Obscure Occurrences : The Mysterious Case of Rosie Tapia

 After her first marriage ended in divorce in 1985, Lewine met Roberto Tapia during a dance at a bar in Salt Lake City, Utah. The couple instantly fell in love and they eventually married each other. On 17 January 1989, the adorable couple had their first daughter and they named her Rosie. A couple of years after Rosie’s birth, the couple had two more children who were twins. The small happy family lived in a ground-floor apartment at the Hartland Apartment complex in Salt Lake City and they were often visited by Esmeralda and Emilia, daughters Lewine had in her first wedlock.

 Rosie was an extremely quiet and shy little girl who took a considerable amount of time to get used to new people. She studied at Mountains View Elementary School which was seven blocks away from her apartment and just like most other kids of her age, she loved singing, drawing and playing with her dolls. She was very close to her family especially, her siblings and half-siblings who were significantly older than her.

Rosie Tapia (Source: Tapia Family)

 The little girl had big dreams of becoming a police officer when she grew up but unbeknownst to her, she would die before her seventh birthday.

Road to Disappearance

 Late in the evening of 12 August 1995, after asking 18-year-old Emilia to babysit her half-siblings for the night, Lewine and Roberto left their apartment to enjoy a night of dancing. After dinner, playful Rosie wanted to spend some time at the apartment complex playground and thus, at around 7 pm, Emilia accompanied her leaving behind the four-year-old twins. About fifteen minutes later, leaving Rosie at the playground, she walked back to the apartment to check on the twins. Moments after she entered the apartment, she heard a knock on the main door.

 When Emilia opened the door, she was greeted by a thin white man wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and a ball cap. Holding Rosie in his arms, he told Emilia that another kid accidentally kicked her in the back while playing on the slide. Emilia thanked the man, politely told him that she would take care of her injuries and took her from his arms. Before leaving, the man called Rosie by name and waved her goodbye.

 After shutting the door, Emilia checked Rosie’s body for bruises but she couldn’t find any. Thus, she asked her little sister if she knew where she was hurt and her reply shocked her. According to Rosie, she was never hurt on the playground and she did not understand why the stranger brought her back home.  Also, she did not know who the strange man was or how he knew her name.

 Despite the strangeness of the event, Emilia brushed it off and put her younger siblings to sleep at around 9 pm. During the early hours of the next day, Lewine and Roberto returned home and before going to sleep, Lewine checked on her three young children, who were sound asleep in their bedroom. She planted a gentle kiss on each of their foreheads, partially closed the windows in the room and left their room leaving its door open.

 A few hours later, Lewine woke up from her sleep for no apparent reason and went back to her kids’ bedroom to check on them. When she approached their bedroom, she noticed that the door was shut close and this startled her. When she slowly opened the door and peeked through it to make sure her kids were safe, she saw the four-year-old twins still sleeping soundly in their beds but six-year-old Rosie was nowhere to be seen.

 Lewine immediately woke Roberto and Emilia from their slumber and with their help, combed the entire apartment for her daughter. With Rosie nowhere to be found, she immediately alerted the Salt Lake City police and her extended family members.

Investigation of the Crime Scene

 Upon arrival, the police investigated the kids’ bedroom and they discovered clear indications of disruption. The window in the room had been pried open, the screen frame had been forcefully bent, the screen had been removed and the blinds had been damaged. 

 According to Lewine, despite the clear evidence, the police suggested that Rosie had just “climbed out of the window and wandered off”. Neither Rosie’s family nor the apartment neighbours reported hearing anything suspicious during the time Rosie went missing. However, during an interview he gave in 2015, Rosie’s brother (who was four-year-old during her disappearance), claimed that he saw a “bearded man” in his bedroom on the night of his sister’s disappearance and the man told him to “go back to sleep”.

Discovery

 A few hours after Rosie’s disappearance, when the police were still recording fingerprints in Rosie’s bedroom, a man named Gustavo spotted something strange while jogging with his dog near the Jordan River Canal. Initially, it appeared to be a large dark-haired doll floating in the water but as it got closer, he understood that it was not a doll but a human. He immediately called the police who recovered the body upon arrival. The lifeless body belonged to six-year-old Rosie. The body was sent for an autopsy and until its report arrived, the police stood firm on their claim that Rosie had wandered off her house and accidentally fallen into the canal.

 The following Monday, after receiving the autopsy report, the police understood that the six-year-old was beaten by a blunt object, brutally raped, and murdered. Thus, they changed their stand and officially listed her case as a homicide.

Investigation

 The police searched along both the ease and west banks of the canal trying to find evidence but they found nothing helpful. Also, as Rosie’s body had been in the water for a brief period, the police couldn’t find any credible forensic evidence.

 Considering the fact that there was no commotion during Rosie’s abduction, the police speculated that Rosie already knew her murderer and this led them into questioning the Tapias, their extended family and their neighbours. During this interrogation, Emilia told them about the strange man who had appeared at the doorstep of the apartment with Rosie in his hands and the detectives located a man who matched Emilia’s descriptions. This man had a habit of visiting the playground in the apartment complex with a guitar in his hands. He reportedly played the guitar to entertain the children playing around him.

 As he had no children with him, the families in the complex suspected him but the police, upon interrogation, discovered that this man had his own kid whom he brought to the playground. Also, with him having a strong alibi, the police concluded that he was not the man Emilia had previously seen. With his identity not known, the police named him “the Good Samaritan”.

Composite Sketch of The Good Samaritan (Source: The Salt Lake City Police)

A New Suspect

 Rosie’s family suspected one of Roberto’s male friends who had a son of Rosie’s age. He apparently lived in the same apartment complex and he often visited the family’s apartment. Although Lewine had evidently woken him up from his sleep on the morning of Rosie’s disappearance, the man’s behaviour seemed to be strange during the family’s unofficial search. While searching the banks of the Jordan River Canal, just before searching the area where Rosie’s body would later be found, the man reported stopped the search party and insisted that they turn back. It appeared as if the man was aware of what was present there.

 Emilia had moved out of the family’s apartment only a month before the incident and Rosie’s bedroom belonged to her until then. This man was one of the few outsiders who knew about it and this added more suspicion. He was questioned several times by the police but his then-wife gave him a rock-solid alibi claiming that he was at home during the incident and never left.

An Anonymous Witness

 With no new evidence to work with, the case eventually became cold. Hoping to find new leads to work with, the police released a composite sketch of the “Good Samaritan” in 2010 but the idea turned out to be less than fruitful. In the Spring of 2019, however, new interesting evidence came to the forefront.

 The Utah Cold Case Coalition released a sketch of a man based on the sighting of an anonymous eyewitness who was also a resident of the Hartland Apartment Complex. In line with the statement of this man, in the early hours of 13 August 1995, a young Hispanic teenager was seen walking on a sidewalk near the Jordan River canal. The slightly built teen appeared to be around sixteen years old and he had a narrow face with high cheekbones. He was clothed in a white tank top and a pair of jean pants that were soaking wet from the knees.

Composite sketch of the Hispanic Teenager (Source: The Utah Cold Case Coalition)

 After the discovery of Rosie’s body, this anonymous witness tried telling the police about the young Hispanic teenager but they never listened to his testimony. Around three years after the incident, the police finally listened to him but, despite him constantly saying that the suspect was a teenager, they only showed him the pictures of old and hardened criminals to identify. He was frustrated by their behaviour and as a result, he had apparently stopped speaking about it.

 In the January of the following year, the anonymous man was given a line-up of photos that resembled the composite created the previous year. Out of the 14 photos given to him, he picked the photo of a man who was known to the Tapia family.

 Emilia, Rosie’s half-sister, had a habit of sneaking her boyfriend, Danny Woodland, through the window of her bedroom while she lived in the apartment of the Tapia family. The window through which Danny sneaked into the apartment was the same window through which Rosie had been abducted before being murdered. Danny had a friend who often accompanied him to Emilia’s apartment and he apparently watched him sneak into her bedroom. The photo the witness picked was a photo of this friend. 

 The police interrogated Danny’s friend, but he denied being responsible for Rosie’s murder. Despite taking his DNA, the police had not commented on this apparent lead.

Speculations about Gang Involvement

 According to Jensen, the Tapia family’s private investigator, Emilia had ties to the 21^st street gang and the members of this gang shared their living space with members of the rival gang. Considering the fact that Emilia was naturally opinionated, Jensen speculated that she could have had a feud with one or more members of the rival gang. In line with his statement, this could have possibly made her the potential target of a violent crime. “When they couldn't find her, they grabbed the next available person which happened to be Rosie. The reason for that thinking is that room used to be Emelia's bedroom at the time”, said Jensen in an interview with the ABC4 news.

 Although this seems to be a plausible theory, no concrete evidence has been found to solidify it. Also, until she died in 2020, Emilia had persistently denied claims about her ties to the 21^st street gang.

Current Status

 Despite the efforts of the Tapia Family, their private investigator Jensen, the Salt Lake City police and the Utah Cold Case Coalition, the identity of Rosie’s killer remains unknown. However, the Utah Cold Case Coalition are confident that the identity of the killer would be brought to light someday, and that day is hopefully not too far away.