July 1, 2025 • 20 mins
Two cold cases from the Hudson Valley. The murders of L. Richard Rosenberg and Richard Aderson have still not been solved.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Listen to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us
come and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman, I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Is Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio
dot Com. Welcome everyone. We have a slightly different show today.
We often do a cold case before a regular case.
But Brian, you have a couple of cold cases.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, I have. This will be kind of a shorter episode,
but I have two cold cases from the Hudson Valley
that I think should be front and center again, at
least for a little while. So I thought we would
just do those.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm all for the cold cases. Anything that can help, all.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Right, So why don't we hop right in and get started. Maybe.
Actually I didn't run these by you first either, so
it's an ambush double cold case for you.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
So ambush double cold case. Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So if you know anything about these, by all means
to jump in ed, which is okay. So we're gonna
go back to the nineteen nineties for both of them.
The first one, our victim's name was el Richard Rosenberg.
He was described as a short, round and balding man,
which right off the bat I start thinking George Costanza.
(01:15):
So I don't know how accurate that is. He could
be classified as a real estate magnate. He owned about
three thousand apartments across Orange, Duchess, and Ulster counties in
New York.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Wow. Yeah, can you imagine that's like owning a small town.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah yeah, so all right. He just was not well
liked in general, which has led to problems in investigating
the case. Apparently he was personally abrasive. He would quote
unquote renegotiate deals with contractors after they did the work
(01:52):
the individual. No, and many contractors called him the worst
guy to do a job for. And that is a
direct quote from an anonymous contractor. And we'll talk about
anonymous in a little bit. He was anti union. He
fought tenant organizations who tried to organize to address problems
(02:13):
in some of these apartment complexes. He had over sixty
six zero cases in court where he was suing municipalities
and people. Oh okay, he had dozens more where he
was the defendant, people suing him for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, he was a lawyer's best friend.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, oh, no doubt, no doubt. And these cases started
piling up in nineteen eighty seven, so the late nineteen eighties.
A few people did like him, including a local deli
owner who catered his events. He said he never had
an issue getting paid. The guy came in, he was
a regular, so he said he never had a problem
with him. He's one of the few some admired his work.
(02:55):
Ethic Rosenberg was very hands on with his business. He
was out doing gardening. He was out planting flowers and
stuff at one of his own complexes, so I will
give him credit for that. At the time he was murdered,
he was actually taking a class on insect extermination when
he could have very easily just hire somebody to do it,
(03:17):
but he wanted to learn and do it himself.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So probably save money.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, you know, that's why. And if nothing else, you
can watch what they're doing and make sure you're not
getting ripped off kind of right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, he wore older suits. He did. He was not
at the peak of fashion. He would just wear whatever
he had. He personally collected the quarters from the washing
machines at the complex. He didn't have anybody to do that.
One employee said he would just lose his mind and
yell about the most trivial things. And this employee said
(03:53):
if he wasn't giving people a heart attack, he was
going to have one himself.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Another quote, Wow, Wow, you're painting quite the rosy picture.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, so let's go back to short, round, balding and
just full of stress. I think of those little super
balls that when you drop, they go bing bing bang,
big big in human beings. Yeah, that's kind of what
I'm imagining with this guy as a builder. He was
known to build stuff now and worry about it later.
The worry part would be the permits and permission and
(04:24):
zoning and what.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Oh okay letter to ask forgiveness than.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So I refer you back to the lawsuits that we
mentioned earlier. Yeah, the local homeowners did not appreciate that,
as you can imagine the ones in the neighborhood where
he was building. In nineteen ninety four, he had a
falling out with his business partner, saw Silver, and they
split their shares and went their separate ways. On November ninth,
nineteen ninety five, sometime after five point thirty pm, he
(04:54):
left the management office at Chelsea Ridge Apartments in Chelsea,
which is a hamlet of Wappinger, York if you're familiar
with the area. Yeah, it was one of the apartment
complexes he owned, and he had built a man made
island in the middle of the man made lake in
the complex and then put his house on that, which.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Is that's a big island.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's pretty awesome. I wish I could do that. He
called it fantasy Island. I can't imagine why. It was
well hidden behind thick foliage, so the residents really just
did not have a view of his house. So private
island on a man made lake, hidden from the apartments
that were all the way kind of almost surrounding you.
(05:40):
Rosenberg left the office and made the short drive to
his house, and he was found dead inside the house
at seven fifteen pm. The autopsy showed that the cause
of death was a single gunshot to the upper torso,
causing internal hemorrhaging. Rumors started to spread that he was
shot in multiple times, said he was stabbed, that he
(06:01):
had his throat slit.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But that was wishful thinking.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It sounds like people wish they could get their fifteen
minutes of fame and be involved. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
The only official documents say that one single gunshot was
the cause of death. The New York State Police handled
the case. They are still handling the case. They interviewed
all of his current and former business associates and every
resident of that eight hundred and thirty four unit complex,
so they were on the ballow and member. This is
(06:32):
the nineties, this is really pre Internet. A lot of
people just did not want to talk about him. He
was so unlike that almost anyone could be a suspect,
and I think that added a lot of fear and
nervousness to people. Many people chose to just remain anonymous
in interviews with newspapers and with other people that were
(06:52):
trying to investigate former employees, avoided questions. They just didn't
want to answer anything. And I think in the back
of a lot of people's mind and they just didn't
want to have any connection with possibly being a suspect.
So this is still an open cold case.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
If you do, you know, I guess he was not married,
was he ever married, any significant.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Others, anything that I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Something. You know, often you are killed by someone close
to you.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's very often the first suspect that pops
into your head. But mister Rosenberg seem to have a
lot of suspects that would pop into people. Wow, except
the deli owner. He seemed to be all right.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Ah, but maybe that was a front. We need to
question that Delia.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But if the Delli owner was actually getting paid, why
would you?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, you know that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, I don't want to offer your best customer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So I am not familiar with this. I will have
to look into this more so. I guess the state
police would be the one.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
They police are still handling it. Yeah. So yeah, if
you happen to know anything, maybe you are a relative
or former associate or any As we've said over and
over again, don't assume that the police know what you know.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
No suspects, no nothing, nothing nothing.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So fantasy and I secluded.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And yeah, I guess though in nineteen ninety five didn't
have security cameras.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
No, they remember. That would be when they were still
on VHS tape. It would be a big thing, and
even the most sophisticated systems would cycle the tape or
you have to or it would stop until you went
and changed the tape or rewound it and started it
over again. So I don't know, I'm guessing he did
not have cameras, but if he did, it's likely that
(08:36):
he Yeah, it wouldn't have been recorded anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Right, Wow, all right, Well called your local, you know,
the New York State Police. Yeah, if if anyone knows,
somebody has to know something.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I mean, I kind of want to see if Fantasy
Island is still there.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I haven't been that well, what would Yeah, it sounds
like a prime pce of real estate. Who wouldn't want
a secluded house on an island.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
In a lake with a bit of a stigma of.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, So the other question, you know, you always wonder
who benefits the most, who inherited his three thousand pieces
of real estate and the house and the cash.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And oh I'm intrigued now, okay, so all right, all.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Right, we'll put you on the case. Let's see.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
All right, I'll try to have it solved next week.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Sounds good. Why don't we take a break and I
have one more cold case to run by? All right,
all right, okay, so we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, I almost didn't come back because I've started investigating
the case of l.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Richard Burg yeah, but google, I guess I can Fantasy
Island and see what.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, see what's going on there? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Like I said, my two biggest questions who inherited it everything?
And what relationships.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Did he was he having at the time?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, I don't know. It's and research, well, you know
better than anybody. The further back you go, the harder
it is to find details. Nineteen nineties was I mean
early early public Internet and you know, articles are were
retroactively archived on the internet kind of thing. So there's
(10:38):
not a whole lot of new stuff coming in.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And in a case, you know, often even if it's older,
people are talking a lot, and this seems to be
a case where nobody's talking.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, people did not want to be associated kind of right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I love a challenge.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
All right, there you go. We should plug your book
while you talk about challenges. We never do that. Which
book the Soldier books?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yes, yes, Civil War Soldier and me it's called my
talk about research. Thirty years of research into this Civil
War soldier following his footsteps means a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
This book. So if.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You're interested in the Civil War or just biography, or
you know, another of my lifelong projects, Please please check
it out.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Excellent. All right, So our second cold case, this is
a tough one. We're still in the nineteen nineties. Our
victim's name is Richard Aderson. It's a D E R
s O N. So watch your spell check because it
always corrects to Anderson and you're not going to find
the right case that we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Okay, could you spell that one more time, A D
E R s O N Aderson.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Okay, all right, Okay, that I haven't heard of that name.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah. He went by Richie, the nickname Richie. He was
an educator. He started teaching in New York City. Then
he went to the Lakeland School District in Westchester, then
the hal Danes Schools in cold Spring, New York. He
took a position as assistant superintendent in the Valley Central
School District in Orange County. Oh yeah, very close, yeah right, yeah,
(12:23):
up in your neck of the woods up there. On Wednesday,
February fifth, nineteen ninety seven, at about six pm, Richie
was on his way home to Lagrange, not the Zeezy
Top Lagrange, the one up here by us, the one,
the Texas one is very different. He was driving east
on I eighty four in Fishkill, New York for those
(12:46):
familiar with the area. He called nine to one to
one from his car phone, which was unusual. This is
nineteen ninety seven and he had a car phone.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
One looked like a brick.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, I'm assuming it was mounted in the phone. From
what I've read about it, it sounded like like a
real car phone, not one of those bagphones. He told
the dispatcher he was involved in a fender bender with
another driver. They had pulled over near the I eighty
four diner.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And I know it yep.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And he told the dispatcher he had been shot by
the other driver. This was the nineteen nineties. Again. Adderson
was ahead of the curve. He had the car phone
in his Volvo Sedan. There was no easy pass yet
at the time, so we don't know who crossed the bridge.
There was no license plate reader. Nowadays there are license
plate readers around on patrol vehicles are mounted permanently. None
(13:40):
of that, unfortunately. He described a murderer to the dispatcher
as a thin, white male in his forties, so this
guy would be in his seventies now, six foot tall,
very thin, medium complexion, close cropped beard, half a bald head,
he said, So I'm assuming I mean like the male
(14:01):
bald head. Yeah, mail pattern bald, this kind of thing
in the middle, a thin nose, and aviator type glasses.
He was driving a late model, dark green Jeep Cherokee
or possibly a similar type suv. Addison said that the
license plate had green letters and numbers on a white background.
(14:24):
He also said the shooter identified himself as a police officer,
but it seems likely that that was a bluff. Okay,
all right, just to intimidate him.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So green and white that Vermont.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Uh, we'll get to that. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, No, no,
you're see that's the way you think. I like that. Unfortunately,
Richie died in the ambulance on the way to Saint
Luke's Hospital in Newburg. The weapon discovered after it was
a forty caliber handgun.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh, they got the gun.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
They got the bullet.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh okay, just a bullet.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, okay, yeah, all things consider calling this in on
a car phone after you've been shot. He did a
good job with his description of the suspect and all that,
all things considered, So I had to give Richie credit
for that, to having the wits about him to be
able to give all that information while this is all
happening now. The license plate, as you brought up the
(15:18):
description green letters, white background. It could have been Florida,
could have been Massachusetts or New Hampshire, all three.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Could Hampshire, Oh it was Vermont is actually green with
white Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
State Police checked in on over eighteen hundred Jeep Cherokees
that fit the description and they wound up focusing on
New Hampshire. New Hampshire State Police also couldn't find anything further,
so New Hampshire State Police are still involved in this
cold case. They checked on retired law enforcement because of
what the suspect said claiming to be a police officer,
(15:55):
even though that was probably not the case. They checked
on retired law enforcement I would fit with the jeeps,
and nothing fit. They couldn't find any matches on that.
Investigators believe that about seventy five cars past the incident
as it was happening, and it's likely that most people
just had no idea. I mean, you're driving by that
(16:17):
fast in that area, Yeah, eighty four is crazy, Yeah,
zipping along?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And what time of day did this happen?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, we're looking at about six pm on February fifth, nineteen,
So it's starts. So it's yeah, it's wintertime, it's already
dark at six pm. People are driving fast. Fender benders
are not that unusual, and people out of the cars
on you know, during a fender bender, that's normal. Richie,
after he was shot, was able to make it back
(16:45):
to the Volvo to make that phone call, so he
was walking at least, so I can understand that people
driving by may not have realized what was going on
at the time. There were about three thousand leads that
were called into police. The case was shown on America's
Most Wanted, which was big at the time, but there's
(17:05):
still no credible evidence unfortunately. To follow up. There is
a composite sketch available. It's online. If you just search
you know Richard Addison again A D E. R. S
O N. You'll see the description that he put up
and there were a handful of witnesses that were able
to give a similar description. So as there is that
composite sketch that that is worth looking. Oh okay, so again,
(17:28):
if anybody knows anything, if you were driving by on
that day, even if you were just there, call give
a heads up. You know, maybe someone's going to ask
you a question of something that you didn't think of.
You know, this is.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, maybe you saw the license plate, maybe you saw
a new Hampshire Green Cherokee, Yeah, whizzing by you or something,
if you can at least pin down the state.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, anything, if anything comes to mind. In addition to this,
his oldest daughter, Heather, was a student at Sunny Potsdam
at the time. This is nineteen ninety seven. And as
if we've talked in the past on the past case
Garrett the murder, Garrett and on, I graduated from Sunny
Potsdam in nineteen ninety six. I don't know Heather Adderson
(18:14):
by name. I don't know if that was her freshman
year or if we overlapped. But if anybody fellow alumni,
if anybody knows Heather Adderson, obviously we would love to
speak with her. If there's anything we're leaving out, anything
we missed, or anything new. Reunion weekend is actually coming
up in July July, off the top of my head,
(18:35):
eleven through the thirteenth, and I'm going to be there.
So if by coincidence, Heather, You're going to be there
as well, you know, please reach out.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Or yeah, I'd love to get there see more details
one if.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Nothing else, thing else we can. Yeah, we can bring
this front and center again at least for a little while.
So if anybody happens to know her, please reach out.
As of twenty seventeen, according to the Pikips Journal, Richie
Son Dave still had the Volvo that he was driving
that night too. I don't want if he still does.
So that was eight years ago, so I don't know
if he still has it. I would imagine he does,
(19:11):
so he still had the Volvo. So yeah, if we
can find some new information on Richard Addison on this case,
that would be great.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah. You have to think if anyone has this, you know,
slightest bit of a conscience that perhaps sometime in the
last twenty five thirty years, whatever it's been, they said
something to somebody or just you know, acted a little strange.
So yeah, nice for the family if this got resolved.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, agreed. All right, that's all I've got for tonight.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Okay, Well, wait out, all our all our junior detectives
out there, get on these cases, and we will see
you next time on murder in the hut Udson Valley.
If you don't run into a shooter on I eighty four.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Listen to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us
come and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman, I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Is Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio
dot Com. Welcome everyone. We have a slightly different show today.
We often do a cold case before a regular case.
But Brian, you have a couple of cold cases.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, I have. This will be kind of a shorter episode,
but I have two cold cases from the Hudson Valley
that I think should be front and center again, at
least for a little while. So I thought we would
just do those.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm all for the cold cases. Anything that can help, all.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Right, So why don't we hop right in and get started. Maybe.
Actually I didn't run these by you first either, so
it's an ambush double cold case for you.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
So ambush double cold case. Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So if you know anything about these, by all means
to jump in ed, which is okay. So we're gonna
go back to the nineteen nineties for both of them.
The first one, our victim's name was el Richard Rosenberg.
He was described as a short, round and balding man,
which right off the bat I start thinking George Costanza.
(01:15):
So I don't know how accurate that is. He could
be classified as a real estate magnate. He owned about
three thousand apartments across Orange, Duchess, and Ulster counties in
New York.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Wow. Yeah, can you imagine that's like owning a small town.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah yeah, so all right. He just was not well
liked in general, which has led to problems in investigating
the case. Apparently he was personally abrasive. He would quote
unquote renegotiate deals with contractors after they did the work
(01:52):
the individual. No, and many contractors called him the worst
guy to do a job for. And that is a
direct quote from an anonymous contractor. And we'll talk about
anonymous in a little bit. He was anti union. He
fought tenant organizations who tried to organize to address problems
(02:13):
in some of these apartment complexes. He had over sixty
six zero cases in court where he was suing municipalities
and people. Oh okay, he had dozens more where he
was the defendant, people suing him for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, he was a lawyer's best friend.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, oh, no doubt, no doubt. And these cases started
piling up in nineteen eighty seven, so the late nineteen eighties.
A few people did like him, including a local deli
owner who catered his events. He said he never had
an issue getting paid. The guy came in, he was
a regular, so he said he never had a problem
with him. He's one of the few some admired his work.
(02:55):
Ethic Rosenberg was very hands on with his business. He
was out doing gardening. He was out planting flowers and
stuff at one of his own complexes, so I will
give him credit for that. At the time he was murdered,
he was actually taking a class on insect extermination when
he could have very easily just hire somebody to do it,
(03:17):
but he wanted to learn and do it himself.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So probably save money.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, you know, that's why. And if nothing else, you
can watch what they're doing and make sure you're not
getting ripped off kind of right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, he wore older suits. He did. He was not
at the peak of fashion. He would just wear whatever
he had. He personally collected the quarters from the washing
machines at the complex. He didn't have anybody to do that.
One employee said he would just lose his mind and
yell about the most trivial things. And this employee said
(03:53):
if he wasn't giving people a heart attack, he was
going to have one himself.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Another quote, Wow, Wow, you're painting quite the rosy picture.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, so let's go back to short, round, balding and
just full of stress. I think of those little super
balls that when you drop, they go bing bing bang,
big big in human beings. Yeah, that's kind of what
I'm imagining with this guy as a builder. He was
known to build stuff now and worry about it later.
The worry part would be the permits and permission and
(04:24):
zoning and what.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Oh okay letter to ask forgiveness than.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So I refer you back to the lawsuits that we
mentioned earlier. Yeah, the local homeowners did not appreciate that,
as you can imagine the ones in the neighborhood where
he was building. In nineteen ninety four, he had a
falling out with his business partner, saw Silver, and they
split their shares and went their separate ways. On November ninth,
nineteen ninety five, sometime after five point thirty pm, he
(04:54):
left the management office at Chelsea Ridge Apartments in Chelsea,
which is a hamlet of Wappinger, York if you're familiar
with the area. Yeah, it was one of the apartment
complexes he owned, and he had built a man made
island in the middle of the man made lake in
the complex and then put his house on that, which.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Is that's a big island.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's pretty awesome. I wish I could do that. He
called it fantasy Island. I can't imagine why. It was
well hidden behind thick foliage, so the residents really just
did not have a view of his house. So private
island on a man made lake, hidden from the apartments
that were all the way kind of almost surrounding you.
(05:40):
Rosenberg left the office and made the short drive to
his house, and he was found dead inside the house
at seven fifteen pm. The autopsy showed that the cause
of death was a single gunshot to the upper torso,
causing internal hemorrhaging. Rumors started to spread that he was
shot in multiple times, said he was stabbed, that he
(06:01):
had his throat slit.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But that was wishful thinking.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It sounds like people wish they could get their fifteen
minutes of fame and be involved. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
The only official documents say that one single gunshot was
the cause of death. The New York State Police handled
the case. They are still handling the case. They interviewed
all of his current and former business associates and every
resident of that eight hundred and thirty four unit complex,
so they were on the ballow and member. This is
(06:32):
the nineties, this is really pre Internet. A lot of
people just did not want to talk about him. He
was so unlike that almost anyone could be a suspect,
and I think that added a lot of fear and
nervousness to people. Many people chose to just remain anonymous
in interviews with newspapers and with other people that were
(06:52):
trying to investigate former employees, avoided questions. They just didn't
want to answer anything. And I think in the back
of a lot of people's mind and they just didn't
want to have any connection with possibly being a suspect.
So this is still an open cold case.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
If you do, you know, I guess he was not married,
was he ever married, any significant.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Others, anything that I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Something. You know, often you are killed by someone close
to you.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's very often the first suspect that pops
into your head. But mister Rosenberg seem to have a
lot of suspects that would pop into people. Wow, except
the deli owner. He seemed to be all right.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Ah, but maybe that was a front. We need to
question that Delia.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But if the Delli owner was actually getting paid, why
would you?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, you know that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, I don't want to offer your best customer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So I am not familiar with this. I will have
to look into this more so. I guess the state
police would be the one.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
They police are still handling it. Yeah. So yeah, if
you happen to know anything, maybe you are a relative
or former associate or any As we've said over and
over again, don't assume that the police know what you know.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
No suspects, no nothing, nothing nothing.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So fantasy and I secluded.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And yeah, I guess though in nineteen ninety five didn't
have security cameras.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
No, they remember. That would be when they were still
on VHS tape. It would be a big thing, and
even the most sophisticated systems would cycle the tape or
you have to or it would stop until you went
and changed the tape or rewound it and started it
over again. So I don't know, I'm guessing he did
not have cameras, but if he did, it's likely that
(08:36):
he Yeah, it wouldn't have been recorded anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Right, Wow, all right, Well called your local, you know,
the New York State Police. Yeah, if if anyone knows,
somebody has to know something.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I mean, I kind of want to see if Fantasy
Island is still there.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I haven't been that well, what would Yeah, it sounds
like a prime pce of real estate. Who wouldn't want
a secluded house on an island.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
In a lake with a bit of a stigma of.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, So the other question, you know, you always wonder
who benefits the most, who inherited his three thousand pieces
of real estate and the house and the cash.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And oh I'm intrigued now, okay, so all right, all.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Right, we'll put you on the case. Let's see.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
All right, I'll try to have it solved next week.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Sounds good. Why don't we take a break and I
have one more cold case to run by? All right,
all right, okay, so we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Well, I almost didn't come back because I've started investigating
the case of l.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Richard Burg yeah, but google, I guess I can Fantasy
Island and see what.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, see what's going on there? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Like I said, my two biggest questions who inherited it everything?
And what relationships.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Did he was he having at the time?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, I don't know. It's and research, well, you know
better than anybody. The further back you go, the harder
it is to find details. Nineteen nineties was I mean
early early public Internet and you know, articles are were
retroactively archived on the internet kind of thing. So there's
(10:38):
not a whole lot of new stuff coming in.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And in a case, you know, often even if it's older,
people are talking a lot, and this seems to be
a case where nobody's talking.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, people did not want to be associated kind of right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I love a challenge.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
All right, there you go. We should plug your book
while you talk about challenges. We never do that. Which
book the Soldier books?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yes, yes, Civil War Soldier and me it's called my
talk about research. Thirty years of research into this Civil
War soldier following his footsteps means a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
This book. So if.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You're interested in the Civil War or just biography, or
you know, another of my lifelong projects, Please please check
it out.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Excellent. All right, So our second cold case, this is
a tough one. We're still in the nineteen nineties. Our
victim's name is Richard Aderson. It's a D E R
s O N. So watch your spell check because it
always corrects to Anderson and you're not going to find
the right case that we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Okay, could you spell that one more time, A D
E R s O N Aderson.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Okay, all right, Okay, that I haven't heard of that name.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah. He went by Richie, the nickname Richie. He was
an educator. He started teaching in New York City. Then
he went to the Lakeland School District in Westchester, then
the hal Danes Schools in cold Spring, New York. He
took a position as assistant superintendent in the Valley Central
School District in Orange County. Oh yeah, very close, yeah right, yeah,
(12:23):
up in your neck of the woods up there. On Wednesday,
February fifth, nineteen ninety seven, at about six pm, Richie
was on his way home to Lagrange, not the Zeezy
Top Lagrange, the one up here by us, the one,
the Texas one is very different. He was driving east
on I eighty four in Fishkill, New York for those
(12:46):
familiar with the area. He called nine to one to
one from his car phone, which was unusual. This is
nineteen ninety seven and he had a car phone.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
One looked like a brick.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, I'm assuming it was mounted in the phone. From
what I've read about it, it sounded like like a
real car phone, not one of those bagphones. He told
the dispatcher he was involved in a fender bender with
another driver. They had pulled over near the I eighty
four diner.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And I know it yep.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And he told the dispatcher he had been shot by
the other driver. This was the nineteen nineties. Again. Adderson
was ahead of the curve. He had the car phone
in his Volvo Sedan. There was no easy pass yet
at the time, so we don't know who crossed the bridge.
There was no license plate reader. Nowadays there are license
plate readers around on patrol vehicles are mounted permanently. None
(13:40):
of that, unfortunately. He described a murderer to the dispatcher
as a thin, white male in his forties, so this
guy would be in his seventies now, six foot tall,
very thin, medium complexion, close cropped beard, half a bald head,
he said, So I'm assuming I mean like the male
(14:01):
bald head. Yeah, mail pattern bald, this kind of thing
in the middle, a thin nose, and aviator type glasses.
He was driving a late model, dark green Jeep Cherokee
or possibly a similar type suv. Addison said that the
license plate had green letters and numbers on a white background.
(14:24):
He also said the shooter identified himself as a police officer,
but it seems likely that that was a bluff. Okay,
all right, just to intimidate him.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So green and white that Vermont.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Uh, we'll get to that. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, No, no,
you're see that's the way you think. I like that. Unfortunately,
Richie died in the ambulance on the way to Saint
Luke's Hospital in Newburg. The weapon discovered after it was
a forty caliber handgun.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh, they got the gun.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
They got the bullet.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh okay, just a bullet.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, okay, yeah, all things consider calling this in on
a car phone after you've been shot. He did a
good job with his description of the suspect and all that,
all things considered, So I had to give Richie credit
for that, to having the wits about him to be
able to give all that information while this is all
happening now. The license plate, as you brought up the
(15:18):
description green letters, white background. It could have been Florida,
could have been Massachusetts or New Hampshire, all three.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Could Hampshire, Oh it was Vermont is actually green with
white Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
State Police checked in on over eighteen hundred Jeep Cherokees
that fit the description and they wound up focusing on
New Hampshire. New Hampshire State Police also couldn't find anything further,
so New Hampshire State Police are still involved in this
cold case. They checked on retired law enforcement because of
what the suspect said claiming to be a police officer,
(15:55):
even though that was probably not the case. They checked
on retired law enforcement I would fit with the jeeps,
and nothing fit. They couldn't find any matches on that.
Investigators believe that about seventy five cars past the incident
as it was happening, and it's likely that most people
just had no idea. I mean, you're driving by that
(16:17):
fast in that area, Yeah, eighty four is crazy, Yeah,
zipping along?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And what time of day did this happen?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, we're looking at about six pm on February fifth, nineteen,
So it's starts. So it's yeah, it's wintertime, it's already
dark at six pm. People are driving fast. Fender benders
are not that unusual, and people out of the cars
on you know, during a fender bender, that's normal. Richie,
after he was shot, was able to make it back
(16:45):
to the Volvo to make that phone call, so he
was walking at least, so I can understand that people
driving by may not have realized what was going on
at the time. There were about three thousand leads that
were called into police. The case was shown on America's
Most Wanted, which was big at the time, but there's
(17:05):
still no credible evidence unfortunately. To follow up. There is
a composite sketch available. It's online. If you just search
you know Richard Addison again A D E. R. S
O N. You'll see the description that he put up
and there were a handful of witnesses that were able
to give a similar description. So as there is that
composite sketch that that is worth looking. Oh okay, so again,
(17:28):
if anybody knows anything, if you were driving by on
that day, even if you were just there, call give
a heads up. You know, maybe someone's going to ask
you a question of something that you didn't think of.
You know, this is.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, maybe you saw the license plate, maybe you saw
a new Hampshire Green Cherokee, Yeah, whizzing by you or something,
if you can at least pin down the state.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, anything, if anything comes to mind. In addition to this,
his oldest daughter, Heather, was a student at Sunny Potsdam
at the time. This is nineteen ninety seven. And as
if we've talked in the past on the past case
Garrett the murder, Garrett and on, I graduated from Sunny
Potsdam in nineteen ninety six. I don't know Heather Adderson
(18:14):
by name. I don't know if that was her freshman
year or if we overlapped. But if anybody fellow alumni,
if anybody knows Heather Adderson, obviously we would love to
speak with her. If there's anything we're leaving out, anything
we missed, or anything new. Reunion weekend is actually coming
up in July July, off the top of my head,
(18:35):
eleven through the thirteenth, and I'm going to be there.
So if by coincidence, Heather, You're going to be there
as well, you know, please reach out.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Or yeah, I'd love to get there see more details
one if.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Nothing else, thing else we can. Yeah, we can bring
this front and center again at least for a little while.
So if anybody happens to know her, please reach out.
As of twenty seventeen, according to the Pikips Journal, Richie
Son Dave still had the Volvo that he was driving
that night too. I don't want if he still does.
So that was eight years ago, so I don't know
if he still has it. I would imagine he does,
(19:11):
so he still had the Volvo. So yeah, if we
can find some new information on Richard Addison on this case,
that would be great.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah. You have to think if anyone has this, you know,
slightest bit of a conscience that perhaps sometime in the
last twenty five thirty years, whatever it's been, they said
something to somebody or just you know, acted a little strange.
So yeah, nice for the family if this got resolved.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, agreed. All right, that's all I've got for tonight.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Okay, Well, wait out, all our all our junior detectives
out there, get on these cases, and we will see
you next time on murder in the hut Udson Valley.
If you don't run into a shooter on I eighty four.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
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