STRANGE COINCIDENCE OR SWEET REVENGE?
FOR OVER 40 YEARS THE MURDER OF LEE ROTATORI LAY UNSOLVED, BUT AS THE CASE WAS FINALLY CRACKED, A NEW AND DISTURBING MYSTERY PRESENTED ITSELF
WHAT MURDER
WHERE COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA, USA
WHEN 25 JUNE 1982
Background
An exciting new future lay ahead of 32-yearold Lee Rotatori and she couldn’t wait to start her new job as Food Services Director at the Jennie Edmundson Hospital. Of course it meant that she would be leaving her husband Jerry for a few weeks until he was able to join her, but in the meantime the mother of one intended to stay at the Best Western Frontier Hotel in Council Bluff and make the most of it. She had completed her orientation sessions and was looking forward to starting the actual job, so when she failed to show up for her first day her new boss decided to give the hotel a call. He didn’t know the woman properly but she had seemed a reliable sort and had come with excellent references. Something felt wrong, and since she was staying up at the hotel all alone he thought he should check in on her.
A maid was sent to Lee’s room. After knocking she entered the bedroom and discovered Lee’s bloodied corpse. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the heart and had been dead for approximately 12 hours. Scene of crime officers scoured the room collecting clues and any available forensic evidence. Meanwhile, her (second) husband Jerry Nemke was brought in for questioning, but after a rigorous interview it was established that Jerry had a solid alibi. He could not have killed his wife.
With Jerry off the suspect list, police decided to gather up anyone who had been socialising with the victim. Lee hadn’t been in the area long enough to make too many new friends but she had been out boating with some co-workers the day before her murder. Once again, everybody at the Lake Manawa get-together had solid alibis around the time of the killing. Witnesses had spotted her at a nearby McDonald’s after she had left the water, but she had been on her own. With no leads, the case quickly went cold.
BREAKTHROUGH
DNA profiling was first applied in a British trial in 1986, four years after Lee’s brutal murder, so the partial forensic evidence gathered at the scene was initially of little use. Early tests were limited and vast samples were needed to yield any valuable information. However, as time marched on DNA technology continued to develop and
