The Murder of Rose Tashman, May 1969
Rose Tashman was born in Israel; she and her parents — Mr & Mrs Charles Tashman — moved to the US in 1962. Rose graduated from Fairfax High School in June 1967. By 1969, she and her parents lived at 448 N Formosa Ave in Hollywood, and she was a student at San Fernando Valley State College. She planned to enroll in the fall at UCLA. Rose had dark hair and dark eyes.
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| Rose Tashman's 1967 Fairfax High School senior yearbook photo. |
At 6pm on Monday, May 19, Sgt Eugene Thompson was on patrol in the area when he spotted a nude female body in the bushes near Mulholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon Rd in the Hollywood Hills. The body was found in a brushy ravine near Beverly Drive, only 0.5mi from where Marina Habe was found four months earlier.
Rose's parents reported her missing either that Monday or on Tuesday, May 20. Police made the connection, and her parents identified the body as Rose's.
She was found nude, and she had been strangled with a piece of wire about nine hours before she was found, putting her death at around 9am Monday. Detectives believed that she had been driven to the spot where her body was found, then raped, strangled, and dumped in the ravine. According to a couple clippings, she had also possibly been beaten.
The autopsy indicated that there was a ligature abrasion on Rose's neck and her hyoid bone was intact. Newspapers stated that she had been raped; the autopsy reported that there was bruising of the labia. A vaginal swab was sent to the lab to test for semen; the results of the testing are not available in the sources I could find.
According to the autopsy report, there was a tampon in the vagina, and "The endometrium is early menstrual in type. The ovaries are congested." Both the bladder and stomach were empty. There were multiple contusions and abrasions of the skin on the face, neck, chest, abdomen, and extremities.
At one point the creator of the Zodiac-Manson Connection website had a Dr Sue Norris review multiple autopsies of interest and provide her thoughts on them. This is what she had to say about Rose's:"I don't have a lot of insight to add to this one. I do believe she was garroted rather than manually strangled or having the panty-ligature pulled tight. I believe this to be the case for a few reasons. She had extensive facial petichiae (more than what I've seen with a "normal" strangulation), cerebral congestion, and an intact hyoid bone (this usually breaks with manual strangulation). The bruising pattern in the neck tissues indicates the material used did not slip or move and concentrated the pressure intensely in one location. This is more consistent with garroting than with manual or ligature-pulled-tight types of strangulation.
I would have strongly considered this to be a murder by a stranger. But because Ms. Tashman was beaten so severely I believe it is more likely that the murderer was someone she knew."
Rose's car, a 1965 beige Mustang, was found on Tuesday, May 20th "carefully parked" on the shoulder of the inbound Hollywood Freeway's Highland Ave off-ramp. The car's front left tire was flat. Investigators estimated that the tire went flat at about 2:00 or 2:10am on Monday. Rose had a spare tire in the trunk of her car, however the key to the trunk had been recently stolen and Rose had not yet replaced it.
A string of seven flares had been placed "beside the auto to warn approaching drivers of the hazard." They had been set around the car "in a manner which would accommodate another car stopping in front of hers, police said." Rose had flares in the glove compartment of her car, however they had not been disturbed and there were none missing; police believe that the flares belonged to whoever stopped and offered her a lift. Detectives theorized that either someone picked Rose up on the freeway, or she was abducted while walking through the dark streets to find a service station or telephone.
Rose's case is still unsolved. Six months after Rose's death, the body of 19-year-old Reet Jurvetson was also found off of Mulholland Drive, as was Marina Habe's in January 1969. Rose's case was mentioned in contemporary newspaper clippings as bearing resemblance to those of Marina Habe, Reet Jurvetson, Robin Graham, and Mona Jean Gallegos.
Rose, Marina, and Reet were all found in the same two mile stretch of Mulholland Drive within in a period of ten months. All three are college-age young women of European descent who were born outside the US.
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| From west to east, locations of: Rose Tashman's body (orange), Marina Habe's body (dark blue heart), Marina Habe's purse (second dark blue heart), Reet Jurvetson's body (dark blue phone), and Rose Tashman's car (orange, far right). Created by me using Google Maps. |
According to Wikipedia, Rose's case is thought to be potentially linked to those of Robin Graham, Cheri Jo Bates, Cindy Mellin, Kathleen Johns, Christine Eastin, Ernestine Terrello, and Mona Jean Gallegos. These cases are known by some online — and referred to on this blog — as the Bad Samaritan Murders.
Rose's murder has also been mentioned multiple times in various Zodiac forums and online spaces, often in conjunction with other cases above. This is how I found out about her murder, hence the Connection tag on this event.
Sources
Santa Maria Times 11/25/69
Key pages from the autopsy report, available through the Zodiac-Manson Connection site, archived: 1, 3, 4, 5
External medical interpretation of autopsy report, archived
Robin Graham potentially linked cases Wikipedia
2017 TrueCrimeGuy blog article on Bad Samaritan murders
Zodiac-Manson Connection article on car-related abductions, archived
Car-related abductions, The Zodiac-Manson Connection, archived
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