Unsolved Homicide: Rosie Tapia

Last Seen Alive

Studio 222

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.2 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When a young girl is abducted from her Salt Lake City home in the dead of night and found in a nearby canal the next day, a decades-long search for the worst kind of predator begins. The hunt for a killer spans more than two decades and into the present-day in this episode of Last Seen Alive.

If you have any information regarding the abduction and murder of Rosie Tapia, please call the Salt Lake City Police at (801) 799-3000. Or, if you prefer to give a tip anonymously, you can text keyword TIPSLCPD to 274637 OR submit your tip anonymously online by visiting tipsubmit.com.

See photos from this episode and check out the sources we used to research it here:

https://lastseenalivepodcast.com/2023/02/27/unsolved-homicide-rosie-tapia/

Transcript

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0:00.0	When a young girl is abducted from her Salt Lake City home in the dead of night and found in a nearby canal the next day, a decades-long search for the worst kind of predator begins.
0:11.9	The hunt for a killer spans more than two decades and into the present day in this episode of Last Seen Alive.
0:43.2	Thanks for listening to Last Seen Alive. I'm your host, Leah, crime analyst by day and true crime storyteller by night.
0:45.2	And I'm your co-ist, Scott.
0:56.9	Rosa Maria Tapia, who went by Rosie, was last seen alive on August 13, 1995. She was just six years old and lived with her parents and siblings in an apartment complex in the Glendale neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Tapia family was close-knit, and Rosie
1:03.9	was a sweet and fun-loving little girl who enjoyed things like playing Nintendo, riding her bike,
1:09.8	and playing at her apartment complex's playground
1:12.4	with the other neighborhood kids. She was the middle child in her family. She lived with her two
1:17.3	younger twin siblings who were four, and also had older siblings, including a sister who, at age
1:22.5	18, was already an adult. On the night of her death, Rosie's parents went out together to enjoy a Saturday
1:28.5	evening date, leaving Rosie and the twins in the care of their 18-year-old sister, Amelia. By the time
1:35.2	they got home that night, Rosie and her twin siblings were asleep in the bedroom they shared. We know
1:40.8	because Rosie's mom, Luane, popped briefly into their bedroom to check on them when
1:45.5	she arrived home at approximately 2 a.m. At the time, all was well. However, the next time
1:52.2	Luane checked on her three youngest children, it was a very different story. Luane woke up just a few
1:58.8	hours later at approximately 5 a.m. in the morning, feeling uneasy.
2:03.3	She wasn't sure what, but she sensed that something wasn't right.
2:06.8	Call it a mother's intuition. Maybe a strange noise heard in her sleep had alerted her that something was wrong, I don't know.
2:13.4	But she got out of bed and went to check on Rosie and her twin siblings.
2:18.0	At that early hour, the sun hadn't even risen yet,
2:20.7	and the kids should all still have been asleep.
2:23.1	But to Luane's alarm, she discovered that although the twins were still fast asleep,
	...

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