IL IL - Rosemary Peterson, 23, Rockford, 5 December 1979

The headline says it all "Police Hunt Slasher in Killing." Twenty-three-year old Rosemary Peterson was tied to her bed, cut and stabbed repeatedly, and left to die in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Willard Colwell, Jr. It was Dec. 5, 1979. Neighbors heard noises in their Edelweiss Road duplex.

Deputy Chief Dominic Iasparro with the Rockford Police Department says, "Actually, the neighbors had called out to them as they heard an argument, said what's going on in there? A male voice said Rose and I are just having an argument. The neighbors called the police. (...)

Police even believe they might have spoken to the killer while they surveyed the crime scene.

Iasparro says, "Apparently, to check to see what was going on there. He gave a false name. We were never able to identify who the caller was. We believe the caller very well could have been the killer and talked to the officers on the scene at that time."

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http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/875526.html

http://967theeagle.net/can-you-help-solve-these-8-rockford-cold-cases/

Rosemary Peterson – Waiting 36 Years for Justice

Twenty-three-year old Rosemary Peterson was tied to her bed, cut and stabbed repeatedly, and left to die in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Willard Colwell, Jr. It was Dec. 5, 1979. Neighbors heard noises in their Edelweiss Road duplex.

Deputy Chief Dominic Iasparro with the Rockford Police Department says, “Actually, the neighbors had called out to them as they heard an argument, said what’s going on in there? A male voice said Rose and I are just having an argument. The neighbors called the police. By the time the police got there the suspect had fled and they found Rosemary Peterson who was severely injured.”
Police even believe they might have spoken to the killer while they surveyed the crime scene.
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Thank you so much for following up with this. It's been too long that this solvable case has been unsolved.

I don't see any sketch or description online of the man who police talked to at the crime scene? I wonder why they didn't do that.

I know they think they talked a man who might be a suspect that night. I wasn't aware of any subject that was actually seen by anyone. Nice to have some support from her hometown Clementine.

Ahh, okay. I had to re read that.. It doesn't sound like police had much to go on. It's just so sad that a killer can get so lucky as to just slip away. I wish they'd been able to identify him.

Nov 11 2022
''Entering the house, the girls were met with one of the bloodiest crime scenes ever investigated in Rockford, second perhaps only to the one left by Simon Peter Nelson, who in 1978 killed his six children with a knife and mallet inside their home.

Rosemary Peterson was found tied to a bedpost. She’d been stabbed multiple times and suffered a massive blow to the head. One of her hands was nearly cut off, presumably by one of the several kitchen knives or the machete found at the scene. She died the next day.''

“The attack was so brutal that it would point to someone who knew her or had watched or stalked her enough to know when her fiancé worked,” said author Kathi Kresol, who has written about the case over the years.''