jobs to sheriff’s crime lab
Cathy Hamm, toxicologist
Ray Gary, toxicologist
Dr. Harry Bonnell, pathologist
Bob Sutton, manager of autopsy exam room
KRISTIN’S FRIENDS/ADVOCATES
Melissa Prager, high school friend
Chris Elliott, friend
Rick Hogrefe, head of TriLink Biotechnologies
Kelly Christianson, Kristin’s lab manager at TriLink
Claire Becker, Kristin’s coworker at TriLink
Jessica Vanella, Kristin’s coworker at TriLink
Kathy Vanella, Jessica’s mother, took Kristin in before trial
GREG’S FRIENDS/ADVOCATES
Bill Leger, high school friend
Aaron Wallo, high school friend
Christian Colantoni, high school friend
Stefan Gruenwald, his boss at Orbigen
Terry Huang, office manager at Orbigen
MICHAEL’S ASSOCIATES
Nicole Robertson, Michael’s wife
Dan Anderson, supervising toxicologist in Los Angeles
County coroner’s office
Chuck Goldberg, Michael’s criminal attorney
ATTORNEYS FOR APPEAL
Lynda Romero, Kristin’s criminal appellate attorney Deputy Attorney
General Niki Shaffer, state’s appellate attorney
ATTORNEYS IN CIVIL CASE
Craig McClellan, de Villers family’s attorney
John Gomez, de Villers family’s attorney
Cindy Lane, de Villers family’s attorney
Michael Gardiner, Michael Robertson’s attorney
Walter Tribbey, Kristin’s attorney
Deborah McCarthy, attorney for San Diego County
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Photographic Insert
Chapter 1
It was a Monday morning, November 6, 2000, when Stefan Gruenwald pulled up to the building his small biotech company shared with three others. He was surprised to see that his licensing manager wasn’t at his desk, making calls.
Typically, Greg de Villers had already started his day by the time his boss arrived. He was a dependable guy. Meticulous, diligent, and a team player to boot. Gruenwald had known Greg since he’d hired him several years earlier at another biotech company. After Gruenwald left to start his own business, he lured Greg away to work for him.
Greg was one of only eight employees at Orbigen, so it didn’t take long for Gruenwald to poke his head in each office to ask if anyone had seen Greg that morning. They hadn’t. Greg was rarely late, and when he was, he always called to let Gruenwald know. He’d never missed a day of work without calling.
Gruenwald wondered if Greg was having car problems. Maybe he’d broken down somewhere. Greg had no cell phone, so around 10:10 A.M., Gruenwald called the apartment in the San Diego neighborhood of University City, where Greg lived with Kristin Rossum, his pretty, petite, blond wife of seventeen months. He let it ring for a while. But no one picked up.
Although Greg tended not to socialize with his coworkers after hours, he did drink a Coke or a beer with them at the occasional TGIF gatherings, and Gruenwald had worked with him long enough to feel that he knew Greg pretty well. Greg had good manners and was liked by his colleagues, who thought he was a nice guy and a bit of a health nut. He’d gone on a fishing trip with them to Mexico once but said he was anxious to get home to Kristin rather than go out for drinks on the way back. She, his two brothers, and the small circle of close friends he’d made over the years were the people with whom he liked to spend his spare time.
Greg wasn’t the kind of outgoing guy who got noticed in a crowd for his strong personality. He was more of an easygoing, middle-of-the-road kind of guy, a little on the shy side around new people and somewhat soft-spoken. Kristin, on the other hand, had more of an allure, especially when it came to men. Greg really seemed to be in love with her, always rushing home to eat one of her special dinners and watch a video. The only time Gruenwald had seen Greg stay late at the office was the week in early October, when Kristin went to a conference in Milwaukee. Kristin worked as a toxicologist at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office, where she conducted tests to determine what drugs may have caused suspicious or sudden deaths.
Gruenwald met Kristin at a company Christmas party before she and Greg were married in June 1999, and they’d all gone out for drinks afterwards. She seemed nice. A little flirtatious, but funny, outgoing, and very intelligent. She and Greg seemed to get along well, and they looked good together. Recently, Greg had asked Gruenwald to keep an ear out for a new job for Kristin. He’d also talked about having Orbigen help him go to law school so he could become a patent attorney for the company. In a year or two, once Orbigen got off the ground, Gruenwald told him, “We can definitely do that.”
When Greg still hadn’t shown up by eleven o’clock, office manager Terry Huang was getting concerned
