Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. He asked me not to talk
to the media. I don't mind. I don't need to
talk to the media. I want to talk to you
any quote unquote said Rodney. We actually thought he'd be
home by Christmas. I said, well, you can't come home
if you're fucking dead.
Speaker 3: Final Sword and Scale until April. So this is two
eighty three, season twelve.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 3: All right, no reason to further delay.
Speaker 1: Let's get right into it.
Speaker 3: Make sure to subscribe to this doesn't happen to people
like me on Apple and Spotify, and we'll see you
back here in April.
Speaker 1: Here's the show. Adam J.
Speaker 3: Chase was born in October of nineteen eighty to his parents,
Linden and Sylvia, in Gorham, New York. Growing up, Adam
wasn't exactly the outdoorsy type. He spent most of his
days inside playing computer games on his PC while his
peers sped past his bedroom window on their BMX bikes,
enjoying the beautiful nature that the Finger Legs region of
Upstate New York has to offer. By high school, Adam's
introverted personality hadn't changed much. In short, he was a nerd,
not in a bad way, but you were more likely
to catch him at the local renaissance fair dressed up
in costume and festering on a fried turkey leg, and
you were to spot him at let's say, sporting event.
Speaker 2: Or party private persons. There was nothing wrong with Adam
except Adam was Adam. He wasn't a real sociable person
other her own family.
Speaker 3: He loved his family, so when he met Rose, a
girl one year younger than him, while attending Marcus Whitman High,
Adam welcomed the attention from the opposite sex, something he
hadn't exactly known prior. Adam was by no means the
popular kid in school, but he did have a few
core gaming buddies he hung around with. Rose, on the
other hand, was much more of an outcast and struggled
in school due to her dyslexia. As a result, she
was subjected to more than.
Speaker 1: Her fair share of bullying.
Speaker 3: Adam came to a rescue on more than one occasion,
and after learning that they shared an interest in sci
fi movies in particular, it wasn't long before the two
began dating, it seemed as though he'd found his fair maiden.
Rose was just as eager to dress up in ornamental
attire and accompany her new prince charming to his favorite
historical events, celebrating the days of yesteryear. Just a couple
of geeks, young and in love. A sweet but in
terms of academics, Adam wasn't quite the stereotypical bookworm. In fact,
he was pretty much the opposite and ended up dropping
out right before his senior year. He eventually earned his
ged before bouncing from one menial job to the next
while his girlfriend Rose remained in high school. To the
frustration of Rose's mother, Patty, Adam tried to convince his
girlfriend to drop out along with him, hoping to jump
start their new life together. Unfortunately for Adam, Rose's mother
wasn't having it and insisted she finished school. Shortly after graduation,
the now nineteen year old Rose and twenty year old
Adam wasted no time trying to tie the knot and
got married in two thousand and one. They moved into
Patty's house while saving up to get a place of
their own. By this point, Adam worked more low paying
jobs than anyone would care to admit, selling anything from
windows to used cars. Meanwhile, Rose secured a position working
at a local factory. Between their two incomes, the newlyweds
eventually managed to squirrel away enough cash to buy a
small trailer in the nearby town of Bristol, New York.
It wasn't much, but you know, it was theirs, and
after years of trying, Rose became pregnant with their first child.
Their son, Tristan, was born in two thousand and seven.
From that moment on, Adam dedicated his life to fatherhood
and quit his job to become a stay at home
dad full time. As for Rose, she was eventually given
a promotion at the factory and soon became the sole breadwinner.
A few years later, the couple was finally able to
put a down payment on their first home in Stanley,
New York, a big white colonial farmhouse with an oversized
porch overlooking half an acre of remote land. Adam's mother
and father also lived in Stanley, which meant baby Tristan
got to spend quality time with his grandparents whenever Adam
needed a break from his duty. Says mister mom. Lyndon
and Sylvia Chase were happy to take Tristan whenever they
had the chance. This was helpful because Adam and Rose
now had a hefty mortgage payment to take care of.
As a result, Adam was forced to look for a job,
but struggled to lock down anything full time. Even so,
he and his wife Rose found a way, as life does,
and around the time their son was about to start kindergarten,
Adam finally landed a low paying gig working as a
student loan debt collector, the kind of guy I'm sure
we all love. From the outside looking in, things seemed
to be fine for Adam Rose Chase, that is until
midsummer of twenty twelve rolled around. On the evening of
June fourteenth, twenty twelve, Rose Chase showed up at Adam's
parents' home to pick up their son, Tristan.
Speaker 4: Mother's intuition, but I knew something was definitely wrong.
Speaker 3: Before Sylvia could even open her mouth, Rose explained that
she and Adam had gotten into a fight earlier that
day and that she hadn't seen him since. Rose claimed
that in the midst of a heated argument, Adam punched
a hole in the upstairs wall before storming down the
steps and out of the house. Rose said that she
was certain Adam would be back in no time, thinking
he'd simply be gone for a walk around the neighborhood
cool off. According to Rose, that was around eleven am,
roughly seven hours before. In addition, he had left his
cell phone behind after night fell over Stanley, New York,
and Adam still hadn't returned home. It was at that
point that Rose said she drove to Sylvia's to inform
her that her son had disappeared. After delivering this troubling news,
Rose quickly gathered up her own son and was at
the door. Sylvia's head was spinning. She tried to convince
herself that her son was somewhere safe, but when morning
came and there was still no sign of Adam, that
anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach began to tighten.
Speaker 5: My son always called me when someone was up, always
either me or his day.
Speaker 3: At After a sleepless night, Sylvia was forced to begin
her shift at the local public school where she worked,
with no indication of where her son had gone. Shortly
after arriving, she spoke with a resource officer at the
school to express her concerns given the fact that it
had been roughly twenty four hours since Adam was last
seen or heard from. The officer encouraged Adam's mother to
file a missing persons report right away, which is exactly
what Sylvia Chase did on the morning of June fifteenth,
twenty twelve. Later that same day, a deputy with the
Ontario County Sheriff's Department called up Adam's wife, Rose on
the phone, provided that she was the last one to
have seen Adam. Naturally, Rose was the person authorities wanted
to speak with.
Speaker 2: The cher's department called her on Friday night and wanted
to ask her questions instead of going to the house
and asking if they could walk around and make sure
that he wasn't eiding her in some place in the house.
Speaker 3: During that telephone conversation, Rose told officers that the day
Adam went missing, their four year olds son was staying
with Adam's mother, Sylvia, which was true, but Rose expanded
on the original story she'd told Adam's mother by informing
police that before Adam walked off, he'd called out of work.
Adam's boss later confirmed the police that he had called
in sick, but that it was hours after his shift
had already begun, which, according to his employer, was uncharacteristic
of him. Rose went on to explain to the officer
that Adam wasn't actually sick, but had taken the day
off so that he could discuss some marital issues they'd
been having. Rose alluded to the deputy over the phone
that there'd been some infidelity going on in their relationship.
This was obviously a red flag, or at least it
should have been. Without going into further detail. At the time,
Rose told the officer about the argument that broke out,
causing Adam to punch the wall and angrily walk out
of the house. A few days later, on June eighteenth,
investigators arrived at Rose's residence on Stanley to meet with
her in person for the first time since Adam mysteriously disappeared.
During that visit, Rose consented to a search of her
and Adam's property, at which time police dogs began scouring
the woods surrounding the farmhouse. While all of that was
going on, investigators sat down to chat with Rose face
to face. She reiterated that the last time she saw
her husband was four days prior, on June fourteenth, While
in the home, Rose was kind enough to lead officers
upstairs to show them the hole that Adam had allegedly
punched his fist through. While canines circled in the backyard,
Rose suddenly produced a typewritten note to police that she
claimed Adam had left behind. The exact contents of this
note are unknown, but it was something to the effect
of I'm never coming back, good riddance. After hours of
searching outside, the dogs ultimately failed to pick up any
trace of Adam outdoors. Authorities then asked Rose if the
dogs could search inside the home. At first, she was hesitant.
She told officers she was worried about the canines dragging
mud inside. She also said that her dogs don't play
well with others, But after some brief hesitation, Rose eventually complied.
The dogs proceeded to lead authorities through the second story
of the home, but when it came time to check
the basement, Rose became even more apprehensive. She told police
that the basement was somewhat of a mess due to
the rodent infestation, and there was also some flooding caused
by a bad sewer pump. But despite her reluctance, she
eventually gave in to authorities once more and allowed them
to continue the search. When they asked Rose if there
was a light to the basement, she told them that
there was, but that it had been broken. As officers
walked down the cellar steps with their two canines leading
the way, they found a light switch on the wall,
and weirdly enough, it worked.
Speaker 1: It worked as fine.
Speaker 3: In addition, the basement wasn't flooded at all. The one
thing Rose was right about, though, is that the basement
was disgusting. The dogs proceeded to roam through the bottom
dwelling of the residence, which was filled with piles of junk,
including kids toys, rotten pieces of wood, an old door,
and you know, other crap. While there was a slight
musk in the air, the canines made no significant hit
in the basement whatsoever, and all that they found were
some dead rodents. After returning back upstairs, Rose delivered some
alarming news. She told police that she believed Adam had
returned to the house in days following his disappearance to
retrieve his cell phone, which was now missing.
Speaker 1: That was all the.
Speaker 3: Information Rose had to offer during this particular visit, and
after the canines and deputies alike came up empty handed.
They eventually left the home, seemingly no closer to solving
the disappearance of the young father. The following day, Adam's
family began receiving some strange text messages sent from Adam's phone.
Chase's sisters say there were two texts on June nineteenth,
one to each of their parents.
Speaker 6: It said, staying with a friend in Canandagua.
Speaker 2: Need time to think.
Speaker 3: These texts were sent to both Adam's father, Linden and
his mother Sylvia at the time. Sylvia tried to call
Adam's phone back in me idiately, but by the time
she did, it had already been turned off and Sylvia's
call went directly to voicemail. After notifying the police about
the texts, investigators were able to ping Adam's device to
an area in Canadagua as its last known location, just
like the text message set, but after searching the area
roughly twelve miles north of where Adam was last seen,
there was no trace of him or his phone. Adam's
face was seen on virtually every telephone, poll and corner
store window in upstate New York. At the foot of
his Missing Persons Flyer was an address to a Facebook
page helped bring Adam Chase home. It had been created
by his sisters as a public space dedicated to any
updates or developments regarding his whereabouts. Eventually, the overwhelming publicity
of this case caught the eye of Rodney Miller, Ontario
County deputy turned private investigator.
Speaker 2: Well, my name's Rodney G. Miller. I'm seventy three years old.
But years ago, in nineteen eighty I got hired by
Ontario County as a deputy.
Speaker 3: Rodney doesn't do zoom interviews. Some people are very particular
about very random thing, so we sent one of our
producers to Stanley, New York to interview him in person.
Back in the nineteen eighties, Rodney Miller was a patrol
cop for the better part of the decade and led
the county in dui arrests.
Speaker 2: When I went to work, I went to work to work.
I didn't go to work to goof off. I did
my job. My record would speak for itself.
Speaker 3: But despite years of dedication to serving his community, the
veteran officer was fired after refusing to go back to
working overnight shifts.
Speaker 2: It was about shift change, He told me when I
come back to work after my two days were off,
I'd be going back on a night shift. And I said,
that's not going to happen. They came the next morning
toil me that they won my cars, my gunner badge,
and my keys. Then I was terminated.
Speaker 3: After he was leto from the force in nineteen eighty six,
Rodney began working mostly on insurance fraud cases as an
independent PI. Fast forward years later to the summer of
twenty twelve. After returning home from a case he'd been
tackling out in Pennsylvania, Rodney learned that the person who'd
been missing for more than two weeks by that point
was a local man he'd known personally for quite some time.
Speaker 2: I knew there was a boy missing, but I did
not know it was Adam until I came home from
Pennsylvania from a trip. And then my wife said, well,
do you know who the boy is missing from Stanley?
And I said no, She goes it's Adam Chase, And
all I said to her was, well, where's he gonna go.
He doesn't have that many friends to go any place.
Speaker 3: Rodney's son went to high school without him. He's known
the Chase family for years. Rodney also knew what kind
of person Adam was. An introvert, so when he heard
that the sheriff's department was treating the case like a
missing person's investigation, it didn't make sense. Already, with a
bad taste in his mouth and grievances towards the Ontario
County Sheriff's Department, he decided to drop by the Chase
family home on July fourth, twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: When I went to see them, Lennon asked me, what's up,
and I said, why, come to help you find your son.
Speaker 3: During that first meeting with Adam's family, Sylvia showed Rodney
a photo. It was a picture of Adam's wife, Rose,
and she was with another man. The picture was taken
in a local park, roughly one week before Adam disappeared.
Rodney also learned that Adam had long suspected Rose of
cheating before he went missing, and had expressed those suspicions
to his loved ones. In turn, Adam's sisters Jessica and
Becky decided to follow Rose that day, only to find
their brother's wife up to another guy on a park bench.
They quickly snapped the photo without being seen before running home,
printing out the image and giving it to Adam.
Speaker 7: When they first showed Adam the picture, I told him
it's just me on the park bench dating because that's
to me.
Speaker 8: And what it looked like.
Speaker 7: And I tried Tom otherwise.
Speaker 2: Once she got confirmed with that photo that was her
gay friend. There were little things that were being told
that raised a lot of suspicion.
Speaker 3: But Adam's mother was worried and had already reported all
this to the police. But Adam's family didn't feel like
they were treating this investigative lead with any sense of urgency.
Before Rodney left the Chase family home that day, he
promised Adam's parents that he would find out what happened
to their son, and from that moment on, he began
working the case independently, free of charge.
Speaker 2: I wasn't asked for any financial money or nothing. I
just went there to tell him that I thought I
could help him find Adam.
Speaker 9: Terro Connie Sheriff Stepan.
Speaker 5: He's are asking for your help tonight finding a missing man,
they say.
Speaker 6: Thirty one year old Adam Chase went missing on June.
Speaker 3: Fourteenth, following a heated argument with his wife, In June
of twenty twelve, thirty one year old Adam Chase walked
off his front porch in Stanley, New York and never returned.
But when Rodney Miller, a former deputy turned private investigator,
heard the news, it didn't sit right with him. He
was close to the family and knew that Adam wasn't
the type of guy to just disappear. Not sure if
I know the guy that just disappears though.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: That's when he began an investigation of his own, working
on the case pro bono and without the help of police.
Several weeks after Adam went missing, Rodney Millard drove to
the place where he was last seen to speak with
his wife Rose.
Speaker 2: The day I went to see her. When I pulled
in and I went up and introduced myself, we were
at the side of the house by there were two
porches on that house. There was a side porch and
there was a front porch. When I was a youngster
in school, that was one of my hangouts. That house.
The family that used to live there in Lipping Cuts
were very good friends of mine and still are to
this day. So I knew that house almost like the
back of my hand.
Speaker 3: Rodney never stepped foot inside of Rose's house that day,
but he wasn't shy and letting her know that he
was fairly certain she had something to do with her
husband's disappearance.
Speaker 2: She's setting on this back porch, She's facing towards the house,
and she's looking right into the window of the cellar.
She's setting down the steps, and I used an old
trick that I was taught. I got close to her
and I touched her on her shoulder, and she shook
like a leaf and I got right down and I'm
right beside her face, and I in a whisper, I
say to her, Rose, I know about the fight that
she had upstairs in the hole in the wall. And
she trembled for maybe twenty five or fifteen seconds, and
all of a sudden, she springs right up, turns around,
the stands right in front of me and says, I'm sorry.
He walked out of the house and I didn't see
which way he went. And I looked right at her
and told her to her face, I think you killed him.
Speaker 3: Naturally, to Rose, these allegations were outlandish, and she just
denied being involved in anything of the sort. But that
was all it took for her to opt out of
the conversation altogether. Rose said her goodbyes to Rodney Miller
before shut flying back inside her house. After departing from Rose,
Rodney was on his way back to pay someone else
to visit a former colleague, give his Ontario County Sheriff,
Phil Pavero.
Speaker 2: I left her house and went to the Sheriff's house,
sat on his ports with him, and told him that
I don't believe he ever left the house.
Speaker 3: Imagine having good reason to believe that something is true,
screaming it from the rooftops, only to have your words
fall on deaf ears. I can relate. But that's exactly
how Rodney Miller felt working this case. Even so, he
chose to push forward and urged the sheriff to start
looking at Adam Chase's disappearance from a different angle. But
according to what Rodney told us, the sheriff wasn't interested.
Speaker 2: He couldn't tell me what they'd done or were doing,
because that was none of my business, which I understood.
I wasn't asking for that. I was telling him what
I felt, And he said, off the record, we think
he committed suicide. We're going to find him out in
the woods of the fields, and that was the summer.
We were having two to hundred and some degree days,
and if he was in the fields of the woods,
the buzzards would have told us where he was. And
I disagreed with him and told him that I don't
think he ever left the house.
Speaker 3: By this point, investigators had already visited over ten hotels
in the area, as well as a local cemetery where
one of Adam's friends had recently been buried, thinking maybe
the missing thirty one year old father had been distraught
and took his own life in that very location, But
just like the searches of his home, nothing was found
at the cemetery. Despite his suspicions of Adam's wife, Rose,
the sheriff essentially ignored Rodney and told him to let
the police handle it. In the eyes of law enforcement,
Rose had been cooperative up to that point, and there
was reason to consider her a suspect. With that being said,
authorities did stop by Rose's residence a second time that July.
When Rose invited the deputies in, they noticed a man
sitting on the couch and at sure as hell wasn't Adam.
Speaker 2: The gay friend moved in two days after Adam went missing.
Speaker 3: It took a moment for authorities to realize that the
man sitting there had a striking resemblance to the individual
seen in the photo from the park weeks before aka
Rose's gay friend Mark. During that police visit, Rose started
to event more openly to the officers. She told them
that Adam had stopped paying attention to her romantically in
the days leading up to his disappearance. She went on
to say that all he ever wanted to do was
play video games on his computer, that she was fed
up with him, and if Adam were to walk through
the front door at that very moment, she wouldn't take
him back. Rose then asked the deputies something rather strange.
When she inquired about the process of filing for divorce.
Rose also said she was going to sell Adam's motorcycle,
almost inferring that he wouldn't be coming back to get it.
The officer then flat out asked Rose if she killed
her husband, to which she said no. The deputy then
suggested she call a lawyer regarding the divorce before leaving
the residents. On July tenth, twenty twelve, Rose was interviewed
by The Daily Messenger, a local publication in town, and
was quoted in the paper stating the following.
Speaker 10: I just want to make sure he's safe and that
he knows people miss him. We do miss him. I
just hope it ends on a happy note.
Speaker 3: Rose Chase began popping up on virtually every local news
station in Ontario County and never seemed to pass up
an opportunity when it came to press. During almost all
of these televised appearances, Rose pleaded for her husband Adam
to come home in hopes that he might be out
there somewhere watching Adam.
Speaker 11: If you are seeing this, can you please come home
to your family.
Speaker 12: They really do miss you.
Speaker 11: And if anybody knows where Adam is, please contact Interior
County Sheriffs so this way the family can know how
he is and that he's okay.
Speaker 3: While Rose was seemingly reveling in the local media spotlight,
behind the scenes, she continued to speak with law enforcement
on several occasions, but to the frustration of Adam's family,
nothing seemed to come out of it. As a result, Then,
on Saturday, July twenty eighth, Rodney Miller drove back to
Rose's house for another visit, at which point he asked
her if he could search Adam's car that hadn't left
the driveway since the day he disappeared.
Speaker 2: She was outside again when I pulled in, walking around
with her in the sun. I introduced myself again. She remembers,
she said, she remembered me, and I asked her if
she popped the trunk of the car and I could
make sure that Adam was in there. She did that,
and then I asked her if we could go inside
and walk through the house, and she told me I could.
Speaker 3: Rose took Rodney upstairs first, and the two proceeded to
walk every square inch of the second floor.
Speaker 2: She showed me the hole a wall, and she showed
me where he played his games and stuff, and the
house was literally a mess. They weren't the best of housekeepers.
As we're walking back down, the boyfriend sat down the
couch about fifteen feet from me, and that was Mark Broadhurst.
Speaker 3: Before leaving the house that day, Rodney had one last
request for Rose, and that was to look around the basement.
Speaker 2: I asked Rose, can I look go down in the basement.
She said, no, it's flooded, And I said well, at
least let me look. And she opened the door and
turned on the light, and the basement floor was as
dry as could be, And I said, do you mind
if I go down, And on the third step I
smelled him.
Speaker 3: Before Rodney even got halfway down the basement stairs, the
foul odor of decay hit him like a ton of bricks.
When he asked Rose about the smell, she pointed out
several dead animals scattered among the concrete floor.
Speaker 2: They were like a dead squirrel. And I forget what
was there, but there was a couple of carcasses laying
on the floor. And she said, I have let her
road problems in the house.
Speaker 3: He couldn't see much. It was extremely dark. Though there
was one light working in the basement, an entire corner
remained unlit.
Speaker 2: The back part of the basement she took taken all
the lights out, and that did have a little water
on the floor, not to wetch your shoe.
Speaker 3: Just then Rodney stumbled upon an oversized freezer, the kind
big enough for a body.
Speaker 2: There was a chess freezer in the one corner of
the basement, and I asked her to open it so
I could look in there, and that just I think
relatively was empty.
Speaker 3: After failing to find anything when it comes to physical evidence,
Rose walked Rodney out to his car.
Speaker 2: We walked back up and she came back out, and
she's walking in the yard with me, and she's walking
beside me, and I have a specific question I want
to ask her. I'm looking for an answer. I said
to Rose, what are you going to do if one
of these knights Adam comes home, walks in the house
and you're in bed with another man. And she says
to me. She starts to say, he ain't and she
caught herself and she goes, I'm not taking him back,
but she said what I wanted her to, he ain't
coming back.
Speaker 1: And that was that.
Speaker 3: From there, Rodney drove to Sheriff Pavero's house, just like
last time, except now he had new information. That information
was that he was fairly certain something was rotting inside
Rose's basement.
Speaker 2: I went to Serpavo's house again, set right on the
boards beside him, and I said, I can't prove that
he's in the basement, but I know he was in
the basement, I said, Phil, I smelled him at the
third step, but I couldn't find him. I could smell him,
but I couldn't find him.
Speaker 3: The sheriff thanked Rodney before telling him that they'd already
been in the basement with the dogs and Adam wasn't there. Disappointed,
Rodney Miller then drove back to his wife across town,
feeling a bit more hopeless than he had before. Several
months would pass, and as the leaves begin to change,
there's still no sign of Adam. His thirty second birthday
eventually came and went that October. On the fifth month
anniversary of his disappearance, the Ontario the Sheriff's Department held
a press conference on Wednesday, November fourteenth, twenty twelve. Adam's mother, Sylvia,
and his sister Jessica were seen sitting at a long
table to the right of the sheriff and the lead investigator.
At the opposite end of the table was Adam's wife,
Rose Chase. Unlike her prior on camera appearances, Rose sat
silently for the majority of the press conference with her
eyes glued to the floor. During the broadcast, authorities urged
anyone with information regarding Adam's whereabouts to come forward, but
these press conferences and news headlines were becoming redundant. Regardless,
the sheriff expressed his optimism, stating his personal belief that
Adam was out there, still alive, and the investigation remained
in full swing. Out of the family members present that day,
Adam's mother was the only one to speak. Sylvia scanned
her eyes across the sea of local journalists and begged
her son to come home, just like she had countless
times before.
Speaker 5: Adam, if you can hear this, you have a place
to come home to call me, email me, whichever, Just
come on home.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Rodney Miller was working around the clock on his
own without the help.
Speaker 1: Of law enforcement.
Speaker 3: He never once believed Adam walked off on his own accord.
In his gut, there was only one person responsible for
whatever happened to him, and that was Adam's wife, Rose Chase.
But he had to prove it. In the eyes of
the local sheriff's department, any evidence Rodney brought them was circumstantial. Eventually,
the independent investigation into the disappearance of his family friend
began to weigh on him, and for his own sanity,
Rodney had to step away.
Speaker 2: There came a point when I walked away from it.
I had things to do around the farm. I burn
would for my heat. I knew winter was coming. I
had to get some of my stuff done, and I'd
actually got burned out about Adam.
Speaker 3: As the winter frost began to settle in that year,
for the first time since getting involved, Rodney Miller began
to fear that Adam might never be found.
Speaker 2: It was a snowy, cold day, and when I come home,
my wife said, I sat in a lounge chair and
my wife said, what are you going to do? And
I said, I don't know. I'm running out of things
to do, and if the weather changes were not going
to find them.
Speaker 3: But that feeling of defeat shifted when Rodney got a
call from an old friend.
Speaker 2: But then I got a phone call was Adam's father, Lyndon,
and his father said, the SHARE's department fucked us and
if you don't help us find our son, we ain't
going to find him. At her he said, why'd you
give up? He said he never give up, and I said,
I didn't give up. I said, I just had to
get away from it for a while, because I walked
a lot of miles looking for Adam.
Speaker 3: That was all it took for Rodney to pick himself
up and dive back into the case, remembering the promise
he'd made to the Chase family.
Speaker 2: After that conversation had kind of fired me up, and
I went back a lot harder than I did in the.
Speaker 3: Beginning with a newfound rejuvenation. The former deputy turned private
detective Rodney Miller decided to play his last hand and
executed a final trick that he had up his sleeve.
In mid December of twenty twelve, he devised a plan,
a plan that involved a little help from Rose's new babysitter.
Speaker 2: And I called Sandy and I said, well, you help me.
She want to know what I wanted, and I said, well,
when Rose comes to pick up her Sunday night, I
want you to tell her so you don't get in trouble,
that you heard it from another one of your customers
that there's a break in the case. They're gonna make
an arrest and charge somebody with murder.
Speaker 3: Essentially, Rodney came up with the idea to have the
babysitter tell Rose that she'd heard rumblings around town, rumors
that authorities were ramping up to make an arrest regarding
her husband's disappearance in the coming days, which in actuality
was bullshit.
Speaker 2: There was nothing there to make an arrest on my
end other than the bluff.
Speaker 3: When Rose came to pick up her son from Sandy's
house just after five pm the evening of December thirteenth,
the babysitter followed through with her end of the plan
as instructed, but unfortunately no dice in terms of a
confession from Rose Chase. She appeared nervous when Sandy made
mention of an arrest, but ultimately Rose kept her mouth shut,
picked up her son, and was soon on her way
back home in Stanley. As soon as Rose left, Sandy
texted Rodney to let him know she'd planted a seed
of fear in Rose. But if we've learned anything from
our communications with Rodney Miller, it's at He's great at
a lot of things, but texting isn't one of them.
Speaker 2: And she didn't call me. I told her not to
text me because I don't read Texas. But anyways, she
texted me, but it came quarterly after five, and I
knew she picked him up at five o'clock. She didn't
call me, so I called her and I said, Sandy
did she pick up. Yes, she goes, didn't you get
my text? And I said, I told you not to
text me. But anyways, she said you should go. She said,
well she left here. She was as white as the
she and all she could say was oh shit, oh shit.
Speaker 3: After getting off the phone with Sandy Rodney, Miller rushed
over to his number one suspect's residence, just a few
miles away.
Speaker 2: I was all ready to go. I'd had my coat
on and I was ready to go to her house.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did that evening.
Speaker 3: He confronted Rose, and he informed her that for her
this was the end of the road.
Speaker 2: When I went there that night, she came out on
the front porch and sat down and I said, Rose,
I've had enough. You got to give him up. You're
never going to be at peace. Do you tell me
what you did with him? And I want to know
where you buried him? And just like that, she took
her hands away from her face and looked right at
me and said, I didn't bury him. I said, where
is he? I took him to my mother's where he's
in the burn barrel. Where are the bones? They're in
the barrel. Then when I asked her, who helps you
take him out of the house. She just said, I
took him out by myself. I said, how piece by piece.
Speaker 3: Before Rodney Miller called the sheriff to let him know
Rose Chase had just confessed to murder. She walked back
inside to say goodbye to her new boyfriend Mark.
Speaker 2: It was a cool night. She wanted to go and
get her coat and cigarettes, and I walked back into
the house with her. She walks over into the side
of the house again to the couch where the boyfriend
Mark satin and he gets up and he's standing in
front of her, and she puts her hands out like
she's looking for a hug, and she says to the
the boyfriend, I killed Adam and his jaw dropped the
belt down to his belt buckle.
Speaker 3: It didn't take long after that for the local authorities
to come knocking on Rose's door with a search warrant
in hand. Rose was in tears when police showed up.
She knew it was over. While a team of investigators
searched the property once more, Rose broke down to one
of the detectives and told him exactly what she'd just
told Rodney Miller. That she had killed Adam and burned
his remains. Before she was placed in the handcuffs, Rose
knelt down to her son Tristan, who had been playing
with his toys on the carpet.
Speaker 2: He was down on the floor plane with something and
she squatted down game a hug and said, man, he's
got to go away for a while.
Speaker 3: Rose was then transported to the Ontario County Sheriff's office
for questioning, where she'd reveal all of the shocking details
surrounding what really happened to her husband of eleven years,
Adam Chase.
Speaker 13: So when we were in there the night that we
came over with me and investigator during where in the.
Speaker 2: Basement was.
Speaker 13: The part that I tooda the light when it work.
Speaker 3: Rose was questioned for nearly two and a half hours,
but it wasn't much of an interrogation, Just like she
had to Rodney Miller hours before. Rose began confessing to
the murder of her husband Adam almost as soon as
she sat down.
Speaker 13: I had.
Speaker 7: Along the wall and he was underneath all this that.
Speaker 14: Was in the quarner.
Speaker 3: The more she continued to speak, the detectives began to
pick up on two main aspects. Number one, the end
result of this tragedy was much more grotesque than they
could have anticipated, and number two, they fucked up. Rose
was quick to tell detectives that on the morning of
June fourteenth, her husband Adam, confronted her about having an affair.
This was warranted considering the fact that Mark, the man
who was photographed with Rose in the park, wasn't her
gay friend at all, but instead her new boyfriend, well
one of them anyway. By now, investigators had already seen
east Roses computer back at her residence, and it didn't
take long for them to find several romantic emails she'd
been sending to various men behind Adam's back.
Speaker 13: I mean, let's let's be perfectly honest.
Speaker 15: We had your tower computer, yeah, right, and I saw
and I pound the emails in there from three four
years ago, and you're talking to other men and saying
that I'm yeah, I'm married technically, but we don't really
have anything to do.
Speaker 13: With each other. I mean, I'm sure in your mind
it was it was over long ago, and part of it,
you know that then.
Speaker 7: It was true we fairly talked to each other, and
then I didn't realized Adam put a key Water. So
he was watched.
Speaker 15: Seeing what I Want right right, because he was probably
suspicious of what was going on.
Speaker 13: But that person that was never right, didn't that person?
Speaker 3: During that fatal argument, Rose admitted to Adam that she'd
been cheating on him, adding insult to injury. She told
him that it was his fault. Why you ask well,
because all that Adam ever wanted to do was play
video games. Clearly Rose is an extremely reasonable woman, but
what really sent Adam over the edge was when his
wife told him that their four year old son, Tristan
wasn't his.
Speaker 13: The day that he called into work. Is that when
has happened?
Speaker 14: Yes, okay, what happened? Him?
Speaker 7: And I called into work so this way we could
warn things out. He went back to sleep after he
called up in his boss. Okay, I tried waking in love.
It took me a while, but he finally got up.
He went upstairs to grab a smoke. Then you started
to go on the computer. I go, I thought we
were going to talk about this, started arguing again, the
fact that Mark chistning and I go, yes, it was
only a chiss and he goes, well, you told me
last night that we're going to get a DNA test
done on Tristan.
Speaker 14: I told him.
Speaker 7: I told him then, no name, Tristan's not yours. He
got furious, punched the wall.
Speaker 13: That was the that was the hole that we saw.
I went to grab him. He did push me away.
I went to grab him again, and.
Speaker 14: I don't know how if.
Speaker 7: He tried to push me away again, or if.
Speaker 16: I tried to grab and he grabbed him wrong.
Speaker 7: But he his foot caught the stairs and he tumbled
down the stairs.
Speaker 3: Rose called out to Adam, but he didn't respond on
then he wasn't moving. According to her statements to police,
it's quite possible that he broke his neck.
Speaker 12: Not what happened.
Speaker 14: When I got there, I paused.
Speaker 13: I go at him, you okay, and it'd shuck him
a little bit.
Speaker 14: Waited a few more minutes. Still wasn't moving. I shook
him again, was.
Speaker 13: To see if he had a pause where okay, checked
his neck at all, to see if he had one there, okay,
all right, thank you.
Speaker 16: Then I just waited a few more minutes, and then
he started to let himself okay.
Speaker 3: It's unclear how long Adam was alive following the traumatic injury,
but in all likelihood he could have been saved. Instead,
Rose made the decision to leave him there at the
bottom of.
Speaker 1: The steps to die.
Speaker 3: She didn't call nine one one, She didn't render any
aid to her husband. She just left him there.
Speaker 13: I panicked, I didn't want.
Speaker 7: I didn't know.
Speaker 13: Any of the neighbors for anything. I really panicked. Dragged him.
That was just struggle, But I dragged him. Was he
was he moving at all? Was he fighting back at all?
And he also moving at all? How long from the
time that he fell down the stairs to.
Speaker 2: Him to be figured.
Speaker 14: Okay after he brought himself if when he knew was dead.
Speaker 3: Rose then described what happened before following day. She told
investigators that she originally planned to hide Adam's body in
the crawl space, but he was too.
Speaker 14: Big and went to the things. Sylvia called me.
Speaker 7: And said that she talked to the sheriff, that he
wanted to talk to me. So I went back to
the house in the panic. So I have just laying
in there, and I didn't want to share to see
him there because I knew she would brust me right
on the spot. So that little corner cut.
Speaker 16: Out of the wall.
Speaker 13: I thought about putting him in there.
Speaker 7: I went in there, checked it out.
Speaker 14: I was going to put him in an area in
the dirt, but.
Speaker 7: When I went to move him, she just to really lift.
Speaker 13: Him there far.
Speaker 3: When authorities first called Rose on the phone the day
that Adam's mother reported him missing, he was still in
plain sight at the bottom of the stairs, and more
likely he was still alive. After hanging up the phone,
Rose realized she needed to get moving and moving quickly
to hide the body.
Speaker 7: Grabbed a bag out from the kitchen, waving the bags
underneath him.
Speaker 14: Still wasn't doing anything. Got him on that bad I.
Speaker 7: Mean it was one of those heavy duties. Are almost
like what you use for lining of a waterbed.
Speaker 15: Okay, yeah, then made it a little.
Speaker 13: Bit easier to drag them into.
Speaker 7: After I got.
Speaker 13: Them to the stairwell in the.
Speaker 7: Right in front of the basement, still wasn't moving anything.
I actually cleared all those doors and stuff out of
the stairwells, giving myself some more room.
Speaker 14: Grabbed them.
Speaker 13: He's still not moving. Got him right there. He's right
there on the power.
Speaker 7: Form, and I gave him another show into the basement.
Speaker 14: I'm going to hear him.
Speaker 7: I just let gravity, just let gravity do its work.
Speaker 13: There there he hit his head.
Speaker 3: Rose can be seen in the interrogation footage getting out
of her seat to demonstrate how she folded Adam's body
up like a pretzel into a fetal position.
Speaker 7: I actually drag him by his feet into.
Speaker 13: The lower park of.
Speaker 7: The basement, got him to this way he was, it's
properly like this, and I struggled to get him into
this position, okay, and that's when I put this harp when.
Speaker 3: Again it's unclear exactly when Adam died, but from what
Rose was saying, it was a long and excruciating process.
Rigor mortis sets in within a couple of hours of
death and lasts up to four days. If Adam's body
was able to be manipulated in the way Rose had
demonstrated for detectives, he was likely still breathing helplessly in
the basement. It may be hard to believe, but Adam
having been left paralyzed potentially for days before he took
his last breath, is only the beginning of the horrific
manner in which he lost his life.
Speaker 7: It was my son's pitful that he was originally over
top of him. I had all the skins of stuff
surrounding him.
Speaker 13: Then I put long chases on board over top of it, and.
Speaker 1: I made it look like a table.
Speaker 3: Rose told authorities she left Adam in the basement for
about two weeks before she dragged various pieces of lumber
from her backyard down through the bulkhead. Those pieces of
wood were ultimately used to conceal Adam's body, along with
the other items. But according to Rodney Miller, law enforcement
should have already known this. That's because they interviewed Rose's
neighbor who saw her doing this, but for some reason,
they never took down his statement or made any sort
of official report.
Speaker 2: Timmy Marks watches her on that Saturday carry this old
burned door back down to the basement. He can't figure
out what she's doing, and he's gonna go help her,
but his phone rings. But when he comes back out,
he notices that she taking out the door in the
basement somehow. Now she's carrying all this rotten wood.
Speaker 3: Weeks after Adam went missing in June of twenty twelve,
roses neighbor Timmy noticed her doing some landscaping. Approximately five
days after that, the neighbor was interviewed by police.
Speaker 2: The same Deputy John Beck goes to Timmy Marx's house.
What can you tell us about your neighbor Adam Chase? Well, why,
John tells him he's missing. Oh, Timmy Mark says to
John Beck, you got to check the basement where she
carried that door in wood, and what they did was nothing.
Speaker 3: One would think that this is pretty important information, but
to law enforcement it apparently wasn't. This crucial investigative lead,
which would have led to recovering Adam's body early on,
was essentially thrown to the wayside. Bad police work.
Speaker 7: The house, well, only the basement, And I've had people
in the house. They know I like to burn candles,
so they didn't really smell anything out of the ordinary.
Speaker 14: I can never wandered down into the base I try
to keep people out of the basement.
Speaker 3: After telling investigators how she simply lit candles in the
home to cover up the stench of her decomposing husband,
investigators went on to ask her a pretty obvious and
simple question, if Adam's death really was an accident, why
didn't she call for help? Her answer, well, it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 13: I guess what I'm having trouble with is if this
was him falling down the stair.
Speaker 2: Why do we go through all it? I mean, what
do we go through all this?
Speaker 13: I'm just helping figure this out because I thought everyone
was didn't think it was murder that you know that
I often I'm purvish.
Speaker 7: No, you think as his body and the dogs came in,
I thought I got pretty lucky. I was going to
turn myself in several times. But the thing that kept
shying me away from turning me and put myself in
with how his family acted.
Speaker 13: So what do you mean by that has been?
Speaker 7: What they were doing was you know, making a kissing
me off?
Speaker 13: How about they were.
Speaker 7: You know, saying that I did all this stuff without
physical evidence, and it really kissed me off.
Speaker 17: And I just.
Speaker 13: Wanted so that drags out, mostly because of their treatment
of you after this happens.
Speaker 3: If you didn't catch that. Rose Chase just said that
the reason why she didn't turn herself in was because
the family of the man she killed treated her poorly
in the six months that followed. So she sure does
know how to take accountability, doesn't she?
Speaker 7: And he shogged you, Yeah, then I want you to
bring him again to get his attention again and.
Speaker 13: Shog he turned around and try to go back down
the stairs again. Yes, and he showed me right about
in this locations.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Adam was long gone and unable to provide his
side of the story. Given the fact that Rose destroyed
his body, determining an official cause of death was virtually impossible.
With all that being said, it was at this point
in the interview when Rose Chase really began to tread
a thin line, and that line, of course, was whether
or not she'd eventually be charged with second or first
degree murder.
Speaker 15: Well, hang on a personatural reaction to day. I don't
care if it's your mortal enemy. It's going to be
trying to get disguised for some help. The thing that
I keep hearing is that you're gonna turn yourself in,
that if the first deputy that shows up and saw him,
you were going to get arrested.
Speaker 13: This was an accident, and none of that happens that way.
It just tells me that if Adam doesn't perish from
his injuries, that.
Speaker 15: Maybe he tells them a different story about what happened
on that stairwell.
Speaker 13: I was afraid of.
Speaker 7: If Adam didn't perish on that stairwell was that the
truth about Tristan's DNA.
Speaker 13: Was going to come out, and it came out anyway.
Speaker 7: But the first thing that was going through my head was, okay.
Speaker 3: Adam die.
Speaker 7: I wanted to keep Tristan in a loving family as
long as I could. His parents were great grandparents.
Speaker 13: So you're sitting there, you're seeing him on the ground,
You're thinking, screw him. I'm not getting him help. Screwed
me too many times. He's bringing our son into this
whole match. It's going to be a hell a lot
easier if he just dies right there that if we
then if I get him help, he lives, and we
got to go through all the fighting again and custody
and all that.
Speaker 7: Right, I think it's pretty much wile to go through
my head.
Speaker 13: But do you want him dead? At that point, you
wanted him dead?
Speaker 11: Death?
Speaker 14: I try to turn my as but dead and subs
conscious way. I didn't want to push him, Okay, So
did you. I'm gonna have to say it, okay.
Speaker 3: It had been almost six months to the day since
thirty one year old Adam Chase went missing after allegedly
storming out of his home in Stanley, New York. Following
an argument with his wife Rose. In the public eye,
Adam was considered a missing person from the very beginning,
aside from some internal dialogue theorizing that he may have
committed suicide.
Speaker 1: But when former local.
Speaker 3: Deputy turned PI Rodney Miller caught wind of the story,
he knew Adam wasn't missing. That's because he knew him personally.
Rodney Miller also knew that Adam was somewhat of a loner,
and chances of him just taking off and starting a
new life were slim to none. Over the next several months,
there were almost no substantial developments in this case until
the evening of December thirteenth, twenty twelve. With the help
of Sandy, the babysitter, Rodney Miller managed to get the
so called grieving wife to confess not only to pushing
her husband down the stairs and killing him, but to
destroying his remains as well. During her interrogation, Rose told
detectives about a conversation Adam had with their son when
he recorded four year old Tristan talking about mommy's new
boyfriend about Mark.
Speaker 7: How many times did Mark fift month did Mark ever
come to the hack? And how many times did you
see Lauram, money and Mark together.
Speaker 15: Was right for him?
Speaker 3: And Rose eventually got to describing what you're surely all
dying to know. What happened to Adam's body. Well after
allowing him to rode away in this sweltering basement, Rose
specified that she didn't need tools to dismember her husband. Instead,
she decided to let the summer heat do the work
for her.
Speaker 13: When you were taking him out of the house, did
you cut him up for anything? Did you need any
tools or anything?
Speaker 1: Or because if you did, where would those be?
Speaker 8: Just?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 2: How long have you been there?
Speaker 6: Been here?
Speaker 7: Six?
Speaker 14: Okay?
Speaker 3: Despite police dogs, share of deputies, and he even Rodney
Miller himself having stepped into the basement, Adam was never found. Thankfully,
Rose couldn't keep her secret to herself forever, and after
Rodney convinced her to give it up from her interrogation chair,
she seemed eager to finally get things off her chest.
About midway through her police interview, Rose explained what happened
after those two months of decomposition and what she did
next with her husband's remains. The callous nature in which
she lays it all out is astounding.
Speaker 15: It was your car that you were taken no down
to your mom's house. Then his car used it all,
any of it before us as rugs were what were
you rolling along in the biggest piece that you had
to get on there by yourself?
Speaker 13: And is torso?
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 13: And well all right head arms was? He came off,
no problem? All right, fell off?
Speaker 7: I mean the leg fell off right about me? Okay,
the real creepy part, the torso itself.
Speaker 13: I want to lift it up on.
Speaker 7: I put it on a trash bag, rat it up
to blanket, lifted it up to where the sub pump was.
I went upstairs, opened up the car door the back
cash and I'm listening up the torso part.
Speaker 13: It hits my keys in the.
Speaker 1: Car alarm and his roses.
Speaker 3: Neighbor across the street heard the commotion. She came over
to see if she needed help. While holding the bags
of Adam's remains in her hands.
Speaker 13: One of my as came out.
Speaker 7: I shut the door, and you know, they were like, hey,
was that your car along?
Speaker 15: I'm final you.
Speaker 13: I hit the button.
Speaker 7: By mistake, I thought when I was carrying him down
the ramp that I was gonna wish she was gonna
flip out of me.
Speaker 14: But he didn't.
Speaker 3: I made to the car long after Adam had inevitably
separated into human soup, a boo yawn of sorts, hearty meal,
definitely chunky. Rose came up with the idea of scooping
what was left of him into her car before picking
up her four year old son from the babysitter and
transporting three clear trash bags of flesh and bones to
her mother's house in the nearby town of Potter, New York.
Speaker 7: Tristan from the babysitters.
Speaker 13: So you're driving around, Tristan Adam in the back of
the car.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and he's dunk Trican say anything.
Speaker 7: He's the windows down, not trying to air.
Speaker 13: Out of the car.
Speaker 3: After spending the night at her mother's, Rose then dumped
Adam's torso, limbs, and rotted tissue into the woods to
be burned at a later date, all the while her
four year old son Tristan followed close behind.
Speaker 7: So I fare, what the hell over and take drifted
a hair from stuff.
Speaker 13: Who spent the night in my mom's up. I got
tressed out of his car.
Speaker 14: He walks around. I take out him to divorce.
Speaker 7: He did follow me briefly and like it's okay, you
can walk the Mommy was I Maan'm sure he was
burning up the bay, so that's way he really didn't
see what he was doing.
Speaker 2: They had to make a phone called Yates County to
make sure they had a search form, but my understanding
is that they went to her mother's house that night
to secure the scene.
Speaker 3: After Rose Chase was arrested for the murder and mutilation
of her husband's body, she agreed to take investigators to
his final resting place at her mother's home, just twelve
miles south of where the victim was killed. During the search,
investigators were led to three separate locations, all of which
were dump sites containing Adam Chase's remains. The first, and
perhaps the most obvious site was a burn barrel in
Rose's mother's backyard. Upon peering down into this metal garbage can,
sitting directly on the surface atop a mound of soot
and ash, were two distinct foot bones. Rose's mother, Patty,
was home at the time and tried to suggest that
the bones could be that of a deer and not
of her son in law. While Patty was uttering this
insane theory, to police, Rose cut her off mid sentence
and said.
Speaker 10: If it was just Deerbones, I would be here confessing.
Speaker 3: As forensics teams continued to sift through the burn barrel,
they collected an additional section of human vertebrae, more unidentified
skeletal remains, and partial remnants of soft tissue. When questions
about the burn barrel specifically, Rose informed investigators that she
quote cremated Adam there because that's what he would have
wanted to be cremated, in a burn barrel in her
mother's backyard.
Speaker 14: He always wanted to be cremated. There's the one thing
he wanted.
Speaker 13: To be cremated.
Speaker 7: He didn't want to Stappy's funeral.
Speaker 16: He didn't want anybody to play those so he just
wanted it.
Speaker 13: To be cremated.
Speaker 3: The second burn site Rose showed investigators was just several
yards away. On top of a section of grass were
approximately nine trash bags, most of which contained burned leaves,
but several contained human bones as well. The bones inside
the trash bags were eventually determined to be a human
pelvic bone, a shoulder blade, as well as the partial
skeleton of a cat. Whether or not Rose Chase was
responsible for the death of said cat is unknown. During
her interrogation, she claimed the cat had somehow died inside
her mother's house and that she disposed of it as
a favor. But again, Rose just very rarely tells the truth,
you know, so who knows? Rest in peace, Kitty. Lastly,
authorities examined an area a bit further away from Rose's
mother's home in a nearby field. There, authorities located approximately
six human arm bones that were damaged but had not
been burned. Forensic anthropologist would later determine that not one
of the bones found on the property had been severed
by the means of a cutting instrument such as a
blade or saw. Criminal analysts ultimately theorized that damage to
the armbones specifically had more likely been the result of
local wildlife, as if Adam's remains couldn't be desecrated any further,
his body ultimately became a snack for raccoons and coyotes
in upstate New York, while the rest of him was
burnt in a crude metal trash can in his mother.
Speaker 1: In law's backyard. What a way to go.
Speaker 3: In February of twenty thirteen, Rose Chase was formally charged
with second degree murder, evidence tampering endangering the welfare of
a child concerning her and Adam's four year old son.
When her murder trial began a few months later in October,
Rodney Miller was there to testify. He took the stand
and told the jury everything he saw and smelt before
getting Rose to confess to murder, and after a two
week trial, Rose Chase was convicted of second degree murder.
She was also found guilty of tampering with evidence and
endangering the welfare.
Speaker 1: Of a child.
Speaker 3: After she was found guilty, Adam Chase's mother, Sylvia, met
with the media outside of the courtroom, where she spoke
of just how instrumental Rodney Miller was in bringing her
son's killer to justice.
Speaker 5: Without Rodney, we wouldn't be here today because he's the
one who found him. He never gave up. Been a
long time coming. Yes, very difficult to get through, but
mister Tantillo and missus Hines did an awesome jab awesome
my son could rest.
Speaker 3: The state's district attorney, Michael Tantillo, apparently agreed with the
sentiment that without Rodney Miller, Adam Chase may have never
been found and that Rose may very well have gotten
away with it.
Speaker 1: Figuring it out.
Speaker 4: Though the jury actually deliberated total of only just about
four hours or a little bit more than four hours,
so that suggests to us that they felt the case
was pretty strong and probably moved toward a verdict to
the verdict that they returned pretty quickly. Obviously, the work
of Rodney Miller was fantastic, and I think Sylvia's right.
This case may not have been solved without his doggedness.
A lot of that is also due to the Chase
family because they are the people that kept the pressure
up on the Rose Chase and I think set up
her state of mind when she actually gave this all
up in December, and I don't think that would have
happened without the Chase family keeping the pressure on the
way that they did.
Speaker 3: Rodney was also interviewed by local journalists where he shared
his general thoughts on the finality of this bizarre and
ruthless case before getting a little emotional on camera.
Speaker 2: I'm hammersh we worried when some of the testimony was replayed.
It always puts in lump in your throat, But in
my heart I knew God was going to take her
means he helped me find that. I'm happy to she
going with long.
Speaker 3: Roughly one year after rose Chase was convicted, the now
thirty six year old woman was sentenced to twenty four
and a half years to life in prison. In January
of twenty fourteen, Following the proceedings, Adam's mother and his
sister Jessica, spoke with the local reporters where they expressed
their relief that it was finally over.
Speaker 6: Good in it without the community, sport and the media,
we might and of course where's Rodney, Rodney Miller, Adam
I Iver bendraw Holm. If it wasn't for everybody falling
together into it sends me to be honest with you,
to go through memories of my brother. We know with
a good person you don't have to She didn't have
to sit there and reiterate it to us. The fact
of the matter is is she wants to sit there
and say it was a good person. Well, why'd you
kill him? I mean, it makes no sense to me.
Speaker 3: District Attorney Michael Tintillo offered his thoughts as well.
Speaker 4: I'm generally pleased with the sentence. Seemed to be perfectly honest.
I would have liked to have seen the maximum sentence
put what the judge Koker gave her was pretty close
to the max, so I have no quarrels with that.
Every case is unique, and this case certainly had a
lot of unique aspects to it, particularly including how long
the body was hidden by the defendant and then what
she did to ultimately destroy the body and try to
cover her tracks on this thing. To me, I think
the crime that homicide, the murder itself is awful and
it's heinous, and it deserves everything.
Speaker 2: That the judge gave her.
Speaker 4: But to put the family of Adam Chase through what
she did for six solid months after that just makes
it that much worse. So there really is a lot
of degravity in her statements to the court. Did you
understand perhaps where they were coming from all.
Speaker 1: Not in the slight?
Speaker 4: I thought that was one of the most bizarre things
I've ever heard of defendant say to a judge at sentencing.
It's remarkable for the fact that there was certainly no
apology in there, certainly no itscknowledgement of what she has
done to this family.
Speaker 3: What both the da and Adam's family are referring to
here is what Rose said when she was provided the
opportunity to speak in court, which was essentially an awkward
tangent where she reflected on the good times she had
with Adam before she killed him, such as the day
he proposed Here's a verbatim quote from Rose before she
learned her fate from the judge.
Speaker 10: I'm not a bad person. I cherish his memory, despite
what people make me out to be.
Speaker 3: Clearly, she hasn't lost any sleep after murdering her husband, regardless.
Now that Rose was no longer allowed to do interviews
as a free citizen, her family figured they'd carry the
torch of embarrassment for her. Shortly after Rose was taken
away in shackles, Patricia Mooney or class Act of a Mother,
got busy online commenting on a dead man's Facebook page.
Speaker 11: Found the picture if you with other men, people's souls.
Speaker 2: Know about your secret life too.
Speaker 3: Poor Patty misspelled the word of in her post and
typed the word if happens to the best of us.
Spell check can be a real pitch, but you know
that's funny. To her credit, at least she managed to
use the correct form of the word with two o's.
Whether Patty's claims of her son in law being a
closeted homosexual. Were true or not, it seems irrelevant, seems
almost childish. What I'm mad at you, so I'm gonna
call you gay. It's just weird, you know, especially when
you consider that he was left to liquefy in his
own basement during the summer heat for two months. I'm
not sure we're really concerned with his sexual preferences anymore, Patty.
What is relevant, though, and perhaps most noteworthy in this case,
is the fact that Rodney Miller, the former Ontario County deputy,
saw Adam Chase's murder without ever receiving a dime.
Speaker 1: For his services.
Speaker 3: Not only was it a win for the victim's family
now that Rose Chase was behind bars, but it was
a gratifying win for Rodney as well, proving to his
former colleagues that he is not such a bad cop
after all.
Speaker 2: Anybody that has love and love for law enforcement, your
dream is to always solve a major case, and to me,
this was a major case. But I can ask to
tell you, in the end, it's a guntless feeling because
you know you solved it, but it's not a good ending,
and unfortunately it sticks with you. I don't hold any animosities.
This was addictive thing to come at the Shares Department
to get even with. All I wanted to do was
their freaking job, and they didn't. We never blamed the
Shares Department for Adam's death. We blame the Shares Department
for that family not being able to bury their son.
Speaker 3: The same year that Rose was sentenced, Rodney Miller ran
against Phil Pavero to take his spot as the Ontario
County Sheriff. Unfortunately, Rodney got swept in the polls, but
it was never a political power that he was after.
Rodney ran for sheriff based on principles and to make
a point, no.
Speaker 2: Reason I ran against Philip Barbera was. I asked him
one thing, and that was to go and apologize for
the Chase family for not doing his job. And quote unquote,
he says to me, I don't have to do anything
you tell me, and he did, and he never, to
my knowledge, never apologized. I can tell you that the
night that I found Adam, he called me asked me
not to talk to the media. I told him I
don't need to talk to the media. I want to
talk to you. I want to know why he didn't
believe me when I told you what I knew. Any
quote unquote, said Rodney. We actually thought he'd be home
by Christmas. I said, well, you can't come home with
your fucking dead, and I don't know.
Speaker 3: You gotta love Rodney. Now he spends his days tending
to his farm and enjoying retirement. I look forward to
that too. Anyway, he is unfortunately battling cancer, the real killer.
One thing we just had to ask him about this
case was how the hell did the canines not hit
on Adam's dead body when they searched the basement. I mean,
they're freaking dogs.
Speaker 2: I think two reasons. The dogs weren't worth what they
paid for him, and the trainers weren't worth a shit
to the sheriff. He did not know they were not
certified dogs, but dogs in training. I was told that
they'd walk by his body within two feet, and that
was told to me by Dante the DA.
Speaker 3: Apparently, the dogs used to search the basement weren't cadaver dogs. Instead,
they were tracking dogs, which was just one of the
many mistakes investigators made during this case. People, do you
fuck up? We are human, even cops speaking of mistakes,
the courts made some pretty questionable decisions of their own
when Rose Chase's child endangerment conviction was overturned in February
of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 18: Rose Chase, the Ontario County woman convicted of killing, dismembering,
and burning her husband's body in twenty twelve, had a
misdemeanor conviction reversed last week. Court documents say Chase was
not guilty of endangering the welfare of a child. That
charge and stem from her then four year old child
riding in the car with her as she transported remains
of her late husband from Ontario County to Yates County.
Her convictions of second degree murder and tampering with evidence
bolt stand, and she's currently serving a sentence of twenty
four years to life.
Speaker 3: Despite Rose openly admitting to driving her son with her
husband's dead body in the car, the Supreme Court ultimately
decided to throw out the misdemeanor charge upon appeal. A
few days after the ruling was amended. Adam's father, Linden,
passed away on February nineteenth, twenty eighteen, adding yet another
layer of top soil to the pile of shit that
the Chase family had been forced to trudge through over
the years. We reached out to Adam's immediate family members,
but they declined to be interviewed, something we can certainly appreciate.
With that said, Adam's loved ones have since gone on
record to say that there can convinced Rose's mother played
some sort of role in the murder, or at the
very least, was complicit in destroying his remains. As for Mark,
a new boyfriend, Rose told investigators that he never knew
about the killing, nor did he know that Adam's body
was in the basement. Rose also said that Mark was
actually with her at the time she let Adam's body
ablaze at the bonfire in her mother's backyard, but somehow
he didn't know Adam was in the burn pit. Huh.
Speaker 1: She must be really strong, you know.
Speaker 2: I would have to say, from what I saw his reaction,
I don't think he did. But it's hard to believe
that he couldn't in the time that Adam was in
the basement, that he could smell it. I mean, that's
a question that lingers on and I don't think we're
ever going to get an answer to it. But supposedly
from what I heard secondhand, they did get I Mulai
detector test and he passed that.
Speaker 1: Let's agree to disagree on that one. But who knows.
Speaker 3: During her interrogation, Rose did say that she smashed Adam's
skull in the fire while it was burning with a
shovel before her boyfriend Mark could catch a glimpse of it.
But forget about Marky Mark for a second. What about
Rose's mother, Patty Mooney and her potential culpability in this crime?
Speaker 2: Looney Mooney, That's what we called her, Looney Mooney, not
even her fruitcake. I think I'm am new too.
Speaker 3: It's important to note that neither Rose's sweetheart of a mother, Patty,
nor Mark the boyfriend, was ever charged with a crime,
despite all of our suspicions. As for Rose Chase, she'll
be eligible for parole as early as twenty thirty seven.
Whether or not Mark will be waiting for inmate one
for G zero zero five cents of an eye, Well,
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. All right,
We hope you able to check out our new show,
This Doesn't Happen to people like me. It's coming out
this coming month in March. It's going to take over
the whole channel, the the whole website, the whole thing is.
Speaker 1: That's all we're working on in March.
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we've put a lot of work into it, and I
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It's almost like a hobby. You're like, why am I
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Sword and Scale too. It was no Mugginswards cool.
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you want.
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Speaker 3: All?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 3: Bye?
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and I just finished episode two eighty two. In light
of the political turmoil that's currently happening in this world,
the last thing I want to do is tune in
to a podcast to hear your feedback on politics. It's
sort of an escape for me, so I will be
canceling my subscription. Good written.
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want you to hear me with all of your ear holes.
Listen to me very carefully, Susan, suck my big old
cuban floppy ass cock cock cock cock. I will say
whatever the hell I want to say on this show,
the show that I built ten years ago, and there's
not a goddamn motherfucking thing you or any other cunt
like you can do to stop me, So come by bye.
On December twelfth, twenty twenty one, a seventy seven year
old woman was rushed to Hannibal Regional Hospital in Hannibal, Missouri.
Her name was Tina. Tina was a kind, generous and
smart woman. Alongside her husband, she owned and operated a
successful business. But what was most important to Tina was
her family. Tina had four children, fourteen grandchildren, and seventeen
great grandchildren. This is Tina's granddaughter Carly.
Speaker 9: December twelfth, twenty twenty one. It was a Sunday evening.
It's all a blur. My aunt Elsa called me and
she was very very short and frantic, and she just said,
get to the hospital.
Speaker 3: All of Tina's children and grandchildren loved Tina dearly, and
when they got the news that she was in the hospital,
many of them immediately began making their way to see her.
This included Tina's daughter Elsa.
Speaker 19: My mom's husband called me and told me that my
mom was headed to the hospital, and I went ahead
and got in my vehicle and started driving to Hannibal.
I didn't know what was going on. I was standing
at the hospital waiting, and then they took me to
the family waiting room, which and then handed me her
jewelry and said that it will be some time.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, not all of Tina's loved ones could go to
her because in December of twenty twenty one, the COVID
pandemic had just started to wane.
Speaker 9: On the way to the hospital, I talked to my mom.
My mom actually had COVID at that time and was
unable to come, which was awful. They wouldn't let her
in the hospital. My mom basically said all she knew
was that she had collapsed and that she was unresponsive,
and that they had taken her to the hospital. All
we knew at that point was they were still working
on her.
Speaker 3: Tina's family waited for the hospital staff to give them
more information about Tina's condition, and when a doctor came
to see them, the news was all bad.
Speaker 9: The doctor came in and told us that there's really
not much more that they could do for her, and
that we need to go say goodbye. That was the
first time I had seen her when they told us
that she wasn't going to make it, and it was awful.
She was cocked up to all these machines and she
was breathing, but she was only breathing because of the
machine like stuff in her throat.
Speaker 3: Tina's family was devastated and they were caught off guard.
As far as they knew, Tina was a healthy woman.
When she last spoke to her daughter Heidi the day before,
Tina seemed completely fine.
Speaker 13: She was doing great though.
Speaker 10: When she had been to the doctor and the doctor's
dog gab at Cleendale.
Speaker 13: Hall and she was doing great. She had called me
the day before.
Speaker 10: I wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas.
Speaker 3: Tina's family gathered around the hospital bed to say their goodbyes.
They found themselves in a situation that, unfortunately many have experienced.
Their oldest family member was dying. From the outside looking in,
this likely seemed like a common occurrence. Tragic, yes, but common.
Old people die every day and their loved ones have
to say goodbye. That's just how life goes sometimes, though,
this situation with Tina and her family was anything but common.
The doctor told the family that Tina was dying from
heart failure, but they all knew better. They all knew
that this wasn't the case where an elderly woman's life
was simply coming to an end. They knew that Tina
didn't just end up in a hospital bed, she was
put there.
Speaker 9: Just remember sitting in the waiting room just not knowing
what was going on, but also like, there's no way
that she's going to die, Like she just went through
this terrible situation, Like there's no way that that's going
to happen one after the other. And I just felt
so bad for her because she had survived this terrible tragedy,
and she can't even like see it through.
Speaker 3: About a month before this tragic day at the hospital,
Tina had been assaulted. And there's no word in the
English language to describe just how how horrific that assault was.
Putting it mildly, what Tina experienced was beyond brutal and
extremely cruel.
Speaker 17: What happened to her that night was something that doesn't
happen in Adam's count That's a movie here on her.
That's something you watch on Halloween to scare you. That's
not real life, but it was real life for Tina Lone.
On November nine, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Tina and her family were traumatized by what had happened
to her. The depravity of what Tina endured was more
than any of them. Good bear, this is Tina's oldest grandson, Joshua.
Speaker 12: She helped me raise me. She was like my second mom.
We had a very close bond. She always tell me
how about she looked. She adored by forged children. She
made me made sure they were spoiled on every birthday
and Christmas. She loved Christmas and she loved giving gifts. However,
as I watched the trial and learned the grewsome details.
I became biscally sick.
Speaker 13: How could you done that to my grandma?
Speaker 3: The evil that Tina saw and experienced was beyond comprehension,
and her family knew why her heart was failing. Tina
was dying because she was brutally assaulted. Tina was dying
from a broken heart. The assault she endured was killing her,
and Tina's family wanted the people responsible to pay. They
wanted justice. Unfortunately, Tina's family would come to find that
the justice they were seeking was elusive, and the struggle
to get it became a never ending battle.
Speaker 9: I don't think anything can prepare you for what we
went through. I think it's just still We're still not
even over. I don't know if we ever will be.
Speaker 3: Many of you know, or at least you can imagine
the pain and the grief that comes with losing a
parent or a grandparent. It can be the most tragic
thing that a family can experience. This was the case
for Tina's family, but for them things were much worse.
They were saddled with the burden of fighting for justice,
and the fight became another tragedy all on its own.
What you've just heard is an excerpt from our new
ten part true crime serialized show called This Doesn't Happen
To People Like Me. The show is available right now
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Please make sure to subscribe
right now so that you get every episode. The series
kicks off March third. If you want to get a
version of it that's ad free, head on over to
Swordanscale dot com, slash plus and sign up for any tear.
Speaker 1: Thanks