Love, Obsession & Murder

0:00 Speaker 1: The rain had not stopped falling over Kenosha, Wisconsin for

0:04 Speaker 1: four straight days in May twenty twenty. Dark clouds hung

0:08 Speaker 1: low above the quiet apartment buildings on Fifteenth Street. The

0:11 Speaker 1: streets glistened beneath flickering street lights, puddles collecting along cracked sidewalks,

0:17 Speaker 1: while thunder rolled somewhere far in the distance. It was

0:20 Speaker 1: the kind of night where most people stayed inside, locked

0:23 Speaker 1: their doors, and waited for morning. But for Sadie Beam,

0:27 Speaker 1: something felt terribly wrong. She had been calling her boyfriend

0:31 Speaker 1: Rosalio Gutierrez for nearly twenty four hours. Every call went

0:36 Speaker 1: straight to voicemail, every text remained unanswered. That wasn't like him.

0:41 Speaker 1: Rosalio was dependable, a father of two, a man who

0:45 Speaker 1: coached children's sports teams, loved dancing, and never ignored the

0:50 Speaker 1: people he cared about. By the evening of May nineteenth,

0:54 Speaker 1: anxiety had turned into panic. Sadi drove through the rain

0:57 Speaker 1: to Rosalio's apartment complex, hoping maybe his phone had died

1:01 Speaker 1: or he'd fallen asleep after work. But the moment she

1:04 Speaker 1: stepped out of her car, an uneasy silence settled over her.

1:09 Speaker 1: The screen door to his apartment was slightly open. She

1:12 Speaker 1: called his name, no answer. Her pulse quickened as she

1:16 Speaker 1: approached the window. Then, with trembling hands, she pulled back

1:20 Speaker 1: the blinds. Blood. There was blood everywhere. Nine one one,

1:25 Speaker 1: what's the address of your emergency? Sadie's voice shook violently.

1:30 Speaker 1: I was doing a wellness check on a good friend

1:32 Speaker 1: of mine that I was dating, and I found blood

1:35 Speaker 1: on the floor. She could barely breathe. This isn't normal,

1:39 Speaker 1: Something's wrong. Within minutes, Kenosha police officers arrived at the apartment.

1:45 Speaker 1: Detectives cautiously stepped through the doorway and entered a scene

1:49 Speaker 1: that would haunt many of them for years. Blood stained

1:52 Speaker 1: the walls, blood splattered across the ceiling, blood soaked into

1:56 Speaker 1: the floor, smeared along furniture, sprayed a crossed the kitchen,

2:00 Speaker 1: table and couch. It looked less like a home and

2:04 Speaker 1: more like the aftermath of unimaginable violence. But there was

2:07 Speaker 1: one terrifying problem. Rosalio Gutierez was nowhere to be found.

2:12 Speaker 1: There was no body, no sign of forced entry, no

2:16 Speaker 1: indication anyone had burglarized the apartment, just blood, endless blood.

2:22 Speaker 1: Investigators immediately noticed strange details scattered Throughout the apartment, furniture

2:27 Speaker 1: had been moved, A large stain on the floor suggested

2:31 Speaker 1: someone had lain their bleeding for a long time, and

2:34 Speaker 1: in the center of the room were faint, rectangular outlines

2:37 Speaker 1: where a rug had once been. The rug was gone.

2:40 Speaker 1: To detectives, that detail screamed louder than anything else. Carpets

2:45 Speaker 1: are often used to transport bodies. As crime scene technicians

2:49 Speaker 1: photographed every inch of the apartment, detectives began piecing together

2:53 Speaker 1: Rosalio's final hours. One early theory quickly emerged. Rosalio may

2:58 Speaker 1: have answered the door late that night and immediately suffered

3:01 Speaker 1: a brutal attack before stumbling back into the apartment, bleeding

3:05 Speaker 1: profusely as he fought for survival. But who would want

3:08 Speaker 1: him dead? The answer came almost immediately his girlfriend's ex boyfriend,

3:14 Speaker 1: Zachariah Anderson. Sadie described him as obsessive, controlling, and unable

3:19 Speaker 1: to accept the end of their relationship. She and Zachariah

3:23 Speaker 1: had spent years together and shared three children, including their

3:27 Speaker 1: teenage daughter Olivia. Their relationship had been turbulent for years,

3:31 Speaker 1: but by twenty nineteen, Sadie had finally decided enough was enough.

3:36 Speaker 1: Zachariah refused to let go. He showed up uninvited, started arguments,

3:41 Speaker 1: tracked her movements, watched her house, called constantly, and when

3:46 Speaker 1: Sadie began dating Rosalio, things escalated into something far darker.

3:52 Speaker 1: Investigators learned Zachariah had become fixated on Rosalio. He monitored

3:57 Speaker 1: him online, photographed him, tracked Sadie's whereabouts, and according to Sadie,

4:02 Speaker 1: he had even threatened Rosalio. Before then came the interview

4:06 Speaker 1: that changed everything. Sadie brought her daughter Olivia to the

4:10 Speaker 1: police station. The teenager looked nervous, exhausted, torn between fear

4:16 Speaker 1: and guilt. Then she began talking. She described knights when

4:20 Speaker 1: her father drove her to Sadie's home to spy on

4:22 Speaker 1: her mother and Rosalio. He allegedly instructed Olivia to cover

4:27 Speaker 1: her mouth with her shirt so her breath wouldn't fog

4:30 Speaker 1: the windows while peeking inside. She told detectives her father

4:33 Speaker 1: hit a phone inside an air theent to secretly listen

4:36 Speaker 1: to conversations happening in the house, and then Olivia revealed

4:40 Speaker 1: something chilling. Her father had removed the registration papers from

4:44 Speaker 1: his truck and refused to put them back. When Sadie

4:47 Speaker 1: asked why, Olivia said, he said maybe he'd have Rosalio

4:52 Speaker 1: followed for fun. Detectives listened carefully as the teenager described

4:57 Speaker 1: her father's obsession in disturbing detail. It became painfully obvious

5:01 Speaker 1: that Olivia had been manipulated into helping him stalk her

5:05 Speaker 1: own mother. That same night, police arrested Zachariah Anderson for stalking.

5:10 Speaker 1: During questioning, Anderson denied everything. I'm not stalking her. It's

5:15 Speaker 1: all exaggerated. She's trying to make me look bad. Every

5:19 Speaker 1: accusation was met with an excuse. When detectives confronted him

5:24 Speaker 1: about secretly placing phones, he denied it. When asked about

5:28 Speaker 1: watching Sadie's house, he minimized it. When confronted with Olivia's statements,

5:33 Speaker 1: he blamed misunderstandings. But investigators noticed something else. Zachariah never

5:39 Speaker 1: seemed shocked that Rosalio was missing. Instead, he acted annoyed,

5:44 Speaker 1: almost inconvenienced. Then police searched his home, and what they

5:49 Speaker 1: found intensified the horror of the investigation. In the backyard

5:53 Speaker 1: stood a large burn pit, still smoldering despite nearly a

5:56 Speaker 1: week of heavy rain. Officers found partially burned claes, clothing,

6:00 Speaker 1: and a bleach container inside the ashes. The fire had

6:03 Speaker 1: been kept alive deliberately. Inside Zachariah's minivan. Detectives smelled bleach

6:09 Speaker 1: immediately after opening the door. The carpet in the back

6:13 Speaker 1: had been torn out, Stains covered the floorboards. Then investigators

6:18 Speaker 1: discovered a wal Mart receipt. On the morning of May eighteenth,

6:22 Speaker 1: hours after Rosalio vanished, Zachariah had purchased garbage bags, latex gloves,

6:28 Speaker 1: and bottles of bleach using cash two investigators. It painted

6:32 Speaker 1: a terrifying picture clean up, a disposal, an attempt to

6:37 Speaker 1: erase a human being, but without a body. Prosecutors still

6:41 Speaker 1: faced a monumental challenge. They needed proof Rosalio was dead

6:46 Speaker 1: and proof Zachariah killed him. The search expanded rapidly. More

6:51 Speaker 1: than ten law enforcement agencies descended on properties connected to Anderson,

6:55 Speaker 1: including his family's tree farm. Cadaver dogs searched wooded land,

7:00 Speaker 1: drone scanned fields from above, divers searched deep water quarries nearby. Nothing,

7:07 Speaker 1: no remains, no weapon, no Rosalio. It was as though

7:11 Speaker 1: he had vanished from the earth. Then the crime lab

7:14 Speaker 1: found something tiny a microscopic speck of blood hidden inside

7:18 Speaker 1: the rear panel of Zacharia's minivan. The sample was so

7:22 Speaker 1: small technicians worried testing it could destroy it entirely, but

7:26 Speaker 1: after days of analysis, the DNA result finally came back

7:30 Speaker 1: the blood belonged to Rosalio Gutierrez. Detectives finally had the

7:35 Speaker 1: breakthrough they needed. Rosalio had never been inside that van willingly,

7:40 Speaker 1: and Zachariah himself admitted he had never even met him.

7:44 Speaker 1: The case transformed from a missing person's investigation into a

7:47 Speaker 1: homicide prosecution. As investigators dug deeper into Zacharia's electronics, they

7:53 Speaker 1: uncovered a disturbing digital obsession. His laptop contained folders dedicated

7:58 Speaker 1: entirely to Rosalio, screenshots of social media pages, photos of

8:03 Speaker 1: him with his children, details about his construction business, more

8:07 Speaker 1: than twenty five photographs. It wasn't casual curiosity, it was fixation.

8:13 Speaker 1: Months passed, Rosalio never contacted his family again. No phone activity,

8:19 Speaker 1: no bank transactions, no social media, no calls to his children.

8:24 Speaker 1: He had disappeared completely. In twenty twenty three, nearly three

8:28 Speaker 1: years after Rosalio vanished, Zachariah Anderson finally stood trial. The

8:33 Speaker 1: court room was packed. Prosecutors argued the evidence told a

8:37 Speaker 1: clear story jealousy, obsession, stocking, murder, and concealment. The defense

8:44 Speaker 1: countered with one central point, no body, no murder, weapon,

8:49 Speaker 1: no eyewitnesses, no direct proof. They argued the prosecution had

8:54 Speaker 1: built its case entirely on assumptions. But then Olivia took

8:58 Speaker 1: the stand. Thirteen years old, she faced her father in

9:02 Speaker 1: open court. The court room fell silent as she recounted

9:06 Speaker 1: the knights spying on her mother. She demonstrated how her

9:09 Speaker 1: father told her to cover her face while peeking through windows.

9:13 Speaker 1: At one point, she broke down, crying, I didn't realize

9:16 Speaker 1: this would be this hard. Then something happened Jurors would

9:20 Speaker 1: never forget. As Olivia testified, Zachariah appeared to gesture toward

9:25 Speaker 1: her with his hands, as if signaling her to stop talking,

9:28 Speaker 1: to stay quiet. The moment sent a wave of tension

9:32 Speaker 1: through the courtroom. Even now, prosecutors believed he was trying

9:36 Speaker 1: to control her. Another devastating witness soon followed, Rosalio's father.

9:42 Speaker 1: When shown the last photograph his son had sent before disappearing,

9:46 Speaker 1: emotion overwhelmed him. My boy never reached out to me again.

9:50 Speaker 1: The courtroom wept alongside him. Then prosecutors introduced testimony from

9:55 Speaker 1: one of Zachariah's former cellmates. According to the inmate, Zachariah

10:00 Speaker 1: confessed in jail. He claimed he stabbed Rosalio, blacked out,

10:04 Speaker 1: wrapped the body in garbage bags, and disposed of it

10:08 Speaker 1: piece by peace. The inmate also revealed a disturbing nickname

10:12 Speaker 1: others had given Anderson in jail, Houdini, because, according to him,

10:17 Speaker 1: he made a body disappear. After weeks of testimony, the

10:21 Speaker 1: case went to the jury. The decision came back guilty

10:25 Speaker 1: on all counts, first degree intentional homicide, stalking, hiding a corpse.

10:31 Speaker 1: As Rosalio's family entered the courtroom for sentencing, many wore

10:35 Speaker 1: Chicago Cub's colors in honor of the man they lost.

10:38 Speaker 1: His mother delivered a heartbreaking statement, my only son was

10:42 Speaker 1: taken so savagely, with so much rage and hatred. Then

10:46 Speaker 1: Olivia spoke directly to the father she no longer recognized.

10:51 Speaker 1: Did you ever love me? She asked? Or was I

10:54 Speaker 1: just a pawn? Even then, Zachariah denied everything. I didn't

10:59 Speaker 1: kill anybody. I'm innocent. But the judge was unmoved. He

11:03 Speaker 1: sentenced Zachariah Andersen to life in prison without the possibility

11:08 Speaker 1: of parole. And yet, even after the conviction, one painful

11:12 Speaker 1: mystery remains unsolved. Rosalio Gudierez has never been found, no grave,

11:18 Speaker 1: no remains, no final goodbye. Somewhere, hidden beneath years of

11:23 Speaker 1: silence lies the answer. His family still desperately seeks where

11:28 Speaker 1: is Rosalio, And until that question is answered, the story

11:32 Speaker 1: will never truly end.