a great student like Bertrand, but he managed to keep a decent grade point average in high school, even when he was working at Longs. After graduating from high school in 1991, he spent two years at the College of the Desert, a community college in Palm Desert, apparently because it was cheaper than a four-year college. He earned enough credits for an associate’s degree, though there is no record he applied for one.
In 1992 and 1993, Greg and Jerome went to stay with their father in Monaco for the summer. Bertrand and Marie came over and joined them later. Both years, Greg got an internship there at the International Atomic Energy Agency Marine Environment Laboratory, where he used his computer skills to analyze data related to marine radioactivity and pollution levels in the Mediterranean Sea.
As his sons got older, Yves wasn’t around as much, but when he was, the boys increasingly felt he overexerted his role as an authority figure. Yves could be a very sweet man, but he seemed elusive to his sons.
“It’s hard to know who he is exactly,” Jerome said. “He’s a real smart guy. He likes having his own space.”
Yves was very particular about his belongings. When the boys were young and he came back from a trip, he would know if one of them had moved something in his room. He kept a detailed journal, recording everything from expenditures to details of conversations. Jerome adopted these practices and employed them years later as he investigated Greg’s death. Bertrand, who later went on to pursue a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, believed he inherited his father’s academic drive.
After Greg returned from Monaco in the fall of 1993, he started classes at the University of California, San Diego, where his grades were less than stellar.
During his first quarter, he earned an F in organic chemistry, a D in a European Renaissance humanities class, and a C in physics, which gave him a D grade point average for the quarter. The next quarter, he did slightly better, raising his average to a C by earning a B+ in an introduction to acting class. In the spring of 1994, he continued to struggle with organic chemistry and physics.
Jerome joined him at UCSD that fall, and they shared a two-bedroom apartment in the La Jolla Del Sol complex with a third roommate, Chris Wren.
Greg and his father did not get along, and over the years, their relationship grew progressively stormier, until Greg and he became estranged.
Yves had a way of causing mental turmoil, which made communication with his sons difficult, so Greg—and sometimes Jerome—felt it was easier to live independently with little or no contact with him. Yves said he believed the conflict between him and Greg developed “because he was too young for the kind of responsibilities his mother gave him and the resentment she could not completely hide.”
But others saw it differently, saying that Greg resented Yves for not helping their mother more financially. Then, later, when Greg said he couldn’t afford to pay for college and wanted to take a break, Yves told him to stay in school and assured him that he would cover the costs, but the money never came. Yves denied this version of events but did not elaborate.
Memories differ on the breaking point for Greg and his father. Jerome remembered it coming during a family trip to Mammoth, when Greg left abruptly and returned to San Diego. Yves remembered that Greg left abruptly one year because he wanted to go home to try to make money selling vitamins, a job Yves didn’t think was worthy of him, but he said that wasn’t the breaking point for him and his son. He did not elaborate.
Greg withdrew from classes at UCSD partway through the quarter in October 1994 and started working at Rush Legal Services. The firm offered an array of copying, researching, process serving, notary, delivery, and other services.
Greg returned to classes at UCSD in the fall of 1995, about nine months after meeting Kristin. By the following summer, he was able to focus his energies on just one organic chemistry course, and his grades began to improve. He earned a B+ in that course, and by the winter quarter of 1997, he was earning all A’s and B’s. In his last quarter before graduating in 1997, he brought his grade point average up to a 3.85 even while taking biomedicine/cancer and developmental neurobiology.
After Bertrand graduated high school in 1997, he came to San Diego for the summer. He lived in Solana Beach, a small coastal town just north of San Diego, where he learned to surf with his brothers. Greg got Bertrand a job at Rush Legal, delivering subpoenas for the firm in the northern part of the county. Later that summer, Bertrand was transferred to the downtown office where Greg worked. He left to start classes at UCLA that fall.
“I always felt a strong tie to my brothers,” Bertrand said. “We were always there for each other.”
The brothers remained close, even when they lived apart. Jerome transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1995, and after graduation, he worked as a hotel valet until he could decide what to do next. Greg called him almost every day, encouraging Jerome to do more with his life.
“More than my parents, he was there to help me out, and I remember he had a real influence on me,” Jerome said. “Greg could always figure something out.”
Before staying out late drinking, for example, Jerome would stop and think about what he was doing, not wanting to worry Greg.
“In a sense, he helped keep me in check without really saying anything,” Jerome said. “I wouldn’t want him to be disappointed. I just thought he had it together.”
In between visits, the brothers stayed in touch by phone. But like most young men, their conversations didn’t delve much into the personal realm. Mostly, they discussed movies or the fishing, camping, hiking, or snowboard trips they took together on a regular basis. Intimate feelings and relationship issues just didn’t come up.
Chapter 5
One activity that Greg and Kristin both viewed as important was spending time with family. As their relationship progressed, their two families began to integrate.
The couple often spent time with Marie de Villers or went on camping, hiking, or skiing trips with Jerome, Bertrand, and the occasional friend Greg had known since high school. In turn, Kristin frequently took Greg to her parents’ house, where he would play video games with her youngest brother, Pierce, or hit the golf course with Pierce and her other brother, Brent, followed by dinner with her parents.
When Bertrand was still in high school, he started playing soccer more seriously and joined a traveling squad that competed regionally with teams such as Claremont’s. He even played for a while on Brent’s team in Claremont. At practice one afternoon during his senior year, he remembers Brent mentioning that his sister was dating Bertrand’s brother. Bertrand, who never felt like he fit in with all the rich kids on that team, didn’t play on it for long, so he and Brent never got that close.
The Rossums invited Greg and Marie to their house for Thanksgiving dinner, and in subsequent years, Greg’s brothers came, too. Everyone seemed to get along well. Ralph and Constance thought it would be good for Greg if they could reunite him with his estranged father. But Greg wasn’t interested.
Once she got clean, Kristin was able to focus on her schoolwork. And it paid off.
She started off slowly, taking only two courses her first semester at SDSU, in the fall of 1995, while she continued to work with Greg at Rush Legal. On her application to the Medical Examiner’s Office two years later, she stretched the time she’d worked at Rush, claiming she’d started in June 1994 and worked as assistant office manager through December 1995.
Kristin
