Now it was approaching sunset on October 3. Justyn Rosen and his family would, in all likelihood, pray on Yom Kippur at Temple Emanuel. Arguably, the old man had much to atone for.
Hours earlier on that Friday evening, Teresa had decided to be in charge of her last act. She rented a dark-colored SUV so that Justyn wouldn’t recognize her own white car. Once she was in the posh Hilltop neighborhood, she parked near the bottom of his driveway, partially blocking an exit. She left the engine running as she knocked on the Rosens’door, forcing her way in at gunpoint when it opened.
Justyn’s wife and daughter later found Teresa’s rented car. Curious, they looked inside and saw a backpack, an empty gun case, and some envelopes with notes in them. They felt they knew who they belonged to, and they told a friend that the messages were from a woman who “wanted money from their family.” He glanced at one of the notes and sensed that it was really a suicide note. He called police and waited for them to arrive. The date on the suicide note was January 24, 2002, almost two years earlier. Nevertheless, it was ominous. Several paragraphs began, “In the event of my death…” and ended with instructions for Teresa Perez’s funeral arrangements and what bequests she wanted her children to have. But she hadn’t killed herself then; hopefully, Bob Costello was right. Teresa was just off on another of her wild tears. His family didn’t know it yet, but Teresa had, quite literally, kidnapped Justyn. He was gone from home. She had already mailed new suicide letters to those who were on her mind, people she loved and those she resented.
And then Teresa had forced Justyn into his new white Expedition and told him to begin driving. It was rush hour on a Friday afternoon and traffic was heavy.
The voices on tape indicated that they drove aimlessly around Denver as she railed at him, telling him that neither of them was going to live.
Histrionic as always, Teresa wanted the world to know her story. She memorialized their conversation on the small tape recorder, perhaps thinking—as some dramatic would-be suicides do—that she would be able to listen to it one day, not comprehending that she would not be around to relive what she was doing. She thought she would feel the shock waves that would wash across Denver. She believed that she would be able to watch television news and see her name—and Justyn’s—on the front page of area newspapers.
For the moment, the knowledge that she was terrifying the man she considered a faithless lover seemed to be enough. She was in charge of their lives at last.
Her voice on the tape rambled on, out of touch with reality. She was clearly distraught and emotional. Her vocabulary was profane as she repeatedly threatened Justyn Rosen.
Teresa addressed her taped remarks alternately to Justyn and his lawyer, a man she intensely resented. “Craig Silverman,” she said scornfully. “I already got all the letters out in the mail, to newspapers, everything. It’s all out. All the money’s going to one of my relatives that I have. You have pushed me [over the edge].”
Her voice broke as she talked to Rosen. “You’re a dead man tonight, and I’m a dead woman ’cause of you. You went too far. You do one wrong thing, and I’m gonna shoot you.
“I saw [sic] your lawyer calling me, and here’s your lawyer with an [unintelligible]. You’re setting me up.”
“Bullshit,” Rosen muttered.
“You’re setting me up,” she warned, as she criticized Rosen’s driving, apparently wary that he might deliberately cause an accident to thwart her. “If you hit that car, you’re—as soon as you fuck up on the road, I’m shooting you and then me. So be ready. And I don’t want to kill you, but I’m gonna embarrass the fuck out of you. I’m gonna die ’cause I want to go to heaven. If I kill me, I can go to heaven, but if I kill you, I won’t. But I’m gonna shoot you. You’re gonna be shot tonight. Give me your cell phone now. Give me your cell phone!”
“I’m not gonna do it,” he said firmly.
It was clear what she intended to do if he tried to call for help. “Okay. When you pick it up,” she said, “then you’re shot. Why have you lied to me for six years?”
In crude terms, she recalled her view of their sex life together, reminding him of all she had done for him, sexual favors that only she could provide. She repeated her recollection of what she claimed had been their most intimate moments.
It sounded, too, as though she were giving him driving directions. “Turn here…turn there…Pull over…”
Sometimes Teresa insisted that he stop the car, always with a threatening tone in her voice, which sounds implausible as she was clearly on the fine edge of total hysteria.
They were apparently on Colorado Avenue, close to the Gang Bureau offices, at this point on the tape. It dovetailed precisely with Randy Yoder’s recall of the first glimpse he had of Rosen’s SUV.
“If you get out of the car, you’re shot,” she warned him. “Drive the fucking car up there now. If you…Drive the fucking car! Geez, what are you trying to do?”
She sounded surprised and frightened. “Go straight! What are you trying to do to me?”
“Nothing,” Rosen’s voice said, trying to placate Teresa as he turned into the parking lot. “I just want to…”
It was obvious that she realized Justyn was headed toward the police substation. “Keep driving,” she ordered, “or…[unintelligible]. Go up there.”
She capitulated by allowing him to drive toward Randy Yoder’s truck. “Go up there,” she said. “Oh, you want to be with the police when you die? Okay. If you tell this guy anything, you’re shot now. [unintelligible] I mean it.”
Teresa’s voice suddenly sounded weary, accepting that it was all over. “Okay,” she said flatly. “You’re done, and I’m done.”
There was an unidentifiable sound on the tape, then Rosen’s voice could be heard asking someone, “Are you the police?”
“Yeah, I’m the police.” It was Randy Yoder’s voice, getting louder as he approached the driver’s window.
There were more sounds, hard to pinpoint, staticky noises, and voices in the background.
“Let me see your hands,” Yoder said. “Let me see your hands! Drop the gun. Drop the gun!”
Now there was chaos on the tape.
“…the gun…” was the last word before four distinct “pops” sounded.
Then there was nothing at all. The tape fell out of Teresa’s hands and clattered on the asphalt pavement.
Police officers who have been involved in a shooting are always placed on administrative leave while the event is investigated. While Randy Yoder was being treated in the ER, Captain Joe Padilla and Officer Danny Perez were transported to police headquarters to be questioned and debriefed.
Under Colorado Revised Statutes, the circumstances under which a peace officer can use deadly force are precisely spelled out: “(1) To defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the imminent use of deadly force; or (2) To effect the arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person he reasonably believes has committed or attempted to commit a felony or is attempting to escape by the use of a deadly weapon.”
There are many more subparagraphs, but that is the essence. The State of Colorado doesn’t require a police officer to retreat from an attack rather than use deadly force. It asks only that he take appropriate action to handle a situation.
The shooting in the parking lot seemed to have lasted an hour, but it was really over in a matter of minutes. Now detectives would try to match the bullets, casings, and fragments to the four people who had apparently fired weapons: Teresa Perez, Captain Joe Padilla, Officer Randy Yoder, and Officer Danny Perez. Joey Perez had not fired his weapon because he did not have a clear view from his position and was afraid he would hit his fellow officers.
The morning after the shooting, October 4, Dr. Thomas Henry, the chief medical examiner for the Denver coroner, did the postmortem exam of Teresa Perez. She had been shot six times. Quite probably, she was struck by rounds from Randy Yoder and Danny Perez, who were trying to stop her from sho
oting Justyn Rosen, and by Joe Padilla, who was trying to keep her from killing Yoder. One bullet entered her right chest, passed between her ribs and perforated her right lung. It then passed through her diaphragm and liver and fractured her twelfth thoracic vertebra before it came to rest in the soft tissue of her back; this bullet came from Randy Yoder’s gun. Another bullet entered her right lung and also fractured a rib. The third bullet entered the left side of her thorax then passed through her stomach. The fourth entered her left hip, fracturing bones in her lower back, the fifth only grazed her, and the sixth fractured the humerus in her upper right arm.
Tests for the presence of metabolites from alcohol and cocaine were positive. Teresa’s blood alcohol level was .224, more than twice Colorado’s standard for drunk driving. The cocaine level was not high—704 mg/ml—suggesting that she had ingested a small amount of the drug some time before the shootings and metabolized most of it at the time of her death. There were traces of nicotine and the Benadryl she took in a futile attempt to sleep. None of these results were surprising; Teresa Perez had been a walking emotional time bomb, fueled by drugs and alcohol.
Oddly, in death Teresa looked more peaceful than she had in the adult years of her life. She had no injuries at all to her face or head. She was still quite beautiful.
Dr. Henry also did the autopsy on Justyn Rosen’s body. He had been shot fifteen times, so many times that it was impossible to tell if some of the wounds might not have resulted from the same bullets’ entry and exit, and even re-entry, of his body. The fatal bullets had been to his chest, abdomen, and groin, but he had a number of “defense wounds” in his forearms and hands indicating that he had tried to hold off the bullets as Teresa stood over him, continuing to fire. And lastly, the old man had suffered a few leg wounds. These were attributed to Danny Perez’s attempts to shoot Teresa’s legs, visible to him beneath the undercarriage of Randy Yoder’s truck. Danny Perez had been trying to stop her from shooting Rosen, but she was virtually standing over him and it had been hard for Perez to differentiate between her body and Rosen’s.
It had been a desperate situation.
Toxicology reports on Rosen’s blood and urine showed no signs of alcohol or drug metabolites.
On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, funeral services for Justyn Rosen were held at Temple Emanuel. Three hundred mourners gathered to remember him for his philanthropy. His daughters and grandchildren and lifelong friends spoke of the benevolent side of the well-known Denver businessman, the husband of sixty years, the loving father.
Rosen had lived a long life; one couldn’t say he was cut down in the salad days of youth. But in the end Teresa ended it, and she also embarrassed him and his family, just as she meant to do. And she did more than that; she left them with deep grief, shock, and the knowledge that all the good Rosen had done in his life was blemished and sullied.
There were no public services for Teresa. Her life was much shortened, and she died at the height of her beauty, leaving her children to mourn and wonder why it had to be that way. They knew about her relationship with J.R., although many who thought they knew Teresa well were stunned to hear about the six to seven years they were together. When she needed to, she was quite capable of keeping secrets.
“She wasn’t evil,” Bob Costello, her first husband, said. “She was sick. I’m not condoning what she did. I am horrified by it…her daughter is horrified…but [she was] made into a monster. She’s not a monster.”
Teresa’s sister, her foster mother, her ex-husbands—even their current wives—agreed that she truly loved Justyn Rosen. She had talked of him with such affection. “It wasn’t about the money; she wanted the man.”
On Thursday, Teresa’s children, 20 and 14, visited the apartment on Louisiana Street. It was neat and clean as it always was, decorated with simplicity and taste. They looked at the many pictures around the rooms, most of them of their mother, posing with them at different stages in their lives. She had liked glass-topped tables and crystal that channeled rainbows when the sun hit them. She’d collected elephant statuettes.
The suicide letter that Teresa mailed to Lori before her last desperate drive arrived on Monday, October 6.
I’m so sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m out of options, confused but so hurt by Justyn Rosen. He lied so much about being with me. Can’t take the pain. I’m sorry, sorry.
Please forgive me.
I hope I can still go to heaven.
Love always, Mom.
Please stay real close to Brent. It would have been nice to have a brother like him and sister like you while I was growing up. Love to you again, Mom.
I’m sick inside and feel like I’ve already died. This man killed me.
Didn’t pay rent for Oct. It’s $800.00—make sure you got everything out for you and Brent.
Love Love Mom
Find nice people to share your life
There were echos of Marilyn Monroe in Teresa Perez. All the physical beauty in the world and a terrible hunger for money and security coupled with a complete lack of self-esteem and a loneliness so profound that it could never be cured.
Justyn Rosen didn’t kill Teresa. Something that happened a long, long time before probably accomplished that: A little girl watching her father walk away from the crowded foster home where he’d left her, so he could be with his new wife.
Teresa Perez didn’t kill Justyn. His inability to understand the desperation behind her glamorous facade and his decision to make promises he could not keep did. He, too, walked away from her, preferring to be with his wife.
And in the end, it was all ashes.
On February 18, 2004, Bill Ritter, Denver’s district attorney of the Second Judicial District, announced the conclusion of his investigation of the October 3 shoot-out between Teresa and the Denver police officers. It had been a long and painful four months for Captain Joe Padilla and Officers Randy Yoder and Danny and Joey Perez. Each of them lived the shootings over and over in the waking hours and in their dreams, regretting that they had had no choice but to do what they did that night.
“When Justyn Rosen turned his vehicle into the Denver Police Gang Bureau’s driveway in search of help,” Ritter wrote, “Teresa Perez’s actions set in motion a chain of events that led to their deaths and to her shooting and wounding Officer Randy Yoder in the process.
“The three Denver officers who fired their service pistols in this deadly confrontation were clearly justified in doing so in an effort to stop Teresa Perez from continuing to fire. This conclusion is not altered by the fact that two of the bullets that hit Justyn Rosen were apparently fired by Officer Daniel Perez…. Seeing Teresa Perez standing over Justyn Rosen and repeatedly shooting him from point-blank range, the three officers, from varying positions, were attempting to shoot Teresa Perez to end her murderous attack. The actions of these officers were reasonable, appropriate and necessary…. Officer Joey Perez’s decision not to fire…demonstrated sound judgment and weapon control on his part.
“Without an instant of hesitation, these four officers responded to this life-threatening confrontation…. Their willingness to put their lives at great risk to help another is deeply appreciated and is in the highest tradition of protecting and serving our community.”
Randy Yoder, Joey Perez, Danny Perez, and Captain Joe Padilla received Denver’s Medal of Honor for their bravery on October 3, 2003.
They are all grateful to be alive, but they wish that it had never happened. Randy Yoder carries two deep scars from Teresa’s bullet. They all bear the emotional scars that come from being involved in the violent deaths of others.
All for Nothing
The following case is one of the strangest, saddest, and most brutal multiple murders I have ever encountered. The human beings involved are the last people that anyone—including me—could picture being caught in such a violent situation. They were all winners, intelligent, attractive, successful, high-functioning, admired. They were relatively young, with the whole world in front of th
em.
This was not a case where one could trace their lives back to their childhoods and predict what lay ahead. Their deaths shocked not only their families and their friends but an entire city.
In the end, what happened can be blamed on jealousy, mindless, raging, uncontrolled jealousy. When the green-eyed monster grips someone, the most mild-mannered and organized individual becomes unrecognizable.
In a way, that simple truth explains the end of the story; in another way, nothing can ever explain it. I suspect that not even the killer can say why he did what he did.
I don’t think I can, either.
Sometimes true-crime cases hit much too close to home. This one involves someone whose life touched mine a few times, if only tangentially. Early in my career, I did some work for him, but we never actually met in person. Like most television viewers in Seattle, I often watched Larry Sturholm’s segment on KIRO-TV’s nightly news. He and his older brother, Phil, both worked for the CBS affiliate. Phil, a gentle, quiet, and very intelligent man, was a cameraman and later the executive editor of the news at KIRO.
In his part of the news, “Larry at Large,” Sturholm was both hilarious and sensitive. He did the lighter side of the news and always managed to come up with intriguing offbeat subjects. One of his funniest shows was about a Canada goose that decided a certain suburban driveway and garage door would be his territory, and he literally flew in the face of anyone who dared come close, including Larry Sturholm.