Rosa McMillan (9 of Hearts, North Carolina)

Our card this week is Rosa McMillan, the Nine of Hearts from North Carolina. In some law enforcement circles, there is this term that gets thrown around. Your brick. It's the case that stays with you, the one that doesn't get solved, the one you carry long after you've left the job. And for retired detective Chris Corsion with the Fayetteville Police Department, his brick is Rosa McMillan. And decades later, he still remembers why. I went through a number of unsolved homicide cases in our file of unsolved homicide cases. And the reason I took the Rosa case, first of all, it was, in my opinion, solvable. In many respects, it was low-hanging fruit. It was one that I knew we could do something with. The grandmother, a mother was beaten to death in the middle of the night, sexually assaulted, and left unsolved all this time. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. In August of 1989, the air in Fayetteville, North Carolina was thick with heat and humidity. 85-year-old Rosa spent her days tending to a small garden outside her home in the Massey Hill neighborhood. It was the same home her late husband had built for them. And she cared for it the way she cared for everything, deliberately and with pride. I did pick up the fact that she was grandma to everybody, and that her house where she was murdered was actually the place where the family gathered and met periodically during holidays and alike. But on this Sunday, in the summer of '89, Rosa's family wasn't coming over for a holiday gathering. They were heading to the beach. Rosa's daughter Elaine and her son-in-law Rodney and their children were in the car. When they drove by Rosa's house, they saw that her porch light was on in the daytime, which was unusual enough for them to make a quick stop to see if everything was okay. Rodney went inside while the family waited in the car. And that's when they discovered that someone had broken into a house and killed their mother and their grandmother. Neither Rodney nor Elaine wanted to be interviewed for this podcast, which we understand. And so it was Corsione who told us that after Rodney found Rosa, he immediately called 911. When police got to the home, they found that not only were those porch flood lights on, but Corsione said that something else stood out. The side window where a glass was broken out, one of the panes broken out, and that window was eventually opened and appeared that someone had entered the house. And then, according to the family members, the back door was open and she would have never gone to sleep with the back door open. Rosa was a woman who lived by routine. Every night she turned the porch lights on. Every morning she turned them off. She locked her doors, kept her home neat. Which is why what investigators found inside the house felt so deeply unsettling. The house inside is ransacked, everything's turned over, papers are dumped all over. And Rosa's body is covered with a floor rug that's thrown on top of her. And then there's items from the drawers dumped on top of her body and all over the house. More than the items that were strewn about the house, what caught investigators eyes was the fence post that had seemingly been taken from the fence that surrounded Rosa's small garden and used as a weapon, then left the top Rosa's body. They were able to show that that wooden post on the very end of it had some of the tile material from the ceiling tiles and when if you looked up you could see the marks on the ceiling tile where the post was used as a weapon, hit the ceiling and then hit the victim. Rosa's official cause of death was blunt force trauma. And while Rosa had been physically beaten and strangled, she was ultimately killed with that fence post. While striking her police believe the killer raised the post over their head hitting the ceiling and made those indentations. And though this was an incredibly violent crime, to investigators it didn't seem to be premeditated. This was a disorganized crime scene. Nobody came in with flashlights, duct tape to tie the victim up. This was certainly a disorganized crime scene. Disorganized and not premeditated because the murder weapon appeared to have been pulled from the front yard while whoever was in the house seemed to leave quickly out the back based on a scent track that the canine unit followed. Even though the house was turned upside down, this didn't seem to be a robbery. Police found Rosa's purse still intact with about $500 in cash. So then what was the motive here? The one obvious answer was sexual assault. Though chillingly, the ME in their report couldn't determine whether that happened before or after Rosa was killed. And this gave police a really solid lead. Because that same month there actually already had been assaults on three other older women who all lived within just one hour of Rosa McMillan. Now this scene at Rosa's place was a little messier, and she was the only victim who had been killed. But looking back at some of the lead's original investigators took most seriously, this was the one that they gave the most attention to. Maybe because this scenario offered with it a solid person of interest, a 41-year-old man named Harry Klein Lee. Harry was already a suspect in three other cases, two sexual assaults on women in Raleigh and one in Dunn, North Carolina. And he had a warrant out for his arrest related to an attempted break-in at the home of a different older woman. Problem was, before any department was able to get their hands on him, Harry was in the wind. But a search of his place unearthed even more reason to suspect him of devious acts. There were several pairs of women's underwear believed to have been taken from the local victims, along with a book titled "They Don't Call This Rape" and "Hold Your Lunch", "Human Feeces in a Pizza Box". I don't know if that has anything to do with the assaults, it is just messed up. Now nothing in his apartment tied directly to Rosa, that would be too easy, right? And though the reports indicate there was seamen found during Rosa's autopsy, they couldn't produce a DNA sample in 1989 to match to Harry Klein Lee. All they could tell was that the perk they were looking for was white. Which was just one more check in the box that likely made original investigators more keen to believe he was their guy. Most of Corsion believes back then they must have issued a "Bolo", which would have put police departments up and down the east coast on the lookout for Harry, and I was really the best they could do back then. Which honestly seems wild, it seems like all you had to do back in '89 to not get caught was just like not being town anymore. Because that worked for Harry for years. And those years that followed are what Corsion called "The Killing Years". According to the Fayetteville Observer, the city was facing some of the highest homicide rates on record. And it was in this time that Corsion took over the case. And he told our reporter that he wished he was able to work on Rosa's case every day. But that no day was without a new murder, suicide, or death investigation. For Rosa's family, these were the quiet years. Rosa's niece, Jamie Kirkley, told us that the family was adamant about keeping up with the case. But at a hard time, even talking about it. For years, we were just in shock and so disappointed that it's ordained a cold case, that there was. It seemed like there would be more evidence and more ability to solve it, and that's no. You call it that's not just regarding for the work that was done. I know it was very difficult a different time, but everyone kept hoping that there would be some resolution and the fact that it wasn't sort of the pain continued. To Corsion's credit, he wasn't just sitting back waiting for the day that someone would call and tell him they'd found Harry Kleinley. He had worked the case by starting from the beginning and developed his own theory about who was at the center of Rosa's murder. And spoiler alert, it wasn't Harry. It was someone who had actually been right under their noses all along. Corsion hadn't gotten tunnel vision. Good that he wasn't just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. Because it did ring on July 17th, 1996. And though it was at first promising, the news eventually all but shattered the previous theory of the case. Harry had finally been arrested in Miami, Florida by the Metro-Dade Police Department. It was on outstanding warrants from Raleigh and a parole violation from Texas. I actually had the guy taken out of prison in Florida and brought back to North Carolina on a crime and got his DNA and interviewed him in the Wake County jail because of the similarities in his crime. Harry confirmed that he had once lived in Fayetteville, but he denied knowing any of the people who said they knew him. And he denied ever being on the street where Rosa lived, or anywhere near the Massey Hills section of Fayetteville. When asked about Rosa McMillan's murder, he said he couldn't have done it because he was in Miami when that happened, which was not completely confirmable. Like long story short, they could put him there on August 8th, two days after the murder, but not for the day of, so it wasn't super solid. But honestly, that didn't matter. 'Cause you know what is pretty solid? DNA. If there is anything positive about seven years having passed since the murder, it was that DNA technology had advanced from an early science to a reliable technology. Of course, he only got a warrant to obtain two vials of blood, headhairs, pubic hairs, and saliva in prints. And they got their answer. Once and for all, Harry did not match the DNA retrieved from Rosa's autopsy. Though he had been convicted for rape and robbery in the state of Texas and numerous offenses in Illinois. According to records, Harry is still alive and we found his name matching to different addresses in Florida. Each one, a residential address, as in he served his time and it looks like he's not incarcerated at this point. Our reporter has reached out via email, phone, and certified mail without a response as of this recording. While it would have been convenient to have a match and say case closed, the truth is, Courcione never really believed in his gut that Harry was their guy. Harry had a different MO. He was a trophy collector, organized. Even in age, Harry felt like the opposite of the kind of perpetrator, central to the theory that Courcione had been building on the side, which is this. - The theory that I put together about what happened at night, we had a group of young people who lived in a messy hill area. Sometimes during that evening, they were doing drugs. They were taken Xanax and they were drinking liquor out of these little liquor bottles. - One of those small, airplane-sized liquor bottles and a single Xanax pill were found on a table in Rosa's living room. This had always stood out because Rosa wasn't a drinker. In fact, she was firmly against alcohol of any sort and she certainly didn't use drugs that weren't prescribed to her and she wasn't prescribed Xanax. Courcione believed that this group of young people were partying and looking for someone who was vulnerable. He thinks that one of them entered the home through that broken window and then let the others in. And he thinks that person who entered could have been a guy that he is calling Larry, not to be confused with Harry. And Larry shows up in the very first days of the original investigation. Courciones said he matched the description of a young man neighbor saw running near Rosa's home, a small white guy who could have easily fit into a broken window. And Courcione also said that Larry was, quote, "an accomplished, breaking, and entering artist," end quote. And he says he had a history of violence against women. Making this theory more compelling, remember how right after Rosa's body was found? Police had run those canines through the scene and then followed a trail out the back. - They ran a dog track out of the back of the house, which actually went over a fence to another house on the other side of the neighborhood where it lost the track. - And where that canine lost the track was significant. It was a house that Larry was known to go to after he committed one of his other crimes in the Massey Hill area. Pretty damning, right? Early investigators must have thought so too, 'cause they actually brought Larry in for questioning. And you are never going to believe this next part. From what Courcione could tell, from the case file, this dude seemed to actually have admitted to being in Rosa's home. According to the old reports, the detective at the time said this. You knocked out the window to get in the house and Larry apparently nodded his head and said yes. They then said, you defended yourself against an old lady and he nodded. They said, you went out the back door and again, he nodded yes. - He's in the interview room and the detective confronts him about being there that night and how crazy things were and he looks after the detective and says, "Year man, it was all effed up." What was effed up you asked? The place Rosa, what exactly did Larry see? I don't know because that's literally all that was in the report. That and the fact that they let Larry go with an agreement that he would come back and take a polygraph. But go figure, he never did. And for some reason, they never went looking for him. Probably because that was right about the time that they were making a connection to Harry Klein lead poop in the pizza box guy. But with Harry ruled out and detective Corsion's theory gaining some steam, it was time to look at Larry again. Get his DNA and they did. But guess what, just like Harry's, it didn't match that in the safe kit. But unlike with Harry, this didn't totally rule Larry out because remember, Corsion thinks Larry broke the window to get into the house and let other people in. And because we don't know if Rosa was sexually assaulted before or after she was killed, or even if she was assaulted by the same person who killed her, that still left a lot of suspicion squarely on Larry. My focus was to, of course, interview, talk to everybody who knew this person of interest and his friends to find out what happened after the crime, what they said, who they talked to. And many of them are condemning what respect to that person's involvement in this crime. And other people's involvement in this crime. Detective Corsion told our reporter that some of the information used to find witnesses was already in the file when the case was handed over to him. He also gleaned additional information by doing cold interviews with Larry's so-called associates. Larry had also been incarcerated, so Corsion spoke with people who were imprisoned with him, the kind of people who might be willing to spill the beans if it meant that there was a chance it could shorten their stay. Corsion also believed that as the case grew older, colder, there were advantages. He just needed to know where to look. And he said that a person who commits a serious crime will often tell someone else, and over time, that person will tell someone else as well. And boy was that ever the case here. He told our reporter, Annie Roderick Jones, that these folks gave so much information, that Corsion peddled it straight over to the district attorney, convinced that he was about to get a sure fire prosecution. - If you had to give a percentage of, I'm this percent sure that it's this person, what's your percentage? - 100%. - Detective Corsion didn't want to talk about it on camera, but after some back and forth with our reporter, Annie, he gave us permission to tell you why he is so convinced that Larry is his guy, even after the DNA didn't match him. And it starts with a half dozen statements that he gathered from speaking with Larry's known associates. The first was from someone who Corsion said was close to Larry, who said they saw him the morning after Rosa's murder with cuts and scratches all over his body. Larry told this witness that it was from barbed wire. And it actually might have been, as it turns out, there was barbed wire on one side of Rosa's house. Then a different person said that they overheard Larry and his friend arguing several days after Rosa's murder about Larry losing his friend's black hat that he had borrowed. Now this is significant because there actually was a black hat found near Rosa's body, one that no one would have mistaken for being one of hers. Another one of these associates told Corsion that Larry said back in the summer of '89, they would look for houses with no cars and then break and enter through a side window. And yet not only was the window busted in Rosa's crime scene, but she didn't drive. And therefore, she didn't have a car. Corsion also got a statement from someone in prison who said Larry told them he killed someone much older and broke out the window of her house. Yet another person said that Larry was telling them it was the best feeling in the world to take a person out, that it gave him a sense of power and that he liked having sex with an older person. Someone else told Corsion that Larry said to them, "If police get me for what I did on Camden Road, I'll get life or the death penalty." And Camden Road is the road that Rose lived on. Now, some of these statements sound like they were written for an episode of a bad 80s cop show. Even if Corsion did get these folks to sign an affidavit of truth. So if you think they're almost too perfect, well, wait until you hear the final scene. There was one piece of evidence investigators had collected at the crime scene, something outside that honestly may or may not have been relevant to the crime. It was a single, polaroid picture. The image was grainy and blurry and it showed a person and part of a car but they couldn't make out anything important in it. They kept it in evidence all the same. It was found on the street in front of the house. Somebody took a picture and it caught the side mirror of the car, like they took a picture outside the car and took the side mirror and I actually spent some time trying to figure out what kind of car that was, could never get a good read on it. Detective Corsion was initially focused on identifying the car, but he ultimately learned it was the person in the car that he should have been paying attention to. A woman caught in the car's mirror reflection and after speaking with people who knew Larry, he was able to identify the woman as Larry's half sister. This was the full picture that he took to the DA but it still wasn't enough for them. It's DNA, it's a blessing in this case but it's been a curse in this case as well. Because there was a time when you could have solved the homicide on suspect statements, witness statements, some forensic evidence, okay. That's when Rosa was murdered. A year later when we pulled Rosa's file out of the file cabinet, the paradigm has changed as to what Jury's want to hear and the district attorney wants to prosecute. So now we're pushed into a higher level of evidence, a greater amount of proof. And so in spite of the fact that I took that case to the DA's office, at least three times saying it's time to charge somebody. Each time I was told, not until you can match the DNA from her body, from the victim's body to the suspect you're going to arrest. So here's where the DNA stands today. The original safe kit that they did to test for biologics consisted of four swabs, think of them like a Q-tip with a piece of cotton at the top for swapping and then a wooden applicator stick. Two of those cotton tips were used to determine the presence of semen during the autopsy. The other two cotton tips were sent off for DNA testing. At the time the kids had to be sent off to the FBI, they couldn't do it at the state lab back then. And they were able to make a DNA standard, something to compare to specific suspects, that's how both Harry and Larry were initially ruled out for the sexual assault. But in this case, what was created to do that was this old school blotter type of DNA profile. And like the best way I can describe it is like a honeycomb on a sheet of paper. And in order to make the profile they had to consume the entire sample. That means right now there is nothing left from the safe kit to use to do any new testing. So with the current state of technology, they can't compare the DNA record that they have against other DNA records because we use new types of technology now and they can't compare it to the codeous database. Now even though the cotton tips were used up, about a decade later, Corsion did try for a Hail Mary to move the case forward. Now when they originally sent the cotton tips off to the FBI back in the day, they had kept the wooden applicator sticks and a cardboard box about the size of a thumb. So they wondered if maybe there was any DNA on those things, but the Hail Mary didn't work. Still, the science keeps changing. And now that Corsion has retired, the new lieutenant is optimistic it's only a matter of time before they can do advanced testing on other items that they collected in Rose's house. No matter what new DNA advancements might bring to light, Corsion still believes Larry is the one they should be focused on. You felt confident enough that you had someone. Yes, there was a person of interest in this case. Is it still the same person of interest? In my mind it is. The new lieutenant, Jeff Locklear, admits that they've not had a lot of time to focus on Rose's case, but the Fayetteville PD is about to start up a dedicated cold case unit. Locklear said that someone will be officially assigned back to Rose's case and that they're planning to send some of that evidence from the scene to a private lab for testing in hopes that new technology can move this case forward. Obviously, this case is frustrating. But it's also frightening. That's because of what Corsion told us about the status of Larry and what happened after he walked out that day, Pinky promised to take a polygraph and surprise never came back. Where'd he go? Back at Massey Hill. He's still on the streets today. What would you have done in that moment? I'd hooked him up. And this person could presumably be on the streets right now? This person is on the street right now. I'm surprised. I'm surprised he hasn't killed somebody again. When our reporter asked Corsion what it would mean for Rose's case to be solved, he said this. They put it to rest for me and maybe I can just say I'm retired finally. You know, you take them with you. You certainly do. If you don't solve it, you take it with you in retirement. Well, that's my brick right there. He shared something else with us too about why this case was not only his brick, but why it was so personal. It is another thing about this case. They killed Rosamick Millen on my mother's birthday. Now think about that. So no year goes by where I don't think about my mother, God bless her soul, where I don't think of Rosamick Millen. I mean, my mother was alive when this happened and she has since passed, but you know, it's kind of like, all right, solve this case guy. You can't let this case go, they killed her on your mother's birthday, think about it. Rose's daughter Elaine has a different sort of pain. She wrote this poem for her mother, Rosa, and asked that her great niece, Gigi, read it to us. It's called "To Mom With Love." How I wish I could see that bonnet, a top that frail little frame, hoeing those weeds from the vegetables, but I guess it'll never be the same. I miss you, my dear mom, more than words could ever say. They say the pain, lessons with time, but I'm struggling to get through each day. If Corsion's theory is correct, that multiple people were involved in Rosa's case. This means that someone out there probably knows something, something about Larry, something about the person who sexually assaulted Rosa, something to just help this case move forward. So if that's you, and you know anything about the murder of Rosa McMillan in Fayetteville, North Carolina, please call the Fayetteville Police Department at 910-433-1529. You can also call Fayetteville Cumberland County Crime Stoppers tips at 910-483-8477. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck in our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. I think Chuck would approve.