Rosendo Rodriguez: The Suitcase Killer

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“He’s really good at killing people” said Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Powell. “He’s very calm, very calculated.”

It was March 26, 2018, the day before 38-year-old Rosendo Rodriguez was due to be executed for a murder he committed nearly 13 years earlier.

The Landfill

On September 13, 2005, workers at the Lubbock City landfill spotted a suitcase amongst the many heaps of trash. They found it odd that someone would throw it away, given that it looked brand new. It wasn’t something they saw every day. So they decided to have a look inside. On opening it, however, they made a horrifying discovery. There, folded into a fetal position was the naked, battered body of a young woman.

The police were called to the landfill. There was nothing to identify the woman in the suitcase, other than a tattoo on her ankle of the word "summer".

At the autopsy, it was determined that she had been dead for about 24 hours. Her injuries indicated that she had been raped. She had suffered 50 blunt force trauma wounds all over her body; the wounds on her head were particularly severe. There were also signs that her assailant had attempted to strangle her. To add insult to injury, she was 10 weeks pregnant.

More horrifying still was that her cause of death was not determined to be from blunt force trauma or strangulation. She had actually died from “positional asphyxia”, due to the way she was positioned in the suitcase. In other words, she was still alive when her killer stuffed her inside the piece of luggage.

Who Was Summer Baldwin?

Fingerprint analysis identified her as 29-year-old mother-of-four, Summer Lee Baldwin. Originally from Tacoma, Washington, Summer was going through a particularly difficult point in her life, having turned to sex work to fund a drug addiction.

So they knew who the victim was and how she died. But the question remained for investigators: who could have done this? What kind of person could be so cold-blooded, and have so little regard for this woman that they could brutalize her and dump her in the garbage, as though she was literally trash?

The only evidence they had, other than Summer’s body, was the suitcase she was found in. As I mentioned earlier, it was brand new - the inside was extremely clean, there was a plastic tag on the handle which would have been where the price tag was attached. In a pocket inside, there was a small label with the UPC (universal product code) number on it.

Investigators easily found out that the make and model was sold exclusively at Walmart. So they went to the closest Walmart Superstore and sure enough, found identical suitcases on sale. An employee at the store was able to use the UPC code for the suitcase to determine how many had been sold in the last 48 hours, as well as the date and time of the purchases. It turned out that two suitcases had been sold. From there, they pulled up the store surveillance footage for the dates and times of the two purchases. One of the suitcases was sold to a woman at around 3pm on September 12, and the other to a man in his 20s. The woman was ruled out as a suspect.

The man was Hispanic, in good physical condition, with a close-cut hairstyle, and wore a green shirt. He appeared extremely cool and calm as he made his purchases. According to the tape, he bought the suitcase at the prime shopping hour of 3:30 a.m. He also purchased a pair of latex gloves. The tape caught him driving a large, red pickup truck. Despite giving the impression that he knew exactly what he was doing, he made a huge error while shopping: paying with his debit card.

Investigators served the Lubbock Walmart with a federal subpoena, so they could find out the man’s name from the debit card he used.

Rosendo Rodriguez: The Man With The Suitcase

It was 25-year-old Rosendo Rodriguez III. Rodriguez was a native of Wichita Falls, Texas, and had attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He did not have a criminal record, but he was not completely new to police. His name had come up in connection with the 2004 disappearance of a teenage girl in Lubbock, but he was never seriously considered a suspect. More on that later.

Rosendo Rodriguez in his Marines uniform (source: Daily Mail)

Rodriguez was in the Marine reserves, and was in Lubbock for training at the time. He was staying at the convention-center Holiday Inn, where he checked in on September 9. Strangely, he opted to stay at a different Holiday Inn from the rest of his reserve unit. When he checked in, he gave the name “Thomas Rogriguez”.

On September 15th, two days after Summer’s body was discovered, a warrant was issued for Rodriguez’s arrest. His debit card records showed he used it to pay for his room at the Holiday Inn. Some investigators made their way to the hotel, and others began the nearly 6 hour journey south to San Antonio, where Rodriguez lived with his parents. They also went to Midland, Texas, where Rodriguez returned the red pickup truck he was using while in Lubbock to the rental car company. Once they found the truck, they photographed and processed it for evidence.

In the hotel room, investigators discovered a number of incriminating pieces of evidence, including a tag from the new suitcase, Walmart bags and a condom wrapper. Next to the bed was a pool of dried blood on the carpet. There was blood splatter on the box springs and mattress. They found latex gloves thrown in a trash can down the hall from Rodriguez’s hotel room. The blood on the carpet and the bed was tested for DNA, and came back as a match to Summer Baldwin. The latex gloves were also tested for DNA; they had traces on them from Summer and Rodriguez.

Even more evidence came to the attention of investigators in the form of a report generated by Rodriguez’s room card. It showed a list of times he used the card to enter the room, and it corresponded well with how investigators expected Rodriguez had spent the night of September 12th and 13th. Rodriguez used the card at 12:30 a.m. on the 13th, which is when he likely entered the hotel room with Summer. This was backed up by a witness who came forward, saying they saw Summer in a large red pickup truck with a Hispanic man with a very short haircut. The keycard was then used to enter the room at 3:50 a.m., 20 minutes after Rodriguez was caught on the surveillance footage at Walmart buying the suitcase.

Rodriguez was apprehended later on the 15th at his home in San Antonio. He invoked his right to an attorney right away, and would not speak to investigators without one. A number of items were seized from his home, including his computer, phone, a bus ticket he had purchased to get home after dropping off his rental truck in Midland, a rental car agreement for the truck, and the green shirt he was wearing on the surveillance footage.

After arriving home, Rodriguez spent time making a number of incriminating searches on his computer. He did not do much to cover his tracks. He searched for Summer Baldwin and information about a woman’s body being found in a Lubbock landfill. Then, once he tired of searching for stories about the woman he killed, he began browsing various dating websites.

Two weeks after Rodriguez was arrested, his attorney reached out to investigators, saying that his client wanted to speak with them.

Rodriguez told investigators that he and Summer had consensual sex in the hotel room that night. He had worn a condom, which was why no traces of his DNA were found on her.

When they finished, she began smoking crack, Rodriguez said, which he disapproved of. In his words, he grabbed the pipe away from her, and she attacked him with a knife. In order to defend himself, he put her in a chokehold and she died, he told them. He failed to explain the close to 50 injuries she had sustained and the fact her blood was splattered around the hotel room. Nor did he have any defensive wounds, which surely he would have, if she really had come at him with a knife.

Joanna Rogers

Lubbock District Attorney Matt Powell wrote an article for the Texas District & County Attorneys Association about this case. It’s an interesting account of his experience working it, and I highly recommend reading it.

Powell wrote in the article that as they were investigating Rodriguez for Summer’s murder, he couldn’t stop thinking about the disappearance of the teenage girl I mentioned earlier. Her name was Joanna Rogers, and she was just 16 when she disappeared in May 2004. Rodriguez and Joanna were both found to have posted a number of times in the same internet chatroom.

Powell had this feeling in his gut that Rodriguez was involved in Joanna’s disappearance. So he made what he described as a “deal with the devil”. Once he consulted the families of Summer Baldwin and Joanna Rogers and got their blessing, he went to Rodriguez’s attorney and laid out a deal. He said that if Rodriguez had anything to do with Joanna’s disappearance, and if he could help them find her body, he would offer him life in prison and would not pursue the death penalty in Summer’s case.

Powell’s gut feeling proved correct. Rodriguez told the detectives, in his words, what happened between him and Joanna Rogers. He had been living in Lubbock at the time, and Joanna’s house was about 20 minutes away. In the early hours of May 4, 2004, Joanna had come over to his place. This lined up with his phone records, which showed he made two calls to Joanna’s home phone early on May 4; the first call lasted 10 minutes, the second lasted just one minute.

Rodriguez claimed that soon after Joanna arrived, they had consensual sex. After, she demanded he pay her, and he refused. She began blackmailing him, telling him that she would go to the police and tell them he had raped a 16-year-old girl. They began fighting and he strangled her to death. He retrieved a suitcase, put her body inside, and threw it in a dumpster as he had with Summer. His manner as he recounted these callous acts with so little emotion left detectives cold.

There is a system used by landfill workers when it comes to where they take trash within the landfill. At least, there was in this landfill in 2004. So investigators were actually able to find out from Rodriguez which dumpster he put Joanna in, and with that information, they could determine which section of the landfill the dumpster would have been taken.

They were able to secure a grant of $100,000 from the governor’s office to fund the search of the landfill. Searchers wore full bodysuits as they sifted through the heaps of trash in the sweltering Texas heat. They searched for two months and had no luck. They were beginning to lose hope. But then, miraculously, they found her. In a suitcase, just as Rodriguez said.

It was nothing short of a miracle that they found her, Powell would later say, as the landfill was reportedly three football fields long and “about two years worth of trash deep”.

Finally, Joanna was coming home and her family could actually say goodbye.

On the day that Rodriguez was due to enter his guilty plea, he changed his mind. He would no longer plead guilty and would take his chances at trial. On learning this, the prosecution filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty. A jury of Rodriguez’s peers would decide his fate.

Given the media attention the case received in Lubbock County, it was determined that Rodriguez could not receive a fair trial there. Everybody knew about the case and 90% of people had already made up their minds with regards to his guilt. As a result, the trial was moved to Randall County, 100 miles north of Lubbock.

Just a note about Rodriguez’s trial: his statement in which he confessed to murdering Joanna was not voluntary because it was part of a plea agreement. And even though he had backed out of the plea deal, it was inadmissible in court. So Rodriguez was going to trial for the murder of Summer Baldwin, but not Joanna Rogers. Powell described this as a “messed up area of our law”.

Rodriguez Goes To Trial

Rodriguez’s trial began on March 26, 2008. He was indicted on two charges, the first being murder during sexual assault, and the second being murder of two or more individuals, as Summer was pregnant at the time of her death. Both charges are punishable by death in Texas.

For the first, the prosecution laid out the physical injuries Summer suffered through the testimony of the pathologist, Dr. Sridhar Natarajan. For the jury, he went over the more than 50 blunt force injuries she had sustained over her entire body. He also detailed the sexual trauma she had suffered. This led him to conclude that she had, in fact, been raped, and the sex was not consensual, as Rodriguez claimed.

On top of this, none of her injuries caused her death, although they were severe enough to render her unconscious. She was still alive when Rodriguez put her in the suitcase. The way she was positioned, combined with the lack of oxygen was what killed her, the pathologist said. As I mentioned earlier, her cause of death was officially “positional asphyxiation”

The testimony from the pathologist made it clear to the jury that Rodriguez did not kill Summer in self-defense. Her injuries were numerous and brutal, while his were non-existent.

For the second charge, they referenced the definition of “individual” from the Texas Penal Code. It says that an "individual" is a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.

Powell rested the prosecution’s case with a particularly powerful closing argument. He showed the jury the suitcase, which had been in evidence up to that point, therefore it was still in the condition it had been in when investigators pulled it from the landfill nearly three years earlier. He told the jury that Rodriguez had intended for it to be Summer Baldwin’s final resting place. Then, he placed three roses on the suitcase. One was for Summer and one for her unborn baby. The third rose was for Joanna Rogers, who the jury never got to hear about.

The jury deliberated for less than 3 hours, before returning their verdict that Rosendo Rodriguez was guilty of the rape and murder of Summer Baldwin.

Next was the punishment phase of the trial, in which the jury would decide if Rodriguez should be put to death. During the investigation, multiple women from Rodriguez’s past came forward to prosecutors, describing how Rodriguez had raped them. One was his high school girlfriend and another four were from Texas Tech University.

Assistant District Attorney Trey Payne questioned each of the women at trial. They all described Rodriguez as a handsome, charming individual who initially seemed like a nice guy. However, when they went to bed with him, he became violent. They were terrified of Rodriguez, which is why they never told anyone that he raped them. He had a knack for choosing victims he felt would not speak out against him.

After the jury heard from the five women, there was a short hearing about Joanna Rogers. However, only specific pieces of information could be used in the trial. Rodriguez’s confession that he killed Joanna was not one of these. The jury heard from Joanna’s father, Joe Bill Rogers, about the last time he saw his daughter. An FBI agent testified about the phone calls Rodriguez made to Joanna’s home on the night she disappeared. Next, a Lubbock police detective testified that Rodriguez had searched for articles about Joanna’s disappearance at the same time he was searching for news about Summer’s murder. Rodriguez also reportedly downloaded photos of Joanna to his computer.

During their arguments, the defense, trying to prevent Rodriguez from being put to death, called multiple character witnesses. They were mostly from Rodriguez’s own family. They described him as loving, caring and intelligent. His aunt recalled a 14 year old Rodriguez announcing that he would one day be the first Latino President of the United States.

Rodriguez’s own father took the stand. He testified that he used to be a violent alcoholic who would beat his wife and children. His son suffered immensely as a result, he said.

Finally, Rodriguez’s mother told the jury that her son had always been a respectful and kind person. He had his own son, she said, Rosendo Rodriguez IV - a boy who was 6 years old when his father’s trial was taking place. It did not sound as though Rodriguez had much of a relationship with his son, however, having only seen him 3 times in his life.

Rodriguez Is Sentenced To Death

The jury deliberated for about 2 ½ hours. When they returned, they recommended the death penalty.

Rodriguez’s attorneys continued to fight, filing numerous appeals on behalf of their client right up until the end.

They questioned the credibility of the medical examiner’s testimony that Summer was sexually assaulted - which was what made the case eligible for the death penalty. Unsurprisingly, this appeal went nowhere - it was very clear from Summer’s autopsy, and the testimony from the other women raped by Rodriguez, that he was a sadistic, dangerous man who was absolutely capable of sexual violence.

They appealed his case to the Supreme Court, but this was rejected less than 30 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed. The appeal was described as improper, untimely and meritless, and “nothing more than a last ditch effort”.

Rodriguez never expressed remorse for the murders or the pain he caused the victims’ families. When asked if he had any final words before his execution, he went on a 7-minute long rant in which he urged people to boycott businesses in Texas until the state got rid of the death penalty. He complained about his appeals being rejected by the court.

"The state may have my body but they never had my soul,” he said.

He ended by pronouncing: “I’ve fought the good fight, I have run the good race. Warden, I’m ready to join my father.”

Rosendo Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 6:46 p.m. on March 27, 2018.

Joanna’s father remarked after the execution that an apology from Rodriguez would not have made a bit of difference, as he only cared about himself. He’s a sociopath, he said.

Summer’s mother said that Rodriguez, “went to his maker and he’s got justice now.”

District Attorney Powell said in an interview with the Texas Tribune that Rodriguez’s execution brought him no joy. However, in this case, the right guy got the appropriate punishment, he said.

“Who sticks a human being in a suitcase and throws them out with the trash. This was a guy that, left unchecked, was going to hurt somebody else again and was going to continue to terrorize women.”