Rosenberger turned over all the letters she received to Kim’s lawyers, but was surprised that they only submitted the best fifty letters to Judge Horne.
“Judge Horne took a recess to read the letters before he gave the sentence,” she said. “When he came back from his chambers, he put the binder containing the letters on his bench in front of him. When he started to talk, he put his hand on the binder. He looked as if he was touched by the letters and all the people’s lives that have been touched by Kim—from a grade school teacher to ministers. There were four ministers in the courtroom to give support to Kim at the sentencing. Horne made a comment about them. There are not many people in this world who could ask sixty or seventy people to write a kind word about them and how they have touched their lives.”
Rosenberger recalled the first time Kim touched her own life. She said it was in 1996 when she rented the Hrickos their town house on Dorset Road in Laurel. However, when Rosenberger took Kim and Sarah out to look at various properties, Steve wasn’t with them, she said.
“We found a place and Kim said it would do fine and I asked her if she wanted her husband to see it and she said no, he trusted her judgment,” Rosenberger said.
The Hrickos moved into the town house and Rosenberger stopped by during the 1996 Christmas season to visit. That’s when she first met Steve. Her first impression of him was that he was not very friendly.
Rosenberger talked with Kim several times after Christmas and stopped by to see her one more time. Eventually in July 1997 the Hrickos were told they had to move by August. So Rosenberger took Kim and Sarah to look at houses—the Hrickos had decided to purchase a home rather than continue to rent.
Steve didn’t go with them until they had narrowed the choices down to four. Each time Rosenberger took the Hrickos to look for homes, she would meet them at the town house on Dorset Road. Sometimes Kim came straight from work; because Steve got home first, he was in charge of feeding Sarah.
“He acted like this was hard for him to do,” Rosenberger said. “I remember seeing some burned French fries and something else that looked bad on a cookie sheet.”
Rosenberger recalled one particular time she picked up the Hrickos to go look at a house. First, however, she had to drop Sarah off at soccer practice. When they arrived, Kim and Sarah got out of the car, leaving Rosenberger alone with Steve for about eight minutes.
“It was a very long eight minutes,” she said. “Steve was very unfriendly and I tried to talk to him about golf and where he works. Nothing would loosen him up. He just would not talk. He made me very uncomfortable. If Kim was not so outgoing and friendly, I probably would not have continued to work with them because Steve really made me nervous.”
Rosenberger and Kim felt that the pesticides Steve used in his work somehow contributed to his death.
“I have spoken with several people who had the same job Steve had and they all told me that up until recently golf course personnel were very careless about the use of pesticides,” Rosenberger said. “I have done research on the Internet and at the National Medical Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. There are many side effects from using pesticides carelessly for a long period of time.”
Rosenberger said at trial Kim’s lawyers only touched on Steve’s medical history. She said Steve was seeing several doctors for a variety of ailments, including depression, insomnia, back spasms, and bronchitis. One doctor even set up an appointment for Steve to get an EKG, but Steve blew off the appointment.
“That doctor ran one test and saw something that concerned him enough to send Steve for more extensive tests,” Rosenberger said. “Since Steve didn’t show [up], the tests were not done. What did that doctor see in a physically fit thirty-five-year-old man that concerned him enough to want Steve to get further tests?”
Rosenberger wanted to know why Kim’s defense team didn’t call Steve’s doctor as a witness, especially since Steve was mixing several medications when he died. And, she noted, his depression medication had just been doubled. Steve was taking Xanax, Flexeril, Effexor, and he also took Theraflu shortly before he died, she said. Doing her own investigation, Rosenberger asked three pharmacists their opinions about mixing those particular medications.
“They all said they didn’t like the mix, especially topping it off with Theraflu,” she said.
Rosenberger said she read a story in the June 1999 edition of Reader’s Digest about the dangers of mixing drugs prescribed for depression with cold medicines.
“The medical examiner did not test for all these drugs,” she said.
Rosenberger also said that Kim’s attorney William Brennan read part of Steve’s journal at trial and it was obvious that he was severely depressed and had a number of other medical problems. Although Steve looked big and strong, he really was not a well man, she said.
Rosenberger said she had her own theory about what happened in room 506 of the Harbourtowne resort over Valentine’s Day weekend, 1998—a theory obviously arrived at with input from Kim. The following is Cathy Rosenberger’s theory:
Steve had been planning the weekend for weeks. His best friend, Mike Miller, had suggested that he bring Kim to a special event at the resort. Mike told Steve about the weekend package that consisted of a room rental, champagne, and a murder-mystery play with dinner. Steve reserved one of the cottages on the water, away from the main resort hotel. He wanted everything to be perfect. Their marriage was not healthy and Kim had been threatening to leave him. Other than taking Kim out when they were dating, Steve had not really taken her out to celebrate anything since they got married.
Steve hadn’t been feeling well for some time and had been seeing several doctors. Kim was upset with Steve because he failed to keep an appointment for an EKG that his doctor had ordered. Steve also was under a lot of pressure at work. There had been a major fire in his maintenance shop and equipment shed in the summer of 1997. Steve was in charge of the rebuilding, but the city of Laurel was making it hard for him to get the job done. The shed was dangerously close to a residential neighborhood and the city was concerned about another fire. The shop also held gasoline and chemicals that were flammable.
The new building was months behind schedule. Steve just wanted to quit and move on, as he’d done at several other jobs. But this time Kim insisted they buy a house so Sarah could stay in one school and the family could have a permanent home. For his part Steve wished Kim would have more patience and be more understanding with him, considering all he was going through.
Sarah and Steve became accomplices in the surprise weekend and worked out the details together, including where Sarah would stay while Kim and Steve were away. Steve didn’t tell Kim where they were going. (Contrary to Rosenberger’s theory, however, Steve’s friends and coworkers at Patuxent told police Steve told Kim that they were going to Harbourtowne for the weekend because, given their marital problems, he knew she wouldn’t want to be surprised.)
Steve and Kim dropped Sarah off at a friend’s house on Valentine’s Day, then headed to St. Michaels and Harbourtowne. Once on the road Kim became sleepy and dozed off. She was still feeling the effects of the sigmoidoscopy that she had the previous day.
Eventually they arrived at the resort and checked in. Room 506, which was called a cottage even though it was just a room, was in an area called “The Point.” The room consisted of two double beds, a desk, nightstand, TV cabinet, and a woodstove. The woodstove faced one of the beds. There was a sliding glass door that led out to the back porch, which faced the Miles River. The river was so wide at this point that Kim thought they were on the Chesapeake Bay.
The room was very cold and the wind was whipping across the river. The water was very choppy and Kim even saw some whitecaps. Steve was hungry, but it was too early to go to dinner, so he left and drove to a convenience store in St. Michaels and bought several hot dogs and Cokes. While he was at the cash register, he noticed the latest issue of Playboy behind the counter and decided to purchase it and sneak it bac
k to the room, so Kim wouldn’t see it.
Steve liked to keep some magazines like Playboy around, but Kim always gave him a hard time about bringing them into the house because she was afraid Sarah would find them. However, Steve still bought them and hid them in his golf bag, suitcase, truck, or anywhere he thought Kim wouldn’t find them. (Again, contrary to Rosenberger’s speculation, Mike and Maureen Miller, however, said nothing could be further from the truth. They said the only Playboy magazines Steve ever had were collectible editions that had belonged to his dad.)
Steve brought the snacks back to the room, and Kim and Steve settled in on separate beds. Steve took the bed directly in front of the woodstove. There was a complimentary fire log and matches on top of the woodstove, so they decided to light it to warm up the room. Once the log was burning, they left the stove doors open to get as much benefit from the heat as possible. There was no screen covering the opening.
Kim noticed the slacks she was wearing had a stain on them, so she decided to rinse them out and hang them outside on the porch to dry. When she opened the sliding glass door, the wind and cold air coming off the water took her breath away. She managed to hang her pants up in the corner of the porch and in no time they were frozen stiff.
There was some champagne in the room, so Steve and Kim each had a glass. Kim didn’t like the taste, so she didn’t have any more. The couple then settled in to read the Washington Post they had brought with them from home before going to dinner.
At dinner Kim and Steve sat at a table for eight. Steve often felt awkward around people he didn’t know, so he just didn’t say much. Once the mystery play started, Kim and another guest at the table took an active role in solving the crime. Someone at the table ordered a bottle of wine and everyone had a glass. Steve also ordered a beer or two.
After dinner Steve stopped at the bar and bought two more beers to take back to the room. The couple then stopped at the hotel desk to get another fire log for the woodstove. Back at the room they put the log in the woodstove on top of the first one, which was still burning. Then they turned the television on to watch the movie Tommy Boy.
Steve mixed a packet of Theraflu for his cold. Earlier, he had taken Effexor, Xanax, and Flexeril. The doctor had just doubled Steve’s dose of Effexor for his depression, so he hoped it would help. He was taking the Flexeril because he had recently pulled a muscle in his back. When the movie was over, Steve started acting strange. He appeared to be drunk and was slurring his words. Even his movements were odd. Kim knew he hadn’t had much to drink all evening, so none of this made sense. (However, this statement directly contradicted the story Kim told police and anyone else who would listen—that Steve was totally sloshed.)
Steve approached Kim for sex, but she wasn’t interested. Kim reminded Steve that their counselor had advised them to have a nice weekend—talk and work on their marriage. The couple had agreed in advance that there was to be no intimacy.
Steve was somewhat obnoxious and Kim became upset. She dressed and grabbed her coat, purse, and car keys, telling Steve she needed some space. Steve was still on his bed when she stormed out of the room. He had pushed the bedspread toward the end of the bed. Once Steve was alone, he decided to take out the new Playboy he had hidden in his suitcase. He didn’t know where Kim had gone or how long she would be out. Since she could come back at any minute, Steve decided to lie down between the two beds with his feet facing the woodstove. He took two pillows off the bed to put under his head. Steve figured by lying on the floor, he would hear the door open before Kim could see him.
When Steve went to get the Playboy, he also noticed the cigars in his suitcase. They had been lying on the dining-room table at home and at the last minute he threw them in his bag. Steve lay down on the floor and started looking through Playboy. Eventually he pulled his pants down. After he was finished, he lit the cigar and put the match inside the woodstove. What Steve had failed to notice was that when Kim opened the front door to leave, the rush of oxygen into the room caused the two fire logs in the stove to flare up. Some sparks had landed on the bedspread and were smoldering. As the sparks smoldered, Steve didn’t smell the smoke, because there was already smoke in the room from the cigar, as well as the burning logs.
As Steve lay back down to enjoy his cigar, the bedspread totally ignited. In an instant the bedspread was engulfed in flames. Steve threw up his left hand to protect his face. (Here Rosenberger was trying to explain why Steve’s left arm was bent upward at the elbow when he was found). The bedspread ignited the two pillows under Steve’s head. Because of the speed of the fire and his shock when his head, neck, and shoulders caught fire, Steve never took another breath. (This was Rosenberger’s attempt to explain why there was no carbon monoxide in Steve’s blood or soot in his lungs.)
When Kim came back to the room, everything was quiet. She soon realized she had forgotten her room key. She knocked on the door, but Steve didn’t answer. She thought he was probably asleep, since he had taken so much medicine. Kim remembered the sliding glass door that led to the rear deck was probably still unlocked, so she walked around to the back of the cottage. As she approached the porch, she noticed that the room was completely dark. She pulled the sliding glass door open and a huge whoosh of incredible heat knocked her backward. The smell was horrible. She couldn’t see anything. Kim was scared, so she ran around, trying to get help from the other guests in the same complex. No one answered, so she got in her car and drove to the lobby to get help.
“During the entire time since Steve’s death, Kim has never changed the facts of the tragedy,” Rosenberger said. “It seems to me that after [all these years] it would be hard to continue to keep the story straight—unless it was the truth. Many times I tried to confuse Kim or catch her with her ‘story,’ but it was always exactly the same.”
In fact, Kim’s story did change. From the beginning Kim told everyone that Steve had been drinking heavily. However, speculating about what happened the night Steve died, Rosenberger said even though Steve appeared to be drunk when they got back to their room after dinner, “Kim knew he hadn’t had much to drink all evening,” so his bizarre actions after they watched Tommy Boy didn’t make sense to her. So which was it—had Steve been drinking heavily as Kim told police, or had he not had much to drink, as she told Rosenberger?
The problem with Cathy Rosenberger’s assumptions was that all she knew about Steve’s death and the events leading up to it was what Kim had told her. And Rosenberger took Kim at her word. When Rosenberger visited Kim in jail, they would talk about the case and then she would go home, write out their conversations as well as any questions she might have, then she would send her recollections and questions back to Kim so she could add more information.
Rosenberger shared some of that information with journalists covering Kim’s case and her appellate attorney, Christopher Griffiths. Kim and Rosenberger spent many hours trying to debunk the testimony the prosecution elicited from witnesses during trial.
While reading this information put together by Rosenberger it’s important to note that she believed then—and still does—that Kim absolutely, positively, did not murder her husband. All Rosenberger’s explanations and speculation were based on Kim’s version of what happened at Harbourtowne on Valentine’s Day weekend, 1998.
One of the issues Kim and Rosenberger questioned was the prosecution’s theory of how Steve ended up on the floor.
In a letter Kim wrote to Rosenberger on April 23, 2000, she said that she was still in awe of the prosecution’s theory of “the crime”—that somehow she moved Steve onto the floor after killing him. Kim said the prosecution must have thought she had planned everything right down to the last detail. And the prosecution also must have believed she had incredible physical strength.
“What would make them think such a thing? It certainly wasn’t physical evidence,” Kim said.
Kim said if she had attempted to move Steve, there should have been some evidence of it, like some kind of
injury.
“Or do they think I was able to gently place him on the floor? It blows my mind,” she said.
And exactly how did Cathy Rosenberger think the fire started? A spark from the woodstove could have started it, she said. Rosenberger said Kim’s trial attorneys submitted a fire log into evidence. She said the issue of the fire log was discussed briefly and then dropped.
About a month after Kim’s trial Rosenberger said she was walking through a local pharmacy and noticed a display of fire logs. She purchased three different brands and said they all carried written warnings not to burn them in a woodstove. She said she even called one company that sold fire logs and told the customer service representative that she wanted to burn the log in her woodstove and wanted to know if she should leave the stove door open or closed (the door to the woodstove in the Hrickos’ room at Harbourtowne was left open).
The company told her their logs were not to be used in a woodstove, with the door open or closed, she said.
“If you look at the diagram of the room, the woodstove is directly in front of the bed that burned. It is only about three feet away. The [fire marshal testified] that the doors were wide open and there was no screen,” Rosenberger said. “Could the fire log [in the woodstove] have thrown a spark that landed in the bedding?” she asked. “It could have smoldered for a period of time unnoticed before it finally created a flash fire.”
Rosenberger didn’t put much stock in the state’s theory that Kim injected Steve with succinylcholine to paralyze him before she set the fire.
An Act Of Murder Page 26