The 1991 Disappearance and Death of Tom Roche: Spouse Receives an Anonymous Confession Letter
Apr 4, 2019 3:36:58 GMT
Post by hi224 on Apr 4, 2019 3:36:58 GMT
In 1991, 37-year old Tom Roche lived in Burbank, California with his girlfriend of 15 years, Barbara Rondeau. Tom was a six-foot-two, 210-pound motorcycle enthusiast and had just been offered a new management position at a company which plated airplane parts. On the morning of September 13, Tom dropped Barbara off at her workplace and said he would return to meet her for lunch at noon. However, Tom never showed up and did not phone Barbara to let her know. At 5:30 PM, Barbara returned to their apartment and discovered the front door was unlocked. Even though his Harley-Davison was still parked outside, Tom had gone missing. When the police became involved, they learned that after dropping Barbara off at work, Tom went to his bank to make two deposits at 8:20 AM, but did not withdraw any money. At 9:30 AM, a neighbour at Tom’s apartment complex saw him conversing with an unidentified white male next to a brown pickup truck. On September 19, Barbara found an envelope in her mailbox containing Tom’s driver’s licence, credit card, and one of his earrings. They were wrapped in an anonymous confession letter to Tom’s murder which read…
"I am suffering a great deal of guilt right now about what I have done and I feel it is necessary to write about it for my sake. You don’t know me and hopefully you never will, but I am the one who killed Tom Roche. I cannot and will not go to jail. I could never handle it. I almost lost my mind. Never again. I loved being in Vietnam. In fact, those were the happiest days of my life. I felt such a rush whenever I had a confirmed kill that it was hard to switch it off when I came back to the States. For 18 long years, I have held this in check despite the nightmares and fantasies about killing. This Jeffrey Dahmer (misspelled in the letter as “Behemer”) thing really got to me and I wondered if I could still do it. I figured L.A. would be the best place for what I had in mind. I did not want just a random thing cause you can get caught that way so I set up a plan. I met Tom in a strip joint in the Valley and got to talking. He fell for it and we arranged to meet on Friday the 13th. I killed him shortly after I got there. I must assure you that it was neat and quick. He did not suffer at all. I am very sorry for what I have done. I know that in time, the guilt will leave me, so will your pain."
The writer also claimed that Tom’s body was dumped in some mountains in the Los Angeles area. However, there would be some suspicion that Tom staged his own disappearance and wrote the letter as a hoax, as a motorcycle parts shop owner named Andy Marsala told police he saw Tom in his shop on September 14, the day after he went missing. Tom was a regular customer there, but Marsala thought Tom was acting strangely since he did not stop to chat with him. However, investigators believed that Marsala may have gotten his dates mixed up and this sighting took place prior to September 14. On January 11, 1992, some weathered bone fragments were discovered in a wooded area beneath a remote hillside in Placer County, nearly 500 miles north of Burbank. DNA testing eventually identified the remains as belonging to Tom Roche and his cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound. A number of Tom’s personal items were found at the scene, including a duffel bag, flashlight, hunting knife, bottled water, two pairs of prescription eyeglasses, an empty prescription medicine bottle, and several shirts. The presence of these items seemed to suggest that Tom had packed to leave on a trip, but why would he have done so if he was planning to meet Barbara for lunch? The writer of the confession letter, as well as the white male seen with Tom at his apartment complex, have never been identified.
I cover this case on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” podcast:
trailwentcold.com/2019/04/03/the-trail-went-cold-episode-118-tom-roche/
Sources:
unsolved.com/gallery/tom-roche/
www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-19-me-4840-story.html
"I am suffering a great deal of guilt right now about what I have done and I feel it is necessary to write about it for my sake. You don’t know me and hopefully you never will, but I am the one who killed Tom Roche. I cannot and will not go to jail. I could never handle it. I almost lost my mind. Never again. I loved being in Vietnam. In fact, those were the happiest days of my life. I felt such a rush whenever I had a confirmed kill that it was hard to switch it off when I came back to the States. For 18 long years, I have held this in check despite the nightmares and fantasies about killing. This Jeffrey Dahmer (misspelled in the letter as “Behemer”) thing really got to me and I wondered if I could still do it. I figured L.A. would be the best place for what I had in mind. I did not want just a random thing cause you can get caught that way so I set up a plan. I met Tom in a strip joint in the Valley and got to talking. He fell for it and we arranged to meet on Friday the 13th. I killed him shortly after I got there. I must assure you that it was neat and quick. He did not suffer at all. I am very sorry for what I have done. I know that in time, the guilt will leave me, so will your pain."
The writer also claimed that Tom’s body was dumped in some mountains in the Los Angeles area. However, there would be some suspicion that Tom staged his own disappearance and wrote the letter as a hoax, as a motorcycle parts shop owner named Andy Marsala told police he saw Tom in his shop on September 14, the day after he went missing. Tom was a regular customer there, but Marsala thought Tom was acting strangely since he did not stop to chat with him. However, investigators believed that Marsala may have gotten his dates mixed up and this sighting took place prior to September 14. On January 11, 1992, some weathered bone fragments were discovered in a wooded area beneath a remote hillside in Placer County, nearly 500 miles north of Burbank. DNA testing eventually identified the remains as belonging to Tom Roche and his cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound. A number of Tom’s personal items were found at the scene, including a duffel bag, flashlight, hunting knife, bottled water, two pairs of prescription eyeglasses, an empty prescription medicine bottle, and several shirts. The presence of these items seemed to suggest that Tom had packed to leave on a trip, but why would he have done so if he was planning to meet Barbara for lunch? The writer of the confession letter, as well as the white male seen with Tom at his apartment complex, have never been identified.
I cover this case on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” podcast:
trailwentcold.com/2019/04/03/the-trail-went-cold-episode-118-tom-roche/
Sources:
unsolved.com/gallery/tom-roche/
www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-19-me-4840-story.html