IA IA - Lee Rotatori, 32, Council Bluffs, 24 June 1982

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/st.../gone-cold-lee-rotatori-killed-1982/86086618/

The body of Lee Rotatori was found in Room 106 at the Best Western Frontier Motor Lodge in Council Bluffs on the afternoon of Friday, June 25, 1982. She was found wearing pajamas and lying on her back in a pool of blood on the bed. She had been stabbed once in the heart... Police found no signs of forced entry or any kind of struggle...

Rotatori had lived at the motel for about a week while in training for her new job...

On Thursday, June 24, Rotatori had spent a few hours boating with other employees from the hospital. That gathering broke up at dusk and Rotatori stopped at McDonald’s to pick up food... he’d made a purchase for only one person and she was not seen by any motel personnel as she entered her ground-floor room.

Click to expand...

The article refers to another motel murder - Linda Mayfield, stabbed at the Starlite in April 1982. Still unsolved and unknown if related, but there is a suspect description.

Lee also had a husband back in Michigan who was supposed to relocate with her for this new job.

Lee Gunsalus Rotatori
32 YOA
Found in Best Western Frontier Motor Lodge
2216 27th Avenue, Rm #106
Council Bluffs, IA
Pottawattamie County
Case Number: F82-2558
June 25, 1982

Case Summary compiled by Jody Ewing

Council Bluffs Police officers were sent to investigate the death of a female at the Best Western Frontier Motor Lodge motel at 2216 27th Avenue in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at 12:27 p.m. Friday, June 25, 1982, after a motel employee found a body...

Police found the victim in Room 106 — clad in pajamas and lying on her back in a pool of blood on the bed’s right side — and identified her as Lee Rotatori, 32, of Nunica, Michigan.

There were no signs of forced entry or any kind of struggle.

Rotatori had lived at the motel for about a week while in training for her new job as food service director at Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs.

Married to a Killer

Rotatori’s second (and third) husband, Gerald Stanley “Jerry” Nemke, had remained in Michigan while his wife came to Iowa for the training...

Dr. Samuel Rosa, Pottawattamie County medical examiner, said Rotatori died from a single knife wound to the heart, inflicted from the front. She may have been dead about 12 hours before her body was found, Rosa said.

Rosa told the Daily Nonpareil the death — the city’s third homicide in 1982 — “could have been sexually motivated,” but police Capt. Eldon Jones, head of the criminal investigation unit, said no conclusive evidence had been garnered to support that theory.

Council Bluffs Police Chief Ed Dinovo announced on Tuesday, June 30, that Michigan state police post in Grand Haven had joined the investigation and that investigators were checking Mrs. Rotatori’s background.

A Bright Future
According to a Sunday (Omaha) World-Herald article dated July 4, 1962, Rotatori had gone boating on Lake Manawa with some new hospital friends Thursday afternoon — the day before she was found dead...

LINK:

Lee Rotatori

It’s finally over. Council Bluffs Police solves decades-old cold case murder

Great. Interesting case.

Of course, since the perpetrator is dead, it’s obligatory to add him to my “collection”. Does anyone have more information on Thomas O. Freeman?

Murdered trucker named prime suspect in cold case 1982 sex killing of woman, 32 | Daily Mail Online
Thomas O. Freeman - Bing images


DNA evidence links suspect to 1982 Iowa cold case death | who13.com
''In 2019, investigators submitted the DNA to another lab that began a genetic genealogy case and concluded last year that the DNA was from Freeman, who had lived in the southern Illinois community of West Frankfort. Police told the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil that Freeman was a trucker and that they think he killed Rotatori while he was passing through the area.

Freeman’s body was found in October 1982 in a shallow grave near Cobden, Illinois, a village about 30 miles southwest of West Frankfort. He had been shot multiple times and was 35 when he died. Investigators believe he was killed about three months before his body was found. Police said they don’t have a suspect in his death.

Authorities said they are trying to determine if the two deaths are somehow linked.''

So it would appear that Thomas Oscar Freeman was born on May 10, 1947 and served in the military during the Vietnam War. I have no idea when he was last seen alive, just that his body was found on October 30, 1982 and he had been dead for three months. Any information on when he was last seen alive is welcome.

Freeman’s own murder is currently unsolved, but Lee Rotatori’s husband (now deceased) is a person of interest.

Police: DNA links slain Illinois man to 1982 killing in Iowa
By The Associated Press
February 25, 2022

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Investigators in Iowa used genealogical data to link the 1982 fatal stabbing of a woman to an Illinois trucker who was found shot to death in a shallow grave months later, authorities announced Friday.

Police in Council Bluffs, which sits on Iowa’s western border across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska, believe Thomas O. Freeman killed 32-year-old Lee Rotatori at a local hotel in June of 1982...

In 2019, investigators submitted the DNA to another lab that began a genetic genealogy case and concluded last year that the DNA was from Freeman, who had lived in the southern Illinois community of West Frankfort....

Freeman’s body was found in October 1982 in a shallow grave near Cobden, Illinois, a village about 30 miles southwest of West Frankfort. He had been shot multiple times and was 35 when he died. Investigators believe he was killed about three months before his body was found. Police said they don’t have a suspect in his death.

Authorities said they are trying to determine if the two deaths are somehow linked...

LINK:

Police: DNA links slain Illinois man to 1982 killing in Iowa

It would not appear that Lee's husband was ever considered as a person of interest in the death of Freeman. The connection between Lee and Freeman was not made until 2019. Unless her husband was far better than the police at making the connection way back in 1982, he would be an unlikely suspect.

If, in fact, Freeman was in the habit of raping and killing women, it is quite likely that he finally just picked the wrong victim and in the end got what he deserved.

Sorry no internet link. Just my own opinion and theory.

Oct 2 2022
''Now, the Rotatori case and how police were finally able to crack it is the subject of tonight’s episode of the Investigation Discovery true crime documentary series, “On the Case with Paula Zahn.”

“Anytime you have a law enforcement agency that’s able to solve a 40-year-old homicide, with DNA evidence, of course, and a new — a very new process, for most people — that’s just exciting, you know,” CBPD Crime Lab Manager Katie Pattee said in an interview with The Daily Nonpareil. “I think people really just think that that’s cool, and it is cool.”

Lee Gunsalus Rotatori​

BIRTH 29 Sep 1949
Fargo, Cass County, North Dakota, USA
DEATH 25 Jun 1982 (aged 32)
Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, USA
BURIAL Cremated
PLOTCRM, 0, 0

LINK:

Thomas Oscar Freeman, Murderer, Murdered​

BIRTH 10 May 1947 Herrin, Williamson County, Illinois, USA
DEATH 30 Oct 1982 (aged 35) Union County, Illinois, USA
BURIAL Denning Cemetery Orient, Franklin County, Illinois, USA

Authorities in Illinois on Oct. 30, 1982, discovered Freeman's decomposing remains hastily buried in a shallow grave just outside of Cobden. It was determined he died after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds approximately three months prior to the discovery of his body. His killer has never been identified.

In 2022, authorities announced that Freeman murdered Lee Rotatori in June 1982 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Freeman was identified using DNA evidence and forensic genetic genealogy.

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