Murder With My Husband - 191. The Rose Petal Murder

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

On this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the mysterious death of Kristin Rossum's husband, Gregory de Villers. Case Sources “Deadly American Beauty” by John Glatt CBS News - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-beauty-10-04-2002/ San Diego Tribune - https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-kristin-rossum-loses-round-to-get-murder-2011sep13-story.html KPBS.org - https://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/10/01/high-court-wont-hear-wifes-appeal-san-diego-murder ABC News - https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=126855&page=1 The Herald Sun - https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/true-crime-scene/exclusive-american-beauty-murderers-exlover-dr-michael-robertson-speaks-about-his-badenclay-trial-cameo/news-story/e44052d05e7cfe14a7a8f88c14b96104 The LA Times - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-nov-13-me-rossum13-story.html CrimeLibrary.org - https://www.crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/family/kristen_rossum/index.html PrisonWriters.com - https://prisonwriters.com/kristin-rossum/ DailyMail.com - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2695348/Infamous-American-Beauty-murder-link-toxicologist-defence-witness-wife-killer-Gerard-Baden-Clay.html Murderpedia.org - https://murderpedia.org/female.R/r/rossum-kristin.htm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband, I'm Pete in Marland. And I'm Garrett Marland. And he's the husband. No, my husband. Real quick, for anyone who has paid subscriber to us on Apple, we had some issues. We know there were ads in one or two of the most recent episodes. We are sorry, we got it fixed.

And there shouldn't be any more ads anymore. If there are Again, this is for paid subscribers on Apple if you slide to the left and Delete and then read down on that episode that ads will be gone But on another topic we released our collab episode we did with heart starts pounding and it was so Fun we filmed that quite a while ago, but I just love Kalen. She's so great. Her show is so fun So if you ever looking for that horror conspiracy theory dark podcast her show heart starts pounding is definitely for you But I think that sends us right into your 10 seconds. We were in New York. Oh my gosh, the bagels were good. The pizza was good

It did live up to the hype. I was a little nervous that everything was gonna be overhyped, but we actually had a ton of fun. Everyone told us that we came at a good time, the weather was good. I mean, it was still cold. It was still freezing my brain. Karen was like, oh my gosh, the weather is perfect. I was like, really? Because I'm freezing. I was still freezing my freaking butt off, but it was fun. We didn't go to any of the bagel places that a lot of people had suggested. I know there's like some famous ones.

We kind of just were walking around in Chelsea, Soho, like the Highland area, and we just found some places over there. They still taste a great, we did go to something or a place called Joe's Pizza. That was really good. I liked it. Did you like it?

That was amazing. It was fun. Yeah, we did the Murder Mystery Dinner for FX's new show, A Murder at the End of the World. And by the time this is out, that show should actually be out on Hulu. So go check that out. And we didn't do any shows or anything.

We did go to the 9-11 Memorial. Oh, yeah, we went to that as well. If you've never been to that, you should go check that out. I don't really know how to describe it because I don't want to say cool, because it's not cool. It was definitely tough. It was, yeah, it was tough. It was sad, but it was also eye-opening as well.

The good thing to go to if you have not been to it. Other than that, good food, good pizza, good bagels, nothing gets me going more than some good pizza and bagels. I think I could eat pizza for every meal. It was actually really fun. We would just wake up, we would walk to Starbucks, then we would go get our bagels. Good time. So if you haven't been to New York, or if you hate New York, walk to Starbucks, then we would go get our bagels. Good time. So if you haven't been to New York,

or if you hate New York, I'm sorry, but we had a good time, go check it out. That's kind of what I got from my 10 seconds. Maybe I'm gonna move to New York and from here on Broadway or something. Oh. Change things up a little bit. Maybe I'll do Wicked or something.

Okay. I know like- I know like two Broadway shows, I know like- What's your bad wish? I know like two Broadway shows, I know nothing. That's about it for my 10 seconds. Oh, we may or may not be going on a little surprise vacation for Payton's birthday, which is November 25th. She is turning 42 years old.

Yep. No, she is not even close to that. But we are going on a little surprise trip. We're excited. It'll be super I guess it's not a surprise because Peyton knows what it is. No. Yeah, we're excited about that. It'll be fun. On that note, let's hop into this week's episode. Our sources for this episode are Deadly American Beauty by John Glass, CBS News, San Diego Tribune, kpbs.org, ABC News, A Herald Sun, LA Times, crimelibrary.org, prisonwriters.com, dailymail.com, and murderpedia. Now, if there's one thing we've learned from doing this show, it's that there's no such

thing as a perfect marriage. Behind closed doors, everyone has their secrets, their flaws, their little spats, even those that seem the most put together. It took me second to realize you were not talking about us. Well, except for us, we are perfect. It was like, wait a second. And today's case is certainly a testament to that, a young 20-something newlywed couple who seemed to have their whole lives ahead of them, a husband who was climbing the ladder

at a biotech company, and a wife who was stunningly gorgeous came from a wealthy upper class family, and had graduated summa cum laude and was carving a path in the field of toxicology. That is, until a suicide turned their lives upside down. And secrets revealed that not only was the couple not what they seemed, one of them had used their charm, intelligence and resources to get exactly what they wanted. So it's 1985, in a small slice of suburbia, about 40 minutes east of Los Angeles called Claremont. You'd be surprised how quiet some of the neighborhoods are knowing there's six different colleges located around this town, which means there's always something happening here.

Whether that's a concert and our exhibition, a sporting event, so if you're living in Claremont, chances are you have some sort of connection to one of the colleges in the area, which was exactly what brought the Rossum family here in the 80s. After years of moving his family around like a bunch of army brats, Ralph Rossum had finally settled down to work as a professor at Claremont Mechanical College, teaching things like

constitutional law and the juvenile justice code, which you might find ironic as this story goes on. But it was probably a nice change of pace from his days working as a justice department official for the Reagan administration. Ralph's 10-year-old daughter, Kristen, was happy to have found a place she could finally call home as well after years of bopping around from school to school. She settled in nicely, got excellent grades, and charmed her way into new friendships with her blonde hair and hazel colored eyes. It was around this time she also discovered her love of ballet.

For the next few years, Kristen dedicated all of her free time to what she believed would be a full-time Dancing career Performing in local productions hoping to hit a major stage one day But the young Kristen had her dreams dashed by the time she reached high school and injury claimed her dancing career sending Kristen Rossum into a bit of a spiral. I always think about that with, you know, sports and how one injury can just change your entire trajectory. Now, especially if you're trying to be pro at your sport, it's just all over in that sucks. It was in October afternoon in the early 1990s when Kristen was introduced to something that would change the course of her life forever

Right before a big high school football game Kristen was hanging out in a parking lot when her friend pulled out a bag of drugs and asked if Kristen wanted to snort a line Oh, it was crystal methamphetamine all right Kristen decided to Give it a try and in that moment experienced a euphoria, she hadn't felt since her dancing days. So she has this dancing career. It doesn't work out. She's now just not sure what to do with herself. And then she tries some drugs. And it's like, wow, this is great. I haven't felt good since I was dancing. Afterwards, Kristen became so obsessed with reliving that feeling

that she saw out her friends dealer and began purchasing her own stash on top of dabbling with other drugs like cocaine and marijuana. But Kristen couldn't hide her addiction for long. Over time she began developing sores on her face that she picked at incessantly. She lost an extreme amount of weight and her personal hygiene was on the decline. On top of that, Kristen's grades at high school began to suffer and she started missing classes. Oh, I forgot she's only in high school.

Yeah. Once Kristen's parents learned of her addiction, they sent her to a two-month, 12-step program. And it seemed to work. After the treatment, Kristen returned to her old self and insisted drugs were in her past. She finished her classes in summer school, got a part-time job, even picked up a few healthy hobbies. But by senior year, her past had come back to haunt her. That fall, she reunited with an old friend and slipped back into old habits. Noticing the relapse, her parents sent her back to treatment again.

But this time, when Kristen got out, her parents sent her back to treatment again, but this time when Kristen got out, her parents decided it was time for her to leave Claremont High. By now, she was a semester away from graduating with the rest of her class, but her parents couldn't take the risk. She had enough credits to graduate early and begin the spring semester at a college her father taught at part time. So it kind of feels like they're a bit worried, so they're like, let's under a college, her dad's at a little bit safer, which I can't blame them. Yeah. This university was the University of Redlands about 40 minutes east of Claremont. By the fall, Kristen had moved into a dorm on campus and was attending classes full time,

but that's when she tracked down an old friend, Crystal Met. She started using again this time away from the prying eyes of her parents, but campus staff felt her addiction was pretty obvious. Did she just get introduced like at a party again and kind of just relapsed or? I mean, it's an addiction. I mean, she's struggling. I'm sure any chance she gets. And especially in college,

we're like everyone's dabbling, everyone's kind of in this party phase. Yeah. So the campus staff is catching on to her addiction. And after finding drugs in her room, Kristen was expelled that December of her freshman year. Instead of telling her parents, she'd been kicked out, the 18-year-old Kristen came up with another plan. She packed her things and fled to the Mexican border. She was juggling her things through the turn style, Kristen dropped her jacket, and when she reached down to pick it up, she noticed someone had already done it for her. And that's when her eyes locked with the 20 year old Greg DeVillars.

Like Kristen, Greg had also come from a well-off family and was the son of a plastic surgeon. While Greg was born in Chicago, his parents had both emigrated from France before starting their family, hoping to achieve the all-American dream. Greg, then a biology student at the University of San Diego, immediately caught Kristen's eye at the Mexican border. He was five foot ten with thick curly brown hair and a smile that lit up a room.

Wait, I'm confused how, because he sees studies from Chicago, correct? Yes, but he's going to college in San Diego. And his family, oh, okay. So his family is from France. They're, well, France, Chicago, and he's going to school in San Diego, which is obviously close to the border. So he tells Kristen that he and his friends had just come down to Tijuana for the night looking to hit some bars and let off some steam. He asked Kristen if she was free to join them. She's like, well, yeah, like I just got kicked out of school. I was coming

so I didn't have to face my parents. They spent the evening drinking tequila shots and dancing to Mariachi. Then Kristen went back with them to San Diego and spent the night at Greg's and the rest was history. Also, face your parents instead of going to Mexico. I promise it's better.

And I promise it doesn't work out as good as it did for Kristen where you meet your night in shining armor and go back to his room and then Basically become inseparable like literally Kristen basically moved in with Greg after that day not sharing the fact that she had been hiding out from her parents because she'd just been expelled for using drugs A week into their romance Greg was already telling Kristen he loved her and Kristen seemed to return the sentiment. But Kristen couldn't play the perfect girlfriend forever. One afternoon, Greg discovered a pipe in Kristen's jacket pocket and confronted her over the matter. He told her he hated all drugs and wouldn't stand for Kristen dabbling with them either.

It was then that Kristen promised, no worries, I will give it all up for you. And with Greg's help, she did. Wow. Kristen kicked the habit reunited with her family, introduced them to her new boyfriend and told them it was because of him that she'd gotten clean. And this time for good.

Kristen told everyone who met Greg that he was her angel, that he'd literally saved her life. From there, Kristen enrolled in San Diego State University and began majoring in biology before switching to chemistry. Plus, she worked part-time at a legal services company to pay the rent. Suddenly, Kristen was back to her driven and ambitious self, even getting handpicked by her professors to work on experimental research projects. She sounds like such a smart grown-it's so sad what drugs can do to you.

Yeah. And such a miracle, honestly, like you don't often hear about these turnaround stories. So just when things seemed like they couldn't go any better for Kristen, Greg proposed to her on her 20th birthday. It was October 25th, 1996. Kristen squealed with excitement and happily accepted. Although the toodan rush into their wedding plans, they both wanted to get further ahead in their education first. So the following summer, Kristen applied for an internship at the San Diego Medical Examiner's office and

landed the gig. When she wasn't on campus, Kristen was working in the Emmy's Toxicology Department. And while she was doing more menial work like polishing the equipment and logging specimens, she found this work fascinating. And as time went on, she was handed more important responsibilities like sending drugs out to be analyzed and preparing samples for the lab. It was clear to Kristen that this was where she wanted to continue her career once she graduated. Meanwhile, Greg was lining up his future as well.

In 1997, he landed a job at a biotech company as the assistant to the vice president of research. So by the time Kristen and Greg tied the knot on June 5th, 1999, both had a bright and frankly lucrative future ahead of them. It seems like we should just stop the case here and not go over there because it seems happily ever after. When they said I do on the lush grounds of the colleges of Claremont, those in attendance

envied the couple. They were both good looking, intelligent, supportive of one another. Greg had inspired Kristen to get clean for goodness sake. No one would have bet that Kristen and Greg were going to be on a downward spiral. Oh man. Almost through the second they walked back down the aisle. According to Kristen, it started with Greg rushing them into having a child. What he really wanted was a little girl, and he'd already picked out a name. Isabel.

But Kristen felt she was still too young to be a mom, and her career was just getting started. And despite her lack of interest in being a mother at the time, Greg continually pressed the issue. Over the next seven months, Kristen said she began to feel a bit smothered in their relationship. She wanted more personal space, more freedom to do her own thing. She even told her own mom she was worried she no longer saw a future with Greg. Kristen sat her new husband down in January of 2000 and expressed these concerns to him

outright. But life continued on without much change in their dynamic. Though in March, Kristen was given some good news. She was hired full-time as a toxicologist at the Emmy's office, just as she had always hoped. A few months later, she graduated and was given the Outstanding Graduate Award from the Chemistry Department. Meanwhile, Greg had left his company to take a better job at a new biotech startup. But this meant that Greg and Kristen saw even less of each other, Greg had left his company to take a better job at a new biotech startup. But this meant that Greg and Kristen saw even less of each other, both working longer

hours with less energy to work out their personal issues. By November of 2000, Kristen's head was no longer in the game. She sat Greg down and told him she wanted a trial separation, that the wedding might have been a mistake for them, that they seemingly wanted different things for the future now. Which is pretty crazy because I mean they waited like a good four or five years, they were engaged for quite a while. So on the morning of November 6th, Kristen woke up and got ready for work, but Greg claimed he wasn't feeling well. Kristen said he seemed sluggish, like he was slurring his words. She worried that he might have taken something the night before to fall asleep.

So Kristen phoned Greg's boss and told him he wasn't feeling well and that he planned to stay home that day. Then Kristen herself left for work. But she came home around lunch to check on her husband. That's when Greg told her he had taken some pain killers and a muscle relaxant to try to sleep a little bit. Kristen then returned to work for the afternoon and when she came home that evening, she said she found Greg asleep in the bed snoring.

Not wanting to bother him, she made some dinner and watched TV. Then around 9 p.m. she went back to the bedroom to check on Greg. Only this time, her husband Greg wasn't breathing. Okay. I don't... Hmm, it's crazy you can go from snoring to just dead. Yeah. I mean, maybe it works like that, I don't know.

At around 9.15 pm, Kristen called 911 in absolute hysterics. They recommended that Kristen remove Greg from the bed and try to perform chest compressions on him while they sent over the ambulance. When paramedics arrived just 10 minutes later, they discovered more than what Kristen had described originally over the phone. Greg was lying in the bed, but his shirt was off and he was surrounded by red rose petals. What? Resting next to his head was a framed wedding photo of the couple.

And on the floor beside him, a crumpled love letter, one another man had just written to Kristen. After this, Greg was taken to Scripps, LaHoya Hospital, but at that point, the damage was done. He was officially pronounced dead around 10.03 pm. Oh, I feel like there's so much tum pack here. Yeah. I can't believe she didn't say anything. I can't believe she didn't remove the rose petals like this all is just insane. And the love letter from another guy. I don't

understand. So Kristen told the police she was certain Greg had died by suicide. Perhaps having overdosed on some old oxycodone and clenazapam she'd had, but thought she'd thrown away. Between the found love letter and the wedding photo, Kristen's assessment made sense to the police. She said her husband had seemed depressed for a while, that she had asked for a separation over the weekend, and that Greg had been drinking heavily the night before.

Kristen also said the Rose petals were likely her husband's way of displaying a final bit of romance. He knew American Beauty was Kristen's favorite movie. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the Kevin Spacey, Mina Suvari film, there's that scene where he fantasizes about her lying in the bed of Rose Petals, which is what Kristen was referring to here. When the death investigator finished analyzing the scene, she also determined there was no signs of foul play. Agreeing with Kristen's assessment, police wrote Greg's death off as a suicide.

But Greg's family was certain. There had to be more to the story. Which is crazy because I did not see it going this way. I didn't see her killing him. I think I thought it was gonna be the opposite. I mean, we haven't gotten there yet. Who knows if that's what happened, but I would assume at this point that's what happened.

So Greg's brother Jerome felt the death wreaked of a conspiracy. For starters, he claimed that Greg hated drugs and refused to ever take them. He didn't know why this time would be any different. Plus, Greg didn't leave a suicide note. If this was over some romantic fallout, then why wouldn't Greg have expressed how he felt before his death? Finally, Jerome believed Kristen could not be trusted. He actually

lived with the couple in San Diego when they first started dating, and he had witnessed Kristen's drug problem firsthand. He knew what lies she was capable of. And her emotions in the days and weeks following Greg's death seemed disingenuant to Jerome, almost as if she had something to hide. Well, if there were any secrets left to be unraveled, an autopsy would likely do the trick. The catch was, Kristen worked for the Medical Examiner's Office, which meant performing Greg's autopsy could prove to be a conflict of interest. So the medical examiner's office did something a little unprecedented. They outsourced Greg's autopsy to the University of California San Diego's morgue, and they

discovered a few interesting details that seemed to support Kristen's theory, but also as well as Jerome's. For example, Greg did prove to have high levels of clenazapam and oxycodone in his system, but he tested positive for another drug that measured way higher. Fentanyl. Greg had over 19 times the amount that would have caused him to stop breathing. While you hear a lot of horror stories today about cocaine and other recreational drugs being laced with fentanyl. Back in 2000 it was a pretty rare thing to find in someone's body. Particularly someone who hadn't been

treated with anesthesia as fentanyl is one of the main components. And what kind of person would have access to drugs like fentanyl? Well, a toxicologist would probably have access. See the truth was, Kristen had been keeping some pretty major secrets from Greg for several months before he died. I assume she was doing drugs again. Well, back in early 2000, around the same time, Kristen sat Greg down and told him she was filling a bit smothered. A new employee had started working at the Medical Examiner's office. His name was Michael Robertson, a 30-year-old handsome, Australian doctor who charmed the pants off just about everyone,

including Priston. Just a few weeks after his start date, Dr. Robertson became somewhat of a mentor to Kristen as they began finding ways to work more closely. And that turned into sneaking away from work for private lunches, where the two discussed how unhappy they were in their respective marriages,

which kind of turned into whispers around the office that something romantic seemed to be going on between the two married adults, or at the very least how Kristen appeared to be getting preferential treatment from the new manager. In May of 2000, Dr. Robertson asked Kristen if she would accompany him to a toxicology conference about an hour north. Suspecting that Kristen was pulling away, Greg tried to convince his wife not to go,

but she told him it was important for her career. It was during that conference that Kristen and Dr. Robertson had sex for the very first time. And after that, their relationship skyrocketed. Robertson showered her with romantic gifts and love letters. Kristen skimmed up ways for them to break up with their partners and run off together. So I mean, as I'm researching, I'm like, well, no wonder Kristen is not liking her new marriage and is feeling like maybe they made it the same. She's in love with another guy.

Meanwhile, Robertson denied to his co-workers that anything was going on between him and Kristen. Robertson was even scolded by his boss about inappropriate work relationships. But without any proof that the two were actually having an affair, there was nothing that could be done in the workplace. It's funny that he's denying it because he probably is trying to save his marriage at the same time.

While she's trying to get out of it. It's annoying. This seemed to work in Robertson's favor because instead of losing his job, he was actually promoted that summer to chief toxicologists. Wait, how do you go? How? Just the workplace, man.

It's weird. It's a weird thing. Interesting. But it seemed like Kristen couldn't deal with the pressure of the affair alongside her imploding marriage. Because around the same time, Kristen began stealing large quantities of methamphetamines from the lab she worked at. Remember, part of Kristen's job was to log drugs.

And sometimes those were the drugs that was found at crime scenes. Meaning she had full access to the storage lockers where those drugs were kept. It's kind of, I'm thinking about it, I'm surprised maybe they didn't know about her past, maybe none of that was in there, but almost like she should never even be given access in the first place. That's so much temptation for someone who was an addict and who's trying to recover and get on the first place. That's so much temptation for someone who's was an addict and who's trying to recover and get on the right track. It's kind of like when they say someone is struggling with alcoholism, just not to go to the bar.

Yeah. Because you really are just tempting yourself. And that's exactly what she's doing, but it work. Eventually, this led to slowly but surely Kristen's addiction returning. And this led her to smoke meth in one of the highly ventilated rooms at work. So she was also partaking in drugs at work. And by the time their first wedding anniversary came around on June 5th, Greg was still completely unaware that

Kristen's drug habit had returned and that she'd been having an affair with a colleague. But Kristen already had one foot out the door. She told her mother she was looking for a new apartment and wanted to separate from Greg. Come September, she began keeping a diary that she strategically left around the house, just hoping that Greg would stumble upon her inner thoughts and end the relationship. For her, only that day never came. By the time October rolled around, Kristen's addiction was back full force. Except she'd exhausted the supply at the Medical Examiner's office and was now using Greg's computer to search for things like making crystal meth easy. Oh my gosh. Here's the thing about crystal meth. It's like breaking bad.

It's so damaging that it can literally change the chemical composition of the brain. It can lead to permanent mental health issues like depression, memory lapses, even paranoid psychosis. Symptoms that Kristen was openly exhibiting by this time. To the point where she couldn't hide her drug problem from her husband any longer, which then leads us back to that first weekend in November, where Greg was found. It was around November 2nd when Greg discovered Kristen sitting in the living room reading

a love letter from Dr. Robertson. Greg snatched it away and in that moment had confirmed his suspicions about Kristen's work romance. But Greg chopped up the behavior to his wife's obvious drug problem. Yeah. He shredded the letter and told Kristen that he was going to expose her drug problem as well as the affair to her employees.

In his mind, it was the only way to get her clean and for her to get her life back on track, kind of like forcer in the rock bottom, make her lose her job, and then hopefully that helps her. Oh, man, I don't, oh, I can't really speak on that because I don't know, but that sucks. It all sucks. Yeah. But

Kristen was not going to let that happen. On Sunday, November 5th, Greg woke up with one of the worst hangovers of his life. When he spoke to his brother, he told him that Kristen had made them some drinks the night before, but he didn't think he'd consumed that much alcohol. By the morning of November 6th, Greg was in bad shape. Because surprise, surprise, Kristen had been slipping him a cocktail of drugs over the weekend. Everything from clinazapam to oxycodone to an unspecified date rape drug. But before leaving for work that morning of the six, Kristen called Greg's

boss and told him he wouldn't be in because he wasn't feeling well. The truth was, Greg was already likely in a coma. Around 9.30 a.m. Kristen strolled into Dr. Robertson's office and closed the door. The two reportedly had a heated private discussion before Kristen left his office crying. Some think Kristen was maybe updating Robert's in on the status of her husband's condition. It's weird to me that she thinks she can get away with this. Well, it's also weird that she thinks, oh, I'll just kill my husband,

and then I can keep hiding my drug addiction and actually live with my lover. And let me put some roses around his body and let me put a letter in his hand like get out of here. So throughout the day, Kristen went between work and home a few times to make sure that Greg hadn't improved to make sure her plan was working. And during those trips home was believed to have administered Greg the one drug. She knew the medical examiner's office didn't routinely test for but in all.

After one of those trips home, Kristen drove to a grocery store and purchased some soup, cold medicine, and a single red rose. When Kristen returned to the apartment that night, she began staging this scene as a suicide. She's nuts. I just don't understand. That's crazy. How you go to work knowing that your husband is overdosing at home and in a coma and dying and you just keep going about your life. And as well, he literally saved her the first time. Yeah.

And then now she's killing him. Yeah. What is up with that? It also goes to show how focused she probably is on, I need my drugs. Oh yeah. She's so far gone and addicted that she, all she can think about is,

well, if I kill my husband, then I can still do drugs and I get my job, but I can still do drugs. Yeah. She placed their wedding photo under Greg's head, left a love letter from Dr. Roberts and crumpled on the floor near the bed and plucked the petals from the rose

before scattering them around Greg's half naked body. By this point, chances were Greg had already stopped breathing. Then at around 9pm, she smoked some crystal meth before calling the paramedics hysterical about finding her husband dead. Had the medical examiner not outsourced that autopsy, they may have never discovered the insane amount of fentanyl in Greg's body. Once Christen's boss heard about the discovery, he summoned her into his office and placed Christen on administrative leave. A few days later, employees discovered that there were over

127 milligrams and 15 dermal patches of fentanyl missing from their storage room. Once the police caught wind of this, they knew they had to switch Greg's cause of death from potential suicide to a homicide investigation. Making matters worse for Kristen, someone had learned that she'd not only stolen methamphetamine, but had been using it in the office during work hours. After that, Kristen was promptly fired.

As was Dr. Robertson for felling to report his knowledge of this to their superiors. So her love affair knew she was stealing drugs and had not come forward and said anything. Do you think that he knew she was going to kill her husband? And I could be totally wrong. But I mean, what if they talked about it? Would you know how I feel like affairs go, oh, what if we can be together? What if it can be real one day? Chris Watts. Yes.

I mean, you'll never know and we'll never know. I really hope that he wasn't involved in that. But well, it's funny. You say that because even more damning when Dr. Robertson's replacement came in and cleaned out his old desk, he found dozens of articles on the implications of fentanyl and case studies on fentanyl overdoses. What? There's so they're both planning this? I don't know, but it somewhat looks like it.

All right. So once police learned about the details of the affair between Kristen and Dr. Robertson, they basically learn everything you guys now know. Yeah. Bolts became suspects in Greg's death. Only Dr. Robertson had fled back to Australia right after his termination, which meant for now, police had to focus their efforts on the one suspect

they could do something about. He totally was involved. Kristen Rossum. By June 2001, Kristen had found a new job working as an assistant chemist at a biotech company called TriLink. By this point, her addiction had gotten so bad that the sores had returned to her face. She was constantly picking at her skin and nails, she looked thin as a rail, and her eyes

were constantly bloodshot. Yet, she managed to still show up for work and perform her duties. Although on the morning of June 25th, Kristen appeared worse than usual. She came in visibly upset, and when her coworker asked her what was wrong, Kristen said she'd heard the police had issued a warrant for her arrest. Kristen packed up the things on her desk and returned to her apartment a short while later. The 25-year-old Kristen got high, one final time, and waited for the fateful knock at her front door. By the afternoon, it came, for it to open the door calmly. She sat on the couch and listened without pushback as

she was read her Miranda rights. Her face covered in tears, she was handcuffed and brought down to the lost, clean as women's detention facility where she was fingerprinted and photographed, and forced to patiently await her fate. As for Dr. Robertson, you wasn't off the hook either. Detectives were still considering him a possible suspect, but until they had enough to charge him with crime, there was no way to extradite him back to the US for questioning. However, two weeks before Kristen's preliminary hearing, the district attorney offered to pay Dr. Robertson's way back to the U.S. to testify as a witness in Kristen's case to share his side of the story. Okay.

Except Robertson refused, leaving the woman who'd fallen for him to fend entirely for herself. So the DA said, listen, we'll fly you back and you can testify against her. And he says no, which to me, guilty fishy. On July 2, 2001, Kristen arrived at her arrangement hearing pleading not guilty to the first degree murder charges against her husband. For a crime such as this, a death sentence was on the table. However, the San Diego district attorney chose not to pursue that option for Kristen.

She was, however, facing the possibility of life in prison without parole, and her trial was set for the fall of 2002. But come January of that year, Kristen was released on a $1.25 million bail. Kristen returned to her San Diego apartment. She went back to her job at tri-link. She even found a new boyfriend while awaiting trial. Wait, the job didn't fire her? She's doing drugs. I know. Meanwhile, Kristen had no problem giving interviews on the subject, insisting each time she was completely innocent that she had done nothing to hurt her husband. At one point, she even proposed the theory that Greg had died by suicide and framed her and Dr. Robertson for his death out of spite.

Well, in October, 2002, Kristen finally had her day in court. And you know how when you watch Law N order and you're like, this kind of stuff doesn't happen in the courtroom, like the yelling from the stand, the bickering between the judge and the defendant, like, that's how I imagine it happens. And I'm sad that it doesn't happen like that it happened like that. Oh, it did it does happen. Okay, it doesn't usually happen, but it happened like that in this case. Okay,

Kristen would just yell like audibly yell no while people were testifying after the judge reprimanded her. Kristen replied with an attitude that set the judge off. The judge began cursing at Kristen in the courtroom, saying her behavior was absolute bull crap, but you know, not crap. That it was hurting her case and she had to stop badgering the witness. His rant finished with, I'm not an f-ing idiot.

The judge dropped the f-bomb. Oh, did this get thrown out then? Because are you even allowed to do that as a judge? Yeah. So basically, any respect Kristen might have gained in that courtroom was lost while during her trial. And once the jury was sent to deliberate on November 12th, they knew they weren't dealing with an innocent widow.

That day, ironically, what would have been Greg's 29th birthday? The jury found Kristen guilty of first-degree murder. Come December, she was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, as promised. Kristen's response? She said she couldn't believe the jury found her guilty and that she was going to continue to fight for her innocence. As for Robertson, his involvement in the case is still unclear. However, in 2006, prosecutors reportedly filed a criminal complaint against the doctor naming him a potential co-conspirator in the murder. They charged him with one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Now, it's up to the Australian government whether or not they want to extradite him back to the US. If he ever does make his way back to the States, Michael Robertson could face up to three years in prison. As of this recording, Kristen was still serving her sentence in California and due to the nature of her crime and her cunning intelligence, she's been deemed a high security inmate

and requires a check-in with guards six times a day. Six times, okay. Greg's family saw no point in finding forgiveness for their sister-in-law. I mean, I'll blame them. After the conviction Greg's brother summed up the situation poetically saying, quote, he saved you from the deepest valley of despair and lifted you to the highest peak of success that you will ever attain. When you reach the top, your reward to him was to push him off the cliff when he wasn't looking.

That's exactly what she did. You are an example of the most sinister darkness that exists in this world and your darkness encroached into my life. That is so sad. And that is the case of Greg Rossum. I can't believe that she just goes, I'm going to kill him. I just even feel bad. Was it just she was too involved in drugs? But apparently not because she had another lover too. Like I just, she's psychopath. Like

I don't understand. I just think because the cases like this scare me a little bit because it makes me go, anybody can kill somebody. Yeah. Like anybody. Yeah, it's so hard breaking case for me for Greg because he truly just loved Oh, he was like the best husband in the world and from the time he met her She had been lying and struggling with addiction. He did his best to to support her and bring her out of it and hit like like his brother said His reward was to be murdered. Yeah All right, you guys well that is our case for this week. And we will see you next time with another episode. I love it.

And I hate it. Goodbye.