Thomas Freeman: How Did He Die? Information About the Lee Rotatori Murder Case

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How Did Lee Rotatori Die?

Clifford W. Gunsalus and Gwendolyn R. Snarr Gunsalus were the parents of Lee Gunsalus Rotatori when he was born on September 29, 1949 in Fargo, located in Cass County, North Dakota. He was the eldest son of the Gunsalus family, which consisted of four children, and he spent his childhood outside of Rochester. At the University of Wisconsin, Lee received his Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Food Nutrition. Both degrees are in the field of Dietary Services. He had a son from his first marriage, and for reasons related to his career, he decided to keep the surname from that marriage. His son lives in Chicago with his father.

Madison, Wisconsin was the location of Lee’s marriage to her second husband, Gerald Stanley “Jerry” Nemke, which took place in August 1978. After another year of marriage, they ultimately decided to end their marriage and divorce each other. He began working for Service-Master Inc., a Chicago-based company that outsourced food service managers to hospitals, in the year 1980. In June of 1982, he was sent to Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs. Lee slept at the Best Western Frontier Motor Lodge motel during the first week of his training as it was his temporary home.

What Happened to Lee Rotatori?

On the afternoon of June 24, 1982, Lee spent time with some of his new friends at his new job by going out on a boat with them to Lake Manawa. They had no idea that would be the last time they would see Lee alive at this moment, but it turned out to be the case. Lee’s bosses became concerned when he didn’t show up for his first official day of work the next day and called the motel to check on his whereabouts. When the motel workers went to his room, they discovered Lee had been murdered.

Lee’s body, dressed in pajamas, was found on the bed, bent over, covered in blood. Police could not find any indication of a struggle or illegal entry into the building. Her autopsy findings revealed that she had died as a result of a single stab wound to the chest, and it was estimated that she had been dead for approximately twelve hours prior to the discovery of her body. The fact that she had been a victim of sexual assault was also included in the report. It was stated that his ring, wallet, and watch were missing; however, it is not clear if theft could be the reason for their disappearance.

The Killing of Lee Rotatori

Lee Rotatori is an American lady who is 32 years old and comes from Nunica, Michigan. In June of 1982, he recently moved to Council Bluffs to begin work at the adjacent Jennie Edmundson Hospital. Due to the fact that he was new to the area and had no place to permanently call home, he spent many nights at the Best Western Frontier Motor Lodge hotel.

When Rotatori’s manager learned that he did not show up for his first official day of work on June 25, 1982, he called the hotel to ask where he was. The staff discovered him dead in his room when they went to see him, and they immediately informed the authorities of the crime scene. They discovered that she had been sexually molested and that she died as a result of a single knife wound to the chest from which she was killed. For decades, no names were put forth as possible suspects.

Investigation of the Case of Lee Rotatori

According to a report that appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on July 4, 1982, published ten days after Rotatori’s body was found, then-Sergeant Larry Williams was quoted as saying “the killer was maybe five feet away . or a thousand miles away.” His workplace and several other local groups offered financial awards totaling thousands of dollars in an effort to get answers, but their efforts were fruitless. As a direct result of this, a cold case was initiated in which there were no suspects or explanations, and for years no suspects were identified.

In 2019, authorities tried to identify a suspect by providing DNA evidence to Parabon NanoLabs so they could identify the culprit. Eric Schubert, a student at Elizabethtown College and volunteer genealogist, was also there to help them. In February of 2021, it was discovered that Thomas Oscar Freeman was the likely owner of the DNA found at the crime scene. Because Freeman’s daughter was willing to provide a DNA sample, he was identified as the person responsible for the murder.

In 2022, police said the offender was identified as Freeman. Additionally, it was discovered that Freeman himself had been the victim of a homicide around July 1982. On October 30, 1982, his decomposing remains were found in an abandoned building. His body was found to have sustained several bullet wounds before being placed in a shallow grave. According to investigators, the two homicides are related.

Lee Rotatori’s husband, Gerald “Jerry” Stanley Nemke, was initially viewed as a person of interest in Lee Rotatori’s murder; however, he was immediately removed as a suspect after officers discovered he had a reliable alibi.

Jerry Nemke has a history of arrests and convictions. On April 29, 1960, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, while he was only 17 years old, he killed a waitress named Marilyn Duncan, who was only 16 years old at the time. He was tried for murder, convicted of the crime, and ultimately sentenced to death. Nemke’s preliminary hearing was not conducted in a fair manner, according to a ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court, which led to his conviction being later overturned on appeal. He was also found guilty in the second trial, but this time he received a sentence of seventy-five years behind bars. Sometime during his term, he was granted early parole.

Nemke was designated as a person of interest in the murder of Thomas Freeman after Freeman was determined to be the person responsible for Rotatori’s death. Authorities said Nemke’s college was 25 kilometers (16 miles) away from the location where Freeman’s body was found, and that Nemke and Freeman knew each other in the past. Nemke died in March 2019.

Who killed Lee Rotatori?

Jerry, who has an extensive criminal history, is initially a suspect in the investigation. After serving time at the Marseilles Youth Camp for stealing a car, Jerry was tried and found guilty of charges that he killed Marilyn Duncan, a 16-year-old waitress, by beating her to death in April of 1960. In May of 1960, when Jerry was just 17 years old, he confessed to the police while in jail for stealing another car. He was then sentenced to death for the crime. However, less than two years later, the conviction was overturned, and he was found guilty at a second trial; however, this time he was sentenced to between seventy-five and one hundred years in prison.

Despite the fact that Jerry was free when he met Lee, the authorities conducted a comprehensive investigation into him due to his history of violent behavior. However, due to the fact that he was in Michigan at the time of the murder and had a rock-solid alibi, he was not considered a suspect in the case. Because of the motel’s location near the intersection of Interstate 29-80 and South 24th Street, police suspected the killer could be anywhere from “five feet away to a thousand miles away.”

At the crime scene, the police discovered some forensic evidence; however, because advanced forensic technology was not available at the time, they were unable to use this evidence to identify or catch the killer. A reward fund of about $3,000 has been set up by Edmundson Hospital, Service-Master Inc., and the owners of the motel where Lee was found murdered, Kinseth Enterprises Inc., in hopes of getting some credit -credible information on Lee’s killer. However, no new leads emerged, and the reward went unclaimed as the investigation stalled.

The evidence obtained from the crime scene in 1982 and resubmitted to the State of Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Lab in 2001 reflects the development of forensic science over the years. Although the DNA profile of an unidentified man was discovered, there was no match for it in state or federal DNA databases. The DCI lab did routine checks on the databases, but they never yielded any useful information. In the year 2019, the DNA profile was handed over to a firm called Parabon Nanolabs, which is located in Virginia and offers DNA phenotyping services to government organizations.

The case was solved by Parabon Nanolabs in 2021 when they discovered that the DNA belonged to Thomas O. Freeman through the process of determining family relationships from genetic information. This discovery was made in collaboration with Eric Schubert, who was a student at the time and was 18 years old. Today, Eric Schubert is a nationally recognized Pennsylvanian genealogist. After nearly 40 years of searching, police believe they have finally solved the case when they discover a match between Thomas’ daughter’s DNA and the suspect’s.

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How Did Thomas Freeman Die?

The investigation is not over yet. In February of 2022, the Council Bluffs Police Department released to the general public the identity of the person they identified as Lee’s killer. However, due to the fact that Thomas was the victim of a murder, it was impossible to arrest him. In October 1982, just four months after Lee’s murder, the decomposing remains of a 35-year-old man were discovered in a shallow grave near Cobden, Illinois. This is according to documents kept by the police. He had been shot multiple times, and the results of his autopsy revealed that he had been dead for nearly three months at the time of the examination.

After discovering some apparent relationship between the two individuals, investigators again considered Jerry a person of interest in Thomas’ murder. Both men were Jerry’s old acquaintances, and Jerry’s college was 15 miles away from where Thomas was found dead. However, Jerry passed away in March of 2019 of natural causes, and Illinois police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding Thomas’ murder.