Murder of a Fuller

This is a shortened version of the murder of Maud Fuller

as told in "True Detective" magazine dated Dec. 1946

MURDER OF A FULLER

On September 15,1945, Detective Raymond Harris saw Bert Rose standing on his porch in the early morning mist. Rose was pale and his lower lip quivered. Detective Harris asked what was wrong, as he ran up onto the porch.

Bert Rose, a well known welding shop owner in Trinidad, Colo., replied, "God, I don't know. It's Maud. She's been shot, and I think she must have done it to herself. I just discovered her and called the police headquarters." Harris asked if she was dead and Rose replied "No, but she is unconscious."

He told the detective that he had gone out for about an hour to get the paper. He stated she was sleeping when he left the house at 5:00 am. He'd gone by his place of business after getting the paper and had returned home at 6:00 am. He stated that at this time he found Maud laying in bed with a gunshot wound to the head. The detective and Rose walked into the bedroom and found Maud Fuller Rose laying on the bed, her body covered with a sheet and one blanket. Her right elbow was flexed at the pillow, resting at her side. Her left arm was stetched out in a normal sleeping position. She was laying on her left side. A Smith and Wesson .32 calibre pistol was under her right hand, fingers over the butt but not on the trigger.

There was a wound in her right temple, and blood was still seeping out of it, although considerable blood had dried around it. The unconscious woman was breathing heavily in long feeble gasps. The detective asked him if he had called a doctor yet. Rose, 60 years old, seemed at the point of collapsing, stated he had only contacted the police.

Things just did not seem to click to Detective Harris. He later talked it over with other officers and they agreed. As the detective and other law enforcement officers investigated the crime scene, it was plain to see that the facts did not match up to what Rose had told them. The position of the gun, the position of the body and the wound did not add up to suicide. Plus the fact there was a man who boarded there, and was home between the hours of 11:30 PM. the night before, to 6:00 am. on the morning Rose claimed to have found Maud fatally wounded. The man stated that he had heard no gunshots while he was at home. This fact alone told Dec. Harris that things did not look right.

After many hours of being grilled by the police, then being confronted with the facts of the case, Bert Rose confessed to the murder of his wife. He had shot her the night before at around 10:30 to 11:00 PM. and left her to die all night.

There was mention that another woman was somehow involved, but this was never proved to be true. Rose spent at least 30 years in prison for the murder. He died not to long after his release. No one in the family cares to remember anything else about him.

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