Kristin Rossum

Infobox Criminal
subject_name= Kristin Rossum
date_of_birth= Birth date and age|1976|10|25|mf=y
place_of_birth= Memphis, Tennessee
charge= First degree murder
penalty= Life without parole
status= Imprisoned
occupation= Former Toxicologist
spouse= Gregory deVillers (deceased)
parents= Ralph and Constance Rossum

Kristin Margrethe Rossum (born October 25, 1976), is currently serving a life sentence for poisoning her husband Greg deVillers with fentanyl she stole from her job and attempting to pass of his death as a suicide.

Early life, education, and marriage

Rossum grew up in Claremont to college professor parents Ralph and Constance Rossum. In the 1990s throughout her high school years Kristin started doing drugs and her favorite was methamphetamine. Her drug use caused the family stress. She has two younger brothers named Brent (1979) and Pierce (1986). Rossum met her husband Greg at the Tijuana border into Mexico and got married in 1999. After her marriage, she had an affair with her Australian boss Michael Robertson and since May or June of 2000. [ [http://reviewermag.livejournal.com/tag/poisoned+love+book+review "Poisoned Love"] . Reviewer Magazine]

Murder

On November 6, 2000 Kristin called 911 about 9:15 P.M. Paramedics walked into the apartment through the already open front door and they saw Kristin on the phone in the middle of the living room. Greg was pronounced dead after paramedics took him to the hospital. To make his death look like a suicide, she sprinkles red rose petals over her husband's body and places a wedding photo nearby. Ironically, he was dead with rose petals all over him which was similar to a scene from Rossum's favorite movie, "American Beauty" and that roses with baby's breath was also her favorite flower. After Greg found out about her affair, he had threatened Kristin that he would expose her affair and her drug use to the Medical Examiners's Office if she didn't quit her job. Michael learned of this threat before Greg was killed. Two weeks after her husband's death the police interrogated Kristin and she looked like a drug addict. She had her hair short and she was crying. She told police that her husband had been depressed before he died. During the investigation, outsourced toxicology tests showed fentanyl in Greg's body and investigators found a large amount of fentanyl missing at the Medical Examiner's Office. Police believed that she stole the drug from work. While the investigation continued police learned a secret about Kristin, she was a regular crystal methamphetamine user. She had risked her professional career and every meaningful relationship in her life for drugs. On June 25, 2001 seven months after Greg's death, Kristin was arrested and charged with murder. Her parents paid for her $1.25 million bail and picked her up from the San Diego jail in their Mercedes. At trial Kristin’s attorneys tried to backup their case by saying Greg was suicidal and poisoned himself.

Trial and conviction

At trial Kristin’s brother-in-law Jerome de Villers told the court it was hard to believe that his brother had committed suicide and that he hated drugs. The prosecution played the 911 tape and on the tape Kristin seems to have been administering CPR to Greg. According to Rossum's VONS card history, she had purchased a single rose herself. In November 2002 Kristin was found guilty of murder. On December 12, 2002 Rossum was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole and was taken back to jail before she could be transferred to the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla the largest women's correctional facility in the United States. At her sentencing the judge ordered Rossum to pay a $10,000 fine.

Recent events

In 2006, Greg de Villers' family sued Rossum in a wrongful-death suit and asked a San Diego jury to grant millions in punitive damages. It was also because the family did not want Rossum to sell her story to producers or publishers. The jury awarded the de Villers' family $100 million in punitive damages, twice the amount the family had requested. John Gomez, the lawyer for the de Villers family, said that the punitive award may be the largest awarded in the state against an individual defendant. [ [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060326-9999-1m26rossum.html "Rossum unlikely to turn lurid crime tale into riches"] . SignOnSanDiego.com]

In popular culture

Rossum was featured in an episode of the Oxygen Channel true crime show, "Snapped" and in the E! Entertainment network's "Women Who Kill." Author Caitlin Rother was featured in both of them and wrote "Poisoned Love," the authoritative book on the case and Kristin's life.

References

External links

* [http://www.kristinrossum.com Kristen Rossum website]
* [http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/kristen_rossum/index.html Crime Library]
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/10/48hours/main505815.shtml American Beauty Was It Murder Or Suicide?]