Texas EXECUTES Serial Killer Marine | He Revealed How He Killed His Victims
This is one of the most unsettling execution cases in recent American history. Rosendo Rodriguez, a serial killer with a disturbing fixation on red-haired women, eventually revealed everything with absolute coldness. His own confessions before his execution exposed the mind of a predator who acted without a trace of remorse.
Stay with me because in this video we go through his crimes, his full confession, the path that led him to death row, his execution, and the final words he spoke before he died. [snorts] Rosendo Rodriguez was on the surface an ordinary man. He worked as an office clerk and held a second job at a fast food restaurant, all while fulfilling his duties as a reservist in the [music] United States Marine Corps.
To those who knew him, he seemed like a polite, functional young man who was always willing to help. Or at least [music] that’s what it looked like. In 2004, Rodriguez moved to Lach, Texas. There he studied at [music] Texas Tech University while continuing his military training. He had no criminal record, and nothing suggested that over time he would become responsible for crimes that would shake the entire community.
Rosendo Rodriguez arrived in Labok without knowing anyone. To make new friends, he turned to the most popular platform of the time, the AIM online chat. It was there where, almost by coincidence, the name Joanna Rogers appeared. They began [music] talking at first as casual acquaintances, but the dynamic quickly changed.
Rodriguez started obsessing over her. They talked every day and through small lies and subtle manipulation, he managed to spark Joanna’s interest. Little by little, he convinced her that [music] they should meet in person. At first, she hesitated, so she gave him her family’s home number to keep talking. That’s when they realized they lived [music] only 10 minutes apart.
Joanna was an exemplary 16-year-old girl. A junior at Lach High School, she stood out for her active involvement in theater, debate, and dance. Deeply committed to her faith, she was a member of Shepherd King Lutheran Church and volunteered at the South Plains Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where she showed her love for animals and her spirit of service.
She grew up in a close-knit family with her parents, Joe Bill and Kathy Rogers. Between April and May of 2004, Rodriguez called the Rogers home several times. By then, they were speaking as if they were a couple. But there was a problem. Joanna’s parents didn’t allow her to have a boyfriend, not even someone her own age, let alone a man 8 years older.
During those calls, after weeks of pressure, they agreed to meet in secret. The early morning hours of May 4th, 2004 would mark the decisive point of this hidden relationship. At 3:13 a.m., Rodriguez called the Rogers house for 10 minutes. [music] During that call, they planned the escape.
20 minutes later, at 3:33 a.m. He made another call, just 1 minute long, [music] to tell her he was already outside. At that same moment, Joanna’s father, Joe Bill Rogers, heard a noise. He got up to check, but seeing nothing unusual, he assumed the dogs had knocked over a trash bin. What he didn’t know was that as he returned to his bed, his daughter was being murdered.
The secret meeting between Rodriguez and Joanna quickly escalated into an argument. He tried to force her into having sex. She refused. In the struggle that [music] followed, the violence intensified. Rodriguez, trained as a Marine reservist, applied a choke hold, and didn’t stop until Joanna stopped breathing.
His obsession fed for weeks, ended in a homicide committed in less than an hour. Afterwards, he placed her body inside a suitcase and disposed of it in a dumpster, [music] a suitcase that would eventually be buried in the Lach landfill. The next morning, the family noticed that Joanna wasn’t at home. At first, they thought she might have run away, but that doubt quickly turned into alarm when they checked her room.
Everything was still there. Her car was parked outside, her clothes and belongings untouched. Nothing suggested that she had left on her own. Joanna had simply vanished. The investigation into Joanna Rogers disappearance began immediately. Although Lach police treated the case as a rebellious teenager running away, her family insisted that Joanna would never have left without her things.
The first major break came from digital forensics. Investigators found chat logs and call records on Joanna’s computer linking her to Rosendo Rodriguez. He instantly became a person of interest. He was questioned, but with no body and no direct evidence, there was no legal grounds to detain him. The case went cold and remained unsolved for more than 2 years.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez began experiencing something he had never felt before. The satisfaction of killing without being caught. That sense of impunity gave him a dangerous idea of invincibility. He fantasized about Joanna, about the murder, and gradually about other women who resembled her, especially redheads. 16 months after the crime, Rodriguez returned to Levuk for his monthly training as an active member of the Marine Reserve.
On the night of September 10th, 2005, after leaving combat practice, he saw a woman who for a moment reminded him of Joanna. It wasn’t her. It was Summer Baldwin, a 29-year-old worker who had just been robbed and had learned she was pregnant. Rodriguez approached her offering help, talked to her, and managed to calm her down.
He took her to his room at the Holiday Inn so she could clean up and then offered to drive her home. That was enough for his obsession to find a new target. Rodriguez decided to look for her again. In the early hours of September 12th, he picked her up once more. Witnesses saw a Hispanic man with short hair in a red pickup truck approaching summer.
That night, Rodriguez checked into another Holiday Inn under a fake name. Once inside the room, the violence erupted without warning. He began to strangle her but stopped before killing her. [music] He wanted to prolong the attack. Summer Baldwin suffered nearly 50 trauma injuries, abrasions, lacerations, contusions across her body, head, and neck, as well as genital injuries.
She eventually died from the brutality of the assault. Because of her vulnerable circumstances, Summer Baldwin was not reported missing. No one came looking for her. Her case came to light only on September 13th, 2005 when workers at the Lach landfill noticed an unusually heavy suitcase. Out of curiosity, they opened it and found the naked, severely beaten body of an unidentified woman.
The only initial clues were simple. red hair and an ankle tattoo that read summer. The investigation began immediately. The suitcase’s barcode became the first key piece of evidence. Detectives traced the serial number and discovered it had been purchased on September 12th, 2005 around 3:30 a.m. at a nearby Walmart. The store’s security cameras showed a short-haired Hispanic man buying that same suitcase.
Hours later, Holiday Inn cameras recorded him entering a room with it. Rodriguez, on top of that, had paid for it with his debit card, leaving behind a digital trail impossible to ignore. When investigators searched room 108 of the Holiday Inn, they found Summer Baldwin’s blood on the furniture, a luggage tag, a used condom, latex gloves containing Rodriguez’s DNA, and multiple other incriminating traces.
When they compared the Walmart footage to photographs of Rodriguez, the identification was immediate. In less [music] than 3 days, on September 15th, 2005, he was arrested at his parents’ home in San Antonio. On his computer, investigators discovered searches about Summer Baldwin’s death, queries about his own name in recent news, and activity on dating sites looking for young women.
Among those records, one detail completed the puzzle. [music] the name Joanna Rogers. In the summer of 2006, while Rodriguez remained in custody, the prosecution presented an unprecedented offer. Matt Powell, district attorney for Leach County in agreement with the families of Summer Baldwin and Joanna Rogers, proposed a deal.
If Rodriguez confessed to killing Joanna, helped authorities locate her body, and waved his right to appeal, [music] he would avoid the death penalty and receive life in prison instead. Both families agreed. [music] They wanted justice and answers, and they were willing to forego capital punishment if it meant finally closing the case that had remained unsolved for over a year.
>> Uh, you know, I’m going to start, you know, telling uh or I’m going to start, you know, telling my folks and started started raising her voice. So, putting my hands around her throat. >> Was she facing you at this point? >> Uh, yes. facing each other. Okay. >> I choke her and >> you what? >> Choking. >> You’re choking her with both hands around her neck.
>> Okay. >> Is that right? >> Yes. >> Rodriguez accepted the deal and provided authorities with enough information to recover the mummified remains of Joanna Rogers lost for more than a year in the same Lev landfill where he had dumped Summer Baldwin. For the Rogers family, it was devastating and relieving at the same time.
they could finally give their daughter a proper funeral. But what seemed like the end of a [music] dark chapter quickly turned into an unexpected betrayal. Before the agreement could be formalized in court, Rodriguez [music] backed out. He claimed he hadn’t understood anything his attorney and the prosecution had explained. With that single statement made just days before the deal was to be finalized, the agreement collapsed.
And with it, his confession regarding Joanna Rogers became legally invalid and unusable at trial. >> It was about probably around I’d say 24th uh about 24th in 22nd in key that I noticed uh Summer. I was like, “Hey, I like how you doing like that.” She’s like, “Fine.” you know, she um she just like she kind of looked a little I guess you’d say out of it.
I was like, “Do you like did you need a ride somewhere?” She goes, “Is it cool if you just come and chill at your place?” Like that. Her voice is kind of waver. I was like, “Um, yeah, that’s fine.” You know, just want to hang out. So, she gets in the truck and we go to the hotel. Just made idle chitchat. And uh then you know we’re in kind of close proximity so we end up you know kind of like leaning towards each other.
We end up kissing having sex. After we’re done I go get a pair of shorts um turn on the light go around to go use the restroom and I go to the sink wash myself off. And as I’m coming back around, uh she’s she’s sitting, she’s facing away from me. When I walked up, I saw that she had a pipe.
I told her, I was like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And she didn’t respond. She just kept lighting it. It was a metallic burning smell, like a chemical smell. And I told her, “Hey, hey, you know, don’t do that.” And I took the pipe away. I was like, “No, I don’t want you to I don’t want you to smoke that here.
I, you know, why don’t why don’t you just go ahead and, you know, get dressed. She pulls out a knife. And she stands up and she comes towards me and she asks, you know, where’s your where’s your wallet? You know, told her, “Look, it’s over there. It’s just don’t, you know, don’t don’t swipe at me. Don’t, you know, don’t don’t copy, please.
” And now she comes towards me. I reach for her wrist, the one that has a knife, and I go and I pull her arm around like this. Starting to struggle. We fall kind of like towards uh towards the bed. And I tell her, you know, drop the knife. Let it go. You know, she still wouldn’t. Finally, she I noticed that, you know, she she she quit. You know, she stopped fighting.
So I go and I let’s go and I let her go. I I check her pulse on her wrist and there was nothing. I didn’t get a pulse. I just I I didn’t think I didn’t think to try to resuscitate. I had went got dressed. I went >> um a polo shirt and like some shorts sandals. I went downstairs, got in the truck, drove to a Walmart, bought a case that opened a door no one wanted to see open.
With the deal voided, prosecutor Matt Powell was free to pursue the death penalty for the murder of Summer Baldwin. The theory was strong. Rodriguez had killed during the course of an aggravated sexual assault, a circumstance that allows capital punishment in Texas. The trial began in March 2008, and the forensic evidence was overwhelming.
Medical examiner Sridhar Natarajin determined that Baldwin had been sexually assaulted before she died. And there was more. Five women testified that Rodriguez had raped them, including his high school girlfriend. The jury [music] rejected the self-defense narrative entirely and found him guilty of capital murder. During the sentencing phase, the defense tried to mitigate the punishment by presenting aspects of Rodriguez’s past.
[music] An abusive father, alcoholism in the home, and an apparently normal academic record as a Texas Tech student. In 2008, the jury delivered its final decision. Rosindo Rodriguez would receive the death penalty. During the following decade, Rodriguez exhausted every available legal avenue. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld both the conviction and the death sentence.
Then came the Federal Appeals, the habius petitions, all denied. His last hope arrived minutes before facing execution, an emergency petition to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the medical examiner’s testimony about the sexual assault [music] was unreliable. The court rejected it without further comment.
On March 27th, 2018, just 1 day after turning 38, Rosendo Rodriguez III was escorted into the execution chamber at the Huntsville unit in Texas. At 6:00 p.m. he was placed on the gurnie, his arms were secured, and the IV line was connected. When asked if he had any last words, Rodriguez said yes and began to speak. First, I would like to say that I’ve been here since September 2005.
I’ve had the honor and privilege of meeting many guards and prison staff. I want to thank all of them. I would like all of you to write to the people on death row because they are all good men and I’m very happy to have known them. Every one of their lives is worth knowing. Second, on February 14th, the medical examiner and the head nurse engaged in numerous false and illegal acts.
They tried to [music] cover up that thousands were wrongfully convicted by District Attorney Matt Powell. This needs to be brought to justice. I urge the FBI to investigate Matt Powell and the Leach County Medical Examiner. Lastly, I was born and raised Catholic, and it hasn’t escaped me that this is Holy Week, and last Sunday [music] was Palm Sunday.
Yesterday was my birthday. Today is the day I join my God [music] and my father. The state may have my body, but not my soul. to save my brothers on death row. I ask Pope Francis and people all over the world. Lastly, I want everyone to boycott each [music] and every business in the state of Texas until enough pressure is placed on them to stop the death penalty.
With that, [music] Lord, into your hands, I commend my spirit, warden, I’m ready to join my father. 23 minutes after receiving the lethal dose of pentabarbital at exactly 6:46 p.m. on March 27th, 2018, Rosendo Rodriguez III [music] was pronounced dead. The execution proceeded without visible complications. The protocol was followed and no issues were reported.
Rodriguez became the fourth person executed in Texas in 2018 and the seventh in the entire country that year. He had spent more than 12 years on death row since his 2008 conviction. The families of Summer Baldwin and Joanna Rogers observed the execution from the witness room, separated by a glass panel.
There was no intervention from the governor, and the Supreme Court denied his final appeal less than half an hour before he was taken to [music] the chamber, allowing the sentence to be carried out as scheduled. And this has been the story of this monster. Tell me in the comments what you think about this case.
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