**He Threw His Bride Overboard on Valentine’s Day**
Once upon a time, Karen Waltz and Scott Rostston are caught up in a wave of passion.
He wined and dined her, took her places. He kind of swept her off her feet.
She was ecstatic, bubbling. They had so much in common.
But one Valentine’s Day, their hopes and dreams wash away in an instant.
This was loveboat gone wrong story.
“It was like the air being sucked out of you. I was just in shock.”
For this couple, the honeymoon is over.
Young and in love, Karen Waltz and Scott Rostston are off to Vegas for a quicky wedding. She’s 26, a freethinking bohemian. He’s a decade older with the suave demeanor of a made for TV doctor.
He kind of swept her off her feet. The kind of guy a small town girl like Karen had longed to end up with.
“He was charming, intelligent. He said the right things. He did the right things. And Karen was very much in love with Scott.”
And Scott has hooked a great catch. She’s smart, fun, a total knockout. Everyone who knows Karen loves her.
“She was very easy to be comfortable around because she had this very laidback spirit.”
Laidback, but also impulsive. The kind of girl who’d follow her heart from Santa Monica to Las Vegas to elope with the man she loves.
Excited about the next chapter in their lives.
“Ready.”
The usually casual couple is dressed to kill today.
Vegas is a place where people are impulsive and where people are drinking and gambling and marriage is the ultimate gamble, isn’t it?
“Yes, let’s do it.”
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in Las Vegas.”
Even surrounded by plastic flowers and a paid witness in the marriage commissioner’s office. They both look great.
“You got the rings.”
It’s classic Vegas. No pictures, no wedding guests.
“Your turn.”
They’ve told their families, but want to do this on their own.
“By the power invested in me in the great state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”
Now that they’re Mr. and Mrs. Rostston, they beeline back to the coast for a honeymoon cruise aboard a lovely ship called Star Dancer.
Here was a honeymooning couple embarking on a new life, literally on a ship.
Couples love cruises for honeymoons. It’s like a floating fantasy universe where there’s nothing really to do except go back to your cabin and consummate your marriage or go to the big buffet tables or lie by the pool. Cruises are perfect honeymoon venues.
“They were a very happy normal couple just enjoying that time together.”
The newlyweds are the center of attention at the Diamond Decks formal restaurant. By day they enjoy exercise, Mexican ports like Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas and each other.
These stories are so poignant. They stay with people because they are about normal events, ordinary events in everyone’s life. You get married, you go on your honeymoon, happy time.
And happy time is coming to a close. It’s the night before Valentine’s Day, the last night of the cruise. Star Dancer is closing in on Los Angeles. Tomorrow will be Karen and Scott’s first Valentine’s Day as a married couple.
But late that night, the unimaginable.
“Somebody help me. Captain, my wife’s been blown overboard.”
Karen has fallen overboard, over the rail and into the dark, cold wind right over.
“They have to find her fast.”
“Chances of survival could be pretty slim given the temperature of the water. They just can’t tread water for that long period of time.”
The Coast Guard has called in from San Diego to launch a fullscale search by sea and air.
There’s so much irony here. This is supposed to be the beginning of a beautiful, happy life together. Instead, on a romantic cruise, on their honeymoon, on Valentine’s Day, she goes missing.
How could this have happened to an athletic woman like Karen, who was always so comfortable in the water?
Karen loved the ocean. She was a great swimmer, very strong. We went to the beach as children and on the weekends. We used to have tea parties in the water, underneath the water.
Karen grows up along the beaches of Florida with a sister and a single mom. Her dad left when she was a baby. Mom raises her two girls with tons of love, but on a shoestring.
“My mom was extremely hardworking, often worked two jobs to send us to a private school and to provide for us. There wasn’t a lot of money left over. She was determined that her girls were not going to live the hard struggle of a life that she had.”
Mom makes sure they’re able to follow their dreams. And Karen’s dream is dance. So mom finds the money for lessons.
“She was extremely graceful. Karen could do amazing things. She was meant to dance.”
Karen was a very healthconscious person. She was known to run 10 miles a day.
Active in Tai Chi, taekwondo.
When she enrolls in massage school, it’s a match made in heaven.
“It’s a gift. You’re born with it. And bringing that energy that you would have to have to be a great dancer. She brought that art into the massage.”
Once her hands landed on you, that gift of massage, she could relax anyone, anywhere.
Karen’s boyfriend at the time is also good with his hands. Troy is a carpenter specializing in boat building.
“They kind of matched. They’re both light-haired, blue-eyed, had been together for quite a while, and they seemed like they were best friends.”
When Karen graduates, she lands a job at a posh Palm Beach Resort. One day, while covering for another therapist, Karen finds a regular client on her table, Scott Rost.
“Wow, you’re amazing. Thank you.”
He’s cute, fit, and a chiropractor. She really likes Troy, but there’s something about this Scott.
“Oh, wow.”
He’s attracted to her, too. She’s not like some of the superficial women he’s been with. He had brought in girlfriends previously and they were these very tall flashy lots of makeup model type looking women where Karen was more of a down to earth not a lot of makeup.
It’s the very beginning of what will be a whirlwind romance.
But now they’ve been ripped apart. And somewhere in that cold, dark ocean, Karen could be clinging to life.
By dawn on Valentine’s Day, the Coast Guard is well into a massive grid search.
They would have to take into effect it would be some drift factor because of the current of the ocean. Even if they can zero in on her, it’s unlikely she could survive the impact of the fall or the cold water. Still, the searchers hope for a miracle.
Then, 10 hours into the search, one of them spots something.
When we locate her, we were I think we were lucky to find her.
What they find unleashes a mystery that will lead investigators into a world of intrigue, lies, and deception.
It’s Valentine’s Day, and Scott and Karen Rost’s romantic honeymoon has ended in the worst possible way. The Coast Guard searches off the coast of Southern California for a missing bride. After 10 hours, they close in on something bobbing on the waves.
As they got closer, they observed that it was a female. And that’s when they brought her on board and was able to determine that this was the victim that was reported that had fallen off the Star Dancer.
How could the beautiful young newlywed be just a week into her marriage? Investigators need to figure out what happened.
According to Scott, they were jogging that night and she somehow tumbled overboard, blown by the wind or losing her footing as the ship tossed. He says he hit his face on a metal box by the railing trying to save her, but she slipped away into the darkness.
Karen was alive when she hit the water. She has a bruise on her forehead. Dead bodies don’t bruise. And fluid she had breathed into her lungs. Investigators surmise she got the forehead bruise hitting something on the way down. They hope at least she was unconscious for the end.
Who can imagine a more terrifying death? That evening her sister gets the call.
“First thoughts that went through my mind were, ‘You’re talking about the wrong Karen. That couldn’t have been my sister.’ Karen was an excellent swimmer. She couldn’t have drowned. So, I was in disbelief.”
Less than a year earlier, Karen’s life in Florida is looking sunny. She really likes this interesting, worldly doctor. After graduating from chiropractic school, he spent a year in Israel with his parents, setting up a chiropractic clinic there.
Before long, the two are thinking of taking things to the next level.
For Karen, that means a tough choice.
Karen and Troy’s relationship started to deteriorate at that stage. She has to break the news that she’s found true love with someone else.
“Look, um, yeah. Um, I think Troy was devastated. I’m sure he wasn’t sure what had hit him. I think that he wanted to marry Karen.”
Karen, I’m so sorry. I just I’ve got I’ve got to go.
Troy’s great, but Scott is in a different league.
I’m sure she was blown away when she met this tough Jewish guy from the Bronx who’d been in the Navy and lived in Israel. He was 10 years older. He was wiser compared to the sweet, nice hometown guy next door who she was with. Scott seemed like a catch. He was her prince charming.
She’s dying to meet his close-knit family. In fact, they’re so tight that Scott still lives at home with his mom and his chiropractor father. She likes them immediately. And Scott’s parents like her, too. No surprise.
When she walked into the room, she lit up the room with a smile, with that energy, just that natural energy. They were very willing to embrace her in the family. Um, teaching her how to cook Scott’s favorite dishes, teaching her about the Jewish faith.
Karen learns that Scott is also an author with a fascinating story to tell. In his book, he relates the story of his time in Israel. While he was setting up the chiropractic clinic, the Israeli mob approached him about a smuggling racket. When he refused to cooperate, they had him jailed and tortured. He ultimately faked psychosis to get transferred to a mental hospital and from there talked his way into being released, then ran for the airport to get back to the safety of US soil.
I’m sure she thought this was wildly exciting. A story of international espionage and abduction. A manly man who fought himself free. He must have seemed so exciting to her.
He’s exciting and well bred.
He wined and dined her, took her places um that she’d never been before.
A little bit. He teaches her about rounds of golf and ski vacations and fancy restaurants. It’s a whole new life for her.
“Feels so natural.”
I believe that she was excited that someone like Scott would be interested in someone like her and he was able to afford her things that she wouldn’t afford otherwise.
Just as their relationship is gaining momentum, Scott makes a fateful decision. He announces he’s moving to California to jumpstart his chiropractic practice there.
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter? Okay, we talked about this.”
“I know, but it’s all the way to California.”
Long-distance relationships are never easy.
“It’s been just so good.”
But Karen is committed to making it work. She’ll visit as often as she can.
It was a long-distance relationship, but she really had fallen for him, and she was okay with that for the time being.
In beautiful Santa Monica, Scott finds roommates and a great place just off the ocean.
It turned out to be a very nice condo. When I saw it, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the place. Very nice condo. Tri-level.
Scott takes the master bedroom on the middle floor.
He seemed like a really nice guy. He told me that he was a chiropractor looking to take his boards in California and become licensed. Scott was into fitness, went to the gym quite a bit.
Being apart is really hard on Karen. This is her dream. So when he goes away soon after she falls in love, when all the early chemicals are flowing about, oh, I’ve met a great guy. Of course, she’s going to become more and more attached. Remember, she just left a boyfriend for him and now he left town and she’s the product of an abandoning daddy.
Don’t you think she might chase after him?
When Karen finally visits, she impresses everybody as usual.
“She seemed to strike me as a person who, you know, looked old and young at the same time. I personally would say an old soul.”
Somehow she knows Scott’s the one and worth the effort.
She visits again and again.
“Karen.”
Her dedication pays off.
“Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
“Yes.”
When Scott pops the question and seals the deal with a giant sparkling pear-shaped rock.
“Oh my god.”
I remember Karen being all excited when she got back to work. She was sporting a beautiful engagement ring.
Women love big rocks. You know, it implies that the guy’s wasting his money on a ring, so he must have that much more. It implies great social status.
Now she was fully a fiancée.
“Come here.”
“I’m so excited.”
It’s all working out.
But now the officers of the Star Dancer struggle to understand how an agile athlete could fall over a railing higher than her waist on a night that wasn’t windy.
Somehow Karen went over.
“My wife from going overboard.”
And Scott got pretty banged up.
Something horrible has happened. But what? The bizarre explanation is something no one could ever predict.
The hot and heavy romance of Karen and Scott has come to a heartbreaking end in the cold waters of the Pacific. The only flowers appropriate for this Valentine’s Day are funeral lilies.
“My parents, when they heard the news, were so devastated. I don’t believe they ever thought that that could happen. Not to someone who was as intelligent and beautiful and talented as my sister.”
Scott’s parents are also shocked. They’ve been so happy to have Karen join their family, and now she’s gone.
The news is widely reported, especially in the Star Dancer’s homeport of LA.
I got a call from the Los Angeles Times from a lady reporter and when she began to relate parts of the story, the hair on my neck just stood up and then the thought of this beautiful person being so brutally taken away from all the people that loved her. You know to have her life her voice still in such a brutal manner it was earth shaking you know just it broke my heart I was in shock.
Would say what are you working on tell them I’m working on the story of that woman who went overboard on her honeymoon you’d say tell me all about it I really want to know.
I think in some ways it did unsettle people the idea that something this awful could happen to you under the most idyllic of circumstances.
Karen was looking for love. That’s all she wanted. To have a husband, to have a healthy marriage. Instead, she found tragedy.
She’s traded a honeymoon bed for a body bag.
“I did notice some red marks on her neck, which indicated to me there was some type of struggle. And later when we did the autopsy, it was more evident as to what was on her neck. Handprints that somebody had both hands around her throat.”
But whose hands?
Once the ship is back in port, Karen’s clothes, jewelry, and other physical evidence go to the FBI. Her body goes to her devastated family.
It’s so tragic. Karen’s life had just blossomed when she’d gotten engaged.
“It was expensive.”
She had everything to look forward to. She was beautiful. She was happy. Why shouldn’t something good happen to her?
Having grown up in modest circumstances, she’s dazzled and thrilled to be marrying such a terrific guy.
And just you do all those things when you, you know, you get engaged and you’re excited and you have a future with someone that you love. What’s not good?
Everyone’s happy because Karen’s happy, even if some people like the ring more than others.
“I was not very impressed considering that he was a doctor. But Karen was very excited about the engagement and very excited to show everyone the ring.”
Karen’s mom is cautious when she checks out the ring. It seems perfect. Maybe too perfect.
“I think you need to have that thing appraised. Seriously, just so you can have it insured.”
“They need to do it themselves and special. Yeah, you’re right. Good job, Mom.”
An insurance appraisal will take time. No worries. Karen is busy prepping for her move to Santa Monica to be with her man. She tries to spend extra time with her mom before she goes. The two haven’t always seen eye to eye. Not uncommon for a strong single mom and an independent daughter.
Karen had a plan. And that plan may not always have been the plan that my mom would have wanted for her.
“Little pricey, aren’t they?”
“But you know what? I like them.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Let’s get two.”
My mother was really happy for Karen. Things were good for them in their relationship.
Now she’s been ripped away. Unsure, the FBI questions Scott about the night before. His first story is that a gust of wind blew his wife overboard.
Screaming.
He tried to grab her, but she slipped from his grasp.
I don’t know about the story about being blown over because there was really no wind.
And there’s no blood on the metal box Scott says he hit while diving to save Karen. So, how did his face get bloodied? Nothing is adding up.
Finally, confronted with inconsistencies, Scott makes an admission. His story is a lie. A lie created to protect his parents from the people who actually killed Karen, Israeli spies.
He goes on to explain that all this happened in retaliation for the book he wrote the year before. In it, he tells about his torture by corrupt Israeli officials and organized crime figures while he was in Israel with his parents. His parents back up the dramatic story. They had to leave Israel fast after it happened.
Now, has Scott Rostston’s past caught up to him?
This must have baffled the crew at the time, trying to sort out what was true, what wasn’t. Was Scott lying? Was he telling the truth? Are there spies on board?
This is not the first time authorities have heard about espionage attempts on his life. The year before, Scott’s mother reports an attempted kidnapping. She tells the Palm Beach sheriff that two Israelis jumped him outside a shopping mall, shouting, “Israel wants you.” But luckily, Scott scrambled free and escaped. The sheriff’s office could find no witnesses, but Scott and his parents swear it happened. And aren’t spies trained to just vanish?
It may sound far-fetched, but Scott reminds investigators about the Israeli nuclear technician who’d been abducted in Europe after revealing secrets about Israel’s atomic bomb program. Far-fetched, but it does happen.
So, is it possible that Karen Waltz, the nice Lutheran girl from Florida, was the unwitting victim of international espionage?
Scott Rostston tells the FBI his wife Karen was killed on their honeymoon by Israeli commandos.
Agents begin scouring the passenger manifest, trying to see if it’s true that spies were on board.
It’s a bizarre end for a young woman so full of promise. She and Scott were just beginning their life together.
For Karen, the marriage is a big step, considering what her mom went through when her father abandoned them.
The divorce and its effect on Karen probably were deeply felt.
It begins when she’s still a child.
Karen didn’t understand why there wasn’t a father uh in her life.
The abandoning daddy syndrome has reared its head in such a big way. Karen had this gaping hole in her heart where a man should have been to offer her love and protection, longing to be loved, to be accepted, to be cared for, to be protected.
Enter Scott Rost.
I think Karen was a romantic at heart and she believed traditional protector, provider, manly man would be the one to solve all her problems and make her dreams come true.
And I think Scott looked to Karen for her small town stability, for her sweetness.
“Oh my gosh.”
“Yeah.”
So, you’re going to give me a massage?
Everything seems perfect. But it’s not. As far as Karen knows, Scott’s thriving practice is paying for their lifestyle. But the truth, not only is Scott’s practice not thriving, it doesn’t exist. He’s not even licensed to practice in California. In fact, he’s living off a big insurance payout he got from a shopping mall after he slipped on, believe it or not, a banana.
Scott presented himself meticulously, composed, always neatly dressed. It was, you know, the appearance uh that he was doing well.
In the early stages of a relationship, you have nothing to go on except what your lover tells you. So, of course, you believe it all. She bought it lock, stock, and barrel. And that engagement ring.
Eventually, the appraisal comes back.
Karen found out that the ring was cubic zirconium, a synthetic diamond.
“Wow.”
Karen was angry, embarrassed that someone would find out.
Especially when she goes to an engagement party for a cousin who’s flashing a real rock.
“Oh, wow. That’s beautiful. I love it.”
It was expected that Karen would show hers off as well.
“Karen, show her your ring.”
“Oh, what are your plans?”
It’s mortifying.
The fact that he gave her a cubic zirconia should have been a deal breaker, not a warning sign, a deal breaker. Here was a guy who was clearly lying about who he was and how much he loved her.
Karen, I think, started to have some misgivings or some second thoughts trying to figure out what the truth was.
Just before the road trip to Vegas, Karen calls her sister.
I remember that phone conversation like it was yesterday.
She’s afraid to back out and look silly.
I said, “When did mom ever not tell you that you can back away at any time you want to? You could be at the altar and you can run away and it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. You can leave.”
But in the end, she and Scott decide to pull the trigger, make it fast and fun. And for 25 bucks, they become Mr. and Mrs. Rostston.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here.”
The flowers are as fake as Karen’s ring.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
But it’s Vegas, right? They’re back home at the Santa Monica condo by nightfall.
What’s up, buddy?
“Hey, guys.”
I noticed that both Scott and Karen were dressed up, and I think before that, I had always seen them in shorts or workout, you know, casual clothes. I said, “It looks like you kids have been to a wedding.” Scott flashed a ring to me.
“We seriously got married.”
“Where?”
“In Vegas.”
And I said, “Well, first of all, congratulations. Secondly, what the heck are you doing here? Why would you not stay?”
I think I’m going to head on out. Let you guys have the house.
If it were me, I would have stayed in Vegas, you know.
“Take care.”
“Hey, say love.”
“Have a good one.”
And how do they spend the wedding night?
She was just kind of puttering in the kitchen and he was watching Star Trek.
Not everyone would choose Captain Kirk over a beautiful bride.
This is babe.
But Scott definitely isn’t everyone.
This was a setup for how their relationship was going to be. This is what she signed up for. She must have known it. But to her, she didn’t care. She just wanted to be married to Scott.
It breaks my heart when I think about poor Karen.
On board Star Dancer, the honeymooners dine with the same group on the diamond deck each night. As always, everyone’s taken with Karen.
She was extroverted. She was well spoken, articulate.
But Scott seems to have some problems with her. He gets angry if she eats sweets or even uses the wrong utensil.
“What are you doing?”
“Yeah, there’s what are you doing?”
“What?”
“With that fork with the fork. This is your dinner fork. Go ahead. Go ahead.”
“Sorry.”
The truth is he doesn’t feel that he has the social class to be there, so he’s projecting it onto her. Scott knows that he’s living a lie. He knows that he’s created this false facade about being a chiropractor, about being worldtraveled, and he doesn’t want his wife to blow it by using the wrong fork.
Her abandonment issues were so high that she would do anything to keep this relationship, mainly be the most perfect abiding wife.
He might be a jerk, but is he a killer? Oh, did he tell the truth about the Israeli commandos?
The passenger manifest does show two Israeli nationals were aboard. Were they really black ops agents? Or is Scott Rostston more than a liar?
Karen was just such a sweet, trusting girl. And when I found out that she had gone on a honeymoon cruise and did not survive it, I had a bad feeling that he had something to do with it.
Karen Waltz Rost, only 26 years old and on her honeymoon cruise, is plucked from the Pacific Ocean on Valentine’s Day 1988.
Her husband claims shadowy Israeli hitmen killed her.
The FBI has a different suspect in mind.
“They were holding Scott on suspicion that he was the one.”
No, I I of course I don’t have any proof. I can’t. Look, these guys are good, okay? These guys are good. They they framed me.
Held without bail, Scott continues telling his story to any newspaper that’ll listen.
So, here is a man who clearly wants to control the message, to control his image because already this was the loveboat gone wrong story.
Here he was talking about the fact that he did not do this. He did not kill his wife, but it was Israeli agents on board ship who were seeking revenge for a book that he had written critical of the Israeli government.
Meanwhile, they never found any sign of any Israeli spy on that boat. So, it shows me that maybe he is mentally ill.
Or maybe he’s really smart and he’s just sticking to his story.
His parents believe him, but everyone else.
No, I never thought that was a plausible explanation. Shouldn’t be laughing.
The grieving groom never backs down.
In one of Scott Rostston’s conversations with the Times, he said, “You can get out the message to the people who did this to her that her death is not going to be in vain.”
No one has ever been able to substantiate the claims he makes in his book. Is it just more lies from a twisted mind?
Karen’s family holds the funeral back in Florida.
What can you say to people? I think I just remember walking up and hugging her mother and because there no words to comfort anybody in that position.
Karen’s ex-boyfriend Troy is as crushed as anyone.
She was the one to have broken up with him. And it made it even more moving because he still loved her.
Just over a year after that terrible Valentine’s Day, Scott Rostston goes on trial for second degree murder. The prosecutor tells the jury the hands around Karen’s throat did not belong to some Israeli secret agent from Scott’s favorite imagination.
Stop.
But Scott Rostston himself.
That explains the gouge on his face, which neatly matches the shape of Karen’s cubic zirconia engagement ring.
The rock might have been fake, but she made the best of it in a fight.
The jury finds him guilty of second degree murder on the high seas. But the judge is so outraged he sentences Rost to life in prison, a first degree penalty. On appeal, his sentence is changed to 33 years.
Why should he have a second chance at life? What does he have to offer society but to come out and maybe kill somebody else’s daughter? Take someone else’s friend.
In a letter to this program’s producers, Rostston sticks by his story that he was framed for Karen’s murder. He also still believes that government forces are out to get him.
As to motive, no one knows. It’s a truly senseless death. Even to this day, the mystery remains. Why did he snap that night and betray Karen and her family?
My mother had spoken to him on the phone and said, “I want you to take good care of my daughter.” And he agreed that he would do that. It was a lie.
I get so angry. Here Karen who had so much to offer and so many people that loved her to just be cut short by this insecure controlling narcissistic manipulator. All she ever wanted was love.
There were red flags. There were warning signs for poor Karen. But she was so in love with love, so longing to be with a real husband that she couldn’t see those red flags.
When Scott killed Karen, he deprived the world of her and what she had to offer. Karen was a sweet soul with a great heart. She really could have made a big difference in a lot of people’s lives.
In her family’s hearts, Karen lives on. I was pregnant at the time. Um, when Karen died, Karen was very excited about my being pregnant and her becoming an aunt. So, when my daughter was born, um, we felt that it was right to name her Karen.
I tell my daughter and even other people, if you’re in a relationship that doesn’t seem right, that there are questionable behaviors, controlling manners of someone else, that you’re at risk. Go to someone for help, someone you trust, because no one deserves this.
