Memories of Accused Killer Haunt a Van Nuys Tavern

Glen Rogers drank at McRed’s Cocktail Lounge only a few nights. But he left a sinister mark on the smoke-filled Van Nuys bar where he allegedly met the first of four red-haired women he is accused of killing across the country.

Business has dried up at McRed’s since it became identified in patrons’ minds with the alleged serial killer.

Rogers is accused of committing the crime, “but I’m the one who’s paying for it,” bar owner Mamdouh Saliman said.

As Rogers’ trial in a Florida courtroom goes into its final phase this week, memories of the former carnival worker continue to haunt his old San Fernando Valley neighborhood.

For some like Saliman, it seems as if time stopped on Sept. 29, 1995, the day Rogers met Sandra Gallagher at McRed’s and allegedly strangled her before setting her afire in her truck at a deserted parking lot just blocks from the bar.

Saliman recalls every eerie detail of that humid September night.

How Rogers wore leather boots and blue jeans creased neatly down the middle. How Gallagher, a Santa Monica barmaid, showed up in a white blouse and exulting over a $1,200 Keno win. How the two walked out the back door just before closing time at 2 a.m. toward her green and white truck.

“I can still remember her getting inside,” said Saliman, a chain-smoking Egyptian immigrant who had to sell his other bar nearby to keep McRed’s open. “It really bothers me. I’m the one who saw her alive last.”

The night produced four thick binders of evidence and interviews that Los Angeles police homicide investigators call a solid case. But they wonder whether the material will ever be used for a trial.

An agreement between Florida and Kentucky, where Rogers was apprehended last November, calls for Rogers to remain in Florida if he receives the death penalty, the sentence that Tampa prosecutors are seeking for the stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs in a Tampa motel.

Now, Det. Stephen Fisk, who oversees the homicide unit at the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division, worries about witnesses moving out of state, or even dying, by the time Rogers comes to trial in Los Angeles--if he ever does. Fisk has already worked on more than 30 other homicides in the months that have passed since Gallagher’s death.

“We sit here with all our murder books and are just waiting to hear from them in Florida: ‘He’s all yours, come and get him,’ ” Fisk said. “Our investigation is complete.”

Investigators and prosecutors are doubly frustrated because California was the first state to file an extradition request with Kentucky--where Rogers was arrested--ahead of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Rogers allegedly committed three killings in those states in a monthlong killing binge that police say began with Gallagher’s death in Van Nuys.

Rogers faces one murder charge in Los Angeles stemming from Gallagher’s death. A first-degree murder conviction in another state would create a special circumstance, making him eligible for the death penalty here, prosecutors say.

“The victim’s family has a right to expect that the justice system will afford them some measure of closure, which can only be accomplished by prosecuting Rogers here in Los Angeles for the murder he committed here,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino, who is handling the Gallagher case.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s office is trying to work out a plan with Florida officials to bring Rogers back to Los Angeles. Wilson spokesman Ron Low said the governor’s office believes Rogers can be extradited even if he is sentenced to death in Florida.

“Gov. Wilson wants to see Mr. Rogers brought back to California for the alleged murder of Sandra Gallagher,” and his office has written to the Florida governor’s office seeking Rogers’ return, Low said.

At the Excalibur apartment complex on Woodman Avenue, where Rogers lived and worked as a maintenance man half a mile from McRed’s, neighbors would like nothing more than to see him remain a continent away.

Rogers lived at the building for about two months in mid-1995 with his girlfriend, who managed the property. The pair were fired after they got into a fight in which belongings were tossed off their first-floor balcony onto the front walkway, recalled Dan Suluga, a former maintenance man and a current resident of the complex. The girlfriend left Rogers soon after, he said.

After Rogers was caught, the building’s owners offered to change the locks on units, but only five tenants accepted. Now the building’s new manager does not mention Rogers to prospective tenants unless they ask, for fear the notoriety might scare newcomers away.

“Some people get weird about it,” said the resident manager, Sarah Scapellato, who lives three doors from Rogers’ old apartment. “It’s a good building. He didn’t do anything here.”

But the Rogers saga continues to fascinate some of his former neighbors. One of them, Suluga, collects keepsakes the alleged killer left in his apartment--items that raise a dark chuckle when they come up in conversation.

There’s the Glen Rogers baseball bat, the Glen Rogers ice chest, the Glen Rogers telephone and the Glen Rogers radio.

“It’s like someone would want a piece of Hitler’s history,” said Suluga, who gave Roger’s mattresses to a friend but sold his answering machine to another former tenant for $20. “He was an evil guy. I’ll bet you $20 that people would pay to get something of Timothy McVeigh’s,” referring to the Oklahoma City bombing suspect.

Just a short walk away, the regulars at McRed’s bristled at the thought of Rogers memorabilia.

The whole episode has become a sore point for the bar’s stalwart customers, who regard McRed’s--with its dim lights, red vinyl booths and stiff drinks--as a second home. They don’t talk about Rogers anymore because it brings up bad memories, and out of respect for owner Saliman, a gregarious man who shares beers with his patrons and is known by his nickname, Michael.

“This bar has been injured because of Rogers,” said one 30-year customer as she nursed a frosted mug of beer. “I think it’s put a bad whistle on this place.”

Like others at the bar, the patron lashed out at Rogers.

“He needs to go to the chair,” said the regular. “That’s the way I see it.”

As the woman spoke, Rogers’ face flashed across the television screen in a brief segment about his trial in Florida, casting a pall of silence over the bar.

“He won’t ever get out of Florida,” Ralph W. White, a 73-year-old patron from Pensacola, Fl, said shortly afterward. “They’ll fry his ass.”

Saliman feels cursed by the connection to Rogers. He bought McRed’s just two months before Rogers dragged his bar into the media spotlight.

To attract new customers, Saliman added karaoke, pool leagues and dart leagues. But he doesn’t believe he can survive another storm of attention if Rogers returns to stand trial in Los Angeles.

“That is going to destroy me,” he said. “I’ll have to sell. I don’t have the cash to maintain a losing bar. Who wants to go to an empty bar unless they are truly alcoholic?”