A Rose by Many Other Names: Rose Cherami & the JFK Assassination

by Todd C. Elliott

  Dr. Savoy passed away in 2010. Bobby Savoy, the 89-year old widow of Dr. Savoy, lives in Eunice.

  During a 2013 interview, when asked if her husband treated Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, without hesitation she confirmed Eugene’s story. However, within the same breath, she winced and said, “Oh wait, Carlos? Was it Carlos? No, I’m not sure.”

  After asking her daughter, who was present in an adjoining room in her Eunice home, about Carlos Marcello, the daughter sprang into action and reminded her about Carlos Marcello being a dangerous man.

  Her daughter claimed that Marcello is a dangerous man, as opposed to using the past tense. She must have meant Marcello “was a dangerous man,” as he died in March of 1993 in his Metairie, Louisiana home.

  Even in death, the Marcello name retains an edge of fear.

  Finally, the widow Savoy arrived at the name “Sam Roselli.” She was sure of it, this “Sam Roselli” of New Orleans was a patient of her late husband.

  She stated that her husband was never friends with Marcello. However, she did say that she met a really nice man who showed up one day at the hospital in Mamou in a limo, but she just couldn’t recall the name. “In fact, there so many limos in and out of the hospital back then,” said the widow Savoy.

  She said that she thought that she should have a limo as well, just to keep up with the latest automobile standards in Mamou.

  Was it possible that Carlos Marcello visited a country hospital in the middle of Mamou? And was it a likely place for a “made man” to go to the hospital?

  Perhaps the country hospital afforded a boss like Marcello some privacy. Perhaps if he went into a hospital in New Orleans, the press and enemies might find out and sense a weakness in the Godfather of Louisiana. It’s possible that the hospital, with the central location of Mamou in the state, provided a meeting ground for Mafia figures from Texas. For Marcello, having the best surgeon in the state would have been an added bonus.

  Mrs. Savoy said that her husband had patients who would travel from all over the state. She added that he even had patients who would come from Washington, D.C. and Florida.

  Eugene said that Dr. Savoy was a friend of Marcello, like his own father. He further stated that with whores and prostitutes in the area, regular health screenings and treatments were administered to “the girls” by Dr. Savoy.

  The “shaky” verification of Bobby Savoy would prompt an interview with a Mrs. Carina “Sue” Vasser of Mamou.

  “T’aunt Sue” (which means Aunt Sue in French) was the name that everyone in Mamou and Eunice knew her by. And her reputation for being an ambassador of sorts for the town of Mamou was known all over the world, it would seem.

  Vasser is the owner and operator of a small, yet world-renowned, bar called Fred’s – which had been around since 1963. In a 2013 interview, Vasser said that Marcello was definitely in and out of Mamou. Marcello even went to her bar one time.

  After all, she said, her son Jimmy married the daughter of Carlos Marcello.

  Vasser jokingly referred to herself as having “Mafia grandchildren.” She said that her grandchildren – who were now successful in life, with one being a lawyer and the other a doctor – just happen to live in or work in the Dallas, Texas area today.She said that her son and Carlos Marcello’s daughter moved to Dallas years ago. According to Vasser, they were still married.

  The importance of these accounts is that they are proof of a mob presence in the Eunice and Mamou area. The organized crime figures would then have taken U.S. Highway 190 from Eunice to Louisiana State Highway 13 to Mamou. This could place Marcello associates in Eunice and perhaps even present an opportunity for real estate investments, slot machine sales and jukebox distribution.

  The underworld presence could be proven in Eunice in 1963.

  And Rose Cherami, as described in Mafia Kingfish by John H. Davis, was “an underworld hanger-on” (p. 607). By this description, if Rose had any business with any organized crime in Louisiana, as she did, then it would have been Marcello’s. If she were “hanging on” to any part of the underworld, it was Marcello’s.

  Marcello has been figured into the JFK assassination conspiracy as a key component because of the fact that Marcello did not lack a motive to gladly assist in the killing of JFK. After being deported by Robert Kennedy and the U.S. Justice Department to Guatemala in 1961, Marcello had his motive. While in prison, Marcello himself allegedly admitted to being a participant in the assassination of JFK.

  Edward T. Haslam describes the scenario in Dr. Mary’s Monkey (p. 342):

  “Bobby Kennedy was at war with the Mafia and was prosecuting organized crime figures in record numbers. His primary target was Carlos Marcello. Kennedy openly said that he would use underworld tactics to fight the underworld. He had Marcello kidnapped and dropped him in Guatemala without a U.S. passport. Marcello was so powerful that he was able to get back into the United States without a passport, and despite pressure against him by the U.S. Attorney General.”

  The “underworld tactics” that Bobby Kennedy spoke of might possibly include placing moles, or informants, in the circles of Marcello’s power.

  Haslam suggests in his book that RFK may have been taking note of known Marcello-connected politicians who began to show interest in a New Orleans native who was believed to be a defector to Russia. There was a man who needed to get back from the U.S.S.R. with his family. The man who might possibly be RFK’s mole, Haslam theorized in Dr. Mary’s Monkey, was Lee Harvey Oswald.

  It should be noted that after his brother was killed, Bobby Kennedy remained the Attorney General for a brief time.

  However, the “top cop” in the land was suddenly quiet. Bobby Kennedy said nothing publicly about investigating his own brother’s murder, nor seemed to pursue an investigation. Even though he could have afforded to fund his own private crusade to seek out his brother’s killers, with access to information in the halls of power, he did nothing.

  RFK even seemed to cease his war on organized crime overnight.

  Why?

  Haslam asks the question: “Was Lee Harvey Oswald chosen because accusing him would neutralize Bobby?”

  Rose could have been, on some lower level, much like the pawn Oswald.

  During her flight to Houston with Fruge and Morein that Monday after the assassination, perhaps it was not that Rose refused out of fear to tell the FBI of what she knew about the plan to kill JFK. Perhaps Rose had already told the FBI of what she knew.

  If so, Rose might have clearly seen the bigger picture of things that were unfolding during the time following the assassination, while most Americans were still trying to figure it out.

  Chapter Eight

  Her Life and Her Life of Crime

  There can be no real biography of Rose Cherami, it seems.

  Or perhaps there are two biographies of Cherami: one of her life and one of her life of crime.

  Her story exists, already written, in her criminal record with a “rap sheet” spanning FBI files, Louisiana State Police records, other various municipal arrest records, her death certificate, medical records and the yet-to-be-written stories of those who are still alive to remember her or those who chose to forget during the time of this writing.

  She exists today as an enigma, riddled in mystery.

  Rose began life as Melba Christine Marcades on October 14, 1923 in Houston, Texas. The year of her birth has been disputed, with some reports or records listing “1922” and “1935” as the year of her birth.

  However, one thing is certain. If the FBI arrest reports – which were from the U.S. Department of Justice dated October 23, 1964 – are to be believed, then Rose began her life of crime at the age of 17 with a charge of “car theft.” One of her earliest charges (under an alias of Patsy Sue Allen) was a charge of vagrancy at the age of 18 in San Antonio, Texas.

  It would not be her final vagrancy charge or arrest. Rose, it seemed, began her life of crime with “vagrancy” and ended it as such.

  Rose
maintained that life of crime from February 13, 1941 to October 21, 1964 – with her final arrest being in New Orleans on a charge of investigated vagrancy and being “loud & boisterous,” according to the records. Her final arrest saw her listed as Roselle Renee Cherami.

  Interestingly enough, Rose had allegedly told Lt. Francis Fruge and possibly others that she was in Eunice by way of Florida with the two men who resembled Italians, men who were to be the killers of JFK.

  According to Fruge’s testimony, Rose stated that she and the alleged killers left from Miami. But it was never revealed where exactly in Florida Rose had been either before or after the assassination of JFK.

  However, it is her arrest record that sheds light on this matter.

  Her second-to-last arrest (by sheriff’s office officials) was listed on 6-12-64 in Titusville, Florida again under an alias, “Roselle.” The name “Roselle” was used before by Rose, but this time developed further with the invention of “Roselle J. Crawford.”

  Oddly enough, the FBI records – which seemingly list Rose’s charges in chronological order – showed a previous (third-to-last) charge as a more recent charge by the Pensacola Police Department of “drk” (drunkeness?) on 7-14-64 in Pensacola, Florida.

  Using the name “Roselle Jeanne Cherami” in the Pensacola arrest, she had been arrested four months prior, again in Pensacola, on a similar charge. Clearly, Rose knew someone in Pensacola and seemed to make her way back-and-forth from Titusville – where, around the time of her Pensacola arrests, she was arrested again on 6-9-64.

  And then again about a week later in Cocoa Beach, Florida.Rose obviously spent most of the summer in Florida, before returning to New Orleans for her final arrest on 10-19-64.

  But was Cherami trying to state something for the record with the aliases used in her arrest reports?

  The advent of the alias “Roselle” seemed curious and perhaps held clues that Rose tried to leave behind to anyone who might search for the truth, which Rose allegedly spoke and was paid no mind. Maybe out of frustration, because no one believed her about the JFK murder, she left coded clues in her aliases and arrest reports.

  One curiosity with addresses, Rose was arrested in New Orleans (her final arrest) on 10-19-64 with her address listed as “757 Orion, Metairie, La.”

  However, just two days later, after she was photographed, fingerprinted and (presumably) released after time served for charges of drunken behavior and resisting arrest, Rose listed her address as “1004 Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.”

  It should be noted that on this last arrest of her life, 10-19-64, in New Orleans, it was the first time that Rose was charged with resisting arrest.

  The obvious “clue” of the alias “Roselle” pointed to Roselle, Illinois.

  Roselle – which was a small village incorporated in 1922 – housed many commuters of nearby Chicago.

  Was Rose pointing to Chicago?

  Had she been there once and toyed with the name in her mind a time or two?

  However, there is no record of Rose in Chicago or Illinois.

  Chicago, of course, being the home of Jack Ruby and a host of organized criminals like John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli.

  Perhaps “Roselle” was a nod to Johnny Roselli – who was a high-ranking mob figure with ties to the CIA and the Chicago organized crime syndicate – the gangster who was found “whacked” and whose body was discovered decomposing in a steel drum near Miami in Dumbfounding Bay, Florida on August 9, 1976, around the time of the HSCA depositions and investigations.

  Maybe Rose knew Roselli intimately and thus took the name Roselle as a link to a crime figure who would also ultimately be tied to JFK conspiracy chatter. Maybe Rose, an admitted drug trafficker, ran a little dope for Roselli now that Ruby was in prison.

  The cities of Titusville and Cocoa Beach where Rose ran rampant are part of the Floridian “space coast,” on the Eastern side of the state. However, Pensacola is near the westernmost edge of the state of Florida. These Florida arrests were of course after the JFK assassination.

  Her arrests immediately before and after the JFK assassination are interesting.

  Rose was arrested on 10-29-63 by the Houston Police Department for “drk & abu lang (drunk and abusive language).” Rose being in Houston at the time is significant because Sergio Arcacha-Smith (the Cuban man and CIA operative identified with Rose at the Silver Slipper) was allegedly living in Houston then.

  When he was wanted by District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1967, Arcacha-Smith moved to Dallas. His extradition to Louisiana was purportedly blocked by Gov. John Connally himself.

  Rose was next arrested on 12-28-63 by the Oklahoma City Police Department on a charge of “drk & (hold for state charges),” where she paid a $12-dollar fine and was released.

  Curiously, however, the stay in the Eunice city Jail (courtesy of the Eunice Police Department) is not in the FBI records. Nor is there any record of her transfer or commitment to the Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital from Eunice.

  In fact, there are no arrests listed for Rose during the entire month of November 1963.

  Perhaps the FBI would not bother with something as trivial as a transfer to a state hospital from a small town jail?

  Yes, it would. The FBI certainly noted it in 1961.

  Records reflected already that Rose had been interred in the Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital for being “criminally insane” in 1961. However, her second stay in the same hospital, the day before JFK’s assassination, is not recorded by the FBI or Louisiana State Police.

  According to documentation from the State of Louisiana Department of Public Safety, Division of State Police, Bureau of Investigation in Baton Rouge, Rose had been received by the Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital on 7-13-61. The charge: “Criminally Insane,” according to Louisiana State Police record #256375 and FBI record #2-347-922.

  It should be noted that the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson reportedly saw a number of physicians experimenting on prisoners with LSD and other hallucinogens.

  If this hospital reception and charge was documented, why then was Rose’s second stay at the state hospital omitted? By 1964, the FBI seemed to have forgotten to add her second stay in the state hospital to her permanent record. And would a visit to the drunk tank constitute a paper trail, adding to the blemishes on her criminal record?

  Yes.

  Rose was arrested several times in several different cities when she was charged with being drunk, often times being discharged after paying a fine the next day. However, the Eunice arrest, or stay in the drunk tank, was not in any of her criminal records.

  Was it as Louis Pavur and Jane Carrier of Eunice said it was? Did “they” come and take all of the records of Rose’s time in Eunice? Pavur’s photocopy of an emergency room register at the Moosa hospital may be the only concrete evidence that Rose ever spent time in Eunice.

  If she was not a person of interest, why then did the FBI have a record on Cherami dating back to 1941?

  Furthermore, if Hoover and the Feds were aware of her criminal activity and aliases since 1941, why then did it seem that she was “permitted” to roam free? Curiously, Rose (after being charged with being criminally insane) had been put back out on the streets, loosed only to be arrested again a little more than two months later.

  After being admitted into a state hospital and labeled as “criminally insane,” it’s hard to imagine that someone might be released less than 90 days later. But Rose was released.

  And then arrested again. The Sheriff’s Office in Gretna, Louisiana arrested a “Melba Marcades” on 9-22-61 on a charge of “vagrancy” shortly after her time as one of the “criminally insane” at the state hospital.

  In fact, later in her criminal career, Rose was arrested by Sheriff’s officials in Altus, Oklahoma on a charge of “public drunkenness, suspect in narcotics and prostitution”; her only disposition stated that she was released “outright.”

  While labels such as “prostitu
te,” “criminally insane” and “drug trafficker and addict” have been placed on Rose, one other label that should have easily been associated with Rose was “car thief.”

  Some of her early 1941 arrests show a charge of “auto theft,” and numerous arrests charge her with violation of the Dyer Act – the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 2311 et seq.), signed into federal law in 1919 to impede the interstate trafficking of stolen vehicles by organized thieves.

  Was Rose then an organized thief? Does this support evidence that Rose had a relationship with organized crime figures and families?

  Rose, according to FBI records, had at least six charges and arrests for violation of the Dyer Act from 1947 to 1957 in Louisiana and New Mexico.

  Rose told authorities that she was 17 when she was arrested for “car theft” in Amarillo, Texas in 1941. It was her first auto theft arrest, and a crime for which she served a little time in prison in Gainesville, Texas.

  About a year later, the most curious charge of all for Rose Cherami came to light. While inventing aliases and dabbling in car theft was not the norm for a teen delinquent in 1941, her next charge reached a new level in her criminal career.

  In 1942, while the country was at war, Rose was arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana (shortly after her release from a Texas prison) by the Sheriff’s Office with a charge of “Hold for Barksdale” listed on her rap sheet of 9-30-42.

  “Barksdale” referred to Barksdale airfield which had begun to gear up for WWII and which would later be home to the oldest bomb wing division in the USAF as part of the Air Force Global Strike Command. Barksdale Air Force Base was branded, or renamed, on February 13, 1948, after the United States Air Force became a separate military branch.

  But back in the mid-1930s it was home to the 3rd Bomber Wing of the U.S. military, and in the 1940s it hosted a number of bomber squadrons, notably the 335th Bombardment Group which took over training duties as a permanent Operational Training Unit (OTU) on July 17, 1942 with Martin B-26 Marauders.