Poisoned Love

by Caitlin Rother

  Gardiner declined to discuss specific aspects of McClellan’s theory, saying, “I don’t want to give credence to the theory by delving into the what-ifs on a lengthy chain in which every link is tenuous, and by the time you get to the end of it, it’s crumbling.”

  As of late 2004, Senior Deputy County Counsel Deborah McCarthy had tried and failed to get the civil lawsuit dismissed against the county of San Diego.

  “One young man is dead, a young woman will spend the rest of her life in prison, and two sets of parents have lost their children,” McCarthy wrote in her request for summary judgment in 2003, which the judge rejected. “These are tragic facts. But the county of San Diego did not kill Greg de Villers and certainly had no idea he was in harm’s way. To hold a public entity liable for the deliberate criminal act of an employee, that all parties agree was activity outside the course and scope of employment…would require this court to stretch current law beyond all recognition.”

  McCarthy, like Gardiner, had argued that the de Villers family did not meet the statute of limitations on injury claims. Within days of Greg’s death, she said, Yves and Jerome de Villers suspected “something was not right,” and within a month, they “suspected that Kristin and Michael were responsible and that the county, to some degree, was at fault.”

  She and Gardiner interpreted the judge’s ruling in 2003 to mean that there was a factual dispute on this point and a jury should decide it. McClellan and Gomez contended that the judge had already done so.

  McCarthy had also argued that the federal laws McClellan said the county failed to follow could not serve as the basis for a civil lawsuit. In response to his other allegations, McCarthy said the county could not prohibit managers from getting involved with their subordinates, only from giving them performance evaluations. When Amborn learned of the rumored affair from Michael and Kristin’s coworkers, she said, he had no actual proof, so he followed county policy by investigating and then counseling Michael and Kristin against such a relationship.

  The only existing evidence that Michael knew of Kristin’s drug use, she said, came from statements he made to police and Lloyd Amborn: Michael told police he’d learned from Kristin on the day Greg died that she was currently using drugs, and he told Amborn he’d known about her past drug use since June 2000. However, McCarthy added, none of Kristin’s coworkers ever saw any signs of impaired performance.

  As for McClellan’s claim that sister agencies of the county should share information, she said, that is against the law.

  “We can’t change that and decide to do it differently,” she said.

  The Sheriff’s Department promised confidentiality on its background checks because it wanted full disclosure, she said. But even if the Medical Examiner’s Office had done a check on Kristin before hiring her as a student worker in 1997, her drug arrest from 1994 would not have been revealed, because all juvenile records are sealed. The DA’s office was allowed access to Kristin’s only because it was doing a criminal investigation.

  Dan Anderson, Michael’s forensic toxicologist friend from Los Angeles, said he had no idea whether Michael had anything to do with Greg de Villers’s death.

  “I can’t even tell you,” Anderson said in early 2004. “In my heart I want to say no way, but I just don’t know.”

  But what he did know, he said, was that it was common for a toxicologist to have drugs on his desk and dozens of articles on drugs such as fentanyl in his filing cabinet. The community of forensic toxicologists was tightly knit, and Kristin, to his knowledge, was the first drug addict among them.

  The last Anderson had heard from Michael, he was working as a scientist at a drug company in Australia.

  “He said his life has been difficult to put back on track,” Anderson said. “He’s trying to get past this, but the DA’s office isn’t letting it happen.”

  To Anderson, the fact that Kristin didn’t “roll on” Michael showed one of two things, either she was stupid and wanted to take the full rap because she was trying to protect him, or Michael didn’t have anything to do with Greg’s death.

  Michael’s former boss, Fredric Rieders, said he hadn’t been following the case, but he still supported Michael, especially since he hadn’t been charged with a crime.

  “In my world we presume them to be innocent even when we are testifying for the convicting side of a case,” Rieders said. “My own personal presumption is innocence until proven guilty. Suspicion very often is not much more than calumny.”

  Rieders said it would be much more difficult for a toxicologist to get away with murder by poison than a layperson because a toxicologist would be a more likely suspect.

  “You never know what a person will do,” he said, but from what he knew of Michael, he was “an honorable, decent person who is kind, who is a good colleague and a gentleman. I would never suspect him of [committing murder]…I certainly would never think of him as being a person who does evil things.”

  Soon after Kristin went to CCWF, Constance Rossum applied for an appointment to the prison’s Inmate Family Council, where she became an inmate advocate. The ten-member panel met with the warden and her executive staff every other month to air grievances and foster communication between inmates’ friends, family, and the institution. Other California prisons have similar panels.

  This particular council was originally formed to deal with issues such as visiting hours, which were reduced from four to two days in January 2004 because of the state budget crisis. In some cases, visits were cut short so that other family members could have time with the inmates as well.

  “That’s one of the major complaints from the [council],” prison spokesman Kevin Kostecky said. “They tried to fight that, but this was direction we received from headquarters, and there’s nothing that we can do about it.”

  Under Constance’s leadership, he said, the council expanded its scope to deal with other issues, such as medical care. Constance had alleged that the prison doctors were inefficient, were not seeing to the inmates’ needs, and were not giving inmates the same medications they had been prescribed on the outside.

  At Christmas in 2003, the council was allowed to buy candy canes from an independent contractor and distributed them to the inmates. The council also donated used books, complained about delays in mail delivery, and asked for a vacant supervisor position to be reinstated for the hobby craft program.

  The council tried to start a garden-planting project, but prison officials said they didn’t have the space, a secure area, enough staff to oversee it, or the ability to monitor whether the vegetables had developed any health-related problems.

  “We could be adding to our health problems here at the institution unknowingly and innocently,” Kostecky said.

  Eriksen predicted that Kristin’s chances of appealing based on allegations of incompetent counsel were “slim to none.” Such allegations had to be “pretty bad” to be upheld, he said, unless the defense’s legal strategy was “completely out of bounds and substandard work.” He said he respected Kristin’s new attorney for raising the issue but did not agree with her position.

  Loebig said he, too, saw the chance of Kristin’s appeal being granted as “marginal.”

  “Almost anything in the case is going to be found harmless error, because none of it affects the importance and weight of evidence of fentanyl missing from where she worked and found in her husband where they lived,” Loebig said. “And it’s a straight line.”

  “Had she been believable, she wouldn’t have been convicted,” he said. To fare any better, he added, she should have had better answers for the hundreds of questions she was asked on cross-examination.

  Eriksen said he saw no problem with the prosecution’s pursuit of a conspiracy theory because there was enough evidence to at least suggest that such a conspiracy existed.

  “My feeling is that if Kristin did poison Greg, then Michael could’ve been anything from an unwitting dupe who aided and abetted her, up to a full-fledged conspi
rator who assisted her and may have even administered the fatal dose,” Eriksen said. “That’s apparently how close the DA can get to Michael Robertson, or they would’ve charged him.”

  Unless police turned up new evidence that “suggests his participation in a murder,” he said, then Michael should be safe.

  But Loebig wasn’t so sure, reiterating his belief that Michael should have been charged and tried as a codefendant.

  “He was with her that morning. He was with her that afternoon, at the hospital, and soon after, when [Greg’s] brothers arrived at the door,” he said. He was the one who knew the most about fentanyl, and he, too, had access to those missing evidence envelopes. He and Kristin had “joint motive, opportunity, and expertise.”

  Loebig acknowledged, however, that time was on Michael’s side because it weakened the evidence, and with every passing day, the likelihood of his being convicted diminished.

  Even if the District Attorney were to decide to put Michael on trial, Loebig said, the jurors would see that “the defendant with the most access to the victim has [already] been convicted, and that [Kristin] would testify on Michael’s behalf, so why go ahead with a lengthy, expensive trial that is not likely to end up with a unanimous guilty conviction?”

  It was too late for Kristin to broker a deal to lessen her prison sentence by agreeing to testify against Michael, he said. The only way she could get out of prison would be if her appeal was granted and she was acquitted after a second trial, or if new evidence that exonerated her came to light.

  But he still didn’t think Michael should relax. Yet.

  “He should be worried…particularly with Dumanis in office,” he said. “She’s very aggressive.”

  As of October 2004, the deadline had passed for Romero to ask to present an oral argument in Kristin’s criminal appeal to the 4th District Court of Appeal, and the court had not asked Deputy Attorney General Niki Shaffer to respond to the writ. In Shaffer’s response to Kristin’s appeal, she argued that the jury was given proper instructions, including those related to the prosecution’s conspiracy theory. But even if the court rejected that argument, she wrote, there was “ample evidence supporting the jury’s probable conclusion that [Kristin] was the direct and sole perpetrator of Greg’s murder.” She argued that any alleged errors made by Kristin’s attorneys were “harmless.”

  Kristin and her family have maintained close contact through visits and letters.

  “Mom, Dad, I love you so much,” Kristin wrote in a letter her mother read on 48 Hours.

  “I’m able to tolerate this injustice because I know we have truth on our side, and I know that each day that passes is one closer to the day I can return home. Mom, Dad, there is not a moment that goes by that I don’t miss you. You are always in my heart.”

  Constance and Ralph have written an article based on their knowledge of prison life, a piece titled “Rehabilitating Rehabilitation,” which was published in The World & I in December 2003. The article closes with an argument for prison officials to establish a “culture of respect and civility” within institutions, noting that family members who “seek to intervene” on inmates’ behalf “have reportedly been told to ‘back off.’” Their bios in the article say they both serve on the Statewide Inmate Family Council of California, but nowhere do the Rossums mention that their daughter is in prison for murder.

  Four years after his oldest brother’s death, Bertrand de Villers was still dreaming about him once a week. In his dreams, Greg was still alive, and they were doing things together, things they used to do, things they might do now.

  His mother was a different person after Greg’s murder, he said, and he believed it contributed to her passing.

  “You can imagine what it’s like for a mother to lose a son,” he said. “I think she did a remarkable job of getting through that, but ultimately it wore her out. I’m [glad] she doesn’t have to struggle with it anymore.”

  Because Greg was murdered and the case became so high profile, Bertrand said, he and his family were never able to go through the normal grieving process. And, with books being written, TV documentaries being made, talk show hosts calling, and Kristin’s appeal and the civil case pending, he said, “It’s still not over.”

  “It made me a different person,” he said. “I was naively trusting of people. I don’t think I’m still like that anymore. I don’t think things happen for a reason anymore.”

  Acknowledgments

  As my first published book, this project has been a journey into new territory for me. I’ve learned a tremendous amount along the way, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of the people who gave me information, advice, and emotional support.

  First and foremost, I’d like to express my appreciation to all the people who spent time answering my endless questions and providing me with documents and other materials over the past three and a half years.

  In particular, I send my deep gratitude to Craig McClellan, Cindy Lane, John Gomez, and their staff, who were always polite and helpful no matter how many times I called.

  I give special thanks to Dan Goldstein, Laurie Agnew, and Dave Hendren for going over details of the investigation with me—after the gag order was lifted, of course. The same goes for Vic Eriksen, Alex Loebig, and Bob Petrachek.

  I especially want to thank Jerome and Bertrand de Villers for undergoing gruelingly long interviews about painful and personal memories. Also thanks go to their father, Yves de Villers, for his recollections. You all helped me and readers of this book better understand Greg’s memory.

  My thanks go to Judge John Thompson for the interview and to his clerk, Sherry Blevins, and to Tom Murray for assisting me with the court order. I am also indebted to Sergeant Larry Horowitz and Dan Anderson for their lengthy interviews, and to Karen Maya, Bill Leger, Cathy Hamm, Sergeant Bob Jones, Niki Shaffer, Greg Schoonard, Erika Frierson, Mike Barletta, Harry Bonnell, and John Varnell for helping to fill in various parts of the story.

  I owe much to John McCutchen for all the hours he spent helping me with photos, as well as for his other rat-killing and paint-stripping contributions.

  A big thank-you also goes to Lorie Hearn and other editors at The San Diego Union-Tribune who gave me the opportunity to cover this story from beginning to end and then granted my leave, and to J. Harry Jones for stepping aside on his beat to let me step up. To my humble readers, Susan White, Kathy Glass, Jon Sidener, and Anne Dierickx, who, along with Hal Fuson, also helped me with much appreciated legal advice. To Gene Cubbison for the arraignment footage and for saving me that nice seat in the courtroom. To Joe Schneider for his searching efforts. And to all the family and friends who supported me through the summer of 2004—you know who you are even if your name doesn’t show up on this page.

  Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my agent, Stephany Evans, for her patience and perseverance, and to the folks at Kensington for helping me to achieve a lifelong dream.

  Author’s Note

  This book has been in the making since Kristin Rossum was arrested on June 25, 2001, the day I got a hold of the story and wouldn’t let go. Because Kristin and her lover Michael Robertson had been fired by the county Medical Examiner’s Office, my sources told me the story behind her arrest, and it immediately grabbed my attention. This was not only a story about a pretty and bright young woman who seemed to have everything going for her, but it also opened a door into a secretive county department that had been plagued by allegations of mismanagement. The more stories I wrote about the case, the more fascinated I became.

  My aim in writing this complex tale was to make it come alive without taking sides, presenting evidence gathered by the defense and prosecution teams as well as details I uncovered myself. I tried to be as thorough as I could, cross-checking my research with as many sources as possible, so any errors are unintentional. I interviewed dozens of people involved in the case, many of them repeatedly, for as long as seven hours at a time. I also sat through virtually every one
of Kristin’s court appearances, read every document I could get my hands on, and combed through every box of evidence, reading every e-mail, card, letter, and journal entry, and inspecting all personal effects seized by the police.

  In recreating scenes with dialogue, I tried to quote from as many official sources as I could, such as transcripts from the trial, police interviews, or taped conversations; police reports; sworn depositions; or other public documents, all of which I had to condense and edit to make the story flow. Frank Barnhart, for example, did not want to be interviewed, so I quoted the thoughts and statements he recalled during his deposition in the civil case. When I pulled statements from the interviews I started doing the day of Kristin’s arrest, I generally tried to quote only the person who remembered saying the words, paraphrasing most if not all of the other people’s comments. I relaxed that rule when I wrote about conversations between Kristin and her parents, which they relayed to me in interviews early on and then generally backed up in their court testimony. In rare situations where I felt dialogue was necessary to tell the story but couldn’t check with other participants in the conversation, such as Kristin or the anonymous man who called John Varnell, the statements I recounted are based on at least one person’s memory.

  I interviewed Constance and Ralph Rossum a number of times before Judge Thompson instituted the gag order, but they chose not to cooperate with this book. I also interviewed Melissa Prager early on, but she, too, did not want to talk further for this book. I wrote Kristin twice asking for interviews but was rebuffed. I also asked Michael Robertson for interviews through his attorneys, and although he initially said he would cooperate, he later changed his mind. His criminal attorney, Chuck Goldberg, also decided not to respond to the outstanding allegations against his client. I was unable to interview Marie de Villers, who died in August 2003, but I was able to learn about her and her marriage from her sons and through her deposition from the civil case and her divorce filings. Yves de Villers, who lives in Monte Carlo, did not want to be interviewed but did answer some questions by e-mail.