FORGOTTEN BUSINESS. The “refrigerator murders”, barbaric revenge for an abused son?

June 23, 1965. Without news of his aunt, a man named Marvin contacts the police in Houston, Texas. He asks them to make a routine visit to the home of Fred and Edwina Rogers, aged 81 and 72. On the spot, the authorities were surprised to find the house empty. Everything suggests that the couple went on vacation. Everything, or almost. Upon opening the refrigerator, an agent discovers what he believes to be large pieces of pork, all washed and very well wrapped. Confused, he prepares to close the door. But looking down, he sees, in the vegetable drawer, the shape of two decapitated heads…

In a sink, the Houston police identify the remains of the entrails of the two serniors, brutally murdered, emptied then dismembered before being stored in the refrigerator. An autopsy reveals that Fred Rogers was bludgeoned with a claw hammer. His eyes and genitals were carefully gouged out. Edwina Rogers, she received several blows to the head. The murders took place approximately a week earlier, presumably on June 20, 1965, Father’s Day.

Family revenge?

But who could have committed such an atrocity, moreover without attracting the attention of the neighborhood? By following the few traces of blood sown by the assassin, the investigators come across the room of Charles Rogers, the couple’s only son. Inside, a bloodstained keyhole saw. So were Fred and Edwina Rogers killed by whoever was closest to them? Without waiting, the police launch the search to find traces of Rogers, but he has vanished. He will never be found.

Nearly sixty years later, the murder of Fred and Edwina Rogers remains unsolved. Missing since the discovery of the bodies, their son, Charles Rogers, was declared “legally dead” in 1975. According to an investigation by Hugh Gardenier, a Houston forensic accountant, and his wife Martha, he was killed in Honduras in a conflict with minors. The Gardenier investigation also claims that Charles Rogers planned the murder of his parents as revenge for the physical and emotional abuse he suffered as a child and into adulthood. According to the Gardeniers, Fred and Edwina Rogers lived off their son in a house he owned. Sometimes they even made bank loans in his name, which made his life impossible.

However, these are just theories. It is unknown to this day what really happened to Charles Rogers and above all, whether or not he is the real murderer of his parents.