03x13 - Out of the Ashes

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NARRATOR: On a cold December night in ,

Rose Larner left a convenience store on her way

to a boyfriend's house.

But she was never seen or heard from again.

Rose Larner's disappearance remained a mystery

until a tiny clue found years later uncovered a tragic tale

of dr*gs, romance, and revenge.

[THEME MUSIC]

Rose Larner was the second of three

children in a broken family.

She was a highly intelligent but very difficult teenager.

-Rose Larner was an -year-old girl

who liked to spend a lot of time out at night with her friends

away from her family-- a family that dubbed her the vampire

because they only saw her in the daytime.

NARRATOR: Rose's his best friend, Bill Brown,

was a boy she had known since second grade.

They remained friends even after high school.

-The first girl I ever got a kiss from.

Her and, uh, two other girls came down to our house.

And they chased me through the woods.

And my brothers held me down.

And she gave me a kiss.

And, uh, we were just basically friends.

We had crushes on each other but, um, nothin' serious.

And we were just kids.

NARRATOR: After high school, Rose worked at a pizza shop

in her hometown of Lansing, Michigan and started dating

a friend of Bill Brown's-- John Ortiz-Kehoe.

-He came on quite polite.

He was a local star-- rap star.

I mean, everyone thought he was just it, you know?

This was John Kehoe.

And, um, when I first met him, I thought he was nice.

I thought he was all right.

NARRATOR: Rose, John Kehoe, and Bill Brown

were inseparable, spending their days and most of their nights

together.

For a time, Rose and John Kehoe lived together

but the relationship didn't last.

Kehoe moved out.

And Rose was devastated.

-John at some point decided they he--

he wasn't interested in Rose and tried to break it off.

Um, Rose wasn't real keen on that idea.

NARRATOR: On the night Rose disappeared, she stopped in

to visit her mother who was working

at the convenience store.

Rose said she was headed to the home

of her friend, Keith, who lived nearby.

-She walked up to my work and told me she was walking over

to a-- a boyfriend she had at the time.

Her and John were split up, and um, and I asked her not to.

I told her, uh, I had a bad feelin' about tonight

and to go back and get the van.

But she didn't want to do that.

NARRATOR: Rose preferred to walk that night instead of driving

and did not return home.

The next day, Rose Markey called her daughter's friend

Keith who said that Rose never showed up.

Rose didn't show up for work that day either.

-Rose ran on the wild side.

She was, uh, independent, uh, rebellious, uh,

and it would not have been, uh, out of the realm of possibility

for her to have simply left the area

and gone and looked for another lifestyle.

NARRATOR: Rose Larner made approximately , telephone

calls every month but no one heard

from her after she disappeared.

-Nobody heard from Rosie.

And the detective that was assigned the case that

was his sign that there was something wrong there 'cuz, um,

he said that someone just doesn't

break a habit like that.

NARRATOR: Rose Larner's mother still hope

for her daughter's safe return.

Perhaps something in Rose's phone records

would provide a clue.

After two weeks went by with no word from Rose Larner,

Lansing Police began one of the most intensive searches

ever undertaken in central Michigan.

They dragged area rivers, coordinated search teams

to look for clues in the surrounding neighborhoods,

and investigated every lead.

-The persistent rumors-- Rose is in so-and-so's backyard.

Rose is in so-and-so's basement.

And I'll admit we dug up a few basements

and, uh, drained a few gravel pits looking for Rose, uh,

with nothing-- came up dry every time-- nothing.

NARRATOR: Police learned that Rose Larner spoke

with their ex-boyfriend, John Ortiz-Kehoe,

on the night she disappeared.

Kehoe had an alibi for that night.

He was on a date with another woman.

Bill Brown was with Kehoe and his date

on the night Rose disappeared and corroborated Kehoe's alibi.

For the next two and a half years,

police could find no trace of Rose Larner.

-You're simply stymied.

You're stalled.

That was where the police were at, uh-- at the time--

two and a half years after she disappeared.

NARRATOR: The state police began their investigation

with a fresh look at Rose's ex-boyfriend, John Ortiz-Kehoe.

They quickly discovered that Kehoe and Rose Larner

had an unusual relationship-- one that

continued even after they broke up.

In one incident, Rose followed Kehoe to this fraternity house

near Michigan State University.

Kehoe was on a date with another woman.

In a fit of anger, Rose drove a van

into the side of Kehoe's truck.

-She was smashing her mother's van into his truck-- breakin'

out his windows.

We'd come out to my parent's house.

And, uh, she'd be hidin' behind trees.

NARRATOR: Police also learned that Kehoe and Bill Brown were

in business together-- the drug business

and had customers all over Michigan.

-We as a task force put a lot of pressure on Bill Brown.

I mean, we were talking to family members.

We were talking to friends.

We were talking to neighbors.

We were talking all kinds of people

that hadn't been approached before.

NARRATOR: Brown and Kehoe were together

on the night Rose Larner disappeared.

But police did not believe that brown had told them everything

about their activities that night.

BILL BROWN: I knew it was going to be very hard-- very, very

hard for them to be able to get a case.

I knew the only way would be is if people started talking.

NARRATOR: Bill Brown originally said he knew nothing

about Rose Larner's disappearance.

But two and a half years later under constant police pressure,

he changed his story.

And it was the story so shocking few believed him.

-When Bill Brown was sitting there in the office,

we were hearing things that we had never heard before.

It was an eye opener.

-After listening to his whole story

about what happened to Rose Larner,

I literally went home and told my wife

that I felt like I had just met Satan.

Uh, you know, I-- I almost stopped on the way home

and went into a church that I didn't belong to.

Um, it's-- it was-- it was the most unsettling thing that

I've ever been through, uh, to listen to that.

NARRATOR: And police needed science

to determine whether Brown was telling the truth.

After two and a half years of searching for Rose Larner,

Bill Brown finally revealed what happened

on the night she disappeared.

Brown said that on December seventh

he unexpectedly ran into Rose Larner

near the convenience store.

Rose told Brown she wanted to see John Kehoe.

-Rose is begging me to page John.

And, uh, so I finally do.

I page John.

And she asks me to ask John to come pick her up.

John says the only way he'll agree

to that is if she agrees to have sex with both of us.

NARRATOR: Brown said Rose agreed.

They drove to John Kehoe's grandparent's home

because they were away on vacation.

Rose changed her mind about the threesome.

When she did, Brown say Kehoe m*rder*d

her and dismembered her body.

Brown said they cleaned every square foot of the house,

removing all of the blood, bone, and debris.

Later, they drove to a cabin owned by Bill Brown's parents

where they burned Rose's body.

Afterwards, they spread Rose's ashes along miles of highway

throughout Michigan.

Brown said he didn't come forward sooner because he was

afraid Kehoe would m*rder him as well.

-Alls I want to do is get away from him.

I just wanted to get away from him.

Um, and after that he basically kind of kept me hostage.

I mean, he wouldn't let me out of his sight.

NARRATOR: After two and a half years,

police finally had the break they were hoping for.

But they needed to know if Brown was telling the truth.

-He'd been involved in the drug scene that he ran

with this group, uh, that, uh, would fight.

v*olence was, uh, a part of their world.

Um, he ran with a rough crowd.

NARRATOR: Brown said Rose was m*rder*d in the bathroom.

Police sprayed the area with luminol, a chemical which

can reveal trace amounts of blood

even after it's been removed with water and detergent.

But they found nothing.

On a hallway carpet, the luminol revealed

what appeared to be the imprint of a bloody bucket.

But after two and a half years, there

was not enough blood to perform DNA testing.

Investigators feared they were at a dead end

until they noticed a small spot on the wallpaper

just outside the bathroom.

-It had the color consistent with blood.

And it had kind of the configuration of what you would

suspect if a blood droplet was falling down a wall.

NARRATOR: The spot look like part of the wallpaper pattern.

To see if it was blood, scientists

performed a phenolphthalein test.

A wet Q-Tip was rubbed over the spot.

Then phenolphthalein and hydrogen peroxide were applied.

The Q-Tip turned pink-- a positive, presumptive test

for the presence of blood.

-Of course, we didn't know who's blood it was.

Keep in mind just because we find a drop of blood-- I mean,

it could be grandparents, it could be anybody's blood,

that-- that, uh, we didn't know for sure.

-You know, in my mind I'm thinking, you know,

could this be a blood drop of Rose Larner?

And at this point, you know, of course I got very excited

and thought, you know, what if this

could actually be from our victim.

NARRATOR: Scientists were able to extract enough blood

from the wallpaper for DNA analysis.

But they had nothing to compare it to.

In Rose Larner's case file, police

learned that she had been involved

in a sexual as*ault four years earlier.

After the as*ault, a sample of her blood

was taken and still existed in police custody.

The DNA profile from the blood on the wallpaper

matched the DNA from Rose Larner's blood sample.

The odds of the blood belonging to anyone else

were in million.

-Identifying it as Rose Larner's was-- is what's remarkable.

That tells us that Rose Larner was in that house at that time.

That corroborates what Bill Brown told us.

That was crucial.

NARRATOR: Brown also revealed that they both rinsed

rags soaked with Rose's blood in the basement sump pump.

Forensic scientists gathered all of the debris

from the bottom of the drain.

They also excavated the fire pit near Bill Brown's parent's

cabin where Rose's body had allegedly been burned.

The search resembled an archaeological dig.

-My job at that site was to excavate the fire pit

and collect any remains-- any evidence in that fire pit

that might be relevant to the case.

Specifically, I was looking for evidence

for human bone-- human material.

NARRATOR: The fragments were analyzed

with an ultraviolet light in order

to determine whether they were bone.

Under ultraviolet light, bone will glow.

-The fragments that I did end up finding were very, very small.

Probably none of them were larger than the size of a pea.

Um, so initially when all the dirt and debris was in there,

it was very difficult to tell what we had.

NARRATOR: The bone chips were too

damaged and degraded for DNA analysis.

But they were analyzed to determine if they were human.

Magnified times, human bone is circular in structure,

while animal bone seen here is more linear.

The bones found in both sites were clearly human.

The number of circular structures

in the bones, or osteons, increases with age.

There were relatively few osteons in the bone chips

found in the debris.

-We were able to determine that the remains were clearly human

and, uh, in some cases they probably represented, uh ,

somebody who was a teenager or in their early s.

-People just don't find bone fragments in their house.

And it corroborated with the bone fragments

that we found in Northern Michigan at the site

where, uh, Bill Brown's properly where they

took her and burned her remains.

NARRATOR: The blood and the bone chips

were exactly where Bill Brown said they'd be.

Police were now convinced the grows larger had been m*rder*d.

According to Bill Brown's confession

and the forensic evidence, prosecutors now

knew what happened to Rose Larner on her last night alive.

Shortly after visiting her mother at the convenience

store, Rose ran into her childhood friend, Bill Brown.

BILL: Hi, Rose.

-Hi, Billy.

Let's go get John.

BILL: Fine.

NARRATOR: At Rose's suggestion, they

picked up her ex-boyfriend, John Kehoe.

-I'm just going to go inside and grab

some stuff for the night's festivities.

NARRATOR: John Kehoe bought some supplies

for the evening including a hatchet,

a knife, and some lighter fluid.

Brown said he was not aware of the specific items

Kehoe purchased until later that night.

Once at Kehoe's grandparent's home,

all three took a shower together.

Kehoe again tried to initiate a sexual threesome.

But Rose refused.

At the sink without warning, Kehoe strangled her.

[SCREAMS]

In the shower stall, Kehoe slit her throat

and dismembered her body using the knife

and hatchet he purchased at the store.

Brown and Kehoe spent the next two days

cleaning the blood, bone, and debris.

A bloody bucket left the stain on the carpet

found years later with the luminol.

Rags soaked with blood and bone were rinsed in the basement

sump pump where tiny pieces of bone were also discovered.

And the blood spot on the wall was identified

as Rose Larner's through DNA testing.

The body was burned in an outdoor fire pit.

After the cremation, the ashes were dumped out of the car

window as Kehoe and Brown drove back to Lansing.

-I did say a prayer for her right afterwards.

And I'm not a religious person.

But I did pray for her soul.

And, uh, th-- that night and many nights

after that is about all the thought I put into it.

All the other thought was in saving my-- saving my butt.

NARRATOR: The phones in the sump pump,

the luminol impression of the bloody bucket,

the tiny speck of blood on the wallpaper,

and the bone fragments in the fire pit

all confirmed Brown's story.

Before police could question John Kehoe,

he fled the country.

After a six month international manhunt,

Kehoe was finally located.

-I saw him for the first time in Mexico.

He was drinking a beer in a bar.

Four minutes later he was sittin' US customs

on the other side of the bridge.

It looks like, slam, bam, and he's out of there right now.

I don't think he knew what happened.

NARRATOR: At the trial, Kehoe had a ready defense.

He claimed that it was Bill Brown

who had m*rder*d Rose Larner.

-John Kehoe was going to point the finger at him

and say well, gee, I didn't do it.

I was just there.

And he k*lled my girlfriend.

He went nuts on coke and k*lled my girlfriend.

We knew that was coming.

NARRATOR: But prosecutors argued that Bill Brown

had no motive to k*ll Rose Larner.

John Kehoe did.

-His motive was the problems that Rose Larner was causing

for him in the days and weeks prior to her disappearance.

She was embarrassing him.

She, uh, smashed his truck.

It was typical for Rose not to be intimidated by this guy

and to simply, uh, get into arguments with him,

and-- and call names and not back down.

That was Rose Larner.

And-- and this I think was something new for John Kehoe.

And it-- it angered him.

It really angered him.

NARRATOR: Although the crime occurred two and half years

earlier, Rose Larner was still be able to speak to the jury

through the power of forensic science.

-In this case, you know, I don't take

the position that we didn't have a body.

I-- I think we did.

We just had very small pieces of it.

So I mean, they basically gave us a body.

NARRATOR: The jury deliberated just over an hour.

JURY FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, John

Cortiz-Kehoe, guilty of first degree, premeditated m*rder.

NARRATOR: Kehoe received Michigan's maximum sentence--

life in prison without possibility of parole.

Rose Larner's grave is empty.

All that remains of her body are the tiny bone

fragments which are still in evidence.

-I hope John Kehoe lives a long time in prison.

And I hope he thinks of Rosie every day that he's in prison.

I feel a person like that would rather

die than to be in prison the rest of his life.

So I feel that that's a just punishment.

But if he were to die, I hope it's brutal .

NARRATOR: Bill Brown was sentenced to one year in prison

for helping to cover up the m*rder.

He is now out on parole.

-If I would known it was going to take place, like I said,

I wouldn't have been there.

She wouldn't have been there.

It would never would have happened.

-The way I feel about it is that by convicting John Kehoe,

I just saved other people's lives-- other young girl's

lives because I just feel that-- that it was his nature.

And that he enjoyed k*lling Rose Larner

and that he would do it again.

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