- DONALD: Little by little,
you're formulating the true picture
of what occurred here.
- VAL: Evidence told us the suspect knew the victim.
The two of them may have had a relationship.
- SUSAN: I can't picture how a human being could
point a weapon at another person.
- BRENDA: Once someone hits the mainland,
they can be anywhere.
It can turn into almost a countrywide manhunt.
- DONALD: All of a sudden, somebody calls and says,
"We have your guy."
- MALE NARRATOR: Five unique perspectives,
five points of view, one murder.
- ROSI: My name is Rosi Ware. - BRENDA: I was the lead
detective assigned to investigate--
DONALD: --scene investigator. - VAL: My name is Val Winter.
- SUSAN: Sister of Rodger--
- VAL: I was a major crimes attorney.
- ♪
- My name is Susan Dieckmann and I'm sister of Rodger Keller.
Rodger was born in Grayling, Michigan.
My parents were working a restaurant
with my aunt and uncle.
And it was a tourist community right across from, uh,
beautiful Holton Lake.
We stayed there until he was probably five or six,
and then they moved outside of Detroit, Michigan.
Some of my earliest memories of Rodger are...
he was very loving and caring
and inquisitive and smart.
We lived in front of a field, by a Catholic school.
And he would frequently be out in the field
with his butterfly net and catching butterflies and moths,
and he'd bring them back to the house,
and he categorized different butterflies,
you know, he'd-- he'd wanna know the origin
of each different butterfly and their Latin name.
He was a student all-- all his life.
He wanted to know more and more.
Wayne State was his first university
when he first left home.
It was kind of a big thing.
He was the first one to leave the household.
My brother even got a part-time job where the management
noticed that he was gay,
and that started to cause some problems for him.
It didn't hold him back.
He was just becoming more aware
of the problems in society, that this...wasn't...
as accepting as he would like it.
He started marches,
and he started to stand up for himself,
and he wanted other people to stand up for themselves.
He knew in his heart that this is who he always was,
and there was nothing else he was gonna be,
he wasn't going to be changed or deterred or--
and he was gonna help anyone who needed help.
He ended up transferring
from Wayne State to Michigan State.
Then things went better.
His love of flowers developed from there.
He bought a beautiful house in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
and it had a gorgeous garden.
He felt more at home, he had more friends.
However, he was having problems walking.
You could tell from far away that there was something wrong
with his feet.
One doctor actually had told him he might have
a disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth.
It's a disease that affects the nerves in your body.
It was slow progressing in him.
However, he did get some leg braces
to help him walk better and to be more stable.
But leg braces are not conducive to getting up and down a ladder
in--in the, uh, greenhouse.
So, he thought about it and he retired early.
He sold his house in Ann Arbor
and he decided to move down to Key West.
- [seagull cawing]
- SUSAN: He loved, loved, loved Key West.
It was more than just feeling at home
in--in the gay population.
He said glowingly that anything could grow in Key West.
He had a beautiful garden, he bought a little house.
He joined the Key West Garden Club.
He just--he loved the people.
- [birds chirping]
- SUSAN: I was in a staff meeting from school.
And I got a phone call from my brother Jeff in Atlanta.
Jeff had said that he was standing with a detective
and that Rodger...was dead.
I didn't believe him.
And I didn't think he was really telling me the truth.
I thought it couldn't be.
He said he doesn't know how long he had been dead for.
But that I needed to come down.
I'd never seen Rodger's house before this happened.
And when I first walked into his house,
it was two things.
It was beautiful, and it was horrible.
Mostly it was horrible.
It was covered in black because of the fingerprints.
There were horrible traces of what had happened there.
A rug strewn out,
a couple of bloody footprints still there.
And all the while that-- that one resounding question
keep--in your head, keeps thinking,
"How could somebody do that?"
I wondered if it was some random person that just broke in
and...and did this.
He didn't have anything of value.
He had an old little Honda that he drove around,
full of dirt because he sold plants.
When we got back to the police department,
they were pursuing other leads.
They were looking into someone that Rodger had taken in
in his house--Michael Sox.
Rodger took in a lot of people over his lifetime.
Sometimes it was a homeless person.
Sometimes they would be handicapped.
It was Michael Sox that had alerted the police department
that, uh, something was amiss.
- SUSAN: I couldn't imagine who would do this.
Who could point a weapon at another person
and just do that?
It just doesn't make sense.
- ♪
- DONALD: My name is Donald L. Guevremont
and I'm crime scene investigator for the Key West
Police Department.
It was an early morning,
and I got a telephone call at my residence
that the officers had arrived to a scene, they found
a--a deceased person.
The information at that time was that one of the local
characters in town, Mr. Sox, had known Rodger Keller
for some time, was familiar with his routines.
He had gone to the house and found that things were not
quite right in his mind.
He saw a stranger in Rodger's car,
and he knew that was never anything
that Rodger would allow.
When he was walking away, when he heard what he thought
may have been a gunshot.
So, from there, Mr. Sox makes the 911 telephone call.
- [seagull cawing]
- DONALD: When I arrive at-- at Mr. Keller's residence,
I go into inspection mode.
When I first get into this house,
I'm looking at the doors and the windows.
I'm not noticing any damage.
No sign of even attempted forced entry.
The interior was spotlessly clean.
Neat, tidy, organized.
But when you looked at that bedroom door,
which was closed, you'll notice some staining.
That is the inconsistency that you've been waiting to see,
and there it is.
There's a piece of carpet and there's what appears to be
blood spatter emanating from the bottom of that rug,
and then, you know, your eyes start looking
towards the walls and you're noticing
there's going to be some directional blood spatter
off to the left.
Also at this point, we're noticing there's some
bloody footwear impressions on the tile floor
that appear to be leaving from the bedroom.
Now based on what I'm seeing just looking at the door,
you know this is going to be a tremendously violent scene.
This is high speed blood spatter,
and the only way to get that is by a gunshot wound.
- ♪
- DONALD: Upon making entry into the bedroom,
we found the victim on the floor.
At this point, all you can see is a flowered bedspread,
uh, covering most of the body,
but you can also see a pair of leg braces
coming out from underneath.
We had a pretty good idea it was going to be
the resident, Mr. Keller.
- [shutter clicks]
- DONALD: Once the sheet is removed from the victim,
a clearer picture is--is--is shown.
It is obvious that this is going to be some sort of trauma
to the face or head area.
That's the biggest concentration of blood.
The victim is picked up from the waist
so his back can be examined,
and that is the first time that we've noticed
that there was a-- a wound in the back.
Now we know we are looking at a gunshot wound.
- ♪
- DONALD: We assume at that point
that the projectile that killed Mr. Keller
was going to be found and recovered at autopsy.
Just made sense.
We found no cartridge casings.
If Mr. Keller had been shot with a semi-automatic,
there would have been an ejected cartridge casing.
Unless, the suspect picked it up and took it with him.
It could also indicate that a revolver were used.
- ♪
- DONALD: Turns out that on day two at autopsy,
we establish that he had been shot in the face.
What we saw on the back on the scene was an exit wound.
There was no projectile in the victim.
After learning this, a second inspection
of this residence is going to take place.
- ♪
- DONALD: In the course of trying to find the projectile
inside of the residence,
another officer had noted some wood chips behind the dresser.
Moving the dresser over just a little,
you could see behind the mirror, a hole in the wall.
Sure enough, there was our projectile.
It was in such a good condition that when I took it out,
I was able to measure the base of it
to determine the possible caliber.
We're not looking for a .22, we're not looking for a rifle.
We're looking something that is gonna be able to carry
a .40, .44, or .45 caliber.
Leaving that house with the projectile in hand,
Holy Grail for me. That's a big win.
Now, as in any investigation, every few minutes,
new information is being learned.
We received notification that an officer had found
the victim's car not too far from the house,
and had secured it, so we immediately sent another
evidence technician to go look at that vehicle.
There were footwear impressions in the sand
outside of the driver's door.
It just happened to be the ball of his foot hit some dirt
that was conducive to holding a pattern.
Just enough to distinguish it
to the three that were in the house.
It is better to be lucky sometimes than good,
and I'll take luck any day.
- ♪
- ROSI: My name is Rosi Ware,
and I was a good friend of Rodger Keller.
I first met Rodger when he came to the, uh, Garden Club.
I was President at that time, and I was awed by his knowledge.
He was such a lovely, talented, intelligent man,
and he gave so freely.
And so, for Rodger, this was a perfect place
for him to retire to.
We had a lovely garden club, a thriving gay community
where you could really be whoever you wanted to be.
- Even in January, today earlier I got up to 80 degrees,
and it's a nice breeze off the ocean.
It's just a paradise as far as climate goes.
- ROSI: The day that he was killed...
Rodger was absolutely on top form.
And I remember--I mean, I really do--I remember that.
He was in a really good mood, he was happy and sunny.
I remember he had a lovely little smile,
he looked like a little cherub.
And I said, "Bye-bye Rodger, see you next Monday."
And I can just see him drive-- it's like two minutes
from the Garden Club to his house.
He'd be happy, he'd be getting out of the car humming.
Opening his-- the door to his house.
And then, wham.
Rodger really didn't know what had hit him.
- ♪
- ROSI: The police realized that the last people probably
that saw Rodger alive besides the guy that killed him,
um, were his friends at the Garden Club.
So, they came and interviewed a whole bunch of us.
The whole of the Key West community was shocked.
We don't have murders in Key West.
People come here to be safe. It's one human family.
Everybody looks after each other,
and particularly in the gay community.
We knew that he had had many different, um, guys there.
Um, there was a few that we knew the names, like Michael Sox,
who was a fairly well-known homeless man.
He seemed really very sad, actually.
I mean, strange, but sad more than anything else.
- ♪
- ROSI: Rodger picked up many, many guys
during the couple of years he was in Key West.
But he always tended to pick up the guys who were trouble.
And I think that's what worried us the most.
He wasn't quite disabled,
but he wouldn't be able to fend for himself.
Most of these guys were homeless or down-and-out.
He felt he was giving them a hand up.
You can't get a job without an address,
so Rodger provided that for them.
And some stayed for quite a while.
There was an awful incident when one of these guys--
I won't say attacked him, but put a knife to his throat.
And again, Rodger was not a physically strong guy.
I just felt terrible,
he was so vulnerable in that situation.
- ♪
- ROSI: It's about that time when a lot of his friends
at the Garden Club sort of gathered 'round him and said,
"Rodger, we're really concerned, you live on your own,
"um, you're not physically very fit.
"Um, what happens if one of these guys does more
than just put a knife to your throat?"
We were like, "Rodger, you really shouldn't do this,
because anything could happen, and now you know anything can."
And he was, again, too sweet, too kind.
That really was a bit of a wake-up call.
I think Rodger was being terribly free and easy
up until then, and then he really did realize
that he was vulnerable.
So, when the police told us what had happened,
we absolutely believed it was one of the guys
that he'd taken in, and our first thoughts were
of the guy who held a knife to him,
because he'd already shown he was violent,
he'd already done this.
Everybody around who knew Rodger,
that was the guy that we all
automatically thought it would be.
- ♪
- I'm Brenda Sellers.
I was the lead detective assigned to investigate
the homicide of Rodger Keller here in Key West, Florida.
- ♪
- On the early morning of March 23, 2006,
I was called to the scene of a suspected homicide.
A deceased male was found inside,
and it looked like it was possibly gonna be
a homicide by gunshot.
So, when compiling a list of possible suspects,
a name that came up was
a gentleman by the name of Don Hosmer.
So, we discovered that Don Hosmer got arrested
for basically assaulting, uh, Mr. Keller with a knife.
That's one violent act, could there be another one?
Was there any animosity carrying over from that incident?
Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent
Dennis Haley assisted with the interviews,
especially the ones out of state.
He was able to speak with Hosmer
and Hosmer's partner, James Lapinski, in Michigan.
According to Lapinski and Hosmer,
Keller had asked them to move down here and stay with him.
And they did, I believe it was near the end of 2004.
They stayed with him through 2005 and there was some friction
that started to occur because
Mr. Keller would bring people home.
He would bring homeless guys home from the beach.
It eventually led, I guess, to an eruption one night,
in which Mr. Hosmer threatened Keller with a knife, allegedly.
But those charges were eventually dropped,
and they were actually very devastated to learn
what had happened to their friend Rodger Keller.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement was able
to alibi them.
They definitely could not have done it based on
verifying their location during the timeframe of the crime.
James Lapinski and Don Hosmer had mentioned that there was
another person that had lived with Rodger and been arrested
for, I believe, stealing something from him
or stealing checks from him.
- ♪
- BRENDA: While those interviews are going on,
I'm going through the house and I'm going through his files.
And in his personal files, he kept copies of those cases.
And I found the file case labeled "Johnny Ray Holt."
There was also the paperwork from the criminal case
that kind of documented how Holt had stolen checks from him.
Totaled over $8,000.
And it actually resulted in...
that whole account being shut down.
When we looked into it, we found out that
there was actually an active warrant.
Tennessee had a warrant for him for a parole violation
and he had also just committed a crime in Danville, Alabama.
His girlfriend, Jennifer Long-- her father's truck was stolen,
and his house was burglarized.
When I look through the files,
there were pictures of Johnny Ray Holt.
Him in the house, partially nude,
with him covering his genitals.
The pictures are very consistent with what Michael Sox described
as the guy driving the car.
In this point in the investigation,
a lot of things are starting to come together.
We have Johnny Ray Holt being involved in a fraud case
and previously living with Keller in his house.
- ♪
- BRENDA: The same time,
I'm finding Mr. Keller's other accounts.
And there was one card in particular
at Keys Federal Credit Union that did show activity
the date of the homicide, which was March 20.
There's one at a gas station on Summerland Key.
Later in the day, there's one at a gas station in Titusville.
The last transaction showed a gas fill
at Lake Park, Georgia, at 2:32 a.m. in the morning.
So, it makes it very difficult,
once someone hits the mainland, they can be anywhere.
Homicide cases can turn into
almost a countrywide manhunt sometimes.
- ♪
- BRENDA: One of the-- the detectives I asked
to track down that lead,
discovered that that was actually a phone sex line.
The interesting thing about those payments is that,
evidently when you call-- at least this phone sex line--
they track you by your phone number.
They were able to determine that this same number had made
another call back on the 3rd, and that they were
having trouble with the payment on that
because there was a check that had bounced on it
that belonged to a Johnny Ray Holt of Alabama.
Now we've got his name popping up a third time.
So, everything is starting to triangulate
and look really good that he's a pretty good suspect.
We need to find out where he's at.
- ♪
- BRENDA: Once we had the phone number,
we could then ask for the--the pings.
The tower that it was communicating with
was over at Key West By the Sea,
which if you were to stand on, um, Mr. Keller's roof,
you'd probably be able to see that tower.
So, it placed him on that phone
the same timeframe as the homicide.
I immediately get on the phone and call up there,
I talk with, uh, investigator Sears,
she works with the Crisp County Sheriff's Department.
- ♪
- BRENDA: He was the active suspect in that case
and there was also a BOLO out for the stolen vehicle.
Evidently, his girlfriend, Jennifer Long,
cooperated with the police department
and the detectives in Alabama
in helping to track him down.
She was getting texts from him on the same phone
that--that we had pinged and he wanted her to come meet him.
He was going to send her a hundred bucks,
and he was gonna do it through Western Union.
She's able to get him to pinpoint where he's at
close enough for the detectives and the state police in Georgia
to go and do a traffic stop on him.
- ♪
- BRENDA: And at the time of that traffic stop,
he's driving the stolen Chevy.
So, they take that vehicle and they secure it.
They lock him up-- and that's back on the 21st.
So, we're talking probably within 24 hours or so
of the homicide itself.
He is in custody, but we don't know that.
- ♪
- My name is Val Winter.
I was the second chair during the prosecution
of the case versus Johnny Ray Holt.
After the homicide,
we were able to piece together a story that began
from a burglary in Georgia,
in which he stole his girlfriend's father's truck,
in addition to a number of firearms.
Johnny Ray Holt's girlfriend assisted law enforcement
in trying to lure Johnny Ray
back into Crisp County, Georgia, where he could be apprehended.
From there, it was backtracking
and telling a--a story
about how it came to be that he traveled here
and, uh, committed the crime.
We were able to track him
through cellphone towers and usage
from Georgia into Northern Florida,
then ultimately the entire way to the Keys.
And then, we were additionally able to establish that
after the time of the homicide, that he fled the Keys.
He had returned to Georgia, uh,
there was an outstanding warrant.
- ♪
- VAL: When the vehicle that Johnny Ray Holt had stolen
was seized along with a wallet
and credit cards belonging to Rodger Keller, uh,
they were also able to locate shorts with--
that had blood on them, a T-shirt,
and shoes that had blood on them, as well.
The sneakers, while they weren't rare,
had a unique tread pattern on them.
It was a tread pattern that was consistent with what was seen
at Rodger Keller's car.
In the stolen pickup truck,
a .44 caliber revolver was recovered.
It had a total of five rounds of ammunition,
but one of them was spent.
By this time, we learned that, uh, Rodger Keller
died of a single gunshot wound.
That was obviously the most significant piece of evidence.
He's found with the firearm that was used
to kill Rodger Keller.
- [seagulls cawing]
- VAL: During Mr. Holt's initial interview,
he denied ever entering Florida.
We had already had information by that time
that placed him here.
And so, that was an immediate contradiction
that could be proved with, uh, documentary evidence.
- VAL: During the course of the investigation,
it was learned that Johnny Ray Holt conducted
a Western Union transaction at a local grocery store.
The transaction was conducted
before the time that the homicide occurred.
And it showed that Johnny Ray Holt was in Key West
on the day of the homicide.
- ♪
- VAL: It was crucial to our case
because he's captured on video, he's wearing a baseball cap,
he's wearing a maroon T-shirt and khaki shorts.
It was also consistent with the eyewitness testimony,
who described the person who drove away
from Rodger Keller's home.
After he was confronted with some of that evidence,
he then claimed to have entered Northern Florida,
but returned.
And, as the interview went on,
Mr. Holt ultimately came farther and farther south in Florida,
uh, to the point where he admitted, uh,
coming the whole way to Key West.
The evidence at--at--at a point became overwhelming
and he just had to at least address why he was in Key West.
- Johnny Ray Holt came up with a story, uh,
because he had to explain how Rodger Keller's wallet
was in his truck.
At some point, he picked up a hitchhiker
who left behind personal items that were later determined
to belong to Rodger Keller.
He denied knowing Rodger Keller.
He denied staying at, uh, Rodger Keller's home.
He denied having ever stolen anything from Rodger Keller.
We were aware that he had lived in Key West for a period of time
and believed that he lived at the same house
where Rodger Keller was killed.
- ♪
- He'd already contradicted himself so many times
and had been caught in lies that they were left
with their own, uh, investigative techniques
to complete the story.
Johnny Ray Holt at the time didn't even attempt to claim
that it was a self-defense case or anything like that.
There were three charges.
Uh, the first of which was felony murder.
The two other charges were robbery, and then burglary
for the entering a home without permission with the intent
to commit a crime therein.
The stakes were very high for this trial
and our office prides itself in making sure that no homicide
goes unsolved.
- ♪
- I've been through a lot of crazy things,
but it was one of the toughest.
The absolute toughest.
When they finally did pin it down
and they were pretty sure that it was Johnny Ray Holt,
things started to-- to come together a little bit.
- VAL: We were not satisfied with only the defendant
having the murder weapon in his possession.
Our intent was to establish the entire story,
to document in every possible way each and every step
that Johnny Ray Holt took, uh,
from the moment he, uh, left Alabama to the time
that he returned to Georgia and was arrested.
- Mr. Long's house was burglarized on March 17.
There were a rifle, a shotgun,
and a .44-caliber revolver handgun stolen,
along with some other loose cash, antique coins,
and--and things like that.
- The defendant was in need of money and, uh,
came to Key West, looked up a, uh, former friend of his--
Rodger Keller.
Holt was aware of Mr. Keller's financial situation,
where he kept his checks, um, and that if he needed money,
he could return at a later time.
We don't believe and never believed that Johnny Ray Holt
entered with the intent to kill Rodger Keller.
The evidence was consistent with Johnny Ray Holt
being in Rodger Keller's residence initially,
when Rodger Keller was not there,
and then being surprised when Rodger Keller returned home.
We used photographs from the crime scene
as a very important part of establishing
how the homicide happened.
And why it would be consistent with someone
who had previously known Rodger Keller.
- [muffled gunshot]
- It is quite unusual for a person to cover
the victim of a homicide,
unless you have a feeling for that person.
- Next, we wanna look at Mr. Holt's shoes.
The shoe treads look very consistent
with those we have found.
- DONALD: You've looked at those so many times,
you recognize those patterns on that shoe
like a familiar face. There's your case.
- VAL: Johnny Ray Holt took the stand
and initially claimed a consensual encounter
with Rodger Keller;
that he had been invited down there.
- According to Johnny Ray Holt's testimony,
Rodger Keller had a strict rule against his guests having
firearms in the premises, and that at some point,
Rodger Keller learned, uh, that Johnny Ray Holt
had a firearm in his possession.
- There was a scuffle over the gun
and it accidentally discharged.
That's the version that Johnny Ray Holt
came up with at trial.
- VAL: We had to eliminate self-defense as a possibility,
to show the physical limitations,
the inability to resist, move quickly,
uh, respond to a situation.
Rodger was heavy-set, diabetic,
and had problems even in walking.
He was not a healthy person, could certainly not engage
in hand to hand combat and be successful with anybody.
- I've seen on numerous homicides where the assailant
will accuse the--the victim.
That was such a--an iffy self-defense type excuse.
- ♪
- VAL: After an eight-day trial,
the jury started their deliberations,
and after two hours of deliberating,
they returned their verdicts.
- He was convicted at trial on all counts.
- VAL: Johnny Ray Holt was ultimately sentenced
to life without the possibility of parole.
- ROSI: The community was very shocked.
We don't have violence like this in Key West.
- ♪
- SUSAN: I truly wish that we could roll back the clock
and that he could continue doing his life the way
only Rodger could do it.
He deserved to--to live more and help more people
and enjoy a little bit more.
- ♪
♪♪