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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thank you
00:01:44
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out the store Page and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] oh oh oh oh oh oh
00:03:58
oh portions of the following were taken from a June 1965 Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper article with the
00:04:09
headline Houston couple found dismembered in ice box the dissected bodies of a quiet elderly couple were
00:04:17
found in the refrigerator of their home dead are Fred Christopher Rogers age 81 a retired real estate man and his
00:04:28
wife edua age 79 their bodies were decapitated and cut into numerous pieces the bodies were found after a
00:04:38
nephew Marvin Martin aged 56 told police his phone calls to the house went unanswered and he found the house
00:04:48
locked officers Bullock and Barta went to the house with Martin and entered they found the one and a half
00:04:56
story home disorderly soon after an officer opened the 5 footx 3ft electric refrigerator on all of the shelves and
00:05:06
in the freezer compartment were the dismembered bodies there was little food in the ice
00:05:12
box medical examiner Henry Eisman believes the pair were killed 5 days ago he doesn't know exactly
00:05:21
where whoever did this apparently took their time and knew what they were doing the dismembering was a fairly neat job
00:05:30
he said quote I must await further examination to speculate whether the killer had a professional knowledge of
00:05:38
the human anatomy police do not know what instrument killed and dismembered the couple there was little blood in the
00:05:46
house which had been thoroughly washed and cleaned homicide Captain Morrison said
00:05:53
the dismembering Apparently was done in the downstairs bathtub although it had no blood in
00:06:01
it however tests indicated blood had been on the recently washed bathroom floor traces of blood were found on the
00:06:09
washed kitchen floor and on a wooden step that had been recently scrubbed there was no sign of forced entry to the
00:06:16
house all doors had been locked with the blinds drawn neighbors could not pinpoint when
00:06:23
they last saw the dead pair only that it was not this week Martin said the last time he talked to edua on the telephone
00:06:32
was 6 days ago the details of the double homicide were gross and disturbing the murders were violent and vicious the
00:06:41
cleanup and concealment of the crimes were messy and tedious who would attack and kill an
00:06:48
elderly couple in their own home who would go to Such Great Lengths to delay the discovery who could have committed
00:06:56
murders so cold this is True Crime garage and this is the story of the ice boox [Music]
00:07:17
[Music] murders this show is never for the squeamish and we are not the types that
00:07:24
Revel in the Gory details but when you're talking True Crime sometimes the Gory details are necessary and we will
00:07:33
start off today by going through the autopsy reports of our two victims so if you are eating or about to enjoy a snack
00:07:42
just stop stop eating and keep listening or if you're like me and you enjoy this
00:07:48
part of the show then put that sandwich in your mouth keep chomping these autopsies are easier to listen to if
00:07:54
you're drinking a beer by the way so the autopsies Captain were formed by the chief medical examiner of Harris County
00:08:03
Texas this is Henry Eisman who was quoted in today's trailer and because we have two victims we have two case
00:08:11
numbers eda's was case number 65- 1615 and Fred's was case number 65-1 1616 these are the case numbers for the
00:08:24
postmortem examination of the body described as that of an 81-year-old white male this is Fred Christopher
00:08:33
Rogers and the examination of the body described in the report as 72-year-old white female edua Rogers no
00:08:43
middle name listed on the report first off I want to address eda's age as some of you may have picked up on the Fort
00:08:52
Worth Star Telegram article listed Ed wia's age as 79 the medical examiner report says she was 72 and I found other
00:09:02
credible sources that states edua was 15 years younger than her husband Fred at best only one of them is Right 79 seems
00:09:13
to be cited the most but the autopsy in which persons who work for the county of
00:09:19
Harris Texas have to sign off and certify that the document is true and correct well that report says 72 years
00:09:28
of AG so we're going to roll with that either way they're both pretty old they're old the brief Discovery report
00:09:36
reads husband and wife Fred and edua lived at 1815 Driscoll Street in Houston Texas they were reported missing and
00:09:47
several days later their dismembered bodies were found stuffed in a large refrigerator at their home some in the
00:09:54
deep freezer compartment others in the sliding tray under the Deep Freeze and larger portions of the bodies on the
00:10:01
shelves of the refrigerator the examination at the scene was made beginning at 11:30 p.m.
00:10:10
on June 23rd 1965 and supervision of the removal of the body parts was accomplished at that
00:10:17
time and as stated two victims means two reports and there are six lengthy and descriptive Pages for each victim but
00:10:28
I'll simplify by both victims were dismembered in the same manner take a big body and make it into smaller pieces
00:10:36
and disarticulated through the joints this mostly means use a nice sharp and somewhat precise instrument to cut
00:10:43
through flesh muscle and tendons and then use a good amount of force to pop out at the joints this was head arms
00:10:53
hands torso pelvis thighs shins and feet it was the examiner findings that Fred's
00:11:02
death was the result of a fractured skull homicide there were several skull fractures and blunt lacerations to the
00:11:11
scalp there were fractured bones around Fred's eye sockets and someone used a sharp instrument to remove the eyes this
00:11:20
was easily determined by the jagged cut lines left in the skin around the orbits
00:11:26
right but we're assuming this is postmortem yes so he would have been attacked and Beat to Death struck about
00:11:34
the head all of this dismemberment is believed to have taken place after death and we're guessing that this object is a
00:11:42
blunt object something like maybe a baseball batter or hammer or something like that correct again edua was
00:11:50
dismembered in practically the same way but her eyes were not removed and her death however was much different it was
00:11:57
the examiner's finding that eda's death was the result of a gunshot wound of the head homicide The
00:12:05
Gunshot was to the left temporal area of the skull the path of the bullet was from 1 in posterior to the left ear the
00:12:14
bullet penetrated the skull traveled from left to right through the brain and exited at the right cheek well let's
00:12:21
pause right there for a second so we have two ways of death one somebody is bludging to death the other way they're
00:12:30
shot instantaneous death correct what I'm guessing so this could one imply we have two killers
00:12:40
because we have two different ways that these individuals are attack or they are
00:12:44
attacked in different manners for a reason it does look like she was struck in the face area as well with a blunt
00:12:54
object I could not determine from the report if they were able to decide if that was before or after The Gunshot but
00:13:02
yeah you're right two seemingly different methods of attack the weird thing here though too is we talked about
00:13:10
some of the Neighbors in the trailer saying you know we can't recall exactly when the last time we saw this couple
00:13:18
was we can say that we don't feel that it was this week what we don't have is any of the neighbors saying I heard a
00:13:26
gunshot yeah or we saw anybody else going in and out of the house and that's why I think you have that statement from
00:13:35
the medical examiner that we covered in today's trailer in the newspaper article
00:13:39
where he says we're not 100% sure where they were killed he's probably expecting
00:13:45
that someone would have heard a gunshot in the area a small bullet fragment was recovered from her body as well as a
00:13:53
metal fragment this is from a pair of glasses Okay so the victim edua would have been wearing these glasses when she
00:14:03
was shot M and the metal fragment broke off of the glasses and was lodged in the
00:14:09
head as well but this was their only home they didn't have like a vacation home or a hunting cabin or any other
00:14:18
place that police think this is where the murders Could Happen correct this was like a modest
00:14:26
home in a fairly nice neighborhood but it does not seem that the elderly couple had a lot of money right and so
00:14:36
property extra properties vacation homes a cabin out in the woods it does not appear that they had any of those things
00:14:46
now we say dismembered but also really dissected because some of the organs and innards were
00:14:55
removed part of this Captain is just going to be kind of necessary as the way that it's
00:15:03
described that the bodies were were cut up into smaller pieces the in particular
00:15:09
the pelvis being removed from the Torso area now these were not found in the refrigerator the organs or innards that
00:15:17
were removed they weren't found in the refrigerator with the body parts in fact these were not recovered from the home
00:15:25
at all according to the reports human tissue fragments were recovered from a manhole located between Morris and
00:15:33
Woodhead on Vermont Street days later this was brought in by officer thoron and the specimen was found to be that of
00:15:43
human tissue lung and fat how would they know that these would be in there in the manhole yeah I think what
00:15:53
we have here is this is there's no nice way of putting this H just go for it whoever was dismembering the
00:16:03
bodies they were taking some of these pieces and flushing them down the toilet and so it was when they find that these
00:16:12
items are missing mhm probably only find this through the actual autopsy the medical examination that we're going
00:16:20
through and this is probably an addendum to their their document here saying the
00:16:25
officer brought these in days later they can go to the city planers office or whomever and say okay show me where
00:16:34
these drains run from the homes in this area and because these pieces are missing it may have just been
00:16:42
speculation or a good guess on the investigator's behalf and they tracked this down and found you know these these
00:16:50
items discarded or the city planner is like an expert and he's like you'll literally find these and if you go down
00:16:58
the manhole right right Sherlock Holmes was working the the case and there was another Discovery this was in a ditch in
00:17:07
the 6200 block of Hardy Street this discovery was made by an officer shelborn this was long segments of
00:17:17
trachea and intestines all heavily infested with maggots oh that's awesome um yeah fine too you said
00:17:27
maggots but is this another situation where they would have gone down a drain and that's why we find
00:17:35
find them in this ditch or and kind of flush out into the ditch or these or these something where somebody had to
00:17:42
stop their car and dump these out the thing is that is interesting to me I think that I go with with the First
00:17:51
Choice there because it doesn't seem that they would have had any type of lead where they believed somebody left
00:17:58
the house with any of these items to discard them later and elsewhere MH I think it's simply this is where they
00:18:05
washed away too right because here's my point though is we we have evidence blood evidence that there was blood
00:18:14
obviously on the bathroom floor possible blood evidence that there's blood in the
00:18:20
tub the downstairs bathroom but cops in this case over and over say it's possible they were murdered somewhere
00:18:28
else and to me I don't understand that statement because everything to me you you have head
00:18:38
wounds so you're going to have masses massive amounts of blood so why would the person kill them
00:18:47
out in a field have massive amounts of blood put them into a vehicle where they're going to have more blood
00:18:54
evidence all over their vehicle take them back to their house back to their home dismember them it seems like
00:19:01
everything happened with inside their home absolutely I think this is just a situation of the police going you know
00:19:09
what we're pretty certain this all went down inside the house the only thing that makes us question that is no one in
00:19:17
the immediate area reported hearing a gunshot we've asked did did you hear a gunshot gunot right a silencer or manade
00:19:27
silencer yeah they say no and so I think it's you know we're 99% positive we're just not going to lock ourselves into a
00:19:35
statement to the public that says that couple was killed in their home because we don't have to mhm and so going
00:19:43
through these autopsies look if you're uh working on a diet that's a good way to stick to your
00:19:52
diet have no issues straying from the diet just read an autopsy report just think about the maggots yeah you will
00:19:58
Fast you will be fasting all right let's get back to the maggots you maggot okay
00:20:02
so I wanted to go through that summarized version my summarized version of the autopsy reports because this is
00:20:10
an unsolved case and rarely do you get such a report in an open case let's get into the the discovery details the
00:20:19
discovery of the bodies what is the most important thing in these unsolved cases
00:20:25
or at least one of them is the details of the discovery what evidence can be found and how can the details help to
00:20:33
lead us to the perpetrator or possibly perpetrators of the homicides as for the details of this
00:20:42
crime scene and the Discovery Well you heard some of it during the trailer but let's get into the rest now it's always
00:20:51
fascinating to me how dramatically different the early details are from the actual
00:20:58
details and I think we see this a little more when it comes to these older cases sometimes I think it's simply some
00:21:07
beat reporter filling some of the blanks in and a rush to get to the press in time here the early reports were pretty
00:21:18
simple and to me they sound very 1960s tough Texas cop type stories and it goes something like this on Wednesday
00:21:28
June 23rd 1965 at the request of the Rogers nephew Marvin Martin Houston Police went to the elderly couple's home
00:21:37
on Driscoll Street and upon receiving no response to Knocking police bust down the front door to the home immediately
00:21:45
noticing the foul stench of death coming from the kitchen officers investigated where they found the refrigerator door
00:21:53
slightly a jar packed so full of body parts that one could not closed the door completely they immediately were aware
00:22:02
that both Fred and his dear wife edua were murdered and dismembered in their home okay
00:22:09
so even though it was reported this way that is not at all how this went down so
00:22:18
yes police were responding on a basic welfare check that was brought about by the way of the elderly couple's
00:22:26
56-year-old nephew Marvin Martin police did find the Home secured the blinds drawn the house dark but they did not
00:22:37
need to bust down the front door this is a smaller two-story home with the second
00:22:43
floor so small that the papers accurately describe the house as a 1 and a half story home the second floor is
00:22:52
two small bedrooms a bathroom and a storage room the first floor ground level is a kitchen dining room living room a
00:23:01
full bath and two more bedrooms the garage is located in the backyard it is an unattached garage and there were two
00:23:10
vehicles that both appeared to not be operable sitting in the driveway I say this because one of the
00:23:17
descriptions I found Captain has both of these vehicles up on blocks there were three doors from the
00:23:27
outside to the inside of the first floor of the home there is the front door that goes
00:23:34
from a small vestib to the living room there is a side door this is nearest the driveway that goes directly into the
00:23:43
kitchen area and there is a back door that goes from the backyard to the small back bedroom on the first floor the
00:23:52
front and side doors were found to be locked the back door to the back bedroom was not locked however someone had
00:24:01
certainly well they didn't want people to come in or anyone coming in that door because someone took the time to stack
00:24:08
heavy flower pots and stack them right up by the door so if you tried to push the door open these heavy pots would
00:24:16
prevent you from doing so the police didn't bust down the front door they simply pushed their way through the back
00:24:24
door once inside they were not greeted with that foul stench of death what they found in the kitchen was food and items
00:24:33
that one would expect to find in the refrigerator instead they were left on the countertops and on the dining room
00:24:39
table and on top of the refrigerator so somebody had to make room correct this leads to the Curiosity of well all of
00:24:48
this stuff was left out why or what is in the fridge in place of these items mhm so the officer opened the fridge
00:24:58
it's like it was like this what's in the box yeah and boom what's in the box absolute wh oh could you
00:25:07
imagine this next part is quite interesting to me the officers very quickly realized that Mrs Rogers is dead
00:25:15
that she's been murdered this likely that they recovered her it wasn't a beautiful day in the
00:25:23
neighborhood right that they recovered her head first from the contents of the fridge
00:25:28
so they the officers upon making this discovery they actually put out a bolo alert a be on the lookout for her
00:25:37
81-year-old husband Fred Rogers they just found his wife dead in their refrigerator in their home and police
00:25:45
want to ask him why right so one victim and boom we have our first suspect Fred Rogers well this lead is shortlived
00:25:56
because after the bolo goes out they realize wait there are too many parts in this fridge there has to be more than
00:26:06
one person in here and then of course they realize that their first suspect Fred Rogers is actually their second
00:26:14
victim this will quickly lead them to their next and best suspect Charles Frederick Rogers this is the elderly
00:26:23
couple's grown 43-year-old son Charles or to some Chuck [Music] [Music] Rogers this show is sponsored by better
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[Music] 2023 all right cheers to everybody that's drinking whether it's a coffee alcohol
00:29:05
Lor beer or just a or a non-alcoholic drink I have every one of those things lined up in front of me right now it's
00:29:13
really disgusting you need to start cleaning your your desk a little bit better it's about to get Wet n Wild
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cheers to everyone all right so I think Captain some background information is very much needed right here we have our
00:29:28
victims and we have our suspect and they they only have one kid right well they did have two at one time and that's what
00:29:39
we're going to get into here so again all sources have Fred Rogers as 81 years old at the time of his death most
00:29:45
sources have edua at 79 years old and what makes this even more difficult to determine is their gravestones from my
00:29:55
understanding they had just one one gravestone for the both of them because they died at the same time and this
00:30:03
gravestone has no dates on it it does not have a birth date or the date of the death it simply says the
00:30:12
Rogers the funeral arrangements were paid for by eda's Brother Edwin now Wikipedia list Fred Rogers Fred
00:30:20
Christopher Rogers as born January 19th 1884 and Ed ior Rogers born October 8th 1892 with no
00:30:33
real reference listed for that information however this would be more in line with the autopsy reports Fred
00:30:41
and edua had two children a son and a daughter their son Charles lived with them at the time of their murders that
00:30:51
is why the bolo the be on the lookout quickly went from Fred to Charles once they located Fred's remains
00:31:00
alongside of his wife mhm now they have to believe they being law enforcement the high probability that the
00:31:10
43-year-old man the only other person that lives in the house is likely either another victim that is missing from the
00:31:19
crime scene or he's responsible for this and he's fled sadly their daughter was deceived
00:31:27
and had been for years the daughter Betty died in a car wreck back in 1929 during a family vacation the Roger
00:31:36
family Dynamic was pretty hostile and to me really just very sad the three Fred edua
00:31:48
and Charles are described to not have gotten along very well and that's about as polite as you can put it in fact most
00:31:55
reports put it that the three hated each other and left no room for any other assessment of the situation MH I say
00:32:05
it's sad to me because I could not imagine living in a modest home with two other people and all three have a very
00:32:13
strong dislike for each other so much so that it's reported that they were extremely rude to one another and at at
00:32:22
most times just downright shitty to one another I think you go through phases you know where your parents are your
00:32:29
parents you respect them you disrespect them you you think they're smart you think they're idiots you go back and
00:32:36
forth but eventually you become an adult and you realize how many things they've
00:32:40
done for you and and then at some point you just really become friends with them
00:32:47
and it seems like they never got to that that place in this family and you want wonder is this because of you know
00:32:55
there's speculation that there was abuse going on in this family for years or is
00:33:01
this some kind of reaction to the trauma of this family losing one of their members so what I'm doing here Captain
00:33:10
is taking information from several different sources and overlapping it trying to come up with a conclusion of
00:33:19
what the family Dynamic was from what I can see and and trying to be fair to all
00:33:26
of those sources because they're not reporting the exact same things but from what I can see it appears that that
00:33:34
Fred and Charles father and son that these two did not like each other at all and had not for a long long time there
00:33:45
were suggestions that Fred was abusive especially to the son to Charles it's been said that he could be abusive
00:33:55
physically as well as verbally I don't know there was never any reference that he was abusive to his
00:34:04
wife but it also seems like she did not get along with her husband or her son but but more so that she was a little
00:34:12
bit caught in the middle if that makes sense if Charles look he didn't he lived with his parents but by all accounts he
00:34:20
didn't speak with them but it it is said that if he were to have to speak with one of them it
00:34:28
would be mom and not Dad and Dad was old he's 81 by this time and he it appears he's disliked and hated the son who
00:34:39
shares the same opinion for years Bo again look if you have this little bit of information and we know what we know
00:34:48
from the autopsy you start going okay is it possible that there's one only one attacker here and if he had some kind of
00:34:56
uh different level of respect or I guess love I guess would be a weird way to put it or hatred or hatred a
00:35:05
different level of hatred towards his mother than his father then you could see okay well I'm going to have a little
00:35:12
bit of Mercy on her and make sure that her death is quick mhm and Father's death I I'm beating him to death I mean
00:35:22
what do you say over 10 blows to the skull that's seems accurate and that is um a fascinating find by you there it's
00:35:31
it is it's two very different methods of death and it almost it's almost showing what the
00:35:38
attacker thinks of each victim as the attack is going about we have Fred Rogers his attack seems much more
00:35:47
personable much more violent and edua is quicker with the bullet to the head and
00:35:55
then we see even during the dismemberment of the two bodies they are treated somewhat differently MH with
00:36:02
Fred's eyes having been removed someone took the time to use a sharp small instrument to dig
00:36:12
out the eyes now I should point out that it was probably this this I can't even believe
00:36:20
these words are coming out of my mouth it probably was not in very difficult to do because it looks like all the blows
00:36:28
to Fred's head that killed him were around the eye areas and in the forehead so very much the center of the face
00:36:39
because the the um cheekbones and the bones around the eye sockets were very much fractured all the way around in
00:36:50
fact police believe that a claw hammer was used in the attack on Fred and again edua was struck once at least once that
00:37:00
they could determine with some type of blunt object to the Head it very likely was the same instrument that was used to
00:37:07
kill Fred there's quite a few uh crime scene photos that you can find on Google I will post those at our Instagram
00:37:16
Twitter and Facebook at True Crime garage they're they're not graphic by any means but it does give you a sense
00:37:24
of the house um what the kitchen looked like what the refrigerator looked like what what these two individuals um look
00:37:34
like and you know it's fascinating to me and it's just something that's really truly so simple that you don't you
00:37:41
wouldn't think about it this is not something that that the average Joe would analyze or
00:37:46
consider but we've done 440 episodes four more than 440 episodes so far I am shocked at how how
00:37:57
often a hammer is described as a murder weapon mhm and I think it's just for the
00:38:03
simple fact that it's something that is available in almost every home there happens to be one there and it's a
00:38:12
deadly weapon and the the captain is just is raising a hammer right right now slowly and he's walking towards me now
00:38:22
but if you go back to like the 1700s the 1800s and you see time and time again that there's all of these Axe Murders
00:38:30
and you go what the hell's going on there must be some serial killer Axe Murderer on the loose no it was just
00:38:38
everybody had one every house every home every yard had an Axe and when things got crazy and somebody lost their [ __ ]
00:38:48
and went after somebody they picked up the nearest weapon that they could find yeah I think that with like you were
00:38:56
saying saying back in the day but also like what weapon did some of these people use to
00:39:03
dismember their their dinner because you know back in the day you you you had to
00:39:10
catch and grow your own dinner Oh you mean I see what you mean you lost me there for a second what do you think not
00:39:18
that you're eating humans right but you but at some point you had to you had to hunt down a deer now what do you
00:39:25
dismember the deer with you know well let's dive into their personal lives a little bit because we have Fred who the
00:39:35
newspaper said was a real estate man and look the further you go back in history
00:39:41
the easier it is for someone to pose as somebody that they're not there's not things that were extremely well
00:39:49
documented at at certain times especially the further you go back so often back in the day you are or you
00:39:57
were who you said you were yeah you could pose as somebody else you could give a false identity you could give a
00:40:02
false job false career if you wanted most things that I could find here state that yes he probably had some real
00:40:11
estate dealings but it seems like that was more of a front for what his real job was
00:40:19
which it appears that he was involved in as as a bookie in illegal gambling and and at times probably a con man a fraud
00:40:30
a swindler right and just again right when you read that you start going well who's capable of something
00:40:39
this vicious we hear all the time stories of mob or local mob they're very capable of
00:40:48
something like this and again if you're if he's the one that has the debt if he is the one that brought this upon his
00:41:00
family he gets 10 blunt blun um he gets 10 blunt strikes to the skull his wife gets shot real quick they're
00:41:12
both getting dismembered but maybe that you know does his son have any involvement in his work
00:41:19
is this a a statement piece to anybody else around to say we don't play around mhm well and especially in his younger
00:41:29
years if these if this information is true and I don't have much of a reason to not believe it if he if Fred Rogers
00:41:37
in fact was a bookie and spent most of his years as a bookie he's the one taking
00:41:43
the bets and that might show you or give you an insight into his personality when he was a younger man
00:41:51
maybe he was uh able to be an enforcer on debt collection then we have Eda who seems to be a
00:41:59
little more on the up and up now unfortunately given her old age again it doesn't appear that these
00:42:06
two this elderly couple was doing very well financially because she's still working and she's working a job that
00:42:13
seems to be legit as where Fred who knows Ed WEA for my understanding and I couldn't I don't have the uh company
00:42:24
name or brand name in my notes I failed to put that down but she was some type of
00:42:32
salesperson and I don't think that this was a oh you have to show up and work a 9 to-5 at the local department store
00:42:39
salesperson this appears to me as more of a out ony own door Todo type of sales where she was selling things that were
00:42:48
like HomeGoods as well as smaller appliances blenders and things of that nature most of this could probably be
00:42:56
conducted again door too or via catalog sales and she takes some type of commission from this it sounds to me
00:43:05
like she only worked this job one or two days a week and I'm filling in those blanks there for you Captain because
00:43:11
what we don't have here is we don't have an employer saying they never showed up
00:43:16
to work Ed WEA never showed up to work and and that's what notified us that something was wrong no it was the nephew
00:43:23
that she seemed to have some type of relationship close relationship with that raises the red flags let's go back
00:43:31
to that family vacation in 1929 because it is said that that is where some of the hate that Charles had for his father
00:43:39
stems from it is said that Charles blamed his father Fred Rogers for the death of Charles's sister Betty even
00:43:48
though Fred was not the one driving the vehicle in the vehicle accident a family
00:43:54
friend was driving the car when Fred yelled at the driver this because a deer jumped in front of the vehicle this
00:44:03
caused the wreck and then unfortunately the wreck resulted in the little girl's death so if the Rogers did not like
00:44:12
their son why let the grown man live there he's 43 years old let him get his own place and take care of himself right
00:44:20
well he might be the one that's financially responsible for you guys that's right that's when Corso jumps in
00:44:27
and says not so fast my friend not so fast well there are two versions of this story and either way this will make more
00:44:34
sense later as we get through the family background information and and let me pause real
00:44:40
quick if you think you know where this is going you don't let me just warn you there's a there's some twist and turns
00:44:49
and this case is super fascinating I think there's some people in Texas that know where this is going but outside of
00:44:55
that that area I would be be shocked if if anybody else yeah this this one is just not reported as much as I after we
00:45:05
get done with you know the research for the week I started thinking this this really should be discussed
00:45:12
more so the three of them did not live together because Charles the son was a failure and needed to shack up with Mom
00:45:20
and Dad that's like our generation you see that a lot uh people doing so well and they got to move back in and out of
00:45:28
some people are moving back into to uh get rid of debt so not everybody that lives with their parents is doing a bad
00:45:36
job now some of them are failures I should be clear on that some of them are very nice respectful people that have
00:45:41
chosen to move back in with mom or dad or both to take care of them so hats off to the good ones out
00:45:49
there this appears Captain to be very much the opposite of that the two versions of this story go like this one
00:45:56
Charles owned half of the house as he paid off his parents' mortgage okay the other version is
00:46:05
straight up that it was Charles's home and that his parents needed to live with him they weren't doing so well and maybe
00:46:13
it was their home at some point and they couldn't take care of it so then he decided okay well I'll pay for it but if
00:46:19
I'm going to pay for it I I need to own it and Charles while it seems question questionable and
00:46:27
really up for grabs what he was doing occupationally at the time of his parents murders he lived a fairly
00:46:36
successful life in 1942 Charles enrolled at Texas A&M University he did attend for some time but a while later dropped
00:46:45
out he then enrolled at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nuclear physics
00:46:53
Charles served this greatest of Nations fighting for our freedoms in World War II regarded as the deadliest conflict in
00:47:03
human history resulting in somewhere between 70 and 85 million fatalities during World War II Charles Rogers was a
00:47:12
pilot in the United States Navy and also served in the Office of Naval intelligence after the war he worked as
00:47:21
a seismologist for Shell Oil Company a seismologist well we're going to get into that it
00:47:27
sounds like he worked there for about 9 years now this is where things start to go off the rails because this is a
00:47:36
really good job and Charles was said to be really good at this job yeah so when he abruptly quit this job that he was
00:47:46
successful at in 1957 and giving no explanation as to why he was quitting this was quite the
00:47:55
surprise to everyone he did go on to work for himself in the same capacity but on a
00:48:02
self-employed contractor basis so it's very difficult to pin down how much work he did and for who and for how long well
00:48:12
didn't he also speak like seven languages he did that's it's listed he spoke seven languages Charles was
00:48:20
typically described as odd at the time of the murders he was regarded by most as a Hermit and a recluse some of the
00:48:30
neighbors said they saw so little of Charles Rogers uhhuh that they didn't even really know that he lived at the
00:48:37
house friends and Associates of Charles later said that he was extremely intelligent some reports even put
00:48:45
Charles at having a genius level IQ so he would be up there with the captain and the other fancy pces yeah
00:48:53
yeah IQ level of two um but he also had this this knack for his job where he could find oil right Hugh Garder I hope
00:49:07
I said his name right a brilliant man in his own right described Charles as the goose that lays the golden eggs this
00:49:15
because Charles could tell you where to find minerals on a property Charles possessed an invaluable talent for
00:49:23
finding gas oil and gold for companies that he worked for Wow and as you noted it is reported that Charles spoke
00:49:33
several different languages and had an interest in ham radios uh let's just be clear I I saw it reported somewhere that
00:49:43
they said seven mhm not several seven that's a lot of different languages and he also was a pilot right
00:49:52
he had his pilot license and everything yeah he was a pilot he he flew for the Navy in uh World War II and it sounds
00:49:59
like even after the war he maintained a pilot's LIC there are reports out there that he
00:50:06
owned a small plane a Cessna and this would be used for work and for travel for work the languages
00:50:15
are interesting because it's noted that he worked for the Office of Naval intelligence and often it people are
00:50:23
required to speak more than one language when working those types of jobs right for the Navy or the Armed Forces but
00:50:32
also what comes into play here is the his his hobby of the ham radio so for for those that don't know ham is a is a
00:50:42
is a weird term that was kind of a slang term it's basically it's actually called
00:50:47
amateur radio and according to an estimate made in 2011 by the American radio relay League 2 million people
00:50:57
throughout the world are regularly involved with amateur radio about 830,000 amateur radio stations are located in
00:51:08
the Americas but then you have hundreds of thousands of these amateur radio stations that are in Africa Europe Asia
00:51:19
and so on so and that may come into play here as far as him being able to speak multiple languages so what you're saying
00:51:30
is that he was probably fascinated by these stations and then learned how to speak their language by listening to the
00:51:37
radio well and from my understanding too and forgive me to any of the amateur radio enthusiasts out there I believe
00:51:46
that this is also a form of communication that it's not just something that you listen to but you may
00:51:52
also broadcast or communicate in some manner with these people from what's really interesting all around the
00:52:01
world so this was podcasting of the 1950s there you go back to the crime scene by
00:52:10
1965 Charles by most reports was unemployed in living with his elderly parents or they were living with him at
00:52:20
their Montrose neighborhood of Houston he's described as a recluse his cousin Marvin Martin said that he thought
00:52:27
Charles was an electrician but didn't believe he was working for anyone at the time of the murders and even though
00:52:34
Martin appeared to have been somewhat close with edua it does not appear that he was close to Fred or Charles in fact
00:52:42
Martin told the newspapers that he could not remember the last time that the two
00:52:47
of them even spoke and to give you an idea of how little the Rogers thought of their son
00:52:54
remember some neighbors said they saw so little of Charles that they did not know
00:52:59
that he lived in the house some neighbors said they never saw Charles and Ro and the Rogers his parents never
00:53:07
spoke of Charles to the point that some of the neighbors were unaware that the Rogers even had a son wow just I just
00:53:15
kind of bizarre stuff here yeah but it seems like the parents were pretty bizarre and then they had a bizarre son
00:53:22
the Apple didn't fall too far from the tree it's reported that even though they lived under the same roof it's believed
00:53:29
that Charles did not speak with his parents and had not done so in a long time at least verbally Charles was
00:53:37
reported to have communicated with his parents by way of notes slipped under the door to his
00:53:44
bedroom if he needed to communicate something he wrote it down and passed a note under the door and if somebody
00:53:50
picked it up and read it they did and same thing with edua if she wanted to tell Charles something jot it down on a
00:53:58
note slide it under the door and it said that often she didn't even know when sliding these notes under the door if
00:54:05
Charles was even present if he was home or not right and Charles avoided his parents by leaving the home Before Dawn
00:54:15
and not returning until after dark the very tricky thing here and another mystery look the deeper you go
00:54:26
and the deeper you dig in this story there's just more and more mystery to Charles and to his life one of those
00:54:36
Mysteries is it's reported that he was gone all hours of the day 12 15 16 hours a day no one really knows where he went
00:54:47
or how he spent his time yeah or where he was getting his money others report that Charles was known for taking long
00:54:55
solo walks all of the time I think given his expertise and his talent for making
00:55:04
other people money I have to suspect here captain that there's a good chance that Charles
00:55:11
was working somewhere and he just chose not to communicate this to others or so saw no reason to speak to his parents
00:55:19
and relatives about what he was doing on June 2 3rd 1965 when the Houston police officers forced their way
00:55:29
into the Rogers home finding the dismembered Limbs and torsos and later discovering the couple's organs in
00:55:36
nearby sewers the organs had been removed cut up and flushed down the toilet Charles was nowhere to be found
00:55:44
oddly enough the medical examiner determined that Fred and edua Rogers had been killed on June 20th this was
00:55:53
Father's Day mhm based on the autopsy the crime scene and the evidence investigators believed that Fred was
00:56:01
killed by blows to the head with a claw hammer anded WEA had been beaten and shot execution style in the head police
00:56:09
further said that the bodies were dismembered in the bathroom by a person with some knowledge of
00:56:16
anatomy there was little blood in the house and it appeared it had been thoroughly cleaned after the murders
00:56:23
what little blood that was found led to Charles Rogers bedroom there police found a bloodstained Keyhole saw
00:56:33
investigators believe that Charles killed his parents and spent a good deal of time in the house maybe even for days
00:56:41
after having killed them he dismembered them and cleaned up all of the blood or best he could several Reports say that
00:56:48
he staged the house to appear like the house had been robbed although I couldn't find the det details of what
00:56:56
was staged right it is thought that he locked both the front and side door and the back door the lock was broken so he
00:57:06
was not able to lock and secure this door so he stacked the flower pots against this door and then exited the
00:57:14
home through a window which was later found open when police arrived with Marvin maybe the window left open was
00:57:23
part of the stage robbery the other reports was that the house was in disarray so maybe he scattered things
00:57:31
out about the house to make it looked like people were opening up the cabinet drawers and going through things in the
00:57:38
home looking for valuables a search for the Rogers was launched and a warrant was issued for
00:57:45
Charles Rogers as a material witness to the crime it's so strange and started making me wonder if this guy is working
00:57:55
in in oil let's say there there's money there is it possible that he even had a second home or something like that he my
00:58:05
parents are losers and they can't take care of their own house so I'll pay for that that's why people didn't see him
00:58:13
that often because he he lives somewhere else I'm just saying it's hypothetical well I I think so much so that you're
00:58:22
right because there is evidence that he owned property elsewhere now the information I was able to collect does
00:58:30
not tell me that there's a structure or a house on this property but somewhere he owned a decent amount of land okay
00:58:39
and that might play into some of the motive for these homicides along with some other things but I want to quickly
00:58:47
go through some other items that were found at the home because this is how police are going to kind of theorize how
00:58:54
these homicide sides went down and what Charles Rogers did to cover his own tracks before fleeing now mind you they
00:59:02
stated that he had spent a good deal of time in the home cleaning up this mess before he
00:59:09
fled I don't know when exactly this guy left the home if he killed his parents it seems like police are pretty hard on
00:59:19
the stance that he could have been there for up to three days I could couldn't find any items
00:59:25
that would tell me how they came to that conclusion sometimes it's something as simple as we found unread newspapers on
00:59:34
the front porch and the first one was found on this date and the rest of the newspapers were in the trash or found
00:59:42
inside the home right collected or something yeah and it seems like they believe that they were killed either
00:59:50
late on Saturday night or early on Sunday which would have been Father's day but some of the other items found in
00:59:59
the home were a toaster oven a coffee pot and Hot Plate this is only important because it adds to what we're being told
01:00:09
about the family Dynamic all three of these items were found in Charles's bedroom adding to proof that he didn't
01:00:18
speak to his parents he didn't communicate with them he probably was setting things up in his room and had
01:00:24
done so for a long time so that once home he didn't have to leave that room for much of any reason at all he had a
01:00:32
bathroom right next to his bedroom and it was said that he would use the hot plate the toaster oven and the coffee
01:00:39
pot to prepare food in his room so he didn't have to leave he didn't have to go down to the kitchen to see Mom and
01:00:47
Dad also found in the house were two plastic buckets that were full of clothing now this clothing were bloody
01:00:56
pants and a bloody shirt presumably used during the attack and or dismemberment of the parents also found was a raincoat
01:01:05
and it's believed that he put on this raincoat before he started taking apart the bodies like Patrick
01:01:13
baitman yeah yeah very much like Patrick baitman what we also have that I found to be very interesting the the pistol
01:01:24
and it's believe that the pistol that was used to kill edua was a 22 caliber pistol I have the model written down
01:01:32
somewhere but continuing on the pistol was found on a nightstand along with some bullets and some
01:01:40
ammunition one thing that I find intriguing here and it's not to say that that anyone's theories are not correct
01:01:47
because one theory is that that Charles decided he had to Decap capitate his mother because he
01:01:57
wanted to recover the bullet that was used to kill her so that it couldn't be linked to any other potential crimes
01:02:05
right that theory is good and probably could still be true even though we have this statement we went through the
01:02:13
autopsy report that says that the bullet or at least a good portion of it exited
01:02:18
through the right cheek so it may not have been necessary to go to all that work just to recover the bullet we did
01:02:25
also say in that autopsy report that a bullet fragment was discovered inside the body
01:02:33
so maybe that was the purpose for doing so I think really what we have here likely seems to me like he needed to
01:02:42
conceal the bodies themselves and make his getaway but that bullet thing is interesting because
01:02:49
that's something that we talked about when we covered Russell and Shirley durman their case where it was thought
01:02:56
that Russell who was killed in the garage and then decapitated after death the head never found the belief has
01:03:05
always been in that case that the head was removed from the crime scene simply so that no one could identify the bullet
01:03:12
or bullets that killed the poor man what else was found in the home in the kitchen area a toolbox was discovered
01:03:21
and inside the toolbox it contained a Hammer a saw a razor and all of these items along with the pistol that was
01:03:32
found at the crime scene are believed to have been used in the murder and dismemberment of both Fred and edua
01:03:42
[Music] Rogers thanks for joining us here in the garage if you need more of the captain
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