by Joe Kimball
I called some of the jurors from Roger's trial and asked if, based on the new evidence, they'd changed their minds about Roger's guilt. Three of them said he deserved a new trial. “Now I feel he's been framed. But I could be wrong,” said one.
Since many of those close to the case figured Roger was guilty, there was much amazement three years later when the Minnesota Supreme overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial The justices cited the new evidence that emerged in his case. Prosecutors vowed to try again, but figured it would take six to eight months to prepare the case. In the meantime, they agreed to release Roger from prison until the new trial began. He immediately returned to his boyhood home of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where his family still lived.
Not long after his release, my late aunt, Beverly Kranstover, who belonged to the same church as Marjorie, mentioned that Marjorie was telling people that she was newly married, and had brought her new husband, Wally, to church. How could this be? There had been no word of a divorce from Roger. Some phone calls revealed that Marjorie and Wally had, indeed, been issued a marriage license in Valley City, North Dakota, in August 1981, while Roger was still in prison, and were now officially known as Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Hägen. This was the same Wally Hagen of Mound, who with his wife, Helen, were among the very few friends who stood by Marjorie after the murder. Helen had since died (under circumstances that would later be investigated) and Marjorie now was married to her long-time friend, Wally, who was 72. She was 49.
Yet, wasn't Marjorie still married to Roger?
There was only one way to find out. I called Roger's parents in Latrobe and reached a man who sounded to me like Roger. I'd heard his voice often at the trial and talked with him at length in prison after Marjorie's trial, so I was quite sure. I identified myself and asked for Roger.
“Roger's not here,” he said. “This is, ah, Roger's brother.”
I explained the situation and asked if Roger knew anything about a divorce and remarriage. There was a long pause, then the voice, which I was sure belonged to Roger, said: “Roger doesn't know anything about that.”
I wrote a story about Marjorie's new marriage, with the response from Roger (or his brother). Officials in North Dakota soon filed bigamy charges against her. A state's attorney there said the charge was punishable by a maximum of five years in prison but that there were no plans to ask Minnesota authorities to tum her over.
Marjorie kept busy in other ways. In 1982 she and Wally bought a house in Mound, a western suburb of the Twin Cities. But a year later, when a large contract for deed payment was due, they didn't have the money. So they agreed to sell the house, for a tidy $30,000 profit. But right after the Hagens moved out, and before the new owners moved in, the house was destroyed by fire. Some tenacious state investigators didn't think it was an accidental fire and a lengthy investigation led to arson charges against Marjorie.
This wasn't her first encounter with a suspicious fire. Marjorie had purchased a home in Marine-on-St. Croix in 1974 and begun extensive remodeling. Then she moved to Colorado with three of her children. One day in May 1975, Marjorie flew from Denver to Minneapolis, rented a car and, according to the rental records, drove 74 miles to the Marine house and back. That day, the house burned to the ground. It had been insured for $430,000, but when Marjorie learned that authorities were on to her, she never filed an insurance claim. Back then, it wasn't a crime to bum down your own house, as long as you didn't defraud the insurance company, so charges were never filed. Legislators changed the law soon after.
She must have been appalled when one of the investigators from the Marine case, Ray DePrima of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, began working on the Mound fire. And this case went to trial. This jury found her guilty and after a one-year appeal process, she began serving her sentence. During the nearly two-year incarceration at the Shakopee Women's Prison, Wally lived nearby in an Airstream trailer. When she was released, they moved to Arizona.
I was caught completely by surprise in July 1983 when word leaked out that Roger Caldwell had quietly returned to Duluth and negotiated a plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to second degree murder (instead of the first-degree murder charges handed down by the Brainerd jury) and in return, they let him go, figuring the five years he'd already served in prison were enough. Portions of his confession - which includes many memory lapses - are included in another section of this book.
Right away, I urged my newspaper editors to send me to Latrobe, to find Roger and ask him about the murders, the deal and, of course, about Marjorie. The editors said no. The next day, though, I heard again from Rogers sister-in-law in Latrobe. She'd been helpful over the years, serving as a go-between with Roger's family whenever I needed an interview or background information. This time, she had some sobering news: a reporter from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, our main competitor, was already in Pennsylvania trying to write a story about Roger.
That was enough to stir the newspaper's competitive urge. I hopped on a plane the next day, rented a car in Pittsburgh and drove 45 miles through western Pennsylvania, into the Laurel Highlands and into Latrobe. I arrived in the early evening and soon found the rooming house where Roger lived. When he didn't answer the door, I parked just down the block and waited, hoping to see him come home and jump out in time to ask a few questions. But hours went by and still no Roger, although I may have dozed off.
I gave up in the early morning hours and returned to the hotel. The next day I tried again, with no success, then concentrated on talking to family members and checking out the town, figuring there would be an interesting story in how Roger was fitting back into the community. I had lunch the next day, right before my return flight, with Roger's brother, Howard. We had a nice talk during the lunch and near the end, I asked if he might arrange for me to speak with his parents, who were quite old and living in a nearby high-rise. I assured him that I wouldn't badger the folks, but instead wanted to know more about Roger's childhood and how they felt about his problems in Minnesota. He agreed to ask and while I lingered over dessert, Howard went to the lobby to phone his parents with the request.
A few moments later, Howard walked back towards the table, his face ashen and his shoulders hunched. For a brief second, I wondered if he'd just been told that Roger had killed someone else. Indeed, there was bad news, but that wasn't it. Howard explained: Throughout Roger's ordeals in Minnesota, there had been no actual news coverage of the murders or his conviction in Latrobe. His family and friends knew, of course, but because of the lack of news, the elder Caldwells had never had to explain the situation to casual friends or acquaintances. Until now.
Howard said that his parents had just received their afternoon edition of the daily Latrobe newspaper, which had this screaming headline across the top: “Ex-Latrobe man free in bizarre case.”
The family was devastated, he said. It was a cruel, crushing blow that was, in Howard s mind, totally unnecessary. And to top it off, the third paragraph of the story said all the information about Roger and the case had been provided by the Pioneer Press reporter who'd come to town a day ahead of me. He apparently didn't know where Roger lived, so he'd gone to the local newspaper office to search through delivery records. Naturally, they'd asked why he cared and he'd told them the entire Congdon Mansion murder saga. And now the entire county knew the story.
I didn't know what to say, but after a short pause I made a suggestion. If Roger and the family wanted to get back at the St. Paul reporter, maybe Roger could grant me an exclusive interview. The other reporter's editors wouldn't be very happy about that, I said.
Howard thought for a moment, then nodded his head. “It's worth a try,” he said. I went back to my hotel room, canceled my flight home, and waited for the phone to ring. It didn't take long.
“This is Roger,” said the voice on the line. “I understand you want to talk.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“There's a parking lot downtown, not far from where you are, behind the old
train station. I'll meet you there in 20 minutes.” Click.
I drove to the appointed spot, which was in a remote part of town with virtually no traffic at that time of day. I parked so I could see anyone approaching from the main part of town, but kept an eye on the mirrors to monitor the rear. Within minutes, there he was, opening the passenger door. As he climbed in, I wondered if this was a good idea; sitting alone with a man who had confessed, just days earlier, to killing two women. But the moment passed. He looked old and frail enough that I figured I could defend myself, if it came to that.
Roger introduced himself, then said that he'd been following my career in the newspaper over the years. He proved it by mentioning several stories I'd written in the recent past, noting that “there wasn't much to do in prison, other than reading the paper.”
I had all kinds of questions for him about the plea bargain and Marjorie and the mansion and his future, but before I could start, he said he wanted to drive around a bit, to show me the sights. There'd be plenty of time for questions, he said.
So I started the car and we embarked on a tour of Latrobe. He was particularly proud of some of the old forts in the area, but we also drove past the golf course where Arnold Palmer learned his game, past the house where children's television host Mr. Rogers grew up and down near the Rolling Rock Brewery. We stopped at a cemetery to see two of his family graves. And he showed me saw some of the closed-down steel mills that illustrated the economic problems the area faced.
We also stopped at two taverns, where he was friendly with the regulars and the bartenders. But once he noticed an old friend on the street, someone he hadn't seen in years, and was relieved that the friend didn't recognize him. “I don't want to meet anyone I know right now,” Roger said.
He was 49-years-old, 5' 10” and weighed about 180 pounds, up 30 pounds from his prison weight. He hair had turned silver and he was very soft spoken. There was no hint of killer in his outward appearance.
He, too, decried the local newspaper story, saying his mother had collapsed after reading it. “That was the nastiest thing they could have done,” he said.
He was reluctant to talk about specifics of the case, saying that if he said anything that didn't jibe exactly with his sworn testimony in the plea bargain, that the Duluth prosecutors would nail him for perjury. But of the legal maneuvering that set him free in return for the confession he did say: “Nobody was happy about it. The idea was to wrap up the case. It's wrapped up.”
As to the possibility that he was paid to take the fall, he said: “There's no way I can make you believe anything, but I did not get one farthing, one promise or even the suggestion of a promise for saying that I did it (committed the murders).”
He was effusive about Latrobe, citing its small-town charm and its wonderful people. He said his mother's high school class had just held its 59th- year reunion, doing it a year early because one of her classmates had cancer and wasn't expected to live another year for the 60th.
He said friends and relatives would never believe he was capable of murder. And although he'd had lots of trouble with alcohol, he said his binge drinking days were over. He wouldn't say anything negative about Marjorie, even though she had by now remarried and he still had heard nothing about a divorce. “Marjorie is a unique person. I can't be unfair to her, even though she's been unfair to me.”
Before leaving for the airport, I dropped him on a street comer so he could walk to the friend's house where he was living. He said he planned to stay in Latrobe and was using his time to become reacquainted with his boyhood haunts.
“Like Robert Frost said: ‘Home is the place where they have to take you in.' I came home.”
I next talked to Roger three years later, when Marjorie was released from prison on the arson and fraud convictions after serving 21 months in the Shakopee State Prison.
As Marjorie and Wally packed up their trailer and headed toward Arizona, I wondered how Roger was doing. Not so well, he said by telephone.
“Things aren't good for me,” said. “Welfare and food stamps. It's no great life, but it keeps me warm and fed.”
Like the rest of us, Roger said he was keeping track of Marjorie's escapades with amazement. He said he knew of her conviction and of an out-of-court settlement with her children in the inheritance dispute. Although she was granted about $8 million in the settlement, much of it went to pay attorneys' fees and most of the rest was tied up in a trust that gave her about $40,000 a year to live on.
Again, he said he was not divorced from Marjorie. In fact, the Pennsylvania welfare department had even gotten involved in the affair. Because Roger was receiving $186 per month in state aid, Pennsylvania officials had asked Minnesota courts to schedule a hearing to determine whether Marjorie had to pay support to Roger following her release from prison. “We are requesting this be heard before (Hägen) is released from Shakopee Prison since she will flee and we won't be able to locate her,” said the request from Pennsylvania.
But officials in Scott County, where Shakopee Prison is located, replied that under Minnesota law Marjorie could not be forced to support Roger because it appeared they were still legally married and there were no children from the marriage.
Roger said he had worked briefly as a bartender before going onto the welfare rolls. Sources in Latrobe told me Roger lost that job because of his checkered past, although it's likely that his drinking problems also played a role.
Three years earlier he had held out hope that, due to loyalty or love, Marjorie might someday help him out of his financial rut. But she never had, he said. And he said he'd now given up hope that it would ever happen.
In the spring of 1987 I started researching a story for the 10th anniversary of the murders. The early editions of this book had become regional bestsellers and the interest in the case never seemed to wane, thanks in large part to Marjorie's ongoing antics. But just reciting the facts again didn't seem enough. I decided to update the newspaper's readers with the current whereabouts of all the main players.
Roger was my first target. I knew he still lived in Latrobe and figured another visit was warranted. I had called ahead to tell him I was coming, but wasn't specific about day or time, and I got off the commuter plane in Latrobe late one afternoon. It had been a rocky flight from Pittsburgh and my head was spinning so much that I didn't recognize the rotund man who called my name in the airport lobby. It was Roger, looking far different from my last visit four years before. He weighed at least 250 pounds and his hair was falling out. I apologized for not recognizing him, blaming it on the turbulent flight and a crying 3-year-old across the aisle. When I went to rent a car, Roger said: “Never mind; you can use my car.” He also offered to let me sleep in his apartment. I accepted the car offer, but not the room.
In the parking lot, he gestured for me to drive the 14-year-old Gran Torino station wagon that belonged to his parents. As I started it up, he cautioned me to be careful on hills, because the brakes weren't too good. We drove around town again, seeing the sights. This time, without an immediate deadline, I hoped to draw him out more, to learn more about his past, what he thought about the murder case and what made him tick. He didn't disappoint.
One of the things that always aggravated me about being convicted of murder is that everyone who ever knew me knows I couldn't kill anyone,” he said. “I wrecked a car once in order to avoid hitting a dog. I never shot a rabbit; I don't even have a gun. And there's no evidence that I ever left Colorado that day. And maybe I'm not too bright, but if you're going to commit murder, you're going to have a plan. What kind of premeditated murder can you have with a candlestick holder? I never did believe that murder was the motive. It was fishy. I think something went haywire and then the nurse was killed. It just didn't make any sense to kill someone that way.”
He spoke as if it he hadn't been in the mansion that night, but whether he was telling the truth, or had convinced himself of his innocence after the fact, I couldn't tell He said his confession
was based on facts he picked up at the trial “Remember, I sat through that thing with a front row seat,” he said.
Roger said his childhood in Latrobe was happy. “I was raised in a time of Cinderella, happily-ever-after time. We'd just come off the war and in America we were proud, there was nothing we couldn't do. I expected my life to be happy, that everything would be wonderful. Except that isn't the way life is.
“I ran off and got married. I was 19, she was 18. The marriage quickly fell apart. I started drinking in the third or fourth year. I was disillusioned and disappointed.”
His marriage to Martha Caldwell actually lasted 20 years and produced three children. Despite the problems, Roger said he savored some parts of family life.
“I saved the baby teeth from all three kids in a small cedar chest. The oldest girl wrote a note and drew a cutesy picture to the Tooth Fairy. I kept that, too, and the girls' pig tails. I kept all kinds of things of no value, my high school diploma, medals from sports, old photos. I'm sure after the divorce someone threw it all out; there was nothing I could do about it.”
He knew he'd made many mistakes with his first family. “When I found out my son was gay, I got drunk, like I always did when there was a crisis. I'm not proud of it, but there's no point in lying about it now.”
“I'm really a likeable drunk. I was drunk all my life. I lost a marriage and several jobs, but I'm still drinking - as long as you're buying,” he said with a wink.
Roger also had lots to say about Marjorie. They met in January 1976, two years after his divorce. She was also divorced and they met at a Parents Without Partners meeting. Two months later they married.
“She was bonkers, lots of fun,” he said. “She likes living in the fast lane, life on the edge. But the roof kept falling in, further and further. More and more debt. She really isn't dishonest. She's nuts, but she fully intends to pay off her bills. She used to say when her Mama dies she'll be able to pay everyone back. But the reality is, now matter how much money she had, she'd spend it. And thickheaded and naïve as I was, I never took action. It was clear she was lying because I could never pin her down. She's an intelligent woman, a great talker. She'd be a hell of an actress if she wasn't so dumpy.”