Surviving Horror: The Incredible Story of Jennifer's Triumph Over the Cherry Hill Killer

On October 6th, 1995, police found Jennifer sitting quietly on the front porch of her house after someone called 911, but nothing could have prepared them for what they were about to discover inside. The scene behind me is one that nightmares are made of. It was difficult to recognize that she was even human. February 22nd, 1991, four years before Jennifer was found, Dede Rosenthal disappears from her seventh-floor apartment. No sign of entry is identified, but what's most disturbing is that at the time, Dede was Jennifer's next-door neighbor.

And now she feels completely shaken by all this. Police were taking no chances with this guy, believing him to be extremely dangerous. To this day, the Cherry Hill Killer is still alive, and it is now up to Jennifer, the only survivor, to take him down before he makes another victim. Obviously, this is a tragedy. It is a violent end to an already horrific story. Seven years before Jennifer's attack, following a difficult divorce, Rebecca Wertz and her daughter Jennifer moved into the Somerset Tower, a seven-floor apartment building located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

My father was kind of in and out of our lives. I think that my mom was very lonely at that time. But Rebecca didn't stay single for long. She met an eccentric janitor named Eddie who worked in the same apartment complex. In no time, he moved in with them, and together they formed a new, happy family. He was full of smiles and laughter, and she was happy around him. But this didn't last. Eddie had a few quirks for sure, but as time went on, his behavior became increasingly erratic, especially towards Jennifer. Once we lived in the apartment, he definitely changed. He was very controlling, just very strange, just very weird behavior.

Despite his occasional antics, Eddie gained Rebecca's trust over time and was tasked to watch over her daughter while she worked on the weekends. This is where Jennifer's abuse at the hands of Eddie started. Even at only seven years old, she knew she had to do something, so she gathered all of her courage and revealed everything to her mom. Rebecca coldly told her that she simply imagined things, but Jennifer wasn't duped. She knew the things Eddie forced her to do were wrong. And I'm like, "What is happening? What are you doing?" And I got really angry with my mom.

On February 26th, 1991, three years into Jennifer's ordeal at the Somerset Tower, police knocked on the door of her mother's apartment. They explained that four days ago, their next-door neighbor disappeared without a trace. Detectives were now investigating every resident and employee in the building. Earlier that day, they interviewed Eddie and were surprised by the fact that he personally knew the victim. Dede Rosenthal, an autism therapist who immigrated to the US from Canada less than a year ago, was last seen on February 22nd. According to her brother Blaine, she chose to move to New Jersey to accomplish her dream of joining the Elwyn Institute of Philadelphia, a clinic tailored for mentally disabled children, but her brother knew that the US could be a little rough around the edges compared to Canada. So he insisted she pick an apartment on the top floor of a secured building.

If there was anything I could have done to get her not to go to the US. I thought, “Give her a year, give her two years, and then she'll come back.” I was wrong. At that point, the police had two suspects in mind. Both were part of the apartment complex maintenance team. The first, Steve Gomez, was Dede's boyfriend. The second, Charles Reddish, was simply too strange for the police to ignore. The thing is that to most people, he was known by another name. What was that name? That was “Crazy Eddie”. Something just wasn't right with Eddie. The man claimed he spent the night of the 22nd with Jennifer's mother in their apartment.

They spoke with Rebecca Wertz, and Rebecca told the police that Charles Reddish had been home in their apartment all night long. The prosecutor couldn't help but notice Jennifer's fear when he mentioned Eddie in front of her mother. I'll never forget the look on her face. I wanted to do anything I could to protect her. Before the police got a chance to do a second interview with the Wertz, the family moved out of the building. It may seem suspicious now, but at the time, many residents left Somerset Tower after what happened to Dede. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance didn't add up, and when detectives ran forensics on her apartment, they were baffled by the results.

What they found was a pristine apartment. There was no forced entry into the house. There's no blood spatter. There's no shell casing. Even the bed was made. There was no physical evidence whatsoever. The only piece of evidence of value they gathered was hidden inside Dede's date book. She had tucked a receipt for $80 into her date book from an automated teller machine. But what really convinced them that she didn't just run away was her downstairs neighbor's testimony. An elderly lady who lived alone woke up, and it was around four o'clock in the morning, and she heard a thud on the ceiling of her apartment. It would've been the floor of Dede's apartment.

With no other suspect or clues, the case slowly went cold. But the incident struck the imagination of the American public. Various TV shows and publications picked up the story, including NBC's massively popular Unsolved Mysteries series. From her new home north of Cherry Hill, Jennifer couldn't help but feel sorry for Dede and her family. For them, for years they had no idea what happened to her. She just was missing. To most, the police clearly did everything they could, but this wasn't enough for Dede's brother, Blaine Rosenberg. That's all. I wouldn't give up. I traveled to Cherry Hill 67 times. I went into local bars, local restaurants with her picture.

As the years passed by, Blaine tried his best to balance his personal life and his quest to find his sister, but eventually his obsession got the better of him. When I got home, my wife said, “Blaine, I want you out of the house. This is no joke. Get out." The disappearance of Dede cost me everything. And as Blaine hit rock bottom, so did Jennifer and Rebecca. Since the family moved, they came to understand why Eddie received his “Crazy” epithet. The man was totally out of control, constantly acting like a child and shooting violent insults. His anger towards Rebecca kept growing to a point where even if she never saw him directly hit her, Jennifer knew her mom was also a victim of his.

I felt like whenever my mom would try to stand up to him, he would throw a fit just getting angry. Jennifer had endured Eddie's abuse for seven agonizing years, and now her own mother was getting thrown into the mix. She knew this couldn't last any longer. So after arguing for hours, Jennifer eventually convinced Rebecca that she needed to leave Eddie. Everything was planned in advance, but Rebecca made one crucial mistake. She told Eddie about it. We were gonna be moving into my grandmother's house. She promised me that he was never going to be there. I would never have to see him. I was ecstatic.

On Jennifer's last day of school, Rebecca got her daughter to pack all of her things and promised her that she would be waiting for her by the schoolyard at 6:00 PM right after her last field hockey game. I walked off the field and her car was there, but Ed was driving. So I immediately got angry, yelling at her that I knew that this was gonna happen, and why could she never keep her word? And she just, "Jennifer, get in the car." The silence in the car was heavy. In the rearview mirror, Jennifer couldn't help but notice that Eddie was fixating on her. She couldn't pinpoint what, but something felt terribly wrong.

I just knew that he was gonna do something to stop us from moving, but I never imagined what would happen. Once they arrived, Eddie claimed that all he wanted was to have one last dinner together as a family. But Jennifer was worried. We get there and I said, “There's not even anything made. There's no dinner here.” You know, “What are we doing here?” Eddie sloppily tried to pull together some form of explanation before insisting that he needed Rebecca's car for groceries. Before she could answer, he left with the keys in a hurry.

Now that they were alone, Jennifer tried to convince her mother to leave before his return, but Rebecca ignored her. In a fit, Jennifer ran upstairs to her room. Then, without fully realizing it, the teenager fell asleep for hours. Later in the middle of the night, a loud noise suddenly woke her up. It was about 2:00 AM. I knew that something was really, really wrong. Jennifer stood up and started walking down the stairway. As she grew closer, the noise became clearer and louder. Midway through, she realized what was happening.

It was the sound of him punching her in the face. I don't know how long he had been hitting her. I don't know. But it was already too late. Before she had time to react, Eddie suddenly stopped. And he turned around and came towards me with rage in his eyes. Eddie then grabbed Jennifer by the back of her hair and dragged her into the living room. As she grew closer to her mother, she couldn't even grasp the state she was in. I don't know if she knew that I was there. I don't know that she saw me. I know that her jaw was broken. Her arm was broken. I was asking him to please not hurt her. You know, please just let us go.

Eddie threw the young girl onto a chair. Next to the couch, Rebecca was on. He turned back to pick up a drape and a small hatchet he had laid on the floor. As he slowly walked towards her, Jennifer started panicking. I just immediately started yelling for him to stop. He draped the sheet over top of me, and I just remember curling up in a ball. From under the drape Jennifer could hear her mother breathing. She knew she was still alive, but within seconds, Eddie began striking Rebecca with the hatchet. I could hear the blows. I felt her blood. After what seemed like a lifetime, he took the sheet off of me and took me upstairs.

Eddie dragged her into the bedroom. In there, he did his worst to the traumatized and defenseless teenager. I wasn't out of his sight for another four to five hours. He tortured me for that time. I was covered in blood. I didn't really think that it was ever going to be over. As the sun was rising, Eddie stopped and sat next to Jennifer. Amidst all the horrible things he did to her that night, what he was about to ask her next was simply too much for the young girl. And then he asked me to kill him. I said that I couldn't do that, so he said that he would just kill me and then kill _______.

Faced with an impossible dilemma, Jennifer summoned her courage and attempted to guide Eddie toward a third option. Just like a hostage negotiator, the 14-year-old used de-escalation tactics to calm him down. By listening carefully, asking questions without judgment, and showing understanding, Jennifer slowly convinced Eddie to spare not only her life but also his. I said, "If you turn yourself in, they're going to give you a deal. They'll go easier on you. You can just say that you had a moment of insanity." Hesitant, Eddie stood up and started pacing around the bedroom, hatchet in hand.

He was visibly shaken by her words, almost like he slowly came to realize what he had done. Against all odds, she persuaded him to give himself up. He called his own mother, who then called the police. He said to get dressed and that we had to go outside and wait for the police, that they were on their way. I was in shock. We went out on the front porch and I wasn't even sure that he still wasn't going to do something before the cops came. He was so unpredictable. It must have been certainly a surreal experience to be sitting there with the man who just killed your mother and ____ you.

When the police arrived, they immediately separated Jennifer from Eddie. Their next concern was Rebecca. James Ronca, one of the prosecutors in charge of the case, recalls Eddie's strange reaction when the police asked him about her whereabouts. Reddish made some cryptic statement about the victim being inside, and we asked, “Does she need an ambulance? And he said, "No, it's too late for that." Once in the hands of the police, Jennifer had a hard time assessing what happened. Even Ronca, an experienced prosecutor, never had to deal with a victim so mentally shocked before.

Jennifer was very traumatized. She's still wearing her field hockey uniform, looking just so absolutely forlorn. After Ronca finished interviewing Jennifer, reinforcement from the Cherry Hill Police Department arrived at the station. Detective Brian Malloy, the same man who questioned Eddie four years ago at Somerset Tower, was asked to interview him once again. We drove up to Burlington County. They allowed his access to him in a room and we brought a tape recorder. For the most part, Eddie and Jennifer's versions of the event were roughly concordant, until the assault in the bedroom.

Seemingly Eddie refused to admit what he did to Jennifer. He literally is laughing as he is talking about ____ a 14-year-old girl. Following Eddie's full confession regarding Rebecca's murder and Jennifer's assault, Detective Malloy, who had never forgotten Eddie since Dede's disappearance, knew there was more where that came from. I thought at this point he would be particularly vulnerable. And they start asking Charles Reddish again about the disappearance of Dede Rosenthal. To the surprise of the prosecutors and the detective, Eddie immediately confessed. After four years, he finally tells what happened.

And he realizes "She's gonna recognize me," and at that point he makes the decision to kill her. There was a minor struggle and she fell off the bed, which was the thud that the lady downstairs heard. He brought her out through these doors across the parking lot. We found out that every year they dredged the Delaware River and pump the dredge waste into this area. By the time we got here, Dede would've been under between 50, 75, even up to 100 feet of dredge materials. After the search for Dede's body was abandoned, the two cases fell into the hands of prosecutor Albright from Cherry Hill and Ronca from Burlington.

After learning about Dede's murder, as horrific as what happened to me was, at least I know what happened. To honor his sister's memory, Blaine started a foundation bearing her name, which provides support services to women experiencing physical or emotional abuse. Overall, he chose to focus on her legacy more than anything else. There were a lot of memories that I'll never forget. I miss Dede. I'll never forget Dede. And the same is true for Jennifer. There's no way to be sure, but Rebecca was probably also a victim of Eddie's abuse long before the murders, which could have led to some of her questionable decisions in the past.

Some may say she could have done much more to protect her daughter, but it doesn't mean there weren't moments of genuine love between the two of them. And these earnest memories deserve to be celebrated. I miss my mother every day, going to the beach with her, singing with her, dancing in the kitchen. That's what I like to think of.