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[music playing] NARRATOR: On a cold
December night in 1993, Rose Larner left the
convenience store on her way
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to a boyfriend's house. But she was never seen
or heard from again. Rose Larner's disappearance
remained a mystery
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until a tiny clue found years
later uncovered a tragic tale of drugs, romance, and revenge.
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[music playing] Rose Larner was
the second of three children in a broken family.
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She was a highly intelligent,
but very difficult teenager. Rose Larner was an 18-year-old
girl who liked to spend a lot
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of time out at night with her
friends away from her family, a family that dubbed her
the vampire because they--
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they only saw her
in the daytime. NARRATOR: Rose's best
friend, Bill Brown, was a boy she had known
since second grade.
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They remained friends
even after high school. First girl I ever
got a kiss from.
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Her and two other girls
came down our house and they chased me
through the woods
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and my brothers held me
down and she gave me a kiss. And we was just
basically friends.
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We had crushes on each
other, but nothing serious, and we were just kids. NARRATOR: After high school,
Rose worked at a pizza shop
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in her hometown of
Lansing, Michigan and started dating a friend of
Bill Brown's, John Ortiz-Kehoe.
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He came on quite polite. He was a local star, rap star. I mean, everyone thought
he was just it, you know?
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This was John Kehoe. And when I first met him,
I thought he was a nice. I thought he was all right.
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NARRATOR: Rose, John
Kehoe, and Bill Brown were inseparable, spending their
days and most of their nights
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together. For a time, Rose and John
Kehoe lived together, but the relationship
didn't last.
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Kehoe moved out, and
Rose was devastated. John, at some
point, decided that he wasn't interested in Rose
and tried to break it off.
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Rose wasn't real
keen on that idea. NARRATOR: On the night
Rose disappeared,
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she stopped in to visit
her mother, who was working at the convenience store. Rose said she was headed to
the home of her friend, Keith,
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who lived nearby. She walked up to
my work and told me she was walking over to a
boyfriend she had at the time.
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Her and John were split up. And-- and I asked her not to. I told her I had a bad
feeling about tonight,
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go back and get to bed, but
she didn't want to do that. NARRATOR: Rose preferred to walk
that night instead of driving
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and did not return home. The next day, Rose Markey called
her daughter's friend, Keith,
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who said that Rose
never showed up. Rose didn't show up for
work that day either.
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Rose ran on the wild side. She was independent,
rebellious, and it would not have been out of the-- out
of the realm of possibility
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for her to have
simply left the area and gone looked for
another lifestyle. NARRATOR: Rose Larner made
approximately 1,500 telephone
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calls every month,
but no one heard from her after she disappeared. Nobody heard from Rosie.
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And the detective
that was assigned to the case, that was
his sign that there was something wrong there.
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Because he said
that someone just doesn't break a habit like that. NARRATOR: Rose Larner's
mother still hoped
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for her daughter's safe return. Perhaps something in
Rose's phone records
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would provide a clue. After two weeks went by with
no word from Rose Larner, Lansing police began one of the
most intensive searches ever
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undertaken in central Michigan. They dragged area rivers,
coordinated search teams
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to look for clues in the
surrounding neighborhoods, and investigated every lead.
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DONALD MARTIN: The
persistent rumors, Rose is in so an
so's backyard, Rose is in so and so's
basement, and I'll admit,
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we dug up a few basements
and drained a few gravel pits looking for Rose with nothing.
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Came up dry every time. Nothing. NARRATOR: Police learned
that Rose Larner spoke
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with her ex-boyfriend,
John Ortiz-Kehoe, on the night she disappeared. Kehoe had an alibi
for that night.
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He was on a date
with another woman. Bill Brown was with
Kehoe and his date on the night Rose disappeared
and corroborated Kehoe's alibi.
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For the next 2 and 1/2
years, police could find no trace of Rose Larner. You're simply stymied.
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You're stalled. That was where the
police were at-- at that time, 2 and 1/2
years after she disappeared.
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NARRATOR: The state police
began their investigation with a fresh look at Rose's
ex-boyfriend, John Ortiz-Kehoe.
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They quickly discovered
that Kehoe and Rose Larner had an unusual relationship,
one that continued
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even after they broke up. In one incident, Rose followed
Kehoe to this fraternity house
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near Michigan State University. Kehoe was on a date
with another woman. In a fit of anger,
Rose drove a van
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into the side of Kehoe's truck. BILL BROWN: She was smashing
her mother's van into his truck,
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breaking out his windows. We'd come out my
parents' house and she'd be hiding behind trees.
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NARRATOR: Police also learned
that Kehoe and Bill Brown were in business together,
the drug business,
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and had customers
all over Michigan. DONALD BROOKS: We, as a task
force, put a lot of pressure
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on Bill Brown I mean, we were
talking to family members, we were talking to friends,
we were talking to neighbors,
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we were talking to
all kinds of people had been approached before. NARRATOR: Brown and
Kehoe were together
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on the night Rose
Larner disappeared, but police did not
believe that Brown had told them everything about
their activities that night.
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BILL BROWN: I knew it was gonna
be very hard, very, very hard for them to be
able to get a case.
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I knew the only way would be
is if people started talking. NARRATOR: Bill Brown originally
said he knew nothing about Rose
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Larner's disappearance. But 2 and 1/2 years later,
under constant police pressure,
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he changed his story,
and it was a story so shocking few believed him. When Bill Brown was
sitting there in the office,
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we were hearing things that
we had never heard before. It was an eye-opener. After listening
to his whole story
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about what happened
to Rose Larner, I literally went home
and told my wife that I
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felt like I just met Satan. You know, I almost
stopped on the way home and went into a church
that I didn't belong to.
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It's-- it was-- it was
the most unsettling thing that I've ever been
through, to listen to that.
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NARRATOR: And police
needed science to determine whether Brown
was telling the truth.
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After 2 and 1/2 years of
searching for Rose Larner, Bill Brown finally
revealed what happened
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on the night she disappeared. Brown said that
on December 7, he unexpectedly ran
into Rose Larner
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near the convenience store. Rose told Brown she
wanted to see John Kehoe. Rose was begging me to face
John, and so I finally do.
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I page John, and she asked me
to ask John to come pick her up. John says the only way he'll
agree to that is if she agrees
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to have sex with both of us. NARRATOR: Brown
said Rose agreed. They drove to John
Kehoe's grandparents' home
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because they were
away on vacation. Rose changed her mind
about the threesome. When she did, Brown
said Kehoe murdered her
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and dismembered her body. Brown said they cleaned every
square foot of the house,
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removing all of the
blood, bone, and debris. Later, they drove to a cabin
owned by Bill Brown's parents
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where they burned Rose's body. Afterwards, they spread Rose's
ashes along miles of highway
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throughout Michigan. Brown said he
didn't come forward sooner because he was afraid
Kehoe would murder him as well.
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All I wanted to do
was get away from him. I just wanted to
get away from him. And after that, he basically
kind of kept me hostage.
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I mean, he wouldn't let
me out of his sight. NARRATOR: After 2 and
1/2 years, police finally
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had the break they
were hoping for, but they needed to know if
Brown was telling the truth.
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He'd been involved
in the drug scene, that he ran with this
group that would fight.
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Violence was a part
of their world. He was-- he ran
with a rough crowd. NARRATOR: Brown said Rose
was murdered in the bathroom.
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Police sprayed the area with
luminol, a chemical which can reveal trace
amounts of blood
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even after it's been removed
with water and detergent, but they found nothing.
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On a hallway carpet,
the luminol revealed what appeared to be the
imprint of a bloody bucket,
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but after 2 and 1/2 years,
there was not enough blood to perform DNA testing. Investigators feared they
were at a dead end, until they
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noticed a small spot
on the wallpaper just outside the bathroom. It had the color
consistent with blood,
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and it had kind of
the configuration of what you would suspect
if a blood droplet was
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falling down a wall. NARRATOR: The spot looked like
part of the wallpaper pattern.
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To see if it was blood,
scientists performed a phenolphthalein test. A wet Q-tip was rubbed
over the spot, then,
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phenolphthalein and hydrogen
peroxide were applied. The Q-tip turned pink, a
positive presumptive test
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for the presence of blood. Of course, we didn't
know whose blood it was. Keep in mind, just because we
find a drop of blood, I mean,
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it could be the grandparents, it
could be anybody's blood that-- we didn't know for sure.
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You know, in my
mind, I'm thinking, you know, could this be a
blood drop of Rose Larner?
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And this point, you know, of
course, I got very excited and thought, you know, what if?
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This could actually
be from our victim. NARRATOR: Scientists were
able to extract enough blood
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from the wallpaper
for DNA analysis, but they have nothing
to compare it to. In Rose Larner's
case file, police
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learned that she had been
involved in a sexual assault four years earlier. After the assault, a
sample of her blood
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was taken and still
existed in police custody. The DNA profile from the
blood on the wallpaper
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matched the DNA from Rose
Larner's blood sample. The odds of the blood
belonging to anyone else
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were 1 in 747 million. Identifying it as Rose
Larner's is what's remarkable.
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That tells us that Rose Larner
was in that house at that time. That corroborates what
Bill Brown told us.
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That was crucial. NARRATOR: Brown also
revealed that they both rinsed rags soaked
with Rose's blood
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in the basement sump pump. Forensic scientists
gathered all of the debris from the bottom of the drain.
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They also excavated
the fire pit near Bill Brown's parents'
cabin, where Rose's
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body had allegedly been burned. The search resembled
an archeological dig. My job at that site was
to excavate the fire pit
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and collect any remains, any
evidence in that fire pit that might be
relevant to the case.
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Specifically, I was
looking for evidence for human bone, human material. NARRATOR: The
fragments were analyzed
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with an ultraviolet
light in order to determine whether
they were bone. Under ultraviolet
light, bone will glow.
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MAY MICHAUD: The fragments
that I did end up finding were very, very small. Probably none of them were
larger than the size of a pea.
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So, initially, when all the
dirt and debris was in there, it was very difficult
to tell what we had.
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NARRATOR: The bone chips
were too damaged and degraded for DNA analysis. But they were analyzed to
determine if they were human.
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Magnified 100 times, human
bone is circular in structure, while animal bone, seen
here, is more linear.
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The bones found in both
sites were clearly human. The number of circular
structures in the bones,
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are osteons, increases with age. They were relatively few
osteons in the bone chips
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found in the debris. We were able to determine that
the remains were clearly human,
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and, in some cases,
they probably represented somebody who was a
teenager or in their early 20s.
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People just don't find bone
fragments in their house. And it collaborated
with the bone fragments
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that we found in northern
Michigan at the site where Bill Brown's
property, where they took
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her and burned her remains. NARRATOR: The blood
and the bone chips were exactly where Bill
Brown said they'd be.
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Police were now convinced that
Rose Larner had been murdered. According to Bill
Brown's confession
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and the forensic
evidence, prosecutors now knew what happened to Rose
Larner on her last night alive.
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Shortly after
visiting her mother at the convenience store,
Rose ran into her childhood
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friend, Bill Brown. BILL BROWN: Hi, Rose. Hi, Billy. Let's go get John. BILL BROWN: Fine.
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NARRATOR: At Rose's
suggestion, they picked up her ex-boyfriend, John Kehoe.
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I'm gonna go inside
and grab some stuff for the night's festivities. NARRATOR: John Kehoe bought
some supplies for the evening,
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including a hatchet, a knife,
and some lighter fluid. Brown said he was not
aware of the specific items
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Kehoe purchased until
later that night. Once at Kehoe's
grandparents' home,
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all three took a
shower together. Kehoe again tried to initiate
the sexual threesome,
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but Rose refused. At the sink, without
warning, Kehoe strangled her. In the shower stall,
Kehoe slit her throat
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and dismembered her body
using the knife and hatchet he purchased at the store. Brown and Kehoe spent the
next two days cleaning
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the blood, bone, and debris. A bloody bucket left
the stain on the carpet found years later
with the luminol.
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Rags soaked with
blood and bone were rinsed in the basement sump
pump, where tiny pieces of bone
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were also discovered. And a blood spot on the
wall was identified as Rose Larner's through DNA testing.
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Her body was burned in
an outdoor fire pit. After the cremation,
the ashes were dumped out of the car
window as Kehoe and Brown
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drove back to Lansing. BILL BROWN: I did say a
prayer for right afterwards. And I'm not a religious person,
but I did pray for her soul.
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And-- and-- that--
that night-- night-- many nights after, that's about
all the thought I put into it.
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All the other thought
was in saving my-- saving my butt. NARRATOR: The bones
in the sump pump,
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the luminol impression
of the bloody bucket, the tiny speck of
blood on the wallpaper,
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and the bone fragments
in the fire pit all confirmed Brown's story. Before police could
question John Kehoe,
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he fled the country. After a six-month
international manhunt, Kehoe was finally located.
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DONALD BROOKS: When I saw him
for the first time in Mexico, he was drinking a beer in a bar.
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Four minutes later,
he's sitting in US Customs, ends up on the
other side of the bridge.
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It was like slam, bam, and he
was out of there right now. I don't think he
knew what happened.
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NARRATOR: At the trial,
Kehoe had a ready defense. He claimed that
it was Bill Brown
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who had murdered Rose Larner. John Kehoe was gonna
point the finger at him and say, well, gee,
I didn't do it.
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I was just there, and
he killed my girlfriend. He went nuts on coke and
killed my girlfriend.
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We knew that was coming. NARRATOR: But prosecutors
argued that Bill Brown had no motive to kill Rose Larner.
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John Kehoe did. DOUG BARRETT: His motive was the
problems that Rose Larner was causing for him in
the days and weeks
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prior to her disappearance. She was embarrassing him. She smashed his truck. It was typical for Rose not
to be intimidated by this guy
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and to simply get into
arguments with him and call him names,
not back down. That was Rose Larner.
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And this, I think, was
something new for John Kehoe, and it angered him. It really angered him.
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NARRATOR: Although the crime
occurred 2 and 1/2 years earlier, Rose Larner was still
able to speak to the jury
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through the power
of forensic science. In this case, you know,
I don't take the position
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that we didn't have a body. I think we did, we just had
very small pieces of it.
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So, I mean, they
basically gave us a body. NARRATOR: The jury
deliberated just over an hour.
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JURY FOREMAN: We, the
jury, find the defendant, John Ortiz-Kehoe,
guilty of first degree
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premeditated murder. NARRATOR: Kehoe
received Michigan's maximum sentence, life in prison
without possibility of parole.
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Rose Larner's grave is empty. All that remains of her body
are the tiny bone fragments,
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which are still in evidence. ROSE MARKEY: I hope John Kehoe
lives a long time in prison,
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and I hope he thinks of Rosie
every day that he's in prison. I feel a person like
that would rather
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die than to be in prison
the rest of his life, so I feel that that's
a just punishment.
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But if he were to die,
I hope it's brutal. NARRATOR: Bill Brown was
sentenced to one year in prison
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for helping cover up the murder. He is now out on parole. If I were to know it was
gonna take place, like I said,
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I wouldn't have been there. She wouldn't have been. Never would've happened.
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The way I feel about it is
that by convicting John Kehoe, I just saved other people's
lives, other young girls lives.
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Because I just feel
that it was his nature and that he enjoyed killing
Rose Larner and that
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he would do it again. [music playing]