Benjamin Rosario (Wild Card, Connecticut)

Our card this week is Benjamin Rosario, a wild card from Connecticut. Most cold case investigators will tell you that murder is a dirty business, but once in a while there is a murder so horrific that it could only be mistaken for an urban legend. The unsolved homicide of Benjamin is one of those cases. It began on a summer evening, much like any other for Benjamin. He left his apartment and headed off to his local bar just a few blocks away from his home in Bridgeport's East End. No doubt the neighbors expected to see him the next day, as they usually did, singing Spanish love songs on his porch. But that's not how things transpired. Benjamin's story would end with a grim discovery in the middle of a road, just a five minute drive from his apartment. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is The Deck. On a hot afternoon on August 3rd, 1994, a reporter at the Connecticut Post, Dan Teppfer, was doing what most local crime journalists did back in the '90s. He was listening to the police scanner. I was sitting at my desk in the newsroom and all of a sudden I heard this call from an excited cop that he had found, looked like body parts in a plastic bag. And then followed by his dispatcher yelling at him, "Keep your voice down." So I listened a little longer and I heard the general's area and I looked over my editor and already left for lunch and I was like, "Well, let me run out there and I saw one of the photographers lounging nearby and I said, 'Hey, I think they found body parts in a bag. I think we should go out there.'" Out there was Sea View Avenue in the city's east end. The bag that had been flagged for police was in the middle of the road and by the time Dan arrived, a Bridgeport PD Patrol officer named Ernie Nandori was already at the scene. I was thinking that it was going to be a toy that was sticking out of the bag, something from Halloween. Maybe somebody just threw out and discarded and didn't want to pay for throwing out their garbage. We used to get a lot of that, we used to get dumping and people would throw garbage underneath the highways, so on and so forth. It definitely didn't cross my mind that I was going to find a human remains. There was no Halloween toy in that trash bag. It was a full human foot still attached to the rest of the leg. Dan watched from 10 feet or so away as the limb was examined by police. "I had the photographer behind me and he's like, 'I don't know what they're going to let me take, what are we going to use?' But he snapped the whole mess of pictures. I looked around if there was anybody around, there were some people standing by by this time. You know, a sizable crowd was forming, so I went into the crowd just asking if anybody knew anything. Of course nobody knew. Not a surprise there." Then we hung around and then I went back and I said to my editor who was back from lunch and then I said, 'Hey, we've got the body parts in the bag.' He's like, 'What?' I said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'The photographer took some photos, you can probably develop them soon so you can take a look at 'em but yeah, he says, 'All right, ride it up.' As Dan rushed back to the newsroom to write up his story, Officer Nandori made his way back to the Bridgeport PD to write up his report. And he couldn't get one specific detail from the scene out of his head. Ironically, it wasn't the severed leg. It was a pair of dark jeans discovered in the trash bag. The jeans were emblazoned with an airbrushed star and would appear to be the letters S-D. Nandori told our reporter, Laura Frater, that the pants looked familiar. "I went over to, I believe it was Captain Donovan and I said, 'Capt, I have information on those pair of pants on a missing person.' "It was that missing person." Mr. Rosario. Mr. Rosario, as in Benjamin Rosario, who Officer Nandori had taken a missing person report on just the day prior. It was Benjamin's wife, Nellie, and Benjamin's stepson, Broderick Rosario, who he spoke to. "I would you describe their emotional state with a stress worry?" "No. At that point, I don't think that there was much worry. I think there was more or less an informational meeting. There wasn't a cry to say, 'Fine, my husband, he's never done this before.' And my thoughts were, it was a check-off. That we report him missing, they find him, they find him." Nellie told Officer Nandori that she'd last seen Benjamin the night before they made the report, so that would have been Monday, August 1st. It was around 10 p.m., and Benjamin was headed to a local bar he frequented, just a few blocks away, called Side Effects. Nellie said that Benjamin was wearing a long sleeve blue plaid shirt, sandals, a stocking cap, and jeans, with an airbrushed star and SD written on them. It was confirmed through witnesses that Benjamin made it to Side Effects, and he was seen leaving the bar between 11 and 11.30 p.m., with a Hispanic man in his mid-30s. By the time Nandori was responding to the scene out on Seville Avenue, he hadn't been able to determine who that man was that Benjamin left with, and he couldn't say for sure that the leg he was looking at in that bag was even Benjamin's, it was just a leg. They'd need to find more remains in order to make a definitive ruling on the identity of the victim, so they began a search of the area. On August 4th, just one day after the gruesome discovery on Seville Avenue, investigators uncovered another trash bag, just a two-minute or so walk away. Dan, the dogged reporter, who by now was glued to the scanner, rushed to the new scene as soon as the discovery came through over the radio. The next one was found under an overpass, I went out there, this time it was quite a crowd, and they were state police, and there were more body parts in a plastic bag. I got pretty close, I got pretty close before the cops shoot me away. The next day, more bags were found. This time at Pleasure Beach, in an area closed off to the public. The discovery was made by an off-duty police officer, who, while he was fishing, recognized the unmistakable smell of human decomposition. And when he followed that stench, he spotted four trash bags, half hidden amongst the undergrowth, and each bag contained human remains. I remember, again, being in my desk and hearing report that, yes, again, another bag found at Pleasure Beach, and I got in my car, and I drove out there. The cops at this point weren't that happy to see me, and I remember Lieutenant Resta, Frank Resta. Like, how did you get out here, because they thought they had stationed a cop at the beginning of the bridge. Unfortunately, it was a cop that I knew, and he's, like, turned his back and let me drive by. So I go out there, and there were very few people at this scene. There were some cops. I saw some fishermen off to one side, kind of curious of what was going on. And then in the middle of everything was this big black garbage bag. The whole city of Bridgeport was on edge wondering who these remains belonged to. And the additional discoveries gave police confirmation of what they already suspected. This was Benjamin Rosario. He was officially identified through fingerprints. Now the homicide investigation could begin. An officer in Andory, who had taken Benjamin's missing person report just days before, quickly became integral to the investigation. So my job at that point was once the crime scene, and there was nothing left, we were told to go back and write our reports as far as what we observed, who we spoke to, and any information that we collected during that time. But I was a more of a key component because I had the missing person report from, like I said, two, three days before that. Homicides that I've encountered through my first two years of patrol work have been, you You know, gunshots and. You know, DOAs, so on and so forth, but nothing of this caliber. As unique as this dismemberment case was to officer Nandory, the disturbing reality was that other murders, all eerily similar to Benjamin's, had recently occurred in nearby states. Between 1992 and 1994, four other men had been killed, dismembered, and left on the sides of highways across the Northeast. And so the first thing investigators had to contend with was the idea that a serial killer had now descended on Bridgeport. Benjamin Rosario, who had been brutally murdered, dismembered, and thrown away like garbage, was one of the biggest cases the Bridgeport Connecticut police had ever handled. And now they were looking at the possibility of a serial killer. Between 1992 and 1994, four other men, excluding Benjamin, had been found murdered and dismembered. Their body parts were discarded in trash bags across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. If this was bigger than just Benjamin's case, Bridgeport PD needed backup. So they enlisted the help of FBI profiler special agent Greg McCrary to create a profile of the killer. In 1994, from his home in Virginia, special agent McCrary spent weeks pouring over copies of Benjamin's case files, provided by Bridgeport PD. How big was this box from Mr. Rosario's? Oh, it's pretty big. Well, yeah, they'd done a lot of investigation, which is typical. I think there were some lab reports that had been done as well. The medical examiners report the autopsy, the things that you typically find in a homicide investigation, initial investigation interviews with potential witnesses, I mean, who found the bag, who called in, who reported what to get the police involved initially, and all of those sorts of documents. As a criminal profiler, special agent McCrary wanted to know more about Benjamin's injuries. How exactly had the killer dismembered him? And what did it reveal about the suspect? When you look at the dismemberment itself, it didn't show any medical knowledge, sophistication, where someone with that knowledge would take the easier way out, which is disarticulating at the joints, cutting ligaments and tendons. This guy, whoever it is, chopped through the bones, which is the least efficient and the most difficult way to achieve the dismemberment. What also peaked special agent McCrary's interest was where Benjamin's body parts had been placed. What did those locations tell them about the killer? Everything is very, very close. The bar, his residence, and where the initial body parts were found, and then even additional body parts were found on Pleasure Beach, which isn't far, it's all within walking distance. These locations made special agent McCrary think that the killer was local. Not to say that a serial killer couldn't keep things concentrated to a small area known to the victim, but this assessment, combined with looking at the autopsies of all of the men, made Benjamin's case stand out. For the other cases, the cuts were methodical and precise as if a medical doctor or nurse had made them. Benjamin's were not. Also differentiating the cases was the fact that the other four men were gay and last seen at gay bars. And though Benjamin was lasting leaving a bar with an unknown man, his family, wife included, asserted that he was not gay. Now eventually, convicted serial killer Richard Rogers was linked to the four other murders. Richard was known as the last call killer because he targeted men at gay bars just before last call. But Richard was never connected to Benjamin's case. He didn't match the description of the guy Benjamin left the bar with. That guy, whose identity police do know, but wouldn't reveal to us, was his spanic and in his mid-30s. Richard was a white guy in his early 40s. That being said, Bridgeport PD told our reporter that they never questioned Richard about Benjamin's murder. And we don't know for certain where he was in August of '94, although sources do put him in the New York City area, a two-ish hour drive away from Bridgeport. Richard Rogers wasn't connected to the other cases until 2001. But even before that, Bridgeport PD were taking McCrary's theory and running with it. They were looking closer to home for Benjamin's killer. In homicides, there's a 70 to 80 percent chance. There's a known relationship between the victim and offender. We're all afraid of stranger danger to boogie man coming in, but I don't know if it's good news or bad news, but we're much more likely to be attacked or assaulted or murdered by someone we know than someone we don't know. And it makes sense when you think about it. Someone has done something to anger, to an rage, someone else, and they act out then in some violent manner. 45-year-old Benjamin Rosario was known in his Bridgeport neighborhood as a guy who sat on his porch and sang Spanish love songs. According to police, he didn't have any known enemies. He lived off disability benefits, and he was known to enjoy a drink or two. But the guy was pretty harmless. Investigators, of course, pressed his wife for information on Benjamin's personal life. Did he have some criminal history that they didn't know about? After all, there was gang activity near their home, so maybe his murder had something to do with that. Our reporter asked the current investigator, Detective Jeffrey Holtz, more about this theory. I think that the detectives just kind of threw that theory out there because at the time the Jamaican gangs that were in the East End were involved in a lot of violence and homicides. So I think it's just an angle that the detectives looked at and just asked her, basically, do you remember him having any problems with the Jamaican gangs? And she said, you know, he got along with everybody, you know? So who in Benjamin's life had motive? It wasn't just the police trying to answer that question. Our dogged reporter, Dan Teppur, was boots on the ground too. And as soon as police confirmed the remains found belong to Benjamin Rosario, he was knocking on the door of Benjamin's apartment, wanting to talk to the two other people who Benjamin lived with. His wife, Nellie, and Nellie and Benjamin's nephew by marriage, Henry Robles. I knocked on the door. His wife came out and his nephew, they came out on the steps of the -- remember, it was a moon multi-family house at a cement stoop in the front. And I stood on the sidewalk and they came out to talk to me. And I introduced myself and I said, you know, I understand that they found Benjamin Rosario's body parts in the plastic bag. And the wife had already, of course, been told by the police what was going on. But she still seemed pretty distraught. The nephew, not so much. He had an odd attitude, kind of a tough guy. I noticed on the bread of bag, he was wearing a white sleeveless t-shirt. He had a tattoo on his shoulder of two cross swords. And so we were talking and he said to me, well, I like to be known as -- they know me in the city by my nickname. I said, oh, what's your nickname? Swords. And right then, I knew something was going on here. He certainly was not unhappy that Benjamin Rosario was dead. Matter of fact, he went on and on about how much he hated him. He definitely was an angry person. And he started right out saying that he was glad he was dead. He was glad Benjamin was dead. And I'm like, excuse me. You don't usually hear that when you're talking to people. I mean, I've been to a lot of crime scenes. I've talked to a lot of victims' families. And they usually distraught, crying, obviously unhappy. But in this case, he seemed actually happy that Benjamin Rosario was dead. And I'm like, really? Because I was taking a back. And he's like, yeah, he never did. He was like, good for nothing. He never should have married my aunt. You know, I tried to talk to her and he was going on and on about this. And I'm like, you know, thinking about my mind, well, I hope the cops are going to be talking to this guy. Detective Holtz told us cops did talk to that guy. He's well aware of the animosity Henry felt toward Benjamin. There were insinuations that sometimes he was unhappy about the way that Benjamin somehow would treat Nelly because she could be demanding and maybe sometimes not so nice. side of the family, who knows where really goes on exactly. - Exactly. - Detective Holt said Henry was well known in Bridgeport. He was an artist and he spray painted a lot of murals across the city. In fact, Henry spray painted an RIP mural for Benjamin after he was murdered, right? Where some of Benjamin's body parts were found. Kind of a strange thing to do for somebody who you openly hated, right? Our reporter, Laura, called Henry, just to ask some questions. And he answered, but he told Laura that he would rather speak in Spanish. Now, Laura doesn't speak the best Spanish, so she called back with a translator. And the second time around, something strange happened. When our reporter, Laura, called Benjamin's nephew back with our translator, Stephanie, they didn't record the actual conversation. And you'll understand why in a second. But they did record their breakdown of the conversation after. - Okay, so let's talk about the conversation that we had with who we thought was Henry, Roblas, tell me what he said. - When he answered the call and I asked if it was Henry Roblas that I was speaking to, he sounded like he was questioning, was like what's it to you in a sense? And when I gave him the whole sentence of being like, hi, I'm Stephanie, I'm calling to speak with Henry Roblas. We want to talk about Benjamin's case, are you interested in talking about it? He then said that he doesn't know a Benjamin. And when I asked him, like again, if I was speaking to Henry Roblas, he then said that he didn't know Henry Roblas and that he had a different name. And he didn't really want to say his name when I pushed on it. And he just kept saying, I don't know those two people, I'm not that person, I have a different name. I don't know who they are. I think you have the wrong number and that was the other conversation. - So he basically said, I have a different name, but he didn't give it to you. - Exactly. When I asked him what his name was, he just kept saying I have a different name and just wanted to quickly dismiss the conversation and hang out the call. - That's really interesting because when I called him last week and I asked him if he was Henry Roblas, he said, yes, but that he needed to translate her to understand me fully. - Finding and speaking to Henry Roblas feels key to this case for me. Not just because he's Nellie's nephew, not just because he lived with Benjamin and not just because he apparently hated the guy, but also because an item of evidence found with Benjamin's remains belonged to Henry. Those pants belong to Henry Roblas, the nephew who lived with Benjamin and Nellie on Union F. So they were his pants and that was like not an unusual thing if you read through the case that Benjamin would be wearing Henry's pants. - Did Benjamin wear Henry's clothes maybe? But they certainly weren't on him when he was found, they were just with him. And an interesting detail is that the only people who say he was wearing those clothes that night are Nellie and her son. Police didn't get a description from the bartender of what Benjamin was wearing at the bar that night. Whatever the pants mean or don't mean, here's the kicker though. We are not the only people who have been unable to speak with Henry Roblas. Detective Holtz hasn't been able to either. - Does it nephew still live in the area? - He does not, he lives in Florida. - And why did he mention Florida? - Surely after this homicide occur. - Are we talking days, weeks, months? - I would say weeks, weeks to months. - According to the case file, there were other members of Benjamin's family that raised reddish flags too. Namely, Nellie and her son, Benjamin's Stepson, broadric Rosario. The rumors that swirled were that there was some form of abuse happening in the Rosario home. According to Bridgeport PD, some people said that Nellie could be abusive. Others said that Benjamin could be too. - We don't have any documented incidents as far as we know of domestic violence taking place. And even going back to 1994, domestic violence was looked at differently by people. Victims didn't come forward as much. Society didn't give it as much for priority as we do now. - Detective Holtz saw in the case file that a search was done of broadric, the Stepson's home, which was just down the street from Benjamin's. Interestingly, investigators collected a trash bag from broadric's house during that search, but Detective Holtz said that nothing, quote, "usable" came from that bag. Our reporter reached out to broadric who still lives in the area to ask him more, but she never got through to him. We couldn't reach out to Nellie at all because she died in 2014. And we had hoped to ask Benjamin's family more about him or what they knew about his home life, but they declined to be interviewed, saying that they were worried for their safety. Why, you might ask? Well, they didn't give a reason, but Detective Holtz told our reporter that the family were nervous to talk because they believed, quote, that someone in the community might be responsible. As Detective Holtz reviewed Benjamin's case file, he found some more random investigative leads that the original investigators sort of looked at. Benjamin's father was supposedly in jail back when Benjamin was killed, and there were rumors that Benjamin's murder may have been an act of revenge. But Detective Holtz couldn't locate a name for Benjamin's father, let alone confirm that he was in jail or that revenge played any role in Benjamin's death. Another source in the case file, the name of whom Detective Holtz couldn't recall, claimed that Benjamin was a superintendent of a building on Boston Avenue in Bridgeport. The file doesn't give more context than that, but for some reason, the source told police to go and check out the building. Detective Holtz looked into that lead himself. He wondered if maybe there was something in the building that might lead him to Benjamin's killer. I reached out to a relative that is still in the area, who was actually a grandson of Benjamin Rosario, and he said he was never the superintendent of any apartment building. I didn't know where that was coming from. This sounds weird, right? Why would someone tell police that Benjamin worked at a random building as a super, especially when Benjamin was known to live off his social security benefits for disability? It was almost like someone was trying to send police on a wild goose chase. There are still plenty of rumors about Benjamin Rosario's murder that continue to circulate around Bridgeport. As for clues, those are scarce. But what about reminders? Our reporter Laura came across one, a piece of graffiti spray painted on a wall, just a stone throw from the second crime scene. So I looked up and written on the underpass, spray painted in what looked like fresh black paints was the word sword. Today, Detective Holtz plans on getting the remaining evidence retested for DNA and prints to see if it might lead him to Benjamin's killer. No foreign DNA came up the first time around. And the only foreign print they ever recovered belonged to that off-duty police officer at Pleasure Beach who investigated the bags. Specifically, Detective Holtz once Benjamin's pants retested. Or should I say, Henry's pants. For now though, Detective Holtz hopes that someone, somewhere in Bridgeport or beyond Bridgeport, will decide to come forward and finally do the right thing. The family of Benjamin Rosario wants justice for him and for them. And when I was looking at the case and I put out a video for the department on this case, I think as with you, they wanted it to be done. But they're worried about appearing in public talking about this case because they still feel that there could be people in the community that may have had a part in this. Looking back, whoever did this had to be comfortable and in how things went down after his death. Or during his death or after his death or wherever he was murdered. Well, I've been a reporter for over 45 years. Most of that time, I covered crimes and court trials. And I would say that, at least certainly the Rosario case was one that stuck out above most other cases that I covered over the years. I would say to the person who did this, that it's closing in. And any mitigating factors that now's the time [BLANK_AUDIO] attorney lawyer up come in and explain the situation. Maybe it was self-defense. Maybe he attacked you. Maybe there's a reason this happened. Medigate, don't wait for them to come to you because it's not going to be advantageous for you when the cops come knocking on your door. The best thing you can do in your own self-interest now, get a lawyer, turn yourself in, explain the situation, and see what kind of a deal you can work out. Otherwise, you know, you're up against a real problem. If you know anything about the murder of Benjamin Rosario, you can call the Bridgeport Police Department at 203-576-TIPS. The deck is an audio check production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. I think Chuck would approve.