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How shocking was Amanda’s murder?

“This particular case was pretty shocking. Female at 20 years old, stabbed to death in a horrific way. It was a Nike shoe print that was on the scene. It was about a size 7 and a half.”

“Had a lot of friends and co-workers. She was loved by many people.”

“He was definitely very controlling and very erratic. He was one of the suspect definitely on our radar screen.”

“We had a lot of times where we thought we were getting close to a possible suspect and it would come to a dead end.”

“What did we miss? Where do we go from here?”

“What were you thinking when he told you that he had watched Amanda die?”

“He was definitely not going home. We were making an arrest on him and we had all the evidence we needed.”

Hi, I’m Nancy Odell. Today’s crime exposé brings us to Chicopee, Massachusetts, a small city outside of Springfield. This quiet New England community became the unlikely scene of a shocking murder when a popular waitress was killed inside of her own home. Would a hidden clue be the key to finally solving the case?

On August 26th, around 6:45 p.m., a frantic 911 call came into the Chicopee 911.

“What is the emergency?”

“When Seth called 911, what did he tell the operator?”

“He’s, you know, panically saying that he had just found his girlfriend uh on the floor in a pool of blood.”

His girlfriend was 20-year-old Amanda Plasse. Seth told the operator he discovered her in the kitchen of her apartment and believed she had been stabbed to death. Police rushed to the scene and were shocked by what they saw when they arrived. Amanda had been the victim of a violent homicide.

“It’s a horrific scene. She was stabbed multiple times and it appeared that there was a struggle. The kitchen was covered in blood spatter. The table had been pushed out of place and there was a dent on the side of the refrigerator as if Amanda had been forcibly thrown into it.”

“It was clear she had done everything she could to try and save her life, even struggling on the floor with her attacker until her very last breath. It was almost like she was on the floor and had done somewhat like a snow angel in blood itself, trying to fight for her life.”

Investigators searched the home and quickly ruled out robbery as a motive. Her apartment was pristine clean and there was nothing that should have been disturbed.

“The apartment, cuz she was kind of a neat freak.”

Although most of the apartment was undisturbed, detectives discovered a broken window in the back room leading to the porch. At first, they wondered if that was how the killer got into Amanda’s apartment, but crime scene technicians determined it had been broken from the inside. The shattered glass on the floor revealed a key piece of evidence.

“We did see some palm prints.”

Investigators lifted the partial palm prints from the glass and moved into the kitchen to collect more evidence.

“We were able to see that there was a bloody footprint on that kitchen floor.”

And since the blood in the kitchen had dried by the time investigators arrived on the scene, they believe the footprints belong to the killer.

“And there’s only one set of footprints that’s there. It’s a consistent right and left shoe print.”

Expert analysis of the footprint determined it had been made by a Nike running shoe. When the print was measured for size, investigators were shocked: it was a size 7, 7 and a half.

“So what was so surprising about that? Not many men that wear that size sneaker.”

Amanda’s body was removed from the scene and taken to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy. The cause of death was multiple stab wounds. The medical examiner counted 15 wounds in total, seven of which could have been fatal. Since it was clear Amanda had tried to defend herself, Sergeant Gibbons knew there was a possibility that the suspect’s DNA was on her body.

“She put up a fight. We might want to get the clippings from her underneath her fingernails.”

His instincts paid off. The nail clippings provided police with an unknown male DNA profile.

“And it was a home run because that was one of the reasons why we was able to get—we were able to get DNA. That was the DNA skin that she was able to scratch and fight for her life.”

But in order to catch Amanda’s killer, police would first have to find a suspect to compare the evidence to. With no clear motive and no sign of forced entry into the apartment, detectives became convinced the murder was personal and quickly turned their attention to Seth, Amanda’s distraught boyfriend. Was he a witness or their first prime suspect?

Police in Chicopee, Massachusetts had just discovered the body of 20-year-old Amanda Plasse, brutally murdered inside her own home. It was a crime that shocked the city of Chicopee.

“It is very horrific and very devastating. We know that we have to get rolling and try to solve this case.”

“It came from a nice family in Chicopee. Had a lot of friends and she was loved by many people.”

While detectives brought her boyfriend, Seth Green, to the police station for questioning, investigators also tried to create a timeline of Amanda’s last moments alive.

“What were Amanda’s plans supposed to be that afternoon?”

“What we learned was Amanda Plasse, 20 years old, was getting ready to go to work at a local ice cream establishment here in Western Mass called Friendly Restaurants.”

A neighbor told police he had seen Amanda getting her mail outside of her home around 4:00 p.m. When Seth called 911 at 6:45, the blood in the kitchen was already dry. So they estimated that Amanda had been murdered sometime between 4:00 and 5:30 p.m. Detectives wanted to know where Seth Green was during that time.

“He was one of the suspects, definitely on our radar screen. His whole scenario was that he worked a roofing company.”

Seth told detectives that normally he would be off work by 5:00 p.m. and would drive Amanda to her job, but that day he was asked to stay late.

“We were very suspect of that, that this one particular day of every day this week, of the five days this week, this now being Friday, that you didn’t pick her up. It was very unusual.”

Throughout the interview, Seth was highly emotional and kept saying how much he loved Amanda. Even though they had just started dating, he was passionate about how much he loved her.

“And it was kind of unusual that that’s this passion that came out for doing the interview, but at the same time we looked at that as, is it crocodile tears or not? And we didn’t know if he was crying for himself or he was crying because this had happened.”

Seth agreed to give a DNA sample, a palm print sample, and he also let detectives measure his feet. In the end, his DNA and palm print weren’t a match to the evidence, and the shoe prints couldn’t have been his either.

“Is it because of the size? What size foot did Seth have?”

“Seth was wearing boots. He was set about a size 11 and a half, 12 in his boots.”

After being eliminated as a suspect, Seth told police they should be looking at Amanda’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse, with whom she worked. He said the day before Amanda’s murder, Jesse went ballistic when Seth came into the restaurant.

“Jesse actually got fired from Friendly’s on that Thursday because he really flipped out when he saw the two of them kissing. And you know, he made some threats like he’s going to come back to the apartment—’You know, she’ll see what he can do’—and things like that.”

Police brought Jesse in for questioning. He said he was with his friend Kyle out of town all day Friday. But when police asked Kyle to verify his alibi, he could not. Kyle finally came in with his parents and said:

“Nope. We were at the beach down in Connecticut, but Jesse wasn’t with us.”

Detectives were now even more suspicious of Jesse.

“I would definitely say Jesse was a prime suspect.”

When confronted, he broke down and admitted that he had lied because he had actually taken his parents’ car without their permission and didn’t want to get in trouble. Ultimately, he ended up going to a place called Genrose to cash his check.

“While we actually had film footage of him showing up at Genrose just about 4:30 p.m. He was there for about 30 minutes.”

Since the place was on the other side of town, it would have been almost impossible for him to have committed the murder. Still, investigators asked Jesse for samples of his DNA, palm prints, and shoe prints. And once again, there was no match. And Jesse also had a larger foot as well.

“I believe Jesse was like a size 10 and a half.”

The case had hit another dead end. Police continued following leads until eventually there were none left.

“We had over 50 DNA samples that we had submitted to the lab. And we’re not getting anything back hitting on the DNA that was underneath her fingerprints. And then more time began to pass.”

“So what were you thinking? What did we miss? Where are we going from here?”

Those questions haunted Detective Gibbons for 2 years. And then one day, as he went through the crime scene pictures for what felt like the millionth time, he saw it—a tiny clue that had been missed.

“You notice this whiteboard in the background, and it has on the whiteboard, it’s got a ‘Dennis was here 8/11’.”

Would that tiny piece of writing finally lead him to Amanda’s killer? The Amanda Plasse murder had gone unsolved for more than 2 years, but detectives now had a new lead: “Dennis was here 8/11” was written on a dry erase board just 2 weeks before her murder.

“So it’s like, wow, ‘Dennis was here.’ Someone wrote ‘Dennis was here.’ It was like a new name.”

Detectives quickly got to work trying to figure out who Dennis could be.

“How were you able to link Amanda and Dennis?”

“We were able to quickly go through records, phone records, and find that there was a dentist that was in touch with her through the phone, her calling history.”

Not only had Amanda been communicating with a man named Dennis Rosa-Roman around the time of her murder, the same Dennis also lived close to her home in 2011.

“And then we found out that Dennis actually lived maybe a block and a half away from that scene itself.”

Investigators went to speak with Rosa-Roman. They approached him as he was walking down the street and asked him point-blank about Amanda Plasse.

“They want to talk about a girl named Amanda Plasse, and he says, ‘Uh, I don’t know any Amanda.’”

It was clear Rosa-Roman was nervous, and detectives caught a huge break when they saw him light a cigarette.

“So what was going through your mind when you saw him smoke that cigarette?”

“I’m looking at that cigarette as possible DNA to get off the cigarette.”

As Sergeant Gibbons started asking more questions, Rosa-Roman said he had to go. Gibbons then did everything he could to try and stall him.

“So I was basically buying time, and ultimately Dennis is getting frustrated, and he drops the cigarette.”

Sergeant Gibbons had his partner go to the car and get a bag and rubber gloves. He then picked up the cigarette and brought it back to the station to send off for DNA testing. Early the next morning, he saw that Rosa-Roman had called him multiple times.

“He is blowing my phone up at 6:30 in the morning. ‘I gotta talk to you! I gotta talk to you!’”

“Why did you guys grab my cigarette?”

Sergeant Gibbons told him if he wanted to come in for an interview, he would explain everything. Rosa-Roman agreed and later that morning sat down with detectives. This time, he said he did know Amanda but had never been in her apartment before.

“They met at a local convenience store, small grocery store.”

Rosa-Roman denied having anything to do with her murder. As the interview continued, Detective Fitzgerald noticed something about his feet. He was wearing a pair of Nike running shoes and they seemed pretty small.

“During the interview, I asked him, ‘Hey Dennis, I like your sneakers. What size shoe do you wear?’ He said, ‘This, seven.’”

Detectives were shocked.

“We believe he actually had the same sneakers from the crime scene on him that day.”

Investigators were closing in on their killer. They just needed the DNA results to prove they were right. And that came the next day.

“I was almost floored when they told us, ‘You got it! You got the match.’ And now we were able to go back into the room knowing that, yep, we have the right person.”

When confronted with the DNA match, Rosa-Roman changed his story once again.

“Where he says, ‘Okay, I was there. I saw her die.’ And when he says, ‘I saw her die,’ we knew he had them, because he had never admitted being there. And this is the first person that admitted that they were in the apartment. And he says that he saw her take her last breath.”

Investigators weren’t buying his new story that he saw her take her last breath but didn’t kill her. The partial palm print was also a match to Dennis Rosa-Roman. He was arrested and charged with the murder of Amanda Plasse.

In June of 2016, almost 5 years after Amanda Plasse’s brutal murder, Dennis Rosa-Roman finally stood trial. After eight days of testimony and 5 hours of deliberation, the jury announced it had reached a verdict.

“Court has hereby sentenced you for the term of your natural life without the possibility of parole.”

The case that had haunted police for so long was finally over.

“But you just never know. And you’ve been at that dance so many times that it says, you know, you’re just waiting for a jury to come back and say guilty or not guilty. And for 12 unanimous people to see the same thing that we saw, was just like a redemption. Like, wow! We could take a breath.”

“This is such a sad case, a senseless homicide, should have never happened. It was a sad day for the family, but it was a redemption type of day that finally truth was served, that they finally were able to see the light and come to a conclusion.”

Dennis Rosa-Roman was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. To this day, he has never admitted to killing Amanda and the motive is still unclear. And now it’s time for today’s safety spotlight.

Amanda Plasse was adored by friends and family and had a bright future ahead of her. She was tragically stabbed to death by someone she thought was a friend. Personal safety is a significant concern for everyone, and being proactive can make a big difference. Trust your instincts. Listen to that inner voice warning you that something is just not right. And when something feels off, or if you sense a threat, trust yourself and do what you can to avoid or prepare for a potential confrontation.

“And police say call 911 if you feel at all in danger. And if it turns out that there wasn’t a threat, it’s okay. It’s their job to keep you safe.”

And if you are violently confronted, your priority should be to escape, not to engage in a physical altercation. Put as much distance between yourself and the attacker as possible. And if you can, consider carrying a personal alarm on a keychain that can emit a loud sound to attract attention and possibly deter an attacker. And since every case is unique, you can learn more about avoiding these risks by reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, the nation’s leading expert on personal safety.

I’m Nancy Odell. For all of us here at Crime Exposé, please join us next time and stay safe.