‘Worst Roommate Ever’: True crime docuseries dives into lethal residing conditions

Harris Marley

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The second season of “Worst Roommate Ever,” launched June 26 and garnering recognition on Netflix, delves into housing conditions that attain their worst attainable conclusion. 

A lady who poisoned her finest pal for custody of her son; a terrifying tenant who murdered his aged roommate after incomes her belief; a lady who took out a life insurance coverage coverage on a roommate then left him with a traumatic mind harm; and a landlord who shot then disembodied his tenants are the topics of the docuseries’ 4 episodes.

Who’s Janie Ridd and the place is she at present? 

The primary episode of the brand new season is centered round Janie Ridd, whose tumultuous 25-year friendship with a Salt Lake Metropolis lady started when the 2 moved in collectively and ended with a jail sentence for a number of poisoning makes an attempt with antibiotic-resistant micro organism.

Ridd lived with a lady named Rachel, who was a single mom to a son named Ryder.

After Rachel fell sick, Ridd turned the beneficiary of Rachel’s $500,000 life insurance coverage coverage. Rachel amended her will to present the girl custody of Ryder within the occasion of her demise. With Rachel unable to work, she stated, Ridd instantly had “100% management” over her.

Janie Ridd, left, and her pal Rachel, solely referred to by her first identify in “Worst Roommate Ever,” are pictured in an undated picture. (Netflix)

“I actually have a tough time believing that the particular person I’ve identified for 25 years, my finest pal and roommate, may do what she did,” Rachel, recognized solely by her first identify, stated on the Netflix present. “However it was diabolical, it was evil. It was plotted and deliberate so completely.”

Rachel stated she grew sicker. In the meantime, Ridd “began letting folks imagine she was Ryder’s guardian.”

Rachel developed a large methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) an infection in wounds tended to by Ridd, then was repeatedly hospitalized for unexplained extreme hypoglycemic incidents.

Authorities with the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction program started investigating Ridd after she contacted a vendor promoting Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) in October 2019, based on the documentary and an indictment filed in Utah’s Third District Court docket and reviewed by Fox Information Digital.

Ridd communicated with the seller for 3 months, telling them she was a biology trainer and wanted the micro organism — which is extra contagious and harmful than MRSA, specialists stated — for science experiments with college students. She was really employed at a job help middle, based on the indictment.

“It was plotted and deliberate so completely.”

— Janie Ridd’s roommate Rachel

FBI brokers watched her decide up the package deal at a P.O. field in December 2019, then adopted her again to her job to query her about its contents. Investigators searched the house Ridd and Rachel shared, in the end discovering used insulin needles with Rachel’s DNA on them that defined the sooner hospitalizations. 

Ridd was convicted on costs of tried intentional abuse of a disabled or aged grownup and tried possession or use of a weapon of mass destruction in August 2020. 

Ridd, now 55, was launched in January 2022 after serving simply 25 months, based on the documentary.

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Scott Pettigrew

Scott Edmund Pettigrew, now 58, was sentenced to 25 years to life in jail for beating his roommate Mimie Anita Cowen, 65, to demise of their shared dwelling. Pettigrew was a “charmer” who gained the aged lady’s favor, Cowen’s buddies stated; she had been utilizing Craigslist to seek out roommates to assist her make ends meet. 

Cowen was not conducting background checks, and lots of the roommates would cease paying hire or create issues within the family. Pettigrew, nonetheless, was initially her coworker at Walgreens and seemed to be put-together and personable. 

Shortly after he moved into Cowen’s Cathedral Metropolis, California, dwelling in 2016, Pettigrew incessantly stole gadgets from the home, then blamed one other roommate. That roommate, who spoke within the docuseries, hung out behind bars after Pettigrew satisfied Cowen to concoct a narrative about him assaulting her to get him faraway from the home with out present process a proper course of. 

Scott Pettigrew initially appeared personable and charming earlier than he murdered 65-year-old Anita Cowen of their shared dwelling. (Netflix)

At that time, Pettigrew stopped paying hire. Cowen, citing different issues, as nicely, sought a restraining order, and a choose ordered Pettigrew to remain 5 yards away from her, however he may nonetheless reside in the home. 

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Within the court docket paperwork, Cowen stated she was “scared to do something besides keep away” and that “Scott [was] intensifying this to maintain me in fixed concern of him and what he’ll do subsequent time. I don’t need a subsequent time.” 

After Pettigrew’s canines have been ordered out of the house, based on the docuseries, he disconnected the storage door opener and barricaded the entrance door. However after serving to her inside, police left, saying that they might not intervene within the civil matter.

Anita Cowen, pictured in an undated picture, was murdered at 65 by her tenant Scott Pettigrew. (Netflix)

On June 14, 2019, Cowen’s household couldn’t attain her and requested police in Cathedral Metropolis to conduct a welfare verify. She was discovered useless in her pool with damaged ribs and blunt pressure trauma to the pinnacle.

Pettigrew was nonetheless in the home, bare and bewildered. In conversations with police, he blamed the third roommate for the killing. 

However Cowen had hidden a recording system in her dwelling, and her final moments have been caught on tape, giving prosecutors ample proof to safe a conviction. 

Pettigrew was sentenced to 25 years to life on the Substance Abuse Therapy Facility and State Jail in Corcoran, California, for homicide, elder abuse and violating a protecting order, the Desert Solar reported. He is not going to be eligible for parole till April 2033.

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Tammy Fritz

After Tammy Fritz’s husband Wealthy died below mysterious circumstances, Fritz took Wealthy’s finest pal from his time within the Military, James “Bo” Bowden, into her Fort Carson, Colorado, dwelling along with her younger son, Christian.

Bowden determined to depart the army as quickly as his pal died in June 2001. When he moved into the Fritz dwelling, he turned a father determine to Christian. 

In Bowden’s thoughts, Fritz was like household. However unbeknownst to Bowden, she had taken out a life insurance coverage coverage in his identify. 

Tammy Fritz is pictured in an undated picture along with her son Christian, now an grownup with a child on the best way. Fritz was sentenced to 48 years in jail in reference to the tried homicide of James Bowden. (Netflix)

After residing within the dwelling for 4 years, Bowden received extraordinarily sick whereas he and Fritz have been ingesting alcohol collectively. Later, Fritz’s brother would say in a recorded telephone name that she talked about spiking Bowden’s drink with GHB or one other substance to gather on the life insurance coverage coverage. 

On one other event, a hearth started in Bowden’s room. The supply was by no means discovered, and Fritz advised her son that the fireplace had began with a sport system left to overheat. 

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In the meantime, Fritz was utilizing medicine closely by 2009, and was being investigated for identification theft, bank card fraud and verify fraud, based on legislation enforcement sources interviewed within the docuseries.

Round that point, Michelle Kay Heaston and Sean Richard Lagoe moved into Fritz’s dwelling, and he or she was fired for misappropriating funds at her job with a building firm. 

“The entire ‘Tammy making an attempt to kill me for cash’ factor? Yeah, there are undoubtedly a number of demons to kind out,” James Bowden stated. (Netflix)

Unemployed and depressed, Bowden advised the Fritz household of his intentions to maneuver again to Alaska together with his dad and mom and return to school. Fritz, Christian, Bowden, Heaston and Lagoe went out for a final hurrah earlier than Bowden was scheduled to set off.

After her son by no means arrived again in Alaska, Bowden’s mom known as his house supervisor — the veteran was discovered unconscious and bloodied. He had suffered a traumatic mind harm, and had no recollection of what had occurred.  

Fritz was convicted of tried homicide, solicitation of tried homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide, based on the documentary. She was sentenced to 48 years in jail, which she remains to be serving at present. Her two accomplices, Heaston and Lagoe, have been additionally charged in reference to Bowden’s tried homicide. 

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Michael Dudley

Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner have been drug addicts down on their luck once they moved into 65-year-old Michael Dudley’s dwelling in Burien, Washington. Though he appeared affable on first impression, Dudley was a paranoid drug addict who in the end killed his personal tenants, based on the docuseries.

In June 2020, a gaggle of youngsters discovered human stays stuffed right into a suitcase off Duwamish Head close to Seattle. Extra stays have been present in one other duffel bag close by, and a 3rd bag was recovered 4 days later from the Duwamish River. 

One other tenant of Dudley’s initially advised filmmakers that he appeared terribly useful, driving her to job interviews and caring for her canines. Issues modified when, after she’d moved out of the home, she requested Dudley to care for the animals. 

Austin Wenner and Jessica Lewis are pictured in an undated picture. (Netflix)

Each canines disappeared. One canine was discovered, however when the previous tenant got here to select up that canine, Dudley admitted that he’d killed the opposite after it allegedly killed considered one of his hen’s chicks. 

Within the month they have been final seen, Wenner’s mom stated that her son known as her to inform her that he’d seen “one thing he should not have” — Dudley accepting a cargo of weaponry to their shared dwelling. Wenner and his girlfriend allegedly carried out many small crimes for his or her landlord, who stored cameras all through the property and was paranoid about guests.

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Lewis’ aunt, Gina Jaschke, described Dudley’s threatening habits towards his tenants, each in “Worst Roommate Ever” and in interviews with Westside Seattle. He allegedly positioned trackers on vehicles, killed animals to make threats and held folks at gunpoint. 

Dudley shot Lewis and Wenner in the home that they shared, then left their our bodies for a number of days earlier than dismembering them. A press release from a witness, who was provided a room in Dudley’s dwelling after Wenner and Lewis disappeared, was capable of solidify the case in opposition to the owner. She encountered our bodies in one of many rooms of the home — Dudley advised her that, in an altercation, “his gun went off and theirs did not,” based on the docuseries.

Neighbors known as 911 after listening to gunshots and screaming on the evening the couple have been killed. However police that appeared on the dwelling didn’t get a response on the door and have been unable to research with out additional proof. After arresting Dudley based mostly on the witness assertion, his telephone information indicated that the one time he had left the house within the latest previous was to go to areas that corresponded with the duffel luggage of physique components.

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Dudley was sentenced to 46 years in jail in April of final yr on two counts of second-degree homicide, the Seattle Instances reported. He is not going to be eligible for parole till he’s 104 years previous. 


‘Worst Roommate Ever’: True crime docuseries dives into lethal residing conditions

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