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Framingham was sited on an ancient trail known as the Old Connecticut Path; John Stone settled on the west bank of the Sudbury River in 1647.
about 0:06:53The story
He came from a blue-collar family in Fairlawn, New Jersey, took a bachelor's degree in accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1977 and a master's in actuarial science at Temple University in 1979, and joined the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in Boston in 1985. By 1995 he was director of acquisitions and disposals, earning $96,000 a year plus bonuses, and was John Hancock's representative on a proposed Boston megaplex of convention centre and domed stadium. Colleagues called him extraordinarily smart but intense, humourless and a loner. An ex-girlfriend said he never showed anger and simply withdrew.
He met Laura Jane Russell, known as LJ, at John Hancock. She was from Highland Park, Illinois, raised in El Paso, Texas, six years younger than him, outgoing and charming where he was rigid. People who knew them both thought them ill suited. They married on 29 September 1991 at a courthouse in El Paso, Texas, by a Justice of the Peace, and rented a brownstone apartment in Boston's South End, close enough to the John Hancock building to walk to work. In April 1993 they bought a four-bedroom house in the Nobscott section of north Framingham, near the Sudbury line, for $330,000, in a leafy neighbourhood of young families and prams. They kept to themselves. A neighbour, Pat Moody, said they once came to a community meeting and sat without speaking.
Their son Reece was born prematurely on 18 February 1994 and died within twenty-four hours, as fluid gathered around his heart and lungs. Laura was pregnant again by July 1994, and their daughter Marla was born healthy in April 1995. The marriage grew tense over his long hours on the megaplex project and his lack of attention to Marla. In early August he asked for another baby; Laura refused, saying she would need painful surgery. In mid-August she brought Marla to lunch at the John Hancock cafeteria and he handed the baby to a co-worker against her wishes, causing an argument.
In the summer of 1990 his friend Joanne Briner had seen LJ with a black eye and bruised cheek at John Hancock. In 1993 two other employees, Alma Hadad and William T. Wimer, saw her with a bruised face. She never explained it. Her old landlord said she became quieter and less willing to speak during her first year of marriage. The salon owner, Tina Cristaldi, later said there had always been something strange in his face.
After work he stopped at a Jewish temple and was there while the prayer for the dead was recited for his son. He went home, where Marla was napping. Sometime in the next couple of hours he beat Laura to death with a softball-sized rock, destroying her skull and face so badly that she had to be identified from dental records. He then cut her from throat to navel with a butcher knife, removed her heart and lungs, possibly her liver, dragged her outside and left her in the woods behind the house. He put the organs on an eighteen-inch garden stake about thirty yards from her body, like a flag or a garden gnome, and left her there.
He changed out of his bloody clothes, put them in a bag on the back seat beside Marla, and drove away. Driving aimlessly, he fell in behind a car with the state plate 357 and followed it for a couple of miles, seeing the numbers as a reference to gun control. The car belonged to Paul and Lynn Johnson. He pulled into their driveway behind them and began talking to them about gun control. They saw the baby and the suspicious bag, and while one kept him talking the other called the police.
The police asked where the baby's mother was. He said she was at home the last time he saw her, then said he had had an argument, done a terrible thing and might need a lawyer. Asked what the fight was about, he said he had burned the ziti. Then, after seeing the bloody clothes, the police read him his rights, and he said he believed his wife was an enemy alien vampire, part of an invasion, and that killing her had been self-defence. The babysitter in the Johnsons' house later recalled that he asked for a spoon for the yoghurt he had brought because he had not eaten dinner. Police went to the Framingham house, broke in, found bloody clothing and a butcher knife in an upstairs bathroom, followed a thick blood trail down the stairs and out of the back door, and found Laura in the woods.
She was listed as a Jane Doe until dental records confirmed her identity. John Hancock placed Rosenthal on indefinite leave. He was sent to a mental hospital for evaluation. A psychologist who met him for an hour found him logical, direct and rational, with a flat reaction to the killing, referring to his wife as the unknown victim and asking whether this was a big case. A psychiatrist at Bridgewater later noted withdrawal, weight loss, suicidal threats and a belief that his parents were not his parents, while warning that he might be malingering.
He filed notice of a lack of criminal responsibility defence. The prosecution argued the killing was the culmination of years of domestic abuse. The Commonwealth's expert, Dr Barney Pfeiff, said he had narcissistic personality traits, not a delusional disorder, and met several criteria for malingering. Rosenthal growled and made strange noises in court, and on 30 October 1996 his lawyer sought a bench conference, saying he had been growling beside him since his sister began testifying. After a recess the lawyer said he was satisfied Rosenthal was competent. The judge did not order an evaluation, and Rosenthal did not testify.
Laura's mother, Vanita Shaw, who was raising Marla Kate, said she was satisfied and that many beautiful plans had been lost to one man's rage. Her sister Sharry said the worst thing was that Marla would never know the one person who loved her most.
He claimed his lawyer had threatened to keep him in a holding cell unless he agreed not to testify. The motion judge found the self-serving affidavit, written almost ten years after the alleged coercion and unsupported by other evidence, not credible, and noted that he could have told the judge at the time. The courts found the statements properly admitted and the lawyer's conduct a reasonable tactical decision.