Suzanne Maria Rossetti, born May 3rd 1954 in Saugus, Massachusetts, was doted on by her parents, Peter and Louise. People described the Rossetti's as an honest and hard-working family, with Peter and Louise working to set an example for their children, Suzanne 'Suz', Peter Jr, and Donna. Suzanne displayed a bright intellect from an early age and dreamed of attending college.Her life was a full and happy one, until one fateful night when two "good samaritans" introduced themselves to her in a parking lot of a convenience store.Writing and research:X: Em | Freelance True Crime Writer@truecrimewitchMusic:Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)Titles: Crimeatorium Intro composed by Tim, Eye of Perception, Tough ChoicesLicensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1CO.AG Musichttps://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823Sources:https://pastebin.com/aaTNbA53Support:Donations are appreciated, if you would like to help support the show, use the link below and buy me a burrito and a Diet Pepsi:http://Ko-fi.com/crimeatoriumFor $3 a month, you can support this show on Patreon, in return you will receive ad free, early, and bonus episodeshttps://www.patreon.com/crimeatoriumIf you like the podcast, please share it on social media and with friends, and take a minute to leave a review for Crimeatorium on Spotify, Podchaser or Apple Podcasts.Contact:[email protected] you for listening!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/crimeatorium9009/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Suzanne Maria Rossetti was born on May 3, 1954, in Saugus, Massachusetts.
She was doted on by her parents, Peter and Louise. People described the Rossettis as an honest and hardworking family, with Peter and Louise working to set an example for their children, Suzanne, Peter Jr., and Donna. Suzanne displayed a bright intellect from an early age and dreamed of attending college.
By 1976, that dream had come to fruition, with Suzanne proudly walking across the stage in her cap and gown. But now, the real test for Suzanne would begin. What did she want to do with her life and newly gained degree? Well, it turns out that Suzanne wasn't too sure.
Following graduation, Suzanne traveled across the country for a while, tasting different ways of life in various states before settling in Arizona. Despite being far away from home, Suzanne was only a call away. She kept a regular schedule of calling home to speak with her family. Suzanne had settled in Arizona after accepting a job at the Grand Canyon National Park.
But according to records, this employment didn't last long. Suzanne took a job at a skin bank for burn victims. By 1981, Suzanne had carved out a wonderful life for herself. She had a good job, a good circle of friends, and an apartment. She often spoke with her mother, Louise, about the possibility of starting a family of her own, if, of course, the right man came into her life.
Peter and Louise visited Arizona every winter to be with Suzanne. The winter of 1981 was no exception. Peter and Louise Rossetti arrived in Phoenix in early January of that year. They planned to spend three weeks with Suzanne before returning home on January 29th. The first few weeks were unremarkable.
Suzanne was said to have always had a packed social life, so Peter and Louise didn't mind roaming around the city alone while Suzanne met with friends. January 28, 1981 was one such day. That afternoon, Suzanne unknowingly said goodbye to her parents for the last time before heading out with friends. According to reports, Suzanne and friends attended the 8 p.m.
showing of the Broadway show, Danson, following which Suzanne would reunite with her parents and drive them to the airport for their 3 a.m. flight. But Suzanne never made it. Peter and Louise would later tell the police they had arranged to meet at the rodeo inn, leave their rented car behind, and get a ride from Suzanne to the airport. When midnight came and went, the Rossettis became worried.
They waited a little while longer, but they were under a time constraint and risked missing their flight home. The pair decided to head for the airport, thinking Suzanne had forgotten their plans and was planning on meeting them there. But as they arrived, their hearts began to sink. There was no sign of Suzanne. The time was crunching closer to 3 a.m.
and the last call for their gate was announced. Knowing their daughter would never abandon them, Peter and Louise missed their flight home and headed for their daughter's apartment. Wild thoughts and scenarios played through their minds. Had Suzanne had a medical episode? Had she fallen asleep after a long night with friends? Or had something far darker taken place?
Sometime in the early morning hours of January 29th, the Rosettis reached Suzanne's apartment, but again, there was no sign of Suzanne. Her apartment was in disarray and bizarrely, the clock had stopped ticking at 12.47. Peter and Louise became frantic as hours ticked away.
Suzanne's neighbors hadn't seen her the night before and the last person to see her alive, Joe Heckel, had no idea where she could have gone after the theater closed. While Suzanne's parents searched every inch of the apartment complex, Suzanne's fate had already been sealed. At 11 p.m. the night before, January 28, Suzanne had deviated slightly from her route to the Rodeo Inn.
She had stopped off at the U-Totem convenience store to grab a few items. For a few minutes, Suzanne milled around the store before grabbing chewing gum and leaving. When Suzanne approached her car, she realized she had locked her keys inside. She initially asked the store employee for help, but he advised her he wasn't allowed to leave the store. Suzanne returned to her car, but she wasn't alone.
Two men approached Suzanne and introduced themselves, Jesse Gillies and Mike Logan. The encounter made Suzanne somewhat uncomfortable, but with no other options available, she told the men what was wrong. Gillies and Logan assured her they would be able to help and that they were not a threat.
The two spoke about their lives to Suzanne, saying they were interested in nature and conservation like her, putting her at ease. What they neglected to tell her was that they were career criminals with checkered pasts, and they had been sizing her up this entire time. Upon purchasing a screwdriver from the U-Totem store, Gillies managed to wiggle the window open just enough to retrieve the keys.
Relieved, Suzanne unlocked her car and asked the pair what she could do to thank them. The two looked at each other, giving the signal. Gillies requested a pack of beer and a ride home, telling Suzanne this would make them square, but the night was far from over. The U-Totem employee watched the entire event go down and sold Suzanne this six-pack of beer.
This would be the last time she was ever seen alive again. The U-Totem employee did not raise the alarm, believing he had witnessed two kind Samaritans coming to a distressed woman's aid. Suzanne had also told Gillies and Logan she needed to be quick as she was meeting her parents to take them to the airport in a few hours.
As Suzanne drove out of sight of the store and toward the ranch, she felt a warm trickle on her head. Gillies had struck her several times in the head, causing the Ford Pinto to come to a halt. Confused, Suzanne was dragged out of the driver's seat by the pair. Gillies announced that it was now Logan's turn to have fun with Suzanne.
Logan attacked Suzanne, raping her before holding the screwdriver to her head. Terrified, Suzanne complied with the men, telling them where she lived. Logan and Gillies bundled themselves into the front of the car, taking directions to her apartment. When they arrived, they forced Suzanne into her bedroom, where she would be raped several more times by each man.
While one man attacked her, the other would search her apartment, looking for valuables and other things to steal. In a last-ditch effort to save herself and leave behind evidence, Suzanne grabbed the clock, stopping it at exactly 12.47. Hours later, her parents would discover the scene and find the clock. They would know that whatever had happened to their daughter happened after midnight.
Once the pair were satisfied with looting her apartment, they dragged her out to her Ford Pinto, throwing her in the back. The pair drove around Phoenix thinking of ways to get rid of Suzanne while she lay in the back covered with a blanket. During the raid of her apartment, the two found her ATM card and decided to try their luck. Under the threat of further violence, Suzanne gave them the pin.
CCTV cameras captured the pair withdrawing $200 from her account. The bank declined further transactions at this hour, leaving Suzanne to once again be beaten and assaulted. Suzanne had earlier let it slip that she had a handsome sum of a few thousand dollars in her account, so the pair slipped her card into their pockets for safekeeping.
Several hours had passed since they had first kidnapped Suzanne, and the pair were growing tired. They knew the longer they had her in the car, the riskier it became. After much discussion in earshot of Suzanne, the pair decided to drive her Ford Pinto to the Superstition Mountains east of downtown Phoenix.
At that moment, Suzanne knew she was going to die, and it is horrific to imagine what she may have been feeling. As the Ford Pinto came to an abrupt halt, Gillies and Logan grabbed Suzanne out of the car, forcing her to walk the rocky and unpredictable terrain. The trio approached the edge of the cliff, where Suzanne uttered, I guess you're going to kill me now. And she was right.
The pair threw Suzanne off the cliffside, sending her plummeting 40 feet below. Incredibly, she was still alive. Gillies and Logan sensed this immediately, racing down the side to catch her. Unsatisfied, the pair repeated the process, but Suzanne prevailed. Bloodied and bruised, Suzanne asked for a final act of mercy, telling them to leave her alone as she was going to die anyway.
Mike Logan coldly responded, That's right, bitch, you are, before grabbing a rock and smashing her in the head. Gillies joined in with the pair, calling her a bitch and a whore. By this point, Suzanne had suffered significant damage to her body, with the left side of her face being almost completely crushed and her eye dislodged from her socket.
Even after suffering several blows to the head, Suzanne was alive, whimpering and begging for her life. Gillies and Logan were now growing frantic. No matter how many cliffs they threw her from or how many times they hit her, she prevailed. The two concocted their final plan, one that would get rid of their problem once and for all.
In court documents, Gillies testified the plan was to bury her alive, but the pair didn't have a shovel. Instead, they covered Suzanne's battered and broken body in large rocks until she was completely entombed. As Suzanne's whimpers grew weaker and weaker, Gillies and Logan took the moment to sit on the cliff and smoke a few cigarettes.
Unbeknownst to Gillies and Logan, Suzanne lived for a further 10 to 20 minutes after being buried alive. Not that either man would have cared. Some documents state in her final moments, Logan told Suzanne, sorry, but this was how it had to be. It is unclear whether Logan had experienced a brief lapse in his conscience or whether he was simply taunting Suzanne.
Once the cigarettes ran out, Logan and Gillies trekked back to Suzanne's Ford Pinto and continued to ride around the city. Twenty-year-old Mike Gillies had a rough start in his life. His mother made it very clear she did not want him and he was left to his own devices. By his teen years, Gillies had already committed a slew of crimes and was known for his violent behavior towards his family.
The downward spiral continued into his late teens, culminating in several prison sentences, including one at Juvie for stealing a car at the age of 12. Prison is often heralded as the school of crime, and Gillies learned a lot of valuable information from hardened criminals and lifers.
By 1981, Gillies had been released and found his way to a ranch just outside of Phoenix where he would meet Mike Logan. Like Gillies, Logan was also a lifelong criminal, one who in 1981 should have still been behind bars. A hardened drinker, Logan had just escaped a Michigan prison and wanted nothing more than to leave the country.
Gillies, seeing himself in Logan, quickly forged a friendship with the man on the run and wanted to help him raise the $2,000 necessary to flee to Australia. This is how the dangerous duo came to be. On January 28, 1981, the two went on the prowl, looking for unsuspecting victims to rob. They had no idea where the night would take them, but it was clear that murder was on their minds.
While Gillies and Logan paraded around in Suzanne's stolen Ford Pinto, Louise and Peter Rossetti were out of their minds with worry. They had tried to report Suzanne missing at 5 a.m. on January 29, but were told they needed to wait at least 24 hours. Three hours later, a Phoenix police officer finally met them and gave them an unconventional solution.
There may have been a 24 hour wait for missing persons, but there was no wait on reporting a car missing. Thankfully for investigators, Gillies and Logan were still using Suzanne's Pinto and it didn't take long for them to track the vehicle down. The pressure was mounting and Gillies began to crack.
Hours after murdering Suzanne, he returned to the ranch with Logan, where he proceeded to brag about his crimes. His colleagues were horrified, but Gillies claimed it was all a joke. This would come back to bite him weeks later. Peter and Louise continued to stay at Suzanne's apartment, awaiting news from the police. Suzanne's number plate and bank card had been flagged several times in the city.
According to Arizona v. Gillies documents, Logan and Gillies accessed Suzanne's bank 28 times between January 28th and February 3rd. Out of the 28 attempts, 13 were unsuccessful as they had exceeded the $250 daily withdrawal allowance. Investigators were keeping an eye on the transactions as it gave them a similar area of the city to work in.
Finally, after two weeks of watching transactions, trying to follow Suzanne's car, Gillies and Logan were arrested for her murder. During his arrest, Gillies asked what would happen if found guilty. The officer responded that he would face the gas chamber. Gillies' response was, All that for killing that bitch?
Gillies remained closed off to investigators, but his partner in crime, Mike Logan, was more than happy to sell his friend down the river in exchange for a lighter sentence. Logan agreed to testify against Gillies in exchange for Arizona not seeking the death penalty. Days after his arrest, Mike Logan led a team of investigators to the site of Suzanne's murder and grave.
The team were horrified by the level of brutality inflicted upon Suzanne. Court documents noted that it took two officers to remove the rocks that had been placed on her body. The state's report also noted the right cheek of the victim had been crushed and the eye was missing from the right socket.
The medical examiner described various lacerations, abrasions, avulsions, and fractures to the skull and body of the victim. The victim tested positive for seminal fluid. Suzanne's parents were shielded by investigators from a lot of the details and promised that her body would be returned.
Both Jesse Gillies and Mike Logan were deemed fit to stand trial, with the latter being sentenced to life with a minimum of 25 years for his cooperation. Jesse Gillies, on the other hand, who was also found guilty, was sentenced to death. The court spent several days determining whether the crime met the criteria for death, which it ultimately did.
Mike Logan's testimony was vital in building the case against both men and it culminated in the pair being found guilty. No guilty plea or death sentence will ever pay for what they did to sweet Suzanne. Her kindness was exploited in one of the most monstrous ways imaginable. In January 1999, Jesse Gillies was executed by the state of Arizona.
For his last meal, Gillies requested a rare cooked steak with mushrooms, two eggs, ten pieces of bacon, toast with butter and jam, milk, apple juice, and a large chocolate milkshake. Gillies refused to give any final words, simply telling the officers, let's get on with it. Unfortunately, Peter Rossetti passed away in 1992, never living to see Jesse Gillies or Mike Logan face any real justice.
Following Peter's passing, Louise continued to keep her daughter's name alive. In 1992, a Louise Rossetti's Women 5K race was created to pay tribute to Suzanne. Also, the Suzanne Maria Rossetti Memorial Juried Art Contest was established 42 years ago in her memory as well.
In 2002, Louise carried the Olympic torch for the Salt Lake City Games, naming her run in honor of Suzanne and her two surviving children, Donna and Peter Jr. In June 2014, Louise Rossetti passed away at the age of 93. Michael Logan never saw parole as he is reported to have passed away behind bars in 2021. In 2012, Ronald J. Watkins published a book called Evil Intentions about Suzanne's case.
While Suzanne's family supported Watkins, they asked that no pictures of Suzanne be included in the book. Suzanne Rossetti's life was cut short by two disturbed individuals who took pleasure in exploiting others. Jesse Gillies paid for the crime with his life, and Mike Logan died behind bars.
Suzanne's parents gave a handful of interviews in the 90s where they felt no punishment on earth could match the acts they had committed against Suzanne.