• 11 months ago
“I think I got mom’s blood on me.”

On February 22th 1991, Dede Rosenthal disappeared from her Cherry Hill apartment: there’s no signs of any disturbance, and the case grew cold, but no one ever expected that only 4 years later, another crime took place but this time, to Dede’s neighbor. However, 14 year old Jennifer Wertz survived the night, and would become the key to the mystery of Dede’s story.

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00 - He wanted me to kill him.
00:02 - Jennifer, she's crying.
00:04 What did you want to do with her?
00:06 - He said he couldn't spend his life in jail.
00:09 - Okay, I'll remember it popped into my mind.
00:12 I'd kill her.
00:14 - And so he wanted me to stab him with a knife.
00:17 - The voice you've just heard is 14-year-old Jennifer Wurtz.
00:20 The man she's referring to is known as the Cherry Hill Killer.
00:24 May seem like she stabbed him to save herself,
00:26 but the truth is much more disturbing.
00:29 - He told me not to look.
00:30 I could hear the blows.
00:33 I was covered in blood.
00:34 - On October 6th, 1995, police found Jennifer
00:37 sitting quietly on the front porch of her house
00:39 after someone called 911,
00:41 but nothing could have prepared them
00:43 for what they were about to discover inside.
00:45 - The scene behind me is one that nightmares are made of.
00:49 - It was difficult to recognize that she was even human.
00:53 - February 22nd, 1991, four years before Jennifer was found,
00:58 Dee Dee Rosenthal disappears
00:59 from her seventh floor apartment.
01:01 No sign of entry is identified,
01:03 but what's most disturbing is that at the time,
01:05 Dee Dee was Jennifer's next door neighbor.
01:07 - And now she feels completely shaken by all this.
01:10 Police were taking no chances with this guy,
01:12 believing him to be extremely dangerous.
01:15 - To this day, the Cherry Hill Killer is still alive,
01:18 and it is now up to Jennifer, the only survivor,
01:20 to take him down before he makes another victim.
01:23 - Obviously, this is a tragedy.
01:25 It is a violent end to an already horrific story.
01:28 - Seven years before Jennifer's attack,
01:31 following a difficult divorce,
01:32 Rebecca Wertz and her daughter Jennifer
01:34 moved into the Somerset Tower,
01:36 a seventh floor apartment building
01:37 located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
01:40 - My father was kind of in and out of our lives.
01:43 I think that my mom was very lonely at that time.
01:47 - But Rebecca didn't stay single for long.
01:49 She met an eccentric janitor named Eddie
01:52 who worked in the same apartment complex.
01:54 In no time, he moved in with them,
01:56 and together they formed a new, happy family.
01:58 - He was full of smiles and laughter,
02:01 and she was happy around him.
02:03 - But this didn't last.
02:04 Eddie had a few quirks for sure,
02:06 but as time went on, his behavior became increasingly erratic,
02:09 especially towards Jennifer.
02:11 - Once we lived in the apartment, he definitely changed.
02:14 He was very controlling, just very strange,
02:17 just very weird behavior.
02:19 - Despite his occasional antics,
02:21 Eddie gained Rebecca's trust over time
02:23 and was tasked to watch over her daughter
02:24 while she worked on the weekends.
02:26 This is where Jennifer's abuse at the hands of Eddie started.
02:29 Even at only seven years old,
02:31 she knew she had to do something,
02:32 so she gathered all of her courage
02:34 and revealed everything to her mom.
02:36 Rebecca coldly told her that she simply imagined things,
02:39 but Jennifer wasn't duped.
02:41 She knew the things Eddie forced her to do were wrong.
02:44 - And I'm like, "What is happening?
02:46 What are you doing?"
02:47 And I got really angry with my mom.
02:51 - On February 26th, 1991,
02:54 three years into Jennifer's ordeal at the Somerset Tower,
02:57 police knocked on the door of her mother's apartment.
02:59 They explained that four days ago,
03:01 their next-door neighbor disappeared without a trace.
03:03 Detectives were now investigating every resident
03:06 and employee in the building.
03:07 Earlier that day, they interviewed Eddie
03:09 and were surprised by the fact
03:10 that he personally knew the victim.
03:12 - Actually, I ran with Mr. Rosenfeld
03:14 at the apartment complex.
03:16 - I would say he was there.
03:18 - A year, and you haven't made a meter.
03:20 - I've talked to her a few times in the hallways.
03:24 - You leaked her?
03:25 - No, I thought she was pretty nice.
03:27 - Dede Rosenthal, an autism therapist
03:30 who immigrated to the US from Canada less than a year ago,
03:33 was last seen on February 22nd.
03:35 According to her brother Blaine,
03:37 she chose to move to New Jersey
03:38 to accomplish her dream of joining
03:40 the Elwynn Institute of Philadelphia,
03:42 a clinic tailored for mentally disabled children.
03:44 But her brother knew that the US
03:46 could be a little rough around the edges compared to Canada,
03:48 so he insisted she pick an apartment
03:50 on the top floor of a secured building.
03:53 - If there was anything I could have done
03:55 to get her not to go to the US,
03:58 I thought, "Give her a year, give her two years,
04:03 "and then she'll come back."
04:04 I was wrong.
04:07 - At that point, the police had two suspects in mind.
04:15 Both were part of the apartment complex maintenance team.
04:17 The first, Steve Gomez, was Dede's boyfriend.
04:20 The second, Charles Reddish,
04:22 was simply too strange for the police to ignore.
04:24 The thing is that, to most people,
04:26 he was known by another name.
04:28 - What was that name?
04:29 - That was Crazy Eddie.
04:30 Something just wasn't right with Eddie.
04:33 - The man claimed he spent the night of the 22nd
04:35 with Jennifer's mother in their apartment.
04:37 - They spoke with Rebecca Wertz,
04:40 and Rebecca told the police that Charles Reddish
04:43 had been home in their apartment all night long.
04:46 - The prosecutor couldn't help but notice Jennifer's fear
04:49 when he mentioned Eddie in front of her mother.
04:51 - I'll never forget the look on her face.
04:53 I wanted to do anything I could to protect her.
04:56 - Before the police got a chance
04:59 to do a second interview with the Wertz,
05:01 the family moved out of the building.
05:03 It may seem suspicious now, but at the time,
05:05 many residents left Somerset Tower
05:07 after what happened to Dede.
05:08 The circumstances surrounding her disappearance
05:10 didn't add up, and when detectives ran forensics
05:13 on her apartment, they were baffled by the results.
05:16 - And what they found was a pristine apartment.
05:19 - There was no forced entry into the house.
05:21 - There's no blood spatter, there's no shell casing.
05:24 - Even the bed was made.
05:25 - There was no physical evidence whatsoever.
05:29 - The only piece of evidence of value they gathered
05:32 was hidden inside Dede's date book.
05:34 - She had tucked a receipt for $80 into her date book
05:39 from an automated teller machine.
05:42 - But what really convinced them
05:44 that she didn't just run away
05:45 was her downstairs neighbor's testimony.
05:47 - An elderly lady who lived alone woke up
05:50 and it was around four o'clock in the morning
05:53 and she heard a thud on the ceiling of her apartment.
05:58 It would have been the floor of Dede's apartment.
06:01 - With no other suspect or clues,
06:05 the case slowly went cold,
06:07 but the incident struck the imagination
06:09 of the American public.
06:10 Various TV shows and publications picked up the story,
06:13 including NBC's massively popular "Unsolved Mysteries" series.
06:17 From her new home North of Cherry Hill,
06:19 Jennifer couldn't help but feel sorry
06:20 for Dede and her family.
06:22 - For them, for years,
06:24 they had no idea what happened to her.
06:25 She just was missing.
06:28 - To most, the police clearly did everything they could,
06:31 but this wasn't enough for Dede's brother, Blaine Rosenberg.
06:34 - That's all.
06:36 I wouldn't give up.
06:37 I traveled to Cherry Hill 67 times.
06:42 I went into local bars, local restaurants with her picture.
06:46 - As the years passed by,
06:47 Blaine tried his best to balance his personal life
06:50 and his quest to find his sister,
06:51 but eventually his obsession got the better of him.
06:55 - When I got home, my wife said,
06:58 "Blaine, I want you out of the house.
07:01 This is no joke. Get out."
07:04 The disappearance of Dede cost me everything.
07:09 - And as Blaine hit rock bottom,
07:10 so did Jennifer and Rebecca.
07:12 Since the family moved,
07:14 it came to understand why Eddie received his crazy epithet.
07:18 The man was totally out of control,
07:19 constantly acting like a child
07:21 and shooting violent insults.
07:23 His anger towards Rebecca kept growing to a point where,
07:26 even if she never saw him directly hit her,
07:28 Jennifer knew her mom was also a victim of his.
07:31 - I felt like whenever my mom would try to stand up to him,
07:35 he would throw a fit, just getting angry.
07:39 - Jennifer had endured Eddie's abuse
07:41 for seven agonizing years.
07:42 And now her own mother was getting thrown into the mix.
07:45 She knew this couldn't last any longer.
07:47 So after arguing for hours,
07:49 Jennifer eventually convinced Rebecca
07:51 that she needed to leave Eddie.
07:53 Everything was planned in advance,
07:55 but Rebecca made one crucial mistake.
07:57 She told Eddie about it.
07:59 - We were gonna be moving into my grandmother's house.
08:01 She promised me that he was never going to be there.
08:03 I would never have to see him.
08:04 I was ecstatic.
08:06 - On Jennifer's last day of school,
08:08 Rebecca got her daughter to pack all of her things
08:10 and promised her that she would be waiting for her
08:12 by the schoolyard at 6 p.m.,
08:14 right after her last field hockey game.
08:16 - I walked off the field and her car was there,
08:19 but Ed was driving.
08:21 So I immediately got angry, yelling at her,
08:24 that I knew that this was gonna happen
08:25 and why could she never keep her word?
08:28 And she just, just, "Jennifer, get in the car."
08:31 - The silence in the car was heavy.
08:33 In the rear view mirror,
08:34 Jennifer couldn't help but notice
08:35 that Eddie was fixating on her.
08:37 She couldn't pinpoint what,
08:39 but something felt terribly wrong.
08:41 - I just knew that he was gonna do something
08:42 to stop us from moving,
08:44 but I never imagined what would happen.
08:48 - Once they arrived,
08:49 Eddie claimed that all he wanted
08:50 was to have one last dinner together as a family,
08:53 but Jennifer was worried.
08:56 - We get there and I said, "There's not even anything made.
08:59 There's no dinner here.
09:00 You know, what are we doing here?"
09:01 - Eddie sloppily tried to pull together
09:03 some form of explanation
09:04 before insisting that he needed Rebecca's car for groceries.
09:07 Before she could answer,
09:08 he left with the keys in a hurry.
09:10 Now that they were alone,
09:11 Jennifer tried to convince her mother
09:12 to leave before his return,
09:14 but Rebecca ignored her.
09:15 In a fit, Jennifer ran upstairs to her room.
09:18 Then, without fully realizing it,
09:20 the teenager fell asleep for hours.
09:23 Later, in the middle of the night,
09:25 a loud noise suddenly woke her up.
09:27 - It was about 2 a.m.
09:29 I knew that something was really, really wrong.
09:32 - Jennifer stood up
09:33 and started walking down the stairway.
09:34 As she grew closer,
09:36 the noise became clearer and louder.
09:38 Midway through, she realized what was happening.
09:41 - It was the sound of him punching her in the face.
09:44 I don't know how long he had been hitting her.
09:47 I don't know.
09:50 - But it was already too late.
09:53 Before she had time to react,
09:54 Eddie suddenly stopped.
09:56 - And he turned around
09:57 and came towards me with rage in his eyes.
10:02 - Eddie then grabbed Jennifer by the back of her hair
10:05 and dragged her into the living room.
10:07 As she grew closer to her mother,
10:08 she couldn't even grasp the state she was in.
10:11 - I don't know if she knew that I was there.
10:13 I don't know that she saw me.
10:15 I know that her jaw was broken.
10:18 Her arm was broken.
10:19 I was asking him to please not hurt her.
10:22 You know, please just let us go.
10:25 - Eddie threw the young girl onto a chair
10:27 next to the couch Rebecca was on.
10:29 He turned back to pick up a drape
10:30 and a small hatchet he had laid on the floor.
10:33 As he slowly walked towards her,
10:34 Jennifer started panicking.
10:36 - I just immediately started yelling for him to stop.
10:39 He draped the sheet over top of me
10:41 and I just remember curling up at a ball.
10:46 - From under the drape,
10:49 Jennifer could hear her mother breathing.
10:51 She knew she was still alive,
10:53 but within seconds,
10:54 Eddie began striking Rebecca with the hatchet.
10:56 - I could hear the blows.
10:59 I felt her blood.
11:01 After what seemed like a lifetime,
11:03 he took the sheet off of me and took me upstairs.
11:07 - Eddie dragged her into the bedroom.
11:09 In there, he did his worst
11:11 to the traumatized and defenseless teenager.
11:13 - I wasn't out of his sight for another four to five hours.
11:17 He tortured me for that time.
11:19 I was covered in blood.
11:20 I didn't really think that it was ever going to be over.
11:23 - As the sun was rising,
11:25 Eddie stopped and sat next to Jennifer
11:27 amidst all the horrible things he did to her that night.
11:29 What he was about to ask her next
11:31 was simply too much for the young girl.
11:33 - And then he asked me to kill him.
11:36 I said that I couldn't do that.
11:38 So he said that he would just kill me and then kill (beep)
11:43 - Faced with an impossible dilemma,
11:45 Jennifer summoned her courage
11:46 and attempted to guide Eddie toward a third option.
11:48 Just like a hostage negotiator,
11:50 the 14-year-old used de-escalation tactics to calm him down
11:54 by listening carefully,
11:55 asking questions without judgment and showing understanding.
11:58 Jennifer slowly convinced Eddie to spare
12:00 not only her life, but also his.
12:03 - I said, if you turn yourself in,
12:06 they're going to give you a deal.
12:09 They'll go easier on you.
12:10 You can just say that you had a moment of insanity.
12:14 - Hesitant, Eddie stood up
12:15 and started pacing around the bedroom, hatchet in hand.
12:18 He was visibly shaken by her words,
12:20 almost like he slowly came to realize what he had done.
12:23 Against all odds, she persuaded him to give himself up.
12:27 He called his own mother, who then called the police.
12:30 - He said to get dressed and that we had to go outside
12:35 and wait for the police, that they were on their way.
12:38 I was in shock.
12:39 We went out on the front porch and wasn't even sure
12:41 that he still wasn't going to do something
12:43 before the cops came.
12:44 He was so unpredictable.
12:47 - It must've been certainly a surreal experience
12:50 to be sitting there with a man who just killed your mother
12:52 and said, "(beep) you."
12:54 - When the police arrived,
12:55 they immediately separated Jennifer from Eddie.
12:58 Their next concern was Rebecca.
13:00 James Ronca, one of the prosecutors in charge of the case,
13:03 recalls Eddie's strange reaction
13:05 when the police asked him about her whereabouts.
13:08 - Reddish made some cryptic statement
13:10 about the victim being inside
13:13 and he asked, "Does she need an ambulance?"
13:14 And he said, "No."
13:15 It's too late for that.
13:18 - Once in the hands of the police,
13:19 Jennifer had a hard time assessing what happened.
13:22 Even Ronca, an experienced prosecutor,
13:24 never had to deal with a victim so mentally shocked before.
13:28 - Jennifer was very traumatized.
13:31 She's still wearing her field hockey uniform,
13:36 looking just so absolutely forlorn.
13:41 - After Ronca finished interviewing Jennifer,
13:46 reinforcement from the Cherry Hill Police Department
13:48 arrived at the station.
13:50 Detective Brian Mollo,
13:51 the same man who questioned Eddie four years ago
13:53 at Somerset Tower,
13:54 was asked to interview him once again.
13:56 - We drove up to Burlington County.
13:59 They allowed us access to him in a room
14:02 and we brought a tape recorder.
14:04 - For the most part,
14:04 Eddie and Jennifer's versions of the event
14:06 were roughly concordant until the assault in the bedroom.
14:09 Seemingly, Eddie refused to admit what he did to Jennifer.
14:13 - Did you have any (beep) with Jennifer?
14:15 - No.
14:16 - Why do you think Jennifer would mention that you had (beep)
14:19 - Because of Ronca, that's right.
14:21 - I always liked her, you know, she's a cute girl.
14:24 - He literally is laughing
14:25 as he is talking about (beep) a 14 year old girl.
14:30 - Following Eddie's full confession
14:31 regarding Rebecca's murder and Jennifer's assault,
14:34 Detective Mollo, who had never forgotten Eddie
14:36 since Dee Dee's disappearance,
14:38 knew there was more where that came from.
14:40 - I thought at this point,
14:42 he would be particularly vulnerable.
14:44 - And they start asking Charles Reddish again
14:48 about the disappearance of Dee Dee Rosenthal.
14:50 To the surprise of the prosecutors and the detective,
14:53 Eddie immediately confessed.
14:55 - After four years, he finally tells what happened.
15:00 - I'd like to ask you some questions
15:04 regarding the disappearance of Dee Dee Rosenthal
15:07 at the Somerset House Apartments in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
15:10 - I figured it's time people know the truth.
15:13 For some reason, I took the stairs to the roof.
15:17 I swung down onto the balcony of Dee Dee Rosenthal's apartment
15:22 and she spotted me.
15:25 We let it out of the screen.
15:27 - And he realizes, "She's gonna recognize me."
15:31 And at that point, he makes the decision to kill her.
15:34 There was a minor struggle and she fell off the bed,
15:37 which was the thud that the lady downstairs heard.
15:40 - I knew that he had passed away.
15:44 I went to the kitchen, found $80 exactly in cash
15:49 in her pocketbook.
15:50 I took that and I peed down through the hallway.
15:52 Nobody was around.
15:54 Took her in a shopping cart down and out
15:56 the back door of the apartment complex.
15:59 - He brought her out through these doors
16:02 across the parking lot.
16:04 - Could you describe where you took Ms. Rosenthal?
16:08 - Off of Route 130.
16:09 There was a dirt road that you could drive back there
16:11 and I took her from the corner into the weeds
16:15 and left her there.
16:17 - We found out that every year
16:20 they dredge the Delaware River
16:21 and pump the dredge waste into this area.
16:25 By the time we got here,
16:26 Dee Dee would have been under between 50, 75,
16:29 even up to 100 feet of dredge materials.
16:32 - After the search for Dee Dee's body was abandoned,
16:35 the two cases fell into the hands of Prosecutor Albright
16:37 from Cherry Hill and Ronca from Burlington.
16:40 After meeting his attorney for the first time,
16:42 Eddie immediately recanted both confessions.
16:45 And even if he wouldn't have,
16:46 a confession alone wasn't enough to sentence him.
16:49 - In New Jersey, under our law,
16:51 you can't convict a person on their word alone,
16:54 i.e. their confession.
16:55 You have to corroborate the confession.
16:58 - This is when the rigorous police work
17:00 that took place in 1991 came into play.
17:02 Even if Eddie removed all traces of Dee Dee's murder
17:05 after the act, there remained one little thing he forgot,
17:08 the ATM receipt the police found
17:10 tucked behind the cover of Dee Dee's date book.
17:13 - He specifically tells the Cherry Hill detectives
17:16 that he took $80 out of that pocketbook.
17:19 For me, the ultimate,
17:21 the cherry on the corroboration sundae was that MAC receipt.
17:24 And I couldn't wait for the jury to see that.
17:27 - Since Jennifer survived,
17:29 thanks to her own negotiating skills,
17:31 the first trial was a swift one.
17:33 The jury took less than 40 minutes to come back
17:35 with a guilty verdict after hearing her testimony.
17:38 For the murder of Rebecca and the assault of Jennifer,
17:41 Eddie received a life sentence.
17:43 Meanwhile, Albright was preparing for the second trial.
17:46 She wanted more than a double life sentence.
17:48 She was aiming for the death penalty for Dee Dee's murder.
17:51 - So legally, justice is done,
17:54 but in real life, what is justice
17:57 when you've lost your family member to murder?
17:59 - With his confession recanted,
18:00 Eddie had a very good chance of being found not guilty.
18:03 His lawyer used all the tips and false sightings
18:06 the police received after Dee Dee's appearance
18:08 on "Unsolved Mystery" to misrepresent the case.
18:11 He was attempting to fool the audience
18:13 into thinking that Dee Dee was alive and well,
18:15 that she simply abandoned her family
18:17 and her career to start anew elsewhere.
18:19 - I wanted the jurors to know
18:21 that Dee Dee was not some flaky young thing
18:24 who just decided one day, you know what?
18:27 I'm tired of Cherry Hill, I'm tired of my job,
18:29 I'm tired of my family.
18:31 Because to believe that she was still alive,
18:34 you would have to believe all those things.
18:36 - And it worked.
18:37 This angle, joined by the ATM receipt,
18:40 sufficed to convince the jury.
18:42 Jennifer and Dee Dee's brother Blaine,
18:44 though emotional, celebrated their victory.
18:47 - I cried my eyes out.
18:48 The first time I really cried my eyes out,
18:51 that was when we put up a marker, we had flowers,
18:55 it was over.
18:57 - Until 2004, a review of the court proceedings
19:00 proved that the judge presiding over the audience
19:02 made a mistake in his address to the jury.
19:05 This was enough for the court to ask for a retrial
19:07 and Albright knew that the New Jersey jurisdiction
19:10 was about to abolish the death penalty.
19:12 - I convicted him once and I was pretty sure
19:16 I was gonna be able to convict him twice.
19:18 - With the death penalty impending abolition,
19:20 avoiding a trial was the soundest option.
19:22 So, after talking with Blaine and Jennifer,
19:24 the prosecutor offered Addy a deal.
19:26 - That he would plead guilty to Dee Dee's murder
19:29 and he would receive a sentence
19:31 that would keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
19:34 - Addy was finally sentenced in the summer of 2005,
19:38 10 years after his initial arrest in 1995.
19:41 During that time, Jennifer rebuilt her life
19:44 from the ground up.
19:45 She moved in with Shannon, one of her adult sisters,
19:47 and ultimately got the chance to experience a normal life.
19:51 She attended Catholic school, joined a cheerleading team,
19:54 and made many friends along the way.
19:56 Not only that, but Shannon and her two other sisters
19:59 all formed a strong support system around Jennifer.
20:02 - As a teenager, I really worked very, very hard
20:07 to not let it affect me.
20:10 - As an adult, Jennifer continued to thrive
20:12 and eventually even became a mother herself.
20:15 But her past ordeal took on a new meaning
20:18 after she gave birth to her two daughters,
20:20 especially in the way she perceived
20:21 her own mother's tragic death.
20:23 - Now, as a mother, it's a different type of pain.
20:26 I think of my girls getting married.
20:29 My mother never got to see any of her girls get married.
20:32 That's how it affects me now,
20:35 just missing the things for her.
20:37 - Although Jennifer got some form of closure
20:39 after Addy's arrest, the same couldn't necessarily be said
20:42 about Dee Dee's family.
20:44 Without a body, they may never know
20:46 what really happened to her.
20:47 All they have is Addy's word.
20:50 - After learning about Dee Dee's murder,
20:52 as horrific as what happened to me was,
20:54 at least I know what happened.
20:57 - To honor his sister's memory,
20:59 Blaine started a foundation bearing her name,
21:02 which provides support services
21:03 to women experiencing physical or emotional abuse.
21:06 Overall, he chose to focus on her legacy
21:09 more than anything else.
21:10 - There were a lot of memories that I'll never forget.
21:13 I miss Dee Dee.
21:15 I will never forget Dee Dee.
21:17 - And the same is true for Jennifer.
21:18 There's no way to be sure,
21:20 but Rebecca was probably also a victim of Addy's abuse
21:23 long before the murders,
21:24 which could have led to some of her questionable decisions
21:27 in the past.
21:28 Some may say she could have done much more
21:29 to protect her daughter,
21:31 but it doesn't mean there weren't moments of genuine love
21:33 between the two of them.
21:34 And these earnest memories deserve to be celebrated.
21:38 - I miss my mother every day.
21:40 Going to the beach with her,
21:41 singing with her, dancing in the kitchen.
21:44 That's what I like to think of.
21:47 That's what I like to think of.
21:49 (gentle music)
21:52 (gentle music)
21:54 (gentle music)
21:57 (gentle music)
22:00 (gentle music)
22:02 (gentle music)
22:05 (gentle music)
22:08 (gentle music)
22:11 (gentle music)
22:14 (gentle music)
22:16 (dramatic music)
22:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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