Susan Negersmith biography: 10 things about Carmel, New York woman

Susan Marie Negersmith was an American woman from Carmel, Putnam County, New York, United States. On the morning of May 27, 1990, she partied with strangers.

That day, Negersmith was last seen with a man, then 20, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He told police he left her near Schellenger’s, an eclectic seafood restaurant with a roof covered in nautical knickknacks in Wildwood, Cape May County, New Jersey, USA.

Later that morning, a worker found Negersmith dead in a rear outside storage area adjacent to the restaurant. She was 20.

Negersmith’s feet, which were clean, were facing the ocean and she had a bloody handprint on her chest. Her shoes were missing, her black jeans were wrapped around an ankle and her pink shirt and bra had been pushed up by her neck.

New Jersey’s Division of Criminal Justice solicited the help of forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who concluded that Negersmith had been raped and smothered. An autopsy found 26 areas of trauma to her body, including bruising to her skull.

Tests showed that Negersmith had sex not long before her death. Here are 10 more things about her:

1. She was born in Carmel to Kent M. Negersmith and Colleen Barker.
2. Her paternal grandparents are Edward Negersmith and Dorothy Gallaher Negersmith.
3. In 1988, her sister Emily Negersmith was born. They have another sister named Dawn Negersmith and a brother named Michael Negersmith.
4. On May 26, 1990, she and her friends went to Wildwood to party before Memorial Day. They rented a hotel room there and drank a lot of beer and liquor. Her friends last saw her at 8:00 p.m.
5. She died at the age of 20. Initially, the state of New Jersey and Cape May County medical examiners ruled that her death on May 27, 1990 was accidental due to alcohol intoxication and exposure.
6. In July 1993, the state reversed the original autopsy that indicated that her death was accidental.
7. In 1995, Cape May County changed the manner of death in her death certificate from accident to homicide.
8. On July 16, 2016, her father died at age 74 at Sharon Health Care Center in Sharon, Connecticut, USA without knowing who killed her.
9. On April 8, 2022, Jerry Lewis Rosado, then 62, of Millville, New Jersey was arrested and was charged with her second-degree sexual assault but not with her murder.
10. On December 13, 2023, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Rosado will not be tried for her sexual assault because the five-year statute of limitations for the case expired on May 27, 1995.