicide Department, and going to the apartment the following January to serve a search warrant.

  “She told me we were going to find meth or drug paraphernalia,” said the detective. “She asked me to get rid of it.”

  Det Agnew said she’d refused, taking Rossum to the police department, where she tested positive for methamphetamine and was arrested. She also described searching the Regents Road apartment after Rossum’s arrest on June 25, finding more love letters from Robertson and a thirty-six-page journal.

  Friday, October 12 was the final day of the preliminary hearing. As she was escorted into the courtroom, wearing a smart navy blazer, Kristin Rossum seemed confident, as if certain she would be going home that night.

  Goldstein resumed questioning Det Agnew, asking her about her interview with a friend of the Robertsons named Mary Wright. Agnew said that Wright had initially claimed just to be good friends with Michael Robertson, but after seeing e-mails between them, she had re-interviewed her and her story had changed.

  “They had a sexual relationship,” said the detective. “Several years back when they all knew each other in Pennsylvania.”

  Wright also said she and her husband had had dinner with Dr. Robertson in summer 2000, where he had admitted having sex with Rossum.

  In his cross, Eriksen asked the detective whether she had told Kristin at the November interview that it was a possible homicide investigation.

  “No, I didn’t say that,” she admitted.

  The detective had not asked if she had wanted to consult an attorney or told her that the interview would be video-taped.

  The prosecution then called a procession of employees from the ME’s office, who provided detailed background about the office’s procedures and its lax security.

  Toxicologist Cathy Hamm testified that Kristin had told her that her favorite movie was American Beauty, and that she had seen it three or four times. She also described cleaning out Rossum’s desk after she was fired and finding two bottles of Mexican prescription drugs, as well as a card from Dr. Robertson. The defense did not have any questions for Hamm.

  Another toxicologist, Ray Gary, told the court that one Sunday he had gone to the lab and Dr. Robertson had been there. He’d happened to notice that there were fresh flowers in Robertson�
�s gym bag, and the next morning they were on Kristin’s desk.

  He had then become concerned about their relationship, and some time later had seen what appeared to be a small brown gift box on Rossum’s desk.

  “I lifted the cover and looked,” he said. “There were typed notes that said ”I.O.U. A night of lovemaking.”

  Gary said the box had disappeared from her desk two days after Greg’s death. Later, after she was terminated, the toxicologist said he was present when Kristin’s desk was cleared out and saw red rose petals in it.

  Eriksen asked if he had ever seen signs that Rossum was on drugs at work. Gary said he hadn’t.

  The next witness was Rossum’s friend and mentor Frank Barnhart, who had spared no expense to retest Greg’s toxicology at three outside laboratories, where the fentanyl had been discovered. Barnhart, who’d nicknamed Kristin “Li’l Bandit,” said he had once worked at the ME’s office, but was now a supervising criminologist at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Regional Crime Lab.

  He testified that he had hired Kristin as a student intern in June 1997 and that she had been an excellent worker.

  “She’s incredibly talented in the field,” he said. “And really grasps toxicology.”

  Barnhart told how he had been called by Dr. Blackbourne, who asked him to take over custody of Greg’s toxicology. On the medical examiner’s instructions, he had sent the tox to Pacific Labs for general testing, but not at that time for fentanyl. Later, when the results came back showing unspecified amounts of the drugs, he had had it re-tested by three independent laboratories.

  Then Dan Goldstein called his final witness, Professor Ralph Rossum, to the stand. There was a hush in the courtroom and all eyes were on Kristin’s father, as he walked past the gallery to testify. Professor Rossum would be the only witness fully sympathetic to his daughter. And he was well-prepared, having carefully read all 4,400 pages of the case discovery.

  The deputy DA began by asking about the Friday before Greg’s death, when they’d celebrated Kristin’s birthday. Professor Rossum said his son-in-law had acted atypically throughout the evening.