Man Walks Into FBI Office, Confesses to Unsolved Murder

John Michael Irmer now charged in 1979 death of Susan Marcia Rose
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 12, 2023 4:00 AM CDT
Updated Sep 16, 2023 4:55 PM CDT
Man Walks Into FBI Office, Confesses to 1979 Murder
Susan Marcia Rose.   (Suffolk County District Attorney's Office)

In 1979, 24-year-old Susan Marcia Rose was found dead of multiple blunt force injuries to her head on a Boston street, and her murderer was never caught. But last month, John Michael Irmer walked into an FBI field office in Oregon, where he was living, and confessed to the crime, authorities say. The 68-year-old said, according to authorities, that he met Rose at a skating rink on the night before Halloween and that as they walked together into a building on Beacon Street in the Back Bay neighborhood that was being renovated, he picked up a hammer, hit her in the head, and raped her, NBC Boston reports. He is now facing murder and rape charges in her death after DNA samples from the murder scene allegedly matched his DNA, WCVB reports.

Another man was tried for her murder in 1981 and found not guilty. Irmer, meanwhile, says he fled to New York after Rose's death; he also served time in California for another murder and authorities say that during his confession to murdering Rose, he also admitted murdering someone else in a southern state. "Nearly 44 years after losing her at such a young age, the family and friends of Susan Marcia Rose will finally have some answers. This was a brutal, ice-blooded murder made worse by the fact that a person was charged and tried," the district attorney says. (More cold cases stories.)

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