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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Contact: Caitlin Rother crother@flash.net www.caitlinrother.com |
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| Paramedics found the body of Kristin Rossum’s husband on the bedroom floor, surrounded by red rose petals, with their wedding photo propped up near his head. Rossum, a beautiful blond and talented toxicologist, told police her adoring husband was so depressed she was leaving him that he overdosed on some old pills she once used to come down off methamphetamine. But when authorities discovered those drugs were missing from her lab at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office, they concluded that Rossum was to blame. Rossum, they said, was scared her husband would expose her meth addiction and her affair with her boss, so she used the tools of her trade to poison him with a lethal cocktail of narcotics. | ||||
A Kensington Publishing Corp./Pinnacle Books paperback POISONED LOVE By Caitlin Rother |
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| “A true-crime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat,” says Aphrodite Jones, New York Times best-selling crime author. “This first-time author has done a brilliant job of captivating the inner workings of a female killer, someone who uses her cunning ways to commit murder.” “Rother has written a gripping and chilling book. A tawdry and twisted story of sex and drugs, deception and murder. And here's the scariest part—it's all true,” says Tom Murray, producer for Pretty Poison, Court TV’s documentary on the Rossum case. “Absorbing and impeccably researched, Poisoned Love is classic California noir, a story of passion and betrayal and death, with a beautiful, scheming adulteress at the center of the web,” says John Taylor, author of The Count and The Confession: A True Mystery. “Caitlin Rother, a seasoned reporter with integrity, class and skill, weaves this complex story seamlessly, offering it up in the page-turning fashion of a suspenseful novel,” says M. William Phelps, author of Perfect Poison and Every Move You Make. “…An exciting debut from a tirelessly hardworking reporter.” POISONED LOVE tells the story of how an obsession for passion, a fatal attraction to crystal meth and easy access to dangerous narcotics can lead to murder. This cautionary tale also shows how a powerful drug addiction and an inability to take responsibility for one’s actions can destroy not just one life, but many others in the process. In November 2000, Kristin Rossum, the daughter of high-powered academics, was torn between three relationships. One with her husband, one with her boss, and one with crystal methamphetamine, an old friend with whom she had become recently reacquainted. The 24-year-old toxicologist had kicked meth five years earlier with the help of Greg de Villers, the son of a French plastic surgeon. Rossum reluctantly agreed to wed de Villers, and was already regretting her decision six months later. He was clingy. She felt suffocated. He wanted to start a family; she wanted to pursue her career. Then Rossum found a way out. She fell in love with Michael Robertson, her hunky Australian boss, who was also in an unfulfilling marriage. The lovers snuck away for sex at lunch and wrote each other cards and e-mails, fantasizing about having children and spending the rest of their lives together. “You are my destiny,” they told each other. Confused and torn over what to do, Rossum started using meth again. Rossum told de Villers she was going to move out. They argued and he threatened to report her affair and her drug use to her superiors. On the night of November 6, 2000, she called 911 to report finding her husband in bed – cold, pale and not breathing. The dispatcher told her to pull him to the floor to start CPR. Rossum pulled back the covers, she said, and that’s when she saw red rose petals all over his chest and their wedding photo tucked under his pillow. Despondent she was leaving him, she said, he must have committed suicide. The police initially believed her story, but their doubts grew as the incriminating evidence mounted. First, they learned of her affair. Then, that de Villers had ingested a lethal cocktail of narcotics, including fentanyl, a highly regulated painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine. Rossum was charged with murder after fentanyl, meth and other two drugs found in de Villers’ body were discovered missing from her lab. Prosecutors described Robertson as her “unindicted co-conspirator,” but he has not been charged. A jury found her guilty in November 2002, and she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. POISONED LOVE explores the psychological aspects of this complex case, revealing details about the investigation and major players that have never been disclosed to the public. The 480-page book also includes newly released excerpts of e-mails, diary entries, letters and other court evidence that lend insights into Rossum’s character. The Rossum case was featured on national television shows such as Good Morning America, 48 Hours, and Inside Edition, and in documentaries on Court TV and Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen Network. The case also made headlines in Cosmopolitan, People, Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, and the Los Angeles Times. It was featured in Cosmopolitan’s international editions and was covered by print and broadcast media in Australia, where Robertson returned a month before she was arrested. |
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