A jury has convicted 52-year-old Gerald Rowe for murdering, torturing, and poisoning a gay couple’s adopted adult son and then conspiring to hide his crime.
Rowe and 41-year-old transgender woman Angel Anderson met with 23-year-old George Randall-Saldivar on February 3, 2019 in Rowe’s apartment on Market Street. The three had a consensual sexual encounter. Afterward, Anderson threatened Saldivar with a machete.
“A noose was placed around the victim’s neck with the attached rope tethered through a pulley device near the ceiling,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office wrote. “The victim’s hands were bound behind his back with zip ties, a strap, and duct tape. The victim was tortured for more than 4 hours in this position as he was screamed at, hit, punched, sodomized, assaulted with pliers, and a bag placed over his head.”
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Rowe reportedly left the room to purchase fentanyl. Upon returning, the couple injected a lethal dose of fentanyl and water into Randall-Saldivar’s body. The couple then shoved Randall-Saldivar into a large suitcase and waited for him to die. Rowe reportedly ate junk food and played his guitar over the suitcase while waiting.
After 20 hours went by, the couple then put on disguises and rolled the suitcase along the street at 2:30 a.m. — while he was still alive inside of it — and dumped it into the San Francisco Bay “like garbage,” Assistant District Attorney Charly Weissenbach said, according to KRON.
A local resident found the body floating near a pier on February 18, 2019. Two days later, Anderson confessed their crime. Police found that the couple had recorded their sexual encounter and their torture of the young man, leaving video evidence of the crime in Rowe’s apartment.
Both murderers will be sentenced on March 18. They face the possibility of life in prison.
The victim’s fathers, Christopher Saldivar and Mark Randall, adopted their son out of the foster care system in 2004 when he was just 10 years old. Before his adoption, he had already been in three other foster homes and was considered a special needs child since he took medication and had unspecified behavioral issues. After living with his fathers, his special needs seemed to subside.
