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Innocent: Who Killed Rosie Tapia?

Her Family Continues to Search for Answers

By A. GracePublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Image Credit: The Author

What Happened to Rosie?

Rosie Tapia was a 6-year-old girl with dark brown eyes and a bright smile. She was deeply loved by her family, who says she had the "cutest laugh." Twenty-six years ago, she was cruelly taken from them by a man who is still at large.

On August 13, 1995, an unknown man removed the screen from Rosie's window and took her from her home, at the Hartland Apartments in Salt Lake City, Utah. The police were called immediately when Lewine, Rosie's mother, saw that she was not in her bed at 5:45 AM. A search was undertaken, and her body was found around 10:00 AM in a nearby canal by a man walking his dog.

At first, the police believed she had wandered off and that her death was accidental. However, an autopsy later showed that Rosie had been raped before drowning. "Why anyone would want to hurt a little girl like that; I just don't understand that," Lewine Tapia told journalists from BYU's School of Communications.

On the day of her murder, a man carried Rosie home and told her sister, Emilia Elizondo, that the child had been hurt while playing on the slide. The man knew Rosie's name, but the girl later told her sister that she did not know the man or how he knew her name and hadn't been hurt on the slide. 

Her younger brother, Robert, also saw a man that night, with a beard, in the room he was sharing with Rosie. The boy informed police the man told him to go back to sleep. Elizondo helped the police create a sketch of the man she saw in 2010, a full 15 years after Rosie had been murdered.

Seeking Justice: An Ongoing Investigation

The family is working with Jensen Investigations to gather more information that will hopefully lead to a break in the case. Also as the Salt Lake Tribune reported, Karra Porter, an attorney for the family announced that "a new volunteer coalition of investigators and other experts have gained ground in the August 1995 abduction and murder case without the help of the Salt Lake City Police Department," as of 2017.

The Tapia family hired Porter to act as a go-between for the family and retrieve case information from the investigators. The family feels the police haven't been helpful nor made enough progress on the case. On the investigation, Lewine was quoted as saying, "through the years, I haven't had a lot of help from them. But I won't let it die. I want justice for her."

Officials state they are still actively working on the case and "will continue to meet with [the family] regularly."

Through the coalition, they have they've identified new persons of interest in the case: two men and a woman. Details on who they might be and what their involvement was are scarce.

In 2019, a witness helped create another police sketch, which was similar to Elizondo's. He claims to have seen a young man wearing wet clothes, leaving the site where Rosie's body was found on the night of her murder. In 2020, the witness was able to pick out a photo from a lineup that matches the sketch.

Jensen and others collected possible photos through the phone tipline and a local yearbook. However, the witness did not identify anyone from the yearbook photos; instead, he picked out a young man who was a friend of one of Rosie's family members from the batch gathered via tips.

Another avenue investigators are taking is collecting DNA from Rosie's fingernails and a Barbie that was left on her grave just days after she was buried. Police hope to compare this DNA to that of the young man identified by the witness. 

Rosie's Law

As of this writing, there are more than 400 cold cases waiting to be solved in Utah. In 2018, state lawmakers passed "Rosie's Law," which mandates the creation of a database for all homicides and disappearances that remain unsolved for more than three years. 

How Can You Help?

The Tapia's have set up the website whokilledrosie.com seeking information from the public, particularly those who lived in or around Hartland Apartments in 1995. If you have any information regarding the case, please call (385) 258–3313 or email [email protected]. Family representatives monitor both the phone number and email address.

You can also submit a tip to Utah's Cold Case Database, call the tipline at (833) DPS-SAFE, or Detective Cordon Parks with the Salt Lake City Police at (801) 799–3000. If you don't have any pertinent information to help with the case, you can share her story through Facebook or Twitter.

KUTV reported Lewine as saying, "seeing all my family growing and she's not with us - it hurts us a lot." If you know any information to help this family find closure, please don't hesitate to share it with investigators or the family's representatives.

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About the Creator

A. Grace

I'm a writer, native to the Western U.S. I enjoy writing fiction and articles on a variety of topics. I'm also a photographer, dog mom, and nature enthusiast.

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