September 16, 2020 • 32 mins
WARNING: This episode contains material that may be unsuitable and difficult for some to hear.
The story has always been that Susan LaRosa left her apartment to pick up baby supplies and call her mother the night she disappeared. She did this just about every night at the same time at a nearby drug store. Her husband was considered a suspect immediately. More than 40 years later, an eyewitness has come forward with details about what happened the night Susan was murdered.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Paper Ghosts is a production of I Heart Radio. The
following episode contains material that may be unsuitable and difficult
for some to hear. Previously on Paper Ghosts, among the
cult cases, twenty year old Susan Lorosa banished on a
trip to a story in Rockville in my sister Sue
(00:25):
was not a good mother. She was She's a horrible mother. Actually, Uh,
she went off on a little one and she backhanded him.
Kame was bleeding profusely. Police used to handle domestic violence
just for the warning. They would tell husbands, you know,
control your wife, or I'll go back inside. Don't call us.
(00:49):
So the theory the family has is that either okay,
he went off on her because he couldn't take it
anymore and he was trying to protect his kid. He
either took a piece of type that he always had
in the house because he always collected it and knocked
her with it, or he just knocked her down and
(01:10):
she smashed her head against the top. My name is
and William Phelps. This is paper Ghosts dying right? What's
(01:49):
going on there? How the fighting is Dingleverever never the
I got this because he has commany lo jinky dark
you need you were your mom? What's his name? What
is his name? Your father's name? That voice you here,
(02:14):
begging the operator for help is from a six year old.
There can be no doubt what she is witnessing. Her
stepfather is beating her mother and siblings, which she had
been doing continually for years. It was the call became infamous,
changing the way in which we as Americans thought about
(02:36):
domestic violence. Go back fifteen years from there, and mentioning
this sort of thing or talking about it to anyone
in the seventies was unheard of. For that reason, among others,
it hasn't been easy to get direct family members to
talk to me about what happened to night Susan Larrossa disappeared.
(02:57):
It's taken months, years even to build the relationships I
have and gain their trust enough to get the true story.
I've now spoken to two of Susan's sisters and have
gotten a better understanding of who she was, both as
a mother and a wife, and that her own family
believes she was murdered by her husband, Bob, in an
(03:18):
attempt to protect their child from abuse. It's really difficult
to imagine how bad things were behind closed doors inside
that apartment, or what life was like for a child
to grow up in such an unhealthy environment. That being said,
I was finally able to track down an important Larrosa source,
(03:39):
someone unafraid to confront her past, a primary witness who
claims to have been in the room a June the
night Susan Larrosa was murdered. The story has always been
that Susan left her apartment to call her mother, as
(04:01):
she did just about every night at the same time,
to pick up diapers and formula at a nearby drug store.
But according to this witness, Susan Larrossa's only daughter, her
mother never left their apartment alive. Good morning, Hi, Stacy,
(04:23):
how are you? Stacy LaRosa is Bob and Susan Lerossa's
oldest child, now in her mid forties. She lives nowhere
near New England these days, for reasons that will become
abundantly clear. You guys grew up on Ward Street. Um,
(04:43):
do you have many memories about Ward Street in the
household before this? Um? Just a rocking chair in the
window we sat at now to night that night. That's
my memory that night, That's the only memory actually have
of my mom, which is messed up. In the days
after Susan LaRosa went missing. Days literally, Bob LaRosa separated
(05:08):
his three children, Stacy, Robert, and Moe and sent them
to stay with different family members, which is, for me,
in and of itself, strange behavior. Families generally bond stay
close and connected during such a traumatic time, especially so
early into it. Stacy, the oldest of the Larosa's three kids,
(05:29):
wound up with their godparents in western Massachusetts. She was
three years old. The documents I have describing this period
of time are incredibly detailed, not to mention alarming. Exactly
three months to the day Susan went missing, Stacy's godmother
called Vernon police and said, quote, the child has brought
(05:51):
up the subject of her missing mother. That alone might
not sound like much, but it's what Stacy says next
that is both chilling and revealing. I have night tears.
I mean, that's what they call them, their thread Back
then they were just scary dreams, but I mean the
proper terminologies, their nightcars. Night terrors are a type of
(06:13):
sleep disorder in which a person is suddenly awakened in
a state of fear. Uncommon, they predominantly affect young children,
they're unlike nightmares. I eat bad dreams. They can result
from a number of reasons, but in Stacy's case, that
fear is directly related to what she witnessed as a
three year old. To tell me about that, So, how
(06:36):
does that start for you? It always starts the same
way with Robert and me, you know. Like Robert and
I are arguing over his truck and he pulled my hair, okay,
and I screamed, and I see my mom she's changing
my wan and changing thing, that table thing, and I
scream and she just kind of left. Mo. I mean
(06:57):
back then, I guess I didn't realize all this was
going on. But an adult now you can see it better.
But she turned around and she stopped my brother in
the face and right on the nose, and it bled,
it bled, it was bleeding. In the police report of
this incident, the fight between Stacy and her middle brother
Robert is outlined. A bloody nose, however, is not only
(07:22):
a cut lip, the kind of cut quote caused by
a tooth sticking into the lip from inside the mouth.
It's obvious but important to point out a cut lip
and bloody nose will produce vastly different amounts of blood.
So Robert wiped his hand on his nose. He touched
(07:42):
the wall, so there's a bloody hand print. Okay, my dad,
he wasn't the kitchen. In one law enforcement document written
the day after Susan went missing, the Vernon p D
reported how Bob the Rosa told one of Susan's sisters
that quote, Sue swiped the child in the face, causing
him to strike his head on the stove. Su then
(08:03):
grabbed the child by the hair and dragged him into
a bedroom and threw him against the wall. I asked
Stacy about this bullshit. She said she remembers none of it.
I should note that Bob Lerosa never told that story
again and actually changed his story several times throughout the years.
(08:25):
Stacy continues explaining what she does recall about her dad.
He used to clean metals, um, he used to return metal. Okay,
he's cleaning this this long like silver pipe thing. So
he comes in and her back was towards him, you know,
and he just he was angry. Like I always thought
it was an accident. I really did believe that in
(08:47):
my heart. I think I needed to And he just
took his arm and he had the pipe and he
just hit her. He hit her hard, and my mom
just fell, like totally just fell. And I remember, I
even know what I'm wearing, Hike, I know what I'm wearing,
and um and knelt down by her head and there's
all this this blood. You know, to me, it was
just red, geeky stuff. But there was all this blood
(09:10):
and there was a lot of blood. There was a
lot of blood, Dad said, because she was sleeping, and
I kept mommy, Mommy, wake up, Mommy, wake up, Mommy,
wake up. My mom wasn't moving, you know, like there
was no twitching there was. My mom just didn't move.
Some might not trust what a three year old says.
Others have judged Stacy's memories, viewing what she recalls through
(09:31):
a lens of a substance abuse problems she develops later,
and psychological issues she deals with throughout her life. They
can have their opinions. For me, however, I tend to
lean more toward professional analysis. A three year old cannot
make up what Stacy reported at that age. They do
not have the mental capacity. Stacy had no idea. I
(09:55):
had the documents in front of me as we spoke.
She's never seen these reports and act no one outside
of law enforcement has. And the psychologist who treated Stacy
right after she began having night terrors, he said, the
child is too young to fantasize. And what she tells
me next, well, listen for yourself. The gentleman and that
(10:21):
was there that showed up. He has on a red
and black checkered um flannel shirt kind of thing, and
the black T shirt thing underneath with a podcast thing,
and he really smells. He smells like a very strong
and it's definitely cherry tobacco, very strong smell like I
even now to this day, I can't smell that smell
(10:41):
without like freezing. Stacy is referring to someone she claims
showed up after her father allegedly killed her mother, a
man who came by specifically to help Bob dispose of
Susan Larosa's body. So and my dad, Um, they brought
my mom at her house and that's last time I've
seen my mom. Stacy's story has not changed since she
(11:05):
was three years old, according to the report from the
child psychologist at the time. Quote. The child then stated
that her daddy and some man carried Mommy to the
car end quote the shirts he wore, the SeMet, the
cherry to thecklasm. I know that that's the person that
was there. I can describe what he's wearing. I can
(11:25):
smell him a mile away. The smell is very very strong.
I can't. I want to see his face, and I
just never did. I never saw. I mean I did
at that time, but for some reason, I can't see
his face when I when I go into this this
state that I mean, actually right now, I can't see
his face. Months after Susan went missing, Bob LaRosa took
(11:46):
a polygraph test administered by police. He passed, but exactly
nine months to the day Susan disappeared, Bob took a
second test. The one question Bob failed, do you know
for sure who killed your wife? His answer no. About
(12:22):
a year after Susan Leros's body was found, Bob married
a woman he began dating only weeks after his wife
went missing, and yet one police source has told me
it was weeks before. The fact is if Bob had
a girlfriend before Susan went missing, that creates the oldest
motive in the Idiot's Guide to Murdering your Spouse handbook.
(12:46):
After living with her godparents for nearly a year. Stacy
moved back in with her father and his new wife,
but according to Stacy and other family members, Bob would
also send Stacy to live with other people from time
to time. I have to say at this point during
our interview, the next moment opens up a thread with
(13:07):
alleged accusations so horrific as both the father of four
myself and an investigator who's thought he's heard everything, what
I hear next is deeply disturbing, but also vitally important
within my investigation. My dad was not a very good man.
My dad was bad with me. My dad didn't stop
(13:28):
touching me. Tis twelve, I see, my dad gave me
to somebody kind of like like I had to live
with friends and his and um I was nine the
first time, No, seven, seven the first time, and then
I didn't tell us I was twelve, you know. But
(13:49):
this guy, his name was armand Llard, my dad's friend
was friends with him. We had a lot of male
friends and we we were told to call them uncle's,
you know, like we had lots of uncle's, lots of uncles.
And I had to stay with him. I don't know why,
but I lived with them for a year. While staying
at this man armand Rullard's house, Stacy recalled horrendous abuse.
(14:13):
I was being hurt. There, really bad things, you know,
like things, and and I still to this day believe
my dad gave me to him for some reason. But
I pretended I was sick one time, you know, like
I pretended I was sick. I was pretending I couldn't
move my net and and I got I got to
go home. I got to go back to my dad's house,
you know. And um, when I was nine, this guy
(14:36):
he came to live with us, you know. And I
never told. I never told. I'm told Bob Larossa actually
turned the guy in. Armand Ruellard was sentenced on May
one after being found guilty of molest in several young girls,
including Stacy. He served nineteen of a thirty three year
(14:57):
sentence and recently died of natural causes. This was a
time when amber alert, serial killer, stranger, danger, and abduction
were not part of the everyday global news cycle. There
was no such thing. This type of crime was not
discussed socially inside homes or openly in neighborhoods. There was
(15:19):
no internet, There were no task forces and FBI databases
of serial offender stats and profiles, no sex offender registry.
It was a period when sex trafficking and the idea
of missing people and murder, especially young females, were so
outside the norm. Few considered such a dark element of society.
(15:42):
Committing these crimes could infiltrate what was a safe image
of rural America. And when I speak of sex trafficking
in the sixties and seventies, especially in the cases I'm investigating,
I am referring to an unorganized system of passing kids around.
Stacy had confided in an adult she was close to
(16:05):
and explained the allegations against armand Roullard and her father,
And I told him that Dad was hurting me, spit
in my face, slapped me across the face, and called
me a liar. After Bob heard of his daughter's allegations,
Stacy claims he told her brother to pack her suitcase,
a factor brother later confirmed from me Stacy was not
(16:28):
part of the family anymore, and she was then forced
to leave and Dad brought me to Hartford I'm Marshall
Street and freaking left me there twelve years old. Left
me there, okay, I'm gracious to God that I'm alive
because of me and could have killed me because he
knew I told on him. There's some dispute whether Stacy
was twelve or fourteen, but still Marshall Street, Hartford is
(16:51):
in the Asylum Hill section, very dangerous in some areas.
According to Stacy, Bob dropped her off on the street,
said good luck, there's a woman's shelter up the road,
and drove away. Stacy found the shelter and began life
on the street on her own. She spent the next
ten years surviving anyway she could. I just wanted dead
(17:14):
to stop. I wanted you need to stop. I wasn't
his stating he was, And even as an adult when
I kept trying to forgive him, and I really do
look to God, and I really I know God says
were supposed to forgive it. I kept trying, kept trying
to have some kind of a father relationship, you know,
but the man will kiss me in the lips, and okay,
that would freak me up because you're my dad. You
don't need to be doing that, you know. And and
(17:35):
just weird things that and my dad was just he's
not a good He wasn't when I keep do not,
I know I'm being recorded, but my brothers can't know
that I wanted him dead. I really did. No charges
for sexual abuse or exploitation were ever filed against Bob
the Rosa. He died in two thousand and eighteen. From
(17:56):
what I've been told, is a combination of heart disease
and other ailments, so he cannot dispute his daughters and
other family members allegations. But documents and witnesses corroborate Stacy's story.
Many of Bob's siblings and relatives refer to Bob as
a pervert. They have told me stories of him coming
(18:16):
on to them as young as twelve years old, thirteen
years old, which I find very interesting. What Stacy says
next changes things from me. It becomes a factor in
the disappearances. I cannot overlook or underestimate. I know my
(18:39):
dad like young girls. I know my dad liked young girls.
(18:59):
Bab Lar Rosa is someone I am now focused on.
So I meet with Stacy's brother, Bob, and Susan's youngest son,
Maurice Molarosa, to ask what he remembers about his father
and what he has to say about Bob immediately spurs
my interest. More. Let me ask you what did Bob
(19:19):
do for a living during the seventies. During the seventies,
he did a lot of scrap metal. Mo was nine
months old when his mother disappeared. Today he is a
heavy set guy. He sports a thick goatee, short brown
hair buzz cut. He has a charming disposition. Knowing now
what I learned from most Sister Stacy, I have several
(19:41):
new leads in mind that I'm hoping Moe can help with.
Did your dad ever have a model of a station wagon? Um? Yeah, Um,
we owned a Stacia wagon. I'm told Bob LaRosa often
wore khaki pants and khaki shirts, kind of like blue
collar or workers uniform. More than that, Bob drove around town,
(20:05):
sometimes with one of his kids, nieces or nephews in
the station wagon. He collected what he could find and
salvaged it at the junkyard. I mean, what do you
think happened to your mom? I honestly, I don't know
what happened to her. I just don't think my dad
had anything to do with it physically, I don't know.
(20:28):
I don't know if he didn't, I don't know. How
do I want to say, I don't know if he
doesn't know the person that did, but I don't think
he had anything himself physically to do it. As I
listened to MO, I take note of his trepidation, his uncertainty,
and the fact that he was just nine months old
in diapers when his mother went missing. I understand his conflict,
(20:51):
especially when you put it into a box of family secrets,
discourse and disunity. But what I think is, I keep
my investigator's cap tight. He secured. Is maybe how Bob
lar Rossa might have spent a lifetime convincing his youngest
son that he had nothing to do with it, and
an even bigger red flag from me. Mola Rossa is
(21:13):
now the second person to suggest Bob lar Rossa might
not have acted alone on the night his wife Susan
disappeared far and away. Most sexual assaults and sexual violence
are perpetrated by men and typically arise within asymmetrical power dynamics,
(21:36):
where the perpetrator occupies a more powerful or dominant position
in relation to the victim. That is a quote from
an article written by lynnonic Board, certified in Clinical social Work,
published in Psychology Today. It is a contextual piece of
information from me within the framework of what you are
about to hear. Hello, Hi, Bernard That yes, Hi, it's
(22:05):
uh M William Phelps. Call me Matthew, Matthew okay. Bernardette
Gonthier is one of Susan Loross's other sisters. At the
time of her death, Susan was twenty years old and
living with her husband, Bob, and their three children in
a three bedroom apartment on Ward Street in Rockville, Connecticut,
just a fifteen minute drive away from Crystal Lake. How
(22:30):
was your sister right around that time? How was she
doing great? I mean, she um was doing good. She
you know, she was, Oh my god, she was. I
don't know. I guess she was too. When she come
(22:50):
to our house. She was. She seemed to be up
to part of that. Then I was, you know, I'm
fourteen years old, burking in fourteen, and she didn't do
a lot of talking to me, you know, she did
to my mom. I mean, because back then you didn't
do that, you know what I mean, back in those
days between mom and daughter or but it wasn't the
whole family. Bernadette has a way of not holding anything back.
(23:16):
She will tell you exactly how it is no bullshit. This,
for one, I can relate to, and two I greatly appreciate.
Bullshit is nothing but a waste of everyone's time. The
world needs to hear truth, not a watered down version
of what might offend someone. I asked her about Bob
and Susan's relationship, and she reveals something I find very interesting.
(23:42):
They seem to argue a lot, you know what I mean.
When it came to the kids and stuff, they seemed
to argue a lot um. She she would throw things
at him, but most of the time, when she got
pissed off, she'd go for a walk, you know what
(24:02):
I mean. She and she always took This is the
weird thing. She never went anywhere without the baby, Maurice,
never except for this one day, supposedly the day she disappeared.
She didn't have the baby with her, right, so tell
me about that. Tell me about the day she disappeared.
(24:23):
We had been at my uncle's house up in Wales
math Um. We came home later that early evening and
my mother got a call from Bob. I guess yeah,
I think, yeah, it was Bob that called and said,
have you heard from your daughter? And my mother. Susan
(24:46):
always knew, I mean mostly every Sunday we want my
uncle's in math and I soon knew when we were
there and when we come home, you know what I mean.
And this one day, my mother didn't get her phone call.
Bernadette mentions a cop who worked a beat just up
the street from the apartment, a cop who was familiar
(25:06):
with Susan because he saw her every day when she
would walk to the drug store to make her daily
phone call to her mom at six pm. And he
never saw her that day. And the pharmacist, Now back
then you could buy cigarettes in a pharmacy, and the
pharmacist just dis sumed my sister all the time, and
he never saw since dead day. And so the night passes,
(25:30):
the next day comes, and what happens. My mom didn't
sleep much, let me tell you, you know, she just
was up constantly waiting for Sue to call, to see
if maybe she had gone off somewhere or whatever. Bernadette said.
(25:53):
The days after Susan went missing were absolute torture on everyone.
The family on edge, we eating, wondering, everyone that is,
except Bob LaRosa. Apparently Bernardette knew this because with my
brother in law to take care of the kids. Bernardette
(26:15):
was only fourteen when she had to move into Bob
and Susan's home just days after her older sister went missing.
They lived on the second floor of what was an
old colonial home converted to several low income apartments. What
Bernardette saw when she stepped into the apartment, it's something
she's never forgotten. What did you see when you went
(26:36):
there the first time after she went missing. Blood on
the floor, on the wall, on the door, down the stairs, everywhere. Yeah, yeah,
there was well, there was trickles going down the stairs,
you know. Now they had a living room kitchen combination. Okay,
so it was just one room open. The blood was
(26:57):
over near my nephew Roberts bedroom, A big pool of
it was on the floor and the door and all that.
And he gave me a putty knife to clean it up.
I kind of clean it with a putty knie because
it wouldn't come off. Bernardette says she had to scrape
what she believed was her sister's blood off the floor, walls, door,
(27:20):
and down the stairs. So she got on her hands
and knees and went to work. Let me just ask
you when he gave you the putty knife to clean
up the blood, where did he say the blood came from?
He said it came from my nephew. He said, my
sister slapped them in the face and he got a
(27:41):
bloody nose and a bloody lip. Well, I didn't see
anything that could have blood like that. I'm not stupid.
He had a little boo boo, But way with that
amount of blood come out? So that blood? When when
when you started to clean that blood up with the
putty knife, what were you thinking? I was fourteen. Wo
(28:01):
did you expect me to think? You know, back then
we were clean living, you know, we didn't think that way.
What a sobering statement. In this same situation today, your
mind would go right to murder. In the seventies, murder
was not thought of in the same way or reported
by the media as headline news like it is today.
(28:24):
But as it was cleaning and I'm like, you know,
I said to him, I said, well, this is a
lot of blood from coming from Robbie. I said, put
the hell oh well, he lent really hard and this
and that and um, what did you do with the
party knife? Give me back to him? Did he ask
for it back. Yes, Bernadette was not questioned by police then.
(28:50):
That came many years later. In fact, the Vernon Police
Department never went into the LaRosa residence after Susan went
missing or after her body was found. As Bernard that
stayed at the apartment. Days passed and with them came
additional odd behaviors on Bob Lerosa's part, and that's when
the card disappeared. One day Bob had the vehicle, the
(29:13):
next he didn't. When asked, he said he'd sold it.
Did Bob ever act weird around you while you were there?
He was always kind of weird. I mean I was
fourteen years old and it was dead of summer, you
know what I mean, in June and it was really
(29:34):
hot in the city. And he had taken all the
fans in his room. He was a freaking pervert. And
he said to me, I said, Bob, can I have
the fans please? If he goes, you know the the way
you're gonna get a fan if is if you come
in here and sleep with me. And I looked at
him and I said, what is You're freaking problem? Is it?
No way? No way? Thanks anyway, keep them. Days after
(29:58):
his wife goes missing. The guy is asking his fourteen
year old sister in law, who'd scrape blood off the
floor and walls on her hands and knees with a
putty knife to have sex with him. Bernadette told nobody
about the blood. She was terrified. As years passed, she
(30:19):
eventually let family members know and finally went to the police.
Her statement led the Vernon p D to take another
look at Susan Lorosa's murder in the year two thousand,
which put Bernadette back in the l Rosa's apartment all
those years later. I think it was a detective coughed
(30:41):
saying that they would like me if I was able to,
They would like me to go back to the house
and where the blood was that I cleaned and insane.
If the police found one droplet, it would corroborate Stacy
La Rosa's statements to police from Anne Bernardette Gauthier's later statements,
(31:07):
both of which would be huge, big enough in fact,
to possibly charge Bob la Rossa with murder. In the
(31:28):
next episode of Paper Ghosts, it's like she dropped off
the face of the earth, and if you tried to
say anything to them about her, they didn't like that.
They would walk away or you know, they didn't like it.
So you have the more intelligent ones saying, oh, she's missing,
(31:51):
and then you have the ones over here that are saying,
we've seen her. There was a child abuse going on
in New Yorkhanas and I know, I know for a fact.
So that was enough for me. So somebody do something.
Get over here. I want him to tell you, guys,
what he told me, what happened. Paper Ghosts is written
(32:14):
and executive produced by me and William Phelps, with help
from producer Christina Everett and sound editing by Pete Cardi
from Backroom Audio. A special thanks to Abu Safar and
Will Pearson from My Heart Radio. The series theme number
four four two is written and performed by Tom Mooney
and Thomas Phelps. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(32:38):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Paper Ghosts is a production of I Heart Radio. The
following episode contains material that may be unsuitable and difficult
for some to hear. Previously on Paper Ghosts, among the
cult cases, twenty year old Susan Lorosa banished on a
trip to a story in Rockville in my sister Sue
(00:25):
was not a good mother. She was She's a horrible mother. Actually, Uh,
she went off on a little one and she backhanded him.
Kame was bleeding profusely. Police used to handle domestic violence
just for the warning. They would tell husbands, you know,
control your wife, or I'll go back inside. Don't call us.
(00:49):
So the theory the family has is that either okay,
he went off on her because he couldn't take it
anymore and he was trying to protect his kid. He
either took a piece of type that he always had
in the house because he always collected it and knocked
her with it, or he just knocked her down and
(01:10):
she smashed her head against the top. My name is
and William Phelps. This is paper Ghosts dying right? What's
(01:49):
going on there? How the fighting is Dingleverever never the
I got this because he has commany lo jinky dark
you need you were your mom? What's his name? What
is his name? Your father's name? That voice you here,
(02:14):
begging the operator for help is from a six year old.
There can be no doubt what she is witnessing. Her
stepfather is beating her mother and siblings, which she had
been doing continually for years. It was the call became infamous,
changing the way in which we as Americans thought about
(02:36):
domestic violence. Go back fifteen years from there, and mentioning
this sort of thing or talking about it to anyone
in the seventies was unheard of. For that reason, among others,
it hasn't been easy to get direct family members to
talk to me about what happened to night Susan Larrossa disappeared.
(02:57):
It's taken months, years even to build the relationships I
have and gain their trust enough to get the true story.
I've now spoken to two of Susan's sisters and have
gotten a better understanding of who she was, both as
a mother and a wife, and that her own family
believes she was murdered by her husband, Bob, in an
(03:18):
attempt to protect their child from abuse. It's really difficult
to imagine how bad things were behind closed doors inside
that apartment, or what life was like for a child
to grow up in such an unhealthy environment. That being said,
I was finally able to track down an important Larrosa source,
(03:39):
someone unafraid to confront her past, a primary witness who
claims to have been in the room a June the
night Susan Larrosa was murdered. The story has always been
that Susan left her apartment to call her mother, as
(04:01):
she did just about every night at the same time,
to pick up diapers and formula at a nearby drug store.
But according to this witness, Susan Larrossa's only daughter, her
mother never left their apartment alive. Good morning, Hi, Stacy,
(04:23):
how are you? Stacy LaRosa is Bob and Susan Lerossa's
oldest child, now in her mid forties. She lives nowhere
near New England these days, for reasons that will become
abundantly clear. You guys grew up on Ward Street. Um,
(04:43):
do you have many memories about Ward Street in the
household before this? Um? Just a rocking chair in the
window we sat at now to night that night. That's
my memory that night, That's the only memory actually have
of my mom, which is messed up. In the days
after Susan LaRosa went missing. Days literally, Bob LaRosa separated
(05:08):
his three children, Stacy, Robert, and Moe and sent them
to stay with different family members, which is, for me,
in and of itself, strange behavior. Families generally bond stay
close and connected during such a traumatic time, especially so
early into it. Stacy, the oldest of the Larosa's three kids,
(05:29):
wound up with their godparents in western Massachusetts. She was
three years old. The documents I have describing this period
of time are incredibly detailed, not to mention alarming. Exactly
three months to the day Susan went missing, Stacy's godmother
called Vernon police and said, quote, the child has brought
(05:51):
up the subject of her missing mother. That alone might
not sound like much, but it's what Stacy says next
that is both chilling and revealing. I have night tears.
I mean, that's what they call them, their thread Back
then they were just scary dreams, but I mean the
proper terminologies, their nightcars. Night terrors are a type of
(06:13):
sleep disorder in which a person is suddenly awakened in
a state of fear. Uncommon, they predominantly affect young children,
they're unlike nightmares. I eat bad dreams. They can result
from a number of reasons, but in Stacy's case, that
fear is directly related to what she witnessed as a
three year old. To tell me about that, So, how
(06:36):
does that start for you? It always starts the same
way with Robert and me, you know. Like Robert and
I are arguing over his truck and he pulled my hair, okay,
and I screamed, and I see my mom she's changing
my wan and changing thing, that table thing, and I
scream and she just kind of left. Mo. I mean
(06:57):
back then, I guess I didn't realize all this was
going on. But an adult now you can see it better.
But she turned around and she stopped my brother in
the face and right on the nose, and it bled,
it bled, it was bleeding. In the police report of
this incident, the fight between Stacy and her middle brother
Robert is outlined. A bloody nose, however, is not only
(07:22):
a cut lip, the kind of cut quote caused by
a tooth sticking into the lip from inside the mouth.
It's obvious but important to point out a cut lip
and bloody nose will produce vastly different amounts of blood.
So Robert wiped his hand on his nose. He touched
(07:42):
the wall, so there's a bloody hand print. Okay, my dad,
he wasn't the kitchen. In one law enforcement document written
the day after Susan went missing, the Vernon p D
reported how Bob the Rosa told one of Susan's sisters
that quote, Sue swiped the child in the face, causing
him to strike his head on the stove. Su then
(08:03):
grabbed the child by the hair and dragged him into
a bedroom and threw him against the wall. I asked
Stacy about this bullshit. She said she remembers none of it.
I should note that Bob Lerosa never told that story
again and actually changed his story several times throughout the years.
(08:25):
Stacy continues explaining what she does recall about her dad.
He used to clean metals, um, he used to return metal. Okay,
he's cleaning this this long like silver pipe thing. So
he comes in and her back was towards him, you know,
and he just he was angry. Like I always thought
it was an accident. I really did believe that in
(08:47):
my heart. I think I needed to And he just
took his arm and he had the pipe and he
just hit her. He hit her hard, and my mom
just fell, like totally just fell. And I remember, I
even know what I'm wearing, Hike, I know what I'm wearing,
and um and knelt down by her head and there's
all this this blood. You know, to me, it was
just red, geeky stuff. But there was all this blood
(09:10):
and there was a lot of blood. There was a
lot of blood, Dad said, because she was sleeping, and
I kept mommy, Mommy, wake up, Mommy, wake up, Mommy,
wake up. My mom wasn't moving, you know, like there
was no twitching there was. My mom just didn't move.
Some might not trust what a three year old says.
Others have judged Stacy's memories, viewing what she recalls through
(09:31):
a lens of a substance abuse problems she develops later,
and psychological issues she deals with throughout her life. They
can have their opinions. For me, however, I tend to
lean more toward professional analysis. A three year old cannot
make up what Stacy reported at that age. They do
not have the mental capacity. Stacy had no idea. I
(09:55):
had the documents in front of me as we spoke.
She's never seen these reports and act no one outside
of law enforcement has. And the psychologist who treated Stacy
right after she began having night terrors, he said, the
child is too young to fantasize. And what she tells
me next, well, listen for yourself. The gentleman and that
(10:21):
was there that showed up. He has on a red
and black checkered um flannel shirt kind of thing, and
the black T shirt thing underneath with a podcast thing,
and he really smells. He smells like a very strong
and it's definitely cherry tobacco, very strong smell like I
even now to this day, I can't smell that smell
(10:41):
without like freezing. Stacy is referring to someone she claims
showed up after her father allegedly killed her mother, a
man who came by specifically to help Bob dispose of
Susan Larosa's body. So and my dad, Um, they brought
my mom at her house and that's last time I've
seen my mom. Stacy's story has not changed since she
(11:05):
was three years old, according to the report from the
child psychologist at the time. Quote. The child then stated
that her daddy and some man carried Mommy to the
car end quote the shirts he wore, the SeMet, the
cherry to thecklasm. I know that that's the person that
was there. I can describe what he's wearing. I can
(11:25):
smell him a mile away. The smell is very very strong.
I can't. I want to see his face, and I
just never did. I never saw. I mean I did
at that time, but for some reason, I can't see
his face when I when I go into this this
state that I mean, actually right now, I can't see
his face. Months after Susan went missing, Bob LaRosa took
(11:46):
a polygraph test administered by police. He passed, but exactly
nine months to the day Susan disappeared, Bob took a
second test. The one question Bob failed, do you know
for sure who killed your wife? His answer no. About
(12:22):
a year after Susan Leros's body was found, Bob married
a woman he began dating only weeks after his wife
went missing, and yet one police source has told me
it was weeks before. The fact is if Bob had
a girlfriend before Susan went missing, that creates the oldest
motive in the Idiot's Guide to Murdering your Spouse handbook.
(12:46):
After living with her godparents for nearly a year. Stacy
moved back in with her father and his new wife,
but according to Stacy and other family members, Bob would
also send Stacy to live with other people from time
to time. I have to say at this point during
our interview, the next moment opens up a thread with
(13:07):
alleged accusations so horrific as both the father of four
myself and an investigator who's thought he's heard everything, what
I hear next is deeply disturbing, but also vitally important
within my investigation. My dad was not a very good man.
My dad was bad with me. My dad didn't stop
(13:28):
touching me. Tis twelve, I see, my dad gave me
to somebody kind of like like I had to live
with friends and his and um I was nine the
first time, No, seven, seven the first time, and then
I didn't tell us I was twelve, you know. But
(13:49):
this guy, his name was armand Llard, my dad's friend
was friends with him. We had a lot of male
friends and we we were told to call them uncle's,
you know, like we had lots of uncle's, lots of uncles.
And I had to stay with him. I don't know why,
but I lived with them for a year. While staying
at this man armand Rullard's house, Stacy recalled horrendous abuse.
(14:13):
I was being hurt. There, really bad things, you know,
like things, and and I still to this day believe
my dad gave me to him for some reason. But
I pretended I was sick one time, you know, like
I pretended I was sick. I was pretending I couldn't
move my net and and I got I got to
go home. I got to go back to my dad's house,
you know. And um, when I was nine, this guy
(14:36):
he came to live with us, you know. And I
never told. I never told. I'm told Bob Larossa actually
turned the guy in. Armand Ruellard was sentenced on May
one after being found guilty of molest in several young girls,
including Stacy. He served nineteen of a thirty three year
(14:57):
sentence and recently died of natural causes. This was a
time when amber alert, serial killer, stranger, danger, and abduction
were not part of the everyday global news cycle. There
was no such thing. This type of crime was not
discussed socially inside homes or openly in neighborhoods. There was
(15:19):
no internet, There were no task forces and FBI databases
of serial offender stats and profiles, no sex offender registry.
It was a period when sex trafficking and the idea
of missing people and murder, especially young females, were so
outside the norm. Few considered such a dark element of society.
(15:42):
Committing these crimes could infiltrate what was a safe image
of rural America. And when I speak of sex trafficking
in the sixties and seventies, especially in the cases I'm investigating,
I am referring to an unorganized system of passing kids around.
Stacy had confided in an adult she was close to
(16:05):
and explained the allegations against armand Roullard and her father,
And I told him that Dad was hurting me, spit
in my face, slapped me across the face, and called
me a liar. After Bob heard of his daughter's allegations,
Stacy claims he told her brother to pack her suitcase,
a factor brother later confirmed from me Stacy was not
(16:28):
part of the family anymore, and she was then forced
to leave and Dad brought me to Hartford I'm Marshall
Street and freaking left me there twelve years old. Left
me there, okay, I'm gracious to God that I'm alive
because of me and could have killed me because he
knew I told on him. There's some dispute whether Stacy
was twelve or fourteen, but still Marshall Street, Hartford is
(16:51):
in the Asylum Hill section, very dangerous in some areas.
According to Stacy, Bob dropped her off on the street,
said good luck, there's a woman's shelter up the road,
and drove away. Stacy found the shelter and began life
on the street on her own. She spent the next
ten years surviving anyway she could. I just wanted dead
(17:14):
to stop. I wanted you need to stop. I wasn't
his stating he was, And even as an adult when
I kept trying to forgive him, and I really do
look to God, and I really I know God says
were supposed to forgive it. I kept trying, kept trying
to have some kind of a father relationship, you know,
but the man will kiss me in the lips, and okay,
that would freak me up because you're my dad. You
don't need to be doing that, you know. And and
(17:35):
just weird things that and my dad was just he's
not a good He wasn't when I keep do not,
I know I'm being recorded, but my brothers can't know
that I wanted him dead. I really did. No charges
for sexual abuse or exploitation were ever filed against Bob
the Rosa. He died in two thousand and eighteen. From
(17:56):
what I've been told, is a combination of heart disease
and other ailments, so he cannot dispute his daughters and
other family members allegations. But documents and witnesses corroborate Stacy's story.
Many of Bob's siblings and relatives refer to Bob as
a pervert. They have told me stories of him coming
(18:16):
on to them as young as twelve years old, thirteen
years old, which I find very interesting. What Stacy says
next changes things from me. It becomes a factor in
the disappearances. I cannot overlook or underestimate. I know my
(18:39):
dad like young girls. I know my dad liked young girls.
(18:59):
Bab Lar Rosa is someone I am now focused on.
So I meet with Stacy's brother, Bob, and Susan's youngest son,
Maurice Molarosa, to ask what he remembers about his father
and what he has to say about Bob immediately spurs
my interest. More. Let me ask you what did Bob
(19:19):
do for a living during the seventies. During the seventies,
he did a lot of scrap metal. Mo was nine
months old when his mother disappeared. Today he is a
heavy set guy. He sports a thick goatee, short brown
hair buzz cut. He has a charming disposition. Knowing now
what I learned from most Sister Stacy, I have several
(19:41):
new leads in mind that I'm hoping Moe can help with.
Did your dad ever have a model of a station wagon? Um? Yeah, Um,
we owned a Stacia wagon. I'm told Bob LaRosa often
wore khaki pants and khaki shirts, kind of like blue
collar or workers uniform. More than that, Bob drove around town,
(20:05):
sometimes with one of his kids, nieces or nephews in
the station wagon. He collected what he could find and
salvaged it at the junkyard. I mean, what do you
think happened to your mom? I honestly, I don't know
what happened to her. I just don't think my dad
had anything to do with it physically, I don't know.
(20:28):
I don't know if he didn't, I don't know. How
do I want to say, I don't know if he
doesn't know the person that did, but I don't think
he had anything himself physically to do it. As I
listened to MO, I take note of his trepidation, his uncertainty,
and the fact that he was just nine months old
in diapers when his mother went missing. I understand his conflict,
(20:51):
especially when you put it into a box of family secrets,
discourse and disunity. But what I think is, I keep
my investigator's cap tight. He secured. Is maybe how Bob
lar Rossa might have spent a lifetime convincing his youngest
son that he had nothing to do with it, and
an even bigger red flag from me. Mola Rossa is
(21:13):
now the second person to suggest Bob lar Rossa might
not have acted alone on the night his wife Susan
disappeared far and away. Most sexual assaults and sexual violence
are perpetrated by men and typically arise within asymmetrical power dynamics,
(21:36):
where the perpetrator occupies a more powerful or dominant position
in relation to the victim. That is a quote from
an article written by lynnonic Board, certified in Clinical social Work,
published in Psychology Today. It is a contextual piece of
information from me within the framework of what you are
about to hear. Hello, Hi, Bernard That yes, Hi, it's
(22:05):
uh M William Phelps. Call me Matthew, Matthew okay. Bernardette
Gonthier is one of Susan Loross's other sisters. At the
time of her death, Susan was twenty years old and
living with her husband, Bob, and their three children in
a three bedroom apartment on Ward Street in Rockville, Connecticut,
just a fifteen minute drive away from Crystal Lake. How
(22:30):
was your sister right around that time? How was she
doing great? I mean, she um was doing good. She
you know, she was, Oh my god, she was. I
don't know. I guess she was too. When she come
(22:50):
to our house. She was. She seemed to be up
to part of that. Then I was, you know, I'm
fourteen years old, burking in fourteen, and she didn't do
a lot of talking to me, you know, she did
to my mom. I mean, because back then you didn't
do that, you know what I mean, back in those
days between mom and daughter or but it wasn't the
whole family. Bernadette has a way of not holding anything back.
(23:16):
She will tell you exactly how it is no bullshit. This,
for one, I can relate to, and two I greatly appreciate.
Bullshit is nothing but a waste of everyone's time. The
world needs to hear truth, not a watered down version
of what might offend someone. I asked her about Bob
and Susan's relationship, and she reveals something I find very interesting.
(23:42):
They seem to argue a lot, you know what I mean.
When it came to the kids and stuff, they seemed
to argue a lot um. She she would throw things
at him, but most of the time, when she got
pissed off, she'd go for a walk, you know what
(24:02):
I mean. She and she always took This is the
weird thing. She never went anywhere without the baby, Maurice,
never except for this one day, supposedly the day she disappeared.
She didn't have the baby with her, right, so tell
me about that. Tell me about the day she disappeared.
(24:23):
We had been at my uncle's house up in Wales
math Um. We came home later that early evening and
my mother got a call from Bob. I guess yeah,
I think, yeah, it was Bob that called and said,
have you heard from your daughter? And my mother. Susan
(24:46):
always knew, I mean mostly every Sunday we want my
uncle's in math and I soon knew when we were
there and when we come home, you know what I mean.
And this one day, my mother didn't get her phone call.
Bernadette mentions a cop who worked a beat just up
the street from the apartment, a cop who was familiar
(25:06):
with Susan because he saw her every day when she
would walk to the drug store to make her daily
phone call to her mom at six pm. And he
never saw her that day. And the pharmacist, Now back
then you could buy cigarettes in a pharmacy, and the
pharmacist just dis sumed my sister all the time, and
he never saw since dead day. And so the night passes,
(25:30):
the next day comes, and what happens. My mom didn't
sleep much, let me tell you, you know, she just
was up constantly waiting for Sue to call, to see
if maybe she had gone off somewhere or whatever. Bernadette said.
(25:53):
The days after Susan went missing were absolute torture on everyone.
The family on edge, we eating, wondering, everyone that is,
except Bob LaRosa. Apparently Bernardette knew this because with my
brother in law to take care of the kids. Bernardette
(26:15):
was only fourteen when she had to move into Bob
and Susan's home just days after her older sister went missing.
They lived on the second floor of what was an
old colonial home converted to several low income apartments. What
Bernardette saw when she stepped into the apartment, it's something
she's never forgotten. What did you see when you went
(26:36):
there the first time after she went missing. Blood on
the floor, on the wall, on the door, down the stairs, everywhere. Yeah, yeah,
there was well, there was trickles going down the stairs,
you know. Now they had a living room kitchen combination. Okay,
so it was just one room open. The blood was
(26:57):
over near my nephew Roberts bedroom, A big pool of
it was on the floor and the door and all that.
And he gave me a putty knife to clean it up.
I kind of clean it with a putty knie because
it wouldn't come off. Bernardette says she had to scrape
what she believed was her sister's blood off the floor, walls, door,
(27:20):
and down the stairs. So she got on her hands
and knees and went to work. Let me just ask
you when he gave you the putty knife to clean
up the blood, where did he say the blood came from?
He said it came from my nephew. He said, my
sister slapped them in the face and he got a
(27:41):
bloody nose and a bloody lip. Well, I didn't see
anything that could have blood like that. I'm not stupid.
He had a little boo boo, But way with that
amount of blood come out? So that blood? When when
when you started to clean that blood up with the
putty knife, what were you thinking? I was fourteen. Wo
(28:01):
did you expect me to think? You know, back then
we were clean living, you know, we didn't think that way.
What a sobering statement. In this same situation today, your
mind would go right to murder. In the seventies, murder
was not thought of in the same way or reported
by the media as headline news like it is today.
(28:24):
But as it was cleaning and I'm like, you know,
I said to him, I said, well, this is a
lot of blood from coming from Robbie. I said, put
the hell oh well, he lent really hard and this
and that and um, what did you do with the
party knife? Give me back to him? Did he ask
for it back. Yes, Bernadette was not questioned by police then.
(28:50):
That came many years later. In fact, the Vernon Police
Department never went into the LaRosa residence after Susan went
missing or after her body was found. As Bernard that
stayed at the apartment. Days passed and with them came
additional odd behaviors on Bob Lerosa's part, and that's when
the card disappeared. One day Bob had the vehicle, the
(29:13):
next he didn't. When asked, he said he'd sold it.
Did Bob ever act weird around you while you were there?
He was always kind of weird. I mean I was
fourteen years old and it was dead of summer, you
know what I mean, in June and it was really
(29:34):
hot in the city. And he had taken all the
fans in his room. He was a freaking pervert. And
he said to me, I said, Bob, can I have
the fans please? If he goes, you know the the way
you're gonna get a fan if is if you come
in here and sleep with me. And I looked at
him and I said, what is You're freaking problem? Is it?
No way? No way? Thanks anyway, keep them. Days after
(29:58):
his wife goes missing. The guy is asking his fourteen
year old sister in law, who'd scrape blood off the
floor and walls on her hands and knees with a
putty knife to have sex with him. Bernadette told nobody
about the blood. She was terrified. As years passed, she
(30:19):
eventually let family members know and finally went to the police.
Her statement led the Vernon p D to take another
look at Susan Lorosa's murder in the year two thousand,
which put Bernadette back in the l Rosa's apartment all
those years later. I think it was a detective coughed
(30:41):
saying that they would like me if I was able to,
They would like me to go back to the house
and where the blood was that I cleaned and insane.
If the police found one droplet, it would corroborate Stacy
La Rosa's statements to police from Anne Bernardette Gauthier's later statements,
(31:07):
both of which would be huge, big enough in fact,
to possibly charge Bob la Rossa with murder. In the
(31:28):
next episode of Paper Ghosts, it's like she dropped off
the face of the earth, and if you tried to
say anything to them about her, they didn't like that.
They would walk away or you know, they didn't like it.
So you have the more intelligent ones saying, oh, she's missing,
(31:51):
and then you have the ones over here that are saying,
we've seen her. There was a child abuse going on
in New Yorkhanas and I know, I know for a fact.
So that was enough for me. So somebody do something.
Get over here. I want him to tell you, guys,
what he told me, what happened. Paper Ghosts is written
(32:14):
and executive produced by me and William Phelps, with help
from producer Christina Everett and sound editing by Pete Cardi
from Backroom Audio. A special thanks to Abu Safar and
Will Pearson from My Heart Radio. The series theme number
four four two is written and performed by Tom Mooney
and Thomas Phelps. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
(32:38):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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