Youth Charged With Schoolmate’s Slaying : Secret Torment Led to Tragedy, Police Believe

For most young people, high school graduation night is a time of pride and celebration.

For Robert Rosenkrantz, police believe, it was a night on which his darkest secret was exposed, a time of shame and humiliation.

It led to a first-degree murder charge against the 18-year-old Calabasas High School graduate, accused of gunning down a schoolmate who discovered his secret.

Investigators theorize that events on Rosenkrantz’s graduation night, June 21, drove him to kill 17-year-old Steven Redman.

On that night, Redman and his best friend, Rosenkrantz’s brother, Joey, also 17, discovered Robert Rosenkrantz in a homosexual embrace with a man whose identity has not been disclosed, according to the police, the slain boy’s mother and friends. The youths later told Robert’s parents and classmates, friends said.

Called Gentle, Nonviolent

Robert Rosenkrantz is described by friends, teachers and acquaintances as a gentle, nonviolent, hard-working youth. But a week after his humiliating exposure, police have charged, he shot Redman nine times with an Uzi semiautomatic rifle bought a few days earlier with his mother’s credit card.

After the slaying, Robert Rosenkrantz fled to Stockton, where he hid for nearly a month. He surrendered on July 23 at the urging of his two lawyers and a psychiatrist, police said.

Charged with first-degree murder, he has pleaded not guilty and is being held in the Los Angeles County Jail without bail awaiting a Sept. 4 hearing. Because the charges carry allegations of special circumstances of premeditation and lying in wait, Rosenkrantz could receive the death penalty or life imprisonment without possibility of parole if he is convicted.

All the gay marches, rallies and political action committees of recent years have not done much to change the social realities at Calabasas High School. Homosexuality is not the kind of thing one reveals for fear of being “totally ostracized, teased and isolated,” said Bruce Wilkoff, a Calabasas High School psychology teacher.

“In high school, homosexuality is really a difficult thing for kids to handle,” Wilkoff explained. “When I bring it up in class, the reaction is incredible,” ranging from epithets to statements such as “they should all be killed.”

“Especially for adolescent males, it’s very hard to take, very threatening,” Wilkoff said.

Peer Pressure

“Most people don’t come out of the closet until they are in their 20s,” said Albert Ogle, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood. He said peer pressure and fear that parents will stop loving them make teen-age years the hardest time of life for most homosexuals.

The fear is not always unfounded, Ogle said. “We’ll call parents of teen-age gay runaways who will say, ‘We wish our son was dead.’ ”

Adele Starr, founder and president of a group called Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said youths whose homosexuality is suddenly exposed often find the experience so traumatic that they turn to drugs or alcohol, run away from home or commit suicide. Most of her group’s membership consists of parents who joined after suicide attempts by a young gay offspring.

Came as a Surprise

Perhaps that is why most students and teachers at Calabasas High School never heard a word about Rosenkrantz’s sexual orientation until after Redman’s slaying.

The eldest of three sons, Robert Rosenkrantz lived with his family in a spacious home on a large, hilly, tree-lined tract known to neighbors as the “Rosenkrantz Ranch,” because of the hens, goat and lamb that range over the property.

Rabbi Bernard Cohen of Temple Solael in Canoga Park, who presided over Rosenkrantz’s bar mitzvah and now visits him in jail, remembers him as a “fine person,” an assessment generally shared by his teachers and an employer at Scaliche’s Italian Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, where he worked as a pizza delivery man.

When he wasn’t working at the restaurant, Rosenkrantz was typing term papers for fellow students on his word processor. He poured much of his earnings into the souped-up cherry-red Mustang he loved to race on Mulholland Drive, friends said.

Rosenkrantz quit the job at the restaurant about six months ago after he hit a child on a bicycle while on a pizza delivery, John Rogan, the restaurant manager, said. The child was not hurt, but Rosenkrantz was “was so upset, he walked off that night,” according to Rogan.

Began to Withdraw

Classmates say Rosenkrantz began to withdraw several months ago. He became “quiet” and a little “strange,” according to classmate David Gold and several other friends. He underwent a radical physical transformation, losing many pounds. He told those who asked that he had “simply stopped eating” after growing tired of being overweight.

Friends say Rosenkrantz wanted to be a lawyer like his father, and planned to attend junior college in the fall.

“He’s not a criminal. He’s a nice kid and he doesn’t have a criminal mind,” said one detective close to the case. “Whatever it was that triggered him was his deepest, darkest secret in the world, and he was so upset when his mother found out, he couldn’t take it.”

“All the articles I’ve read make it seem like . . . Rob Rosenkrantz is this crazy murderer. That’s not true. He was one of the nicest guys I knew,” said Calabasas High School junior Steve Miller. “He would have been the last person I ever would have thought would kill somebody.”

“I know it’s a really weird thing to say after he’s arrested for pumping nine shots into a guy, but he was nonviolent,” said another youth who worked with Robert.

Sometime last spring, Rosenkrantz apparently began using Off World, a computer bulletin board system operated out of Westwood, friends said. About 30% of the system’s users are homosexuals, according to the operator of the system, Joel Weinman, 19.

The method is a boon to homosexual teen-agers, whose need for secrecy is high, said Gary Davis, 26, an avowedly gay computer aficionado who said he met Robert Rosenkrantz through the Off World message system late last spring.

Weinman, the Off World system operator, said he was monitoring the system last spring and noticed a new user who went by the name Rob and gave his address as Malibu. This Rob had filled out a 70-item multiple-choice questionnaire circulated to new users. In the questionnaire, he had listed his age as 17 and his sexual orientation as “gay male.” He said he was a high school student living at home, seeking a “long-term friend/sex partner” and he promised to “answer any mail.”

Weinman and “Rob” sent a few messages back and forth, during which Rob asked “if there were any interesting guys in the system he might like to meet,” Weinman said. “He told me he was a straight-appearing and -acting type and he was looking for a similar type person.

“I recommended a few men to him. One of them was Bill,” Weinman recalled.

Sent Him a Message

Bill, a 20-year-old Culver City resident, asked that his last name not be used. However, he provided The Times an April 28 telephone bill that listed Rosenkrantz’s unpublished telephone number 10 times.

Bill said Rob sent a message to him and, after exchanging several more messages, passed along his telephone number. The following Saturday, Rob drove to Bill’s Culver City apartment, picked him up in his bright red Mustang and drove to the Rosenkrantz family’s beach house in Hermosa Beach, Bill said. There, they had sex after consuming alcohol, he said.

They then drove to Weinman’s house in Venice, Bill said. About 11 p.m., Weinman got into his white Trans-Am, and the youths raced down Sepulveda Boulevard at speeds of more than 100 m.p.h., Weinman said. Rob won all three races, he added. Bill, riding in Rob’s car, said he noticed an electronic stun gun.

The Rosenkrantz family refuses to discuss the case, and Robert Rosenkrantz has said he does not wish to be interviewed. The family has hired two attorneys to defend Robert against what the police say is a strong case that includes eyewitnesses, a recovered murder weapon and incriminating statements.

Events leading to the killing have been pieced together from interviews with police officers, friends of both young men and Barbara Redman, the dead youth’s mother. She said it all began sometime in June when her son came to her and said Joey Rosenkrantz was upset because he thought his brother was homosexual.

A friend of Steven Redman’s, Mike Young, who worked with him at an Agoura ammunition reloading company, said Steven had told him the same thing.

Steven Redman was a slight youth who loved jazz, who played saxophone in the school band and worked as an apprentice gunsmith for his mother’s boyfriend. He was failing three courses at school. Descriptions of him in recent interviews ranged from nice kid, according to his parents and several friends, to troublemaker, the assessment of some classmates, a co-worker at the ammunition company and Doug Lechner, part owner of Scaliche’s, the same restaurant where Robert worked. Lechner said he fired Redman because he carried knives on pizza deliveries and frequently lost his temper.

‘Wanted to Prove It’

According to Mike Young, Redman and Joey Rosenkrantz “thought Rob was gay and they wanted to prove it.” Young said Redman told him that he and Joey, using a jury-rigged taping device, tape-recorded a conversation between Robert Rosenkrantz and another man in which they made plans to meet at the Rosenkrantz family’s beach home in Hermosa Beach on the night of Robert’s graduation.

Redman and the younger Rosenkrantz trailed Robert Rosenkrantz to the beachfront triplex, according to friends. They hid in bushes and peeked through the window. Inside they saw Robert Rosenkrantz “rolling around on the bed” with a man, Young quoted Steven Redman as saying.

“Joey decided to break in, so they went running in,” Young said. “Then there was a fight between Joey and Rob. Rob had a stun gun and was zapping him. Steve was in the bedroom with the other guy, who pinned him down. He had to hit him over the head with a flashlight to get away.” Police said that they believe it was Steven Redman who used the stun gun against Robert. Several of Redman’s friends said he owned such a gun.

Suffered Broken Nose

Robert Rosenkrantz suffered a broken nose, according to authorities.

Someone later called Hermosa Beach police, who came to the house but found no sign of a crime and wrote the fight off as a routine family quarrel, police said.

Steven Redman’s mother, Barbara, said her son told her essentially the same story of the night’s events.

She said her son also told her that Robert Rosenkrantz took his brother’s wallet and car keys. Stranded, Joey was forced to call his father, who drove from Calabasas in the middle of the night to pick up the boys and drive them home.

When asked by his father what had happened, Joey Rosenkrantz “lied. Joey wouldn’t tell his dad what happened,” Young quoted Steven Redman as saying. “Mr. Rosenkrantz called Steve and asked him what happened.” When Steven Redman recounted the events, “Joey Rosenkrantz denied the whole thing so the Rosenkrantzes got all upset at Steve,” Young said.

Three days after the incident, Robert Rosenkrantz walked into Scaliche’s restaurant and asked for his old job back.

Rosenkrantz told one of the owners he had been sleeping in his car and said he wanted to sleep inside the restaurant. The owner denied that request--because of insurance considerations--but told him he could sleep in the parking lot and start work the night of June 28.

The owner did not hesitate to give Robert Rosenkrantz his job back because, as restaurant manager Rogan put it, he had been a good employee.

While waiting to start work, Rosenkrantz started coming to the restaurant for free meals and to run errands for the owner.

One night, according to one restaurant employee, he showed off a receipt from a Northridge sporting goods store.

“My brother and his friend did something very, very embarrassing to me, but here, look what I got for revenge,” the employee quoted Robert Rosenkrantz as saying.

The receipt listed a gun, five boxes of ammunition and two spare ammunition magazines for the gun. Rosenkrantz took several restaurant employees to his car and showed them an Uzi semiautomatic 9-millimeter rifle. Police officers say Rosenkrantz had bought it for $550 on June 26.

Described as Murder Weapon

The police say this was the murder weapon. It was recovered after Rosenkrantz’s arrest.

Rosenkrantz already knew how to use the gun, police later learned. The day before he purchased it, he had gone to an Agoura shooting range and rented an Uzi for target practice.

When they were shown the gun, the incredulous restaurant employees asked Robert Rosenkrantz if he intended to hurt his own brother, the employee said. “He said, ‘No, but I might do it to my brother’s friend.’ We said, ‘Rob, come on. Don’t screw up your life.’ He said, ‘My life is already screwed up.’ Why didn’t you deny this embarrassing thing?” the employee then asked.

“I did. But unfortunately, my brother and my brother’s friend are into photography,” the employee quoted Robert as saying. However, sheriff’s detectives said they have found no evidence that any photographs exist.

According to Barbara Redman, on the morning of his murder her son was driving to the Rosenkrantz house to try to patch up his friendship with Joey Rosenkrantz, which had been strained by the fight and its aftermath.

Jim Storm, who lives with Barbara Redman, said that on the previous night Steven had told of receiving a telephone call from Robert Rosenkrantz, who reportedly said: “You’d better watch out. I know where you live.” Even then, he didn’t take the threat seriously, Storm said.

“He said, ‘Well, if he comes, I’m going to water balloon him.’ ” Storm said. According to police, when Redman was driving to the Rosenkrantz house to see Joey, Robert Rosenkrantz allegedly blocked Steven’s car with his own. The shooting occurred after the two had argued, police said.

“The shock of what happened to my son is more than I can take,” said Barbara Redman. “The thought that the last sight my son saw was a gun barrel staring down his face is unbearable.”