The Disappearance and Death of Michael Rosenblum

[themaninblack]

I would say without a doubt the police were involved in this. I don't think they intentionally killed him, but perhaps in his drugged up state they apprehended him and it did not go well, and unfortunately it resulted in his death.
It would be interesting to see if anyone has written a book on this case.

[ghosthouse]

Yeah, pretty sure the letter the dad received that said Michael was arrested was legit and is the key to how and why he disappeared.

[drew790]

Without looking into it any deeper than the original UM segment, I agree.

[XCalibur]

Originally Posted by ghosthouse

Yeah, pretty sure the letter the dad received that said Michael was arrested was legit and is the key to how and why he disappeared.

Agreed. When you consider Michael was exhibiting aggressive behavior and a bad temper before his disappearance its easy to believe that he may have had an altercation with the cops that tragically led to his death before he could get serious help with his addiction.

I think he probably was going to get a fix somewhere explaining his desire to leave in his gf's car, may have even tried to buy from an undercover cop, resisted arrest and it went badly. And the Baldwin police likely covered it up they did to many suspicious things for me to think otherwise. I believe this sort of thing happens a lot as the police have an attitude that why should any officer throw away their life and career because some punk junkie resisted arrest? Not saying its right, just that it probably happens more than we'd like to believe.

[MegtheEgg86]

There is an excellent, in-depth article about the Rosenblum case published in Pittsburgh magazine sometime in the late '80s that is pretty easy to find online. There's no doubt in my mind Michael was murdered by at least two members of the Baldwin Police the day he disappeared and that a cover-up then ensued.

Long story short, on that day two Baldwin officers set out in the morning to go serve a warrant in Pittsburgh, IIRC in the South Side neighborhood. The quickest way to get to that location is west on PA-837, colloquially called River Road, and that is where the car Michael was driving was ultimately found. Those two officers literally went radio silent for hours during that warrant errand (when it's less than a 30-minute drive on that route from Baldwin to the South Side), then re-emerged later in the afternoon without explanation.

Just like was shown in the segment, PA-837 is indeed at the foot of a very large and heavily wooded hill. There are lonely roads that exist now and in 1980 that will take you to the top and into the woods on that hill. It's about 40 acres of undeveloped forest, right in the middle of a major metropolitan area. For lack of a better way of putting it--and especially for that time period--it might be one of the best places in the Pittsburgh area to dump a body. It is also in relatively close proximity to Baldwin.

[Allierain]

Originally Posted by XCalibur

Agreed. When you consider Michael was exhibiting aggressive behavior and a bad temper before his disappearance its easy to believe that he may have had an altercation with the cops that tragically led to his death before he could get serious help with his addiction.

As a former addict I can confirm that several drugs, including the pills I was OD-ing on, will turn you into an ogre if overtaken. Mine certainly did. I was unbearable to deal with but I didn’t see it then. I think it makes perfect sense-he gets pulled over. He gets aggressive with the cops, they get aggressive back and end up killing him. And when they screw up, they cover up.

[1990 UM fan]

A thread about him was created 20 years ago.

See https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards...d.php?t=138994

[TheCars1986]

Probably unpopular, but IMO, Rosenblum either committed suicide or overdosed on drugs shortly after abandoning his car. IIRC, the cops called in the car roughly 50 minutes after Rosenblum abandoned it. The Baldwin PD neglected to notify his girlfriend that the car had been impounded. 3 months later they try to cover it up by typing up and creating a fake letter (and also forged some notes IIRC saying they notified the girlfriend's aunt that the car had been impounded) and then commit to continuing to lie about it.

[XCalibur]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Probably unpopular, but IMO, Rosenblum either committed suicide or overdosed on drugs shortly after abandoning his car. IIRC, the cops called in the car roughly 50 minutes after Rosenblum abandoned it. The Baldwin PD neglected to notify his girlfriend that the car had been impounded. 3 months later they try to cover it up by typing up and creating a fake letter (and also forged some notes IIRC saying they notified the girlfriend's aunt that the car had been impounded) and then commit to continuing to lie about it.

Why would the Baldwin police bother to do all that just to cover up a suicide or an overdose? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Now to be certain, this is not a Norman Ladner case, given Rosenblum's state of mind at the time and the problems he had an overdose or suicide in his case seems far more plausible. But the actions of the authorities become fairly difficult to explain in that scenario.

I think even if he was not outright killed by the police, good chance he was roughed up badly and might have committed suicide in jail later and that might still be adequate embarrassment for them to try to cover things up. But there was simply to many shady things done here for there to have been no wrong doing by the police at all.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by XCalibur

I think even if he was not outright killed by the police, good chance he was roughed up badly and might have committed suicide in jail later and that might still be adequate embarrassment for them to try to cover things up. But there was simply to many shady things done here for there to have been no wrong doing by the police at all.

I agree. I don't think that department's leadership would have been as motivated to avoid being outed as incompetent as much as being outed as shielding officers who break the law in pretty significant ways.

I often wonder what would've happened if Chester Lombardi lived and could tell us his experience with not only finding the car but with being asked to sign that backdated letter. IIRC he died of a heart attack a couple of years after the disappearance, and at a pretty young age.

[schmave]

Gaburri, the police chief in Baldwin, struck me as being as corrupt as they come. That was his fiefdom and how dare anyone question him. There is no way that civil service commission truly cleared Gaburri based on what we were presented, and I do agree with the clerk, Fred Capelli, that Gaburri probably had friends on the commission no matter how feeble the "I did what I was told to do" explanation was.
Personally, I think Rosenblum got roughed up and it got out of hand, resulting in his death. He had demonstrated no interest in reasoning with anyone in that state of mind, judging from what we were told, and that's where it got out of control.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by XCalibur

Why would the Baldwin police bother to do all that just to cover up a suicide or an overdose? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Rosenblum and his girlfriend's car were still missing at that point so the cops would have no way of knowing if it was a suicide or overdose. If they had nothing to do with his death, all they knew was that he was missing. The cops documented finding and impounding the car on the day he disappeared and didn't notify his girlfriend that her car was found. "Do not mistake malice for incompetence", immediately comes to mind. They find out that the car was documented as being towed 2 hours after Rosenblum was last seen alive...and then never notify the owner of the vehicle or Rosenblum's family. Hiding the fact that they found the car the day he disappeared accomplishes nothing but make them look more suspicious when that information was ultimately uncovered. And they tried to cover it up after the fact. Which...if they truly involved in his death in any way, why not destroy the police report saying they found the car? IMO, they knew they f'ed it up, knew that Maurice Rosenblum was pushing for answers in his son's disappearance (as any sane father would do), so they tried to lie and say they had contacted his girlfriend the day after the car was impounded. They even created a fake note saying that the girlfriend's aunt (who did not exist) was notified about the car. Something that would be really bizarre to do if they were involved in killing this guy.

Originally Posted by XCalibur

I think even if he was not outright killed by the police, good chance he was roughed up badly and might have committed suicide in jail later and that might still be adequate embarrassment for them to try to cover things up. But there was simply to many shady things done here for there to have been no wrong doing by the police at all.

I don't think the police did nothing wrong. They lied about finding the car. I don't ascribe their motivation for doing so to cover up his death either by their hands or in their custody. And assuming the cops were involved in his death in some way but not directly responsible, why did they not call in to dispatch about the abandoned vehicle, or run Rosenblum's information? They have a record of them finding the car two hours after he abandoned his girlfriend at a gas station, but no record of coming into contact with him? I'm also unaware of if the girlfriend ever reported her car as being stolen or not. 3 months is a long time to go without reporting the vehicle being stolen, and to my knowledge she never did.

If foul play was involved, it would be much more likely that he was either killed by some unsavory characters in the drug world, or went to a party (like Kurt Sova) overdosed, and the people at the party panicked and dumped his body where it was found 12 years later.

[Allierain]

Originally Posted by XCalibur

Why would the Baldwin police bother to do all that just to cover up a suicide or an overdose? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Agreed. It just doesn’t fit the situation.

There have been so many stories featured on UM where law enforcement claimed suicide. I think it’s a cop out, and such an assumption gives investigators a kind of “permission” to lazily write off a case. I do not believe most of them and certainly not in this case. I just think it’s a lazy call to make.

[XCalibur]

Originally Posted by Allierain

Agreed. It just doesn’t fit the situation.

There have been so many stories featured on UM where law enforcement claimed suicide. I think it’s a cop out, and such an assumption gives investigators a kind of “permission” to lazily write off a case. I do not believe most of them and certainly not in this case. I just think it’s a lazy call to make.

I agree mostly, and oddly enough it has become the sexy thing on here with much of the board to believe it had to be suicide no matter what. Something I never quite understood.

Now to be sure, every case is different, many of the stories where it is disputed as suicide or murder I've felt those advocating for murder, (usually the families) have made a far more compelling case than much of this board gives credit for.

In the case of Michael Rosenblum, yes he had a myriad of problems and believing it was suicide or overdose is not that big a stretch under normal circumstances. The problem is far more with the behavior of the police in this instance.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Probably unpopular, but IMO, Rosenblum either committed suicide or overdosed on drugs shortly after abandoning his car. IIRC, the cops called in the car roughly 50 minutes after Rosenblum abandoned it. The Baldwin PD neglected to notify his girlfriend that the car had been impounded. 3 months later they try to cover it up by typing up and creating a fake letter (and also forged some notes IIRC saying they notified the girlfriend's aunt that the car had been impounded) and then commit to continuing to lie about it.

I gave myself several days to chew on the notion that Rosenblum died by his own hand intentionally or accidentally, and neither of those things would have necessarily been impossible. We're not privy to any information on any of Michael's "plugs" or other people he might have seen or used with on that day after he abandoned Lisa and her daughter and took the car if it exists, but if it did I feel like we might have heard about it by now. If he took his own life, he would have had to have walked across the highway, over railroad tracks, and up onto a significantly steep hill all while presumably suffering ill effects of either drug use or perhaps withdrawal symptoms. Stranger things have happened, I guess, but I'm wondering why he wouldn't have just jumped in the Monongahela (the Glenwood Bridge is probably less than a mile from where the car was abandoned and is easily visible from that spot), or gone over the north set of tracks into the brush by the riverbank. It would've been much easier than going up that hill on foot.

I'm having a hard time seeing why multiple members of the Baldwin Police would lean so hard into covering up what basically amounts to an administrative screw-up. Did they do this kind of thing often? If so, were the consequences pretty severe? I feel like there would have been mention of this in media treatments of Michael's story if that was the case, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't.

Is it the case of an outlying and perhaps less sophisticated borough police department and its chief afraid of the social and financial wrath of a rather well-to-do (and maybe connected) Shadyside family? No one could ever have accused Maurice Rosenblum as being timid in his quest to find out what happened to his son.

It just bothers me that those two officers were gone and inexplicably off comms for hours and in fact never actually served the warrant that they were supposed to have served in *McKeesport. Their direction of travel and the time they set out from Baldwin would have them crossing paths with the car, and presumably, Michael. Those two officers didn't call in the car because they weren't in fact calling in anything during that time frame; it was Chester Lombardi that did that. Why?

*I'd mentioned in a previous post that these two officers were serving the warrant in South Side. It was actually McKeesport, but they would have still have to have traveled there by the same road.