Up next...
A teenage girl vanishes from her
bedroom.
All they had was evidence
that she was gone.
Investigators hoped
her computer would hold a clue.
You can create whatever kind
of persona you want when you're
online.
For almost two
years, her case went unsolved
until another girl from the same
town also went missing.
All we had was a suitcase, a
body, and a tattoo on an ankle.
Police suspected a
serial k*ller was on the loose,
one who had a penchant for
redheads.
The end result wasn't sex...
It was power, and it was m*rder.
On a typically hot
day in lubbock, Texas, a worker
at a landfill noticed something
out of place, even for a trash
heap.
The guy that was standing out
there saw the suitcase being
dumped, and it appeared that
something was in it.
Curious, the
worker opened it and looked
inside.
He had thought that contained
a mannequin at first.
He quickly determined that it
was a young lady that had been
put in that suitcase.
Her body had been folded into
a fetal position... many, many
bruises and injuries.
The victim was a
young woman, nude, with red
hair.
She had no identification,
except for a small tattoo that
said "summer".
All we had was a suitcase, a
body, and a tattoo on an ankle.
The medical
examiner said the victim had
been dead less than 24 hours.
The evidence showed she'd been
severely beaten and was still
breathing when placed in the
suitcase.
The official cause of death was
asphyxiation.
That's a pretty horrific way
to die, being in that suitcase
and still being alive.
She was also two
and a half months pregnant.
The community was in shock.
You start questioning, "who is
this monster who's doing this?
Who would have done this to
someone?"
Fingerprints
revealed the woman was
summer Lee Baldwin... a single
mother of four children, who had
a previous arrest for
prostitution.
She was a young lady that was
struggling, like many of those
young ladies do.
They're just struggling to make
it from day to day, caught up in
a world that sometimes is very
impossible to get out of.
Finding summer's
k*ller wouldn't be easy.
Her profession meant dealing
with lots of unsavory people,
and any clues left in the
landfill would be difficult, if
not impossible, to find.
There's trash everywhere.
It would be a nightmare to go
and try to obtain evidence in
that area, 'cause there's just
so much stuff.
Investigators found
no fingerprints on the suitcase,
but it was a protege brand with
the label and barcode still
attached, so investigators
started there.
I was given the task of
finding out all that I could
about the suitcase.
The manufacturer
told police this make and model
was sold only in Walmart stores.
I go to Walmart.
I found the suitcase... same
suitcase, same upc number in it.
An employee there told me that
they were going to be able to
track any purchases made on that
upc number with their system.
Walmart had a pretty
sophisticated tracking system of
their items that were sold.
Investigators
learned an identical suitcase
was sold on the day summer was
m*rder*d... at 3:00 in the
morning.
The same customer also bought
something else.
It's not common to go
shopping at 3:30 in the morning
for suitcases, and when you
couple that with the fact that
he's purchasing latex gloves at
the time, it sent up many red
flags.
Investigators
checked the store's surveillance
cameras to get a look at the
suspect.
The person in the video
appeared to be a hispanic male
or a darker-complected white
male.
He was approximately six-foot
tall, stocky, and appeared to be
early 20's.
All investigators
needed now was to find him.
Investigators were
looking for the man who m*rder*d
and placed her body in a
suitcase.
Surveillance cameras in a nearby
Walmart store showed a man
buying an identical suitcase
just hours before her body was
discovered in a landfill.
Surveillance cameras also
identified the vehicle the man
was driving.
There was a pick-up.
The pick-up appeared to be a red
color.
The man bought the
suitcase with a credit card.
We discovered the name of
rosendo Rodriguez as the man who
had used this credit card.
And records showed
that same card was used just
minutes later to buy gasoline.
Investigators noticed there was
a hotel across the street from
the gas station.
A female there that works at
the front desk recognized
rosendo from a driver's license
photo.
She said he registered under
Thomas Rodriguez.
The hotel-room key
provided investigators with some
important information.
It doesn't show when you
leave your hotel, but every time
someone enters and uses one of
those card keys to enter into a
hotel room, a record is kept of
that.
The hotel key
revealed Rodriguez entered his
hotel room at 3:46 A.M., less
than an hour after buying the
suitcase.
We were able to find what
appeared to be blood on the
carpet, on the box spring, and
on the bed sheet.
Outside the room, in a
hallway, was a trash can, and
inside that trash can was a
holiday inn bag.
Inside it was a Walmart bag.
Inside the Walmart bag was a set
of latex gloves.
But where was Rodriguez?
A check of his cellphone records
gave police the answer.
Within hours after he had
disposed of the body, he's on a
bus, and during this trip, he
takes a picture of himself in
the green and white shirt that
he had worn, smiling at the
camera as if nothing had
happened and sending it to one
of his girlfriends saying, "I'm
on my way back to San Antonio."
In San Antonio,
police proceeded to Rodriguez's
parents' home...
Which was where they found him
on his computer.
When questioned about
summer Baldwin's m*rder, he
denied any involvement, but the
forensic evidence found on the
latex gloves in the hotel trash
left no doubt.
Those latex gloves were
processed for DNA evidence, both
sides.
On the outside was
summer Baldwin's DNA.
On the inside was
summer Baldwin's DNA again, this
time mixed with Rodriguez's DNA.
And Rodriguez's DNA also matched
DNA from summer's r*pe kit.
To investigators, it was an
open-and-shut case.
But to be thorough,
investigators searched
Rodriguez's computer.
It seemed like a formality, but
this time, it was more than
that.
It was apparent, looking at
rosendo's computer, that he was
very involved with trying to
meet girls online and trying to,
perhaps, have sex or something
along those lines.
From the moment
Rodriguez got to his parents'
home, he ran a number of
searches for the name
summer Baldwin.
But there was another name he
searched repeatedly.
Boom!
There it is... Joanna Rogers.
What news do we have about
Joanna Rogers?
Joanna Rogers, a high-school
student, had been missing for
the past 18 months.
Her parents had last seen her
the night before she
disappeared, around 1:00 A.M.,
when she returned home from her
job at a sandwich shop.
Her mother told her that
she'd see her in the morning.
Jo said she'd see us in the
morning and she loved us, and
she went to bed.
The next morning,
Joanna was gone.
Her parents knew immediately
something was terribly wrong.
She didn't take her car.
She didn't take her keys.
She didn't take her money.
She didn't take any clothes,
except for what she was wearing.
No cellphone.
Nothing.
That raises a flag immediately.
She had just disappeared, and
I didn't know what happened.
There was no
evidence of an intruder, and
Joanna's parents, who slept just
down the hall, had heard
nothing.
I wanted desperately to
believe that she was going to
walk through the door, but I
left my mind open for other
things.
But I did not dwell on them.
I was scared.
Joanna just didn't do that.
Yes, we were very scared.
It's totally out of character
for her.
At the time, police
and volunteers conducted an
extensive search for Joanna but
turned up nothing.
Joanna, wherever you are out
there, we want you to know that
we love you, and anybody knows
where she is, please call the
sheriff's department.
Help us find her.
Now that investigators knew
rosendo Rodriguez was following
Joanna's story on his computer,
police were alarmed.
That made us immediately
think, "if he did this with
summer Baldwin, why couldn't he
have done this with
Joanna Rogers?"
Investigators were
convinced that rosendo Rodriguez
m*rder*d summer Baldwin in a
lubbock, Texas, hotel before he
put her body in a suitcase,
which was later found in a city
landfill.
Based on information found in
Rodriguez's computer,
investigators also suspected he
might have been involved in the
disappearance of 16-year-old
Joanna Rogers, who had been
missing for the last 18 months.
He was going from news story
to news story to news story,
regarding, specifically,
summer Baldwin, and then later
on, Joanna Rogers.
And he has a very specific
interest in both those cases.
He's trying to see if they're
piecing all the pieces together
at that point.
Rodriguez's
computer also revealed another
troubling coincidence.
He had been in contact with
Joanna before she disappeared.
This minor is saying that she
did have some conversation with
rosendo Rodriguez.
And Joanna bore a
striking resemblance to
summer Baldwin.
There may be a profile here
with him... redheads,
fair-skinned, a certain age
group.
We were now starting to wonder
if possibly we had a serial
k*ller.
But investigators
needed more proof.
Joanna Rogers' cellphone records
showed no calls to or from
Rodriguez.
But they did find proof
Rodriguez made cellphone calls
to the landline in Joanna's
bedroom, and that he'd done so
on the night she disappeared.
We figured that he probably
called her on his way over to
her house and then called her
when he got there.
The thought that
Joanna might have suffered the
same fate as summer Baldwin was
more than her family could bear.
And it was almost too much.
You know, it was overwhelming.
I don't know how I felt.
I mean, it was just like a slap
in the chest.
If the two cases
were related and Joanna's body
was in the city landfill, a
space the size of three football
fields, how would investigators
find it?
We have basically 1,260 acres
of trash.
That becomes a crime scene.
But investigators
got a huge break when they
learned landfill officials were
far better organized than they
thought.
One of the things that I was
quite amazed by was how
strategically placed, or
lined-out, the trash is, that
it's put in grids.
They can actually go back and
determine a region or area where
trash was dumped from a
particular area of the city.
So volunteers
searched the area where trash
from Joanna's neighborhood was
dumped.
But even then, it was almost two
years' worth of trash... almost
a quarter of a million tons of
it... to dig through.
The thing I remember when I
first got there were the smells,
you know what I mean?
It's just god-awful smells.
This is not a pleasant place.
You can go to your dumpster...
Multiply that times 10,000
times out there, and that'll
give you an idea of how bad it
smells.
Hundreds of
volunteers participated in the
search.
To us, it was a phenomenal
effort that they were willing to
do for our daughter.
After 12 weeks,
investigators had to consider
the possibility they wouldn't
find Joanna's body and that the
risk for the volunteers
outweighed spending more time.
It's rat-infested,
disease-infested debris.
I don't think people understand
just what a sacrifice that was
for folks... the risks that they
took and the things that they
endured.
But finally, after
months of disappointment, a
back-hoe moving a pile of trash
uncovered a suitcase.
Inside was the decomposed body
of a young girl with red hair.
Dental records confirmed it was
Joanna Rogers.
Now when her mom wanted to
grieve for her, she could go do
it.
I'm so happy we found you,
honey.
I wish we could be together,
but we will be one of these
days.
While one question
was answered, another remained.
Would forensic evidence tie
rosendo Rodriguez to Joanna's
m*rder?
Thanks to digital
technology, investigators needed
just two days to tie
rosendo Rodriguez to
summer Baldwin's m*rder.
I guess some of the things
I've learned on this case are
that the smallest piece of
evidence sometimes can come out
to be or make the biggest
difference in a case, so you
never overlook anything.
It came back to that upc code
inside that suitcase, that
tracking code, and that's what
led to everything.
Based on the
evidence, prosecutors believe
Rodriguez picked up
summer Baldwin and they went to
the holiday inn hotel.
They had sexual relations, and
at some point there was an
argument that turned violent.
What money?
The money you're going to pay
me!
The forensic
evidence shows Rodriguez b*at
summer until she was
unconscious.
Blood spatter hit the floor,
bedspring, and bed sheet.
Rodriguez then drove to the
local Walmart, where he bought a
suitcase and a pair of latex
gloves and paid with his credit
card.
From there, he purchased
gasoline, and according to his
hotel key, re-entered his hotel
room at 3:46 A.M.
Rodriguez put summer's body into
the suitcase while she was still
alive and threw the gloves in
the trash along with the
suitcase receipt.
The gloves contained both
summer's and Rodriguez's DNA.
Rodriguez disposed of summer's
body in a dumpster, which was
later picked up by a truck and
dumped in the landfill.
Rodriguez's cellphone revealed
his getaway route to
San Antonio, but it all started
with the barcode inside the
suitcase.
When Rodriguez was arrested for
summer's m*rder, evidence in his
computer tied him to
Joanna Rogers' disappearance
Computer forensics showed he
communicated with Joanna online
and called her on his cellphone
around 2:00 A.M. on the night
she disappeared, most likely to
tell her he was waiting outside.
I'll be right out.
Hey.
How are you?
So what do you want to do?
Prosecutors believe
the two argued over the
possibility of a sexual
encounter, an argument that
turned violent.
And the evidence showed
Rodriguez did the same thing he
did to summer Baldwin.
After he k*lled Joanna, he
placed her body in a suitcase
and put it in a dumpster, which
eventually made its way to the
same landfill.
Unfortunately, no DNA evidence
was recovered from
Joanna Rogers' autopsy.
Because of the nature or the
status of the body, we were not
able to make certain
determinations as cause and
manner of death.
But the discovery
of Joanna's remains was an
astounding accomplishment for
everyone who took part in the
search.
The sheriff's office did a
fantastic job getting the body
and bringing her back so she can
have a proper burial.
That's important to the family.
I think that's important to her
and her memory.
Rosendo Rodriguez
went on trial for the m*rder of
summer Lee Baldwin... the case
with the strongest forensic
evidence.
He was convicted and sentenced
to death.
This case would never be
solved but for the forensic
evidence... the DNA evidence,
the blood evidence, the
forensic-computer evidence, the
trace in the suitcase.
Rodriguez
eventually confessed to
Joanna Rogers' m*rder.
Somebody will always try to
figure out a way to get away
with a crime, but that's what we
try to do, is catch those
people.
There is no perfect crime.
Forensics is always going to be
there.
It's just like a warrant... you
can try to outrun it, but it's
always going to be there.
Boy howdy, no matter how much
you know... and you can watch
all those TV shows... there's
always something new, and, by
golly, there's things we still
don't know about, and they'll
get you.
14x17 - Seeing Red
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.