Chicago man allegedly suffocated wife during mushroom trip
Brian David Rosin | Chicago police
CHICAGO - An Uptown man smothered his wife with a pillow during a bad mushroom trip because he was worried her drug-induced screams would make his neighbors think he was abusing her, Cook County prosecutors said Thursday.
Brian David Rosin allegedly told officers he covered his wife’s face because she was having a schizophrenic episode after the couple took the drugs on April 28.
Isabel Rosin, 25, was rushed from the couple’s apartment, in the 1200 block of West Carmen Avenue, to Weiss Hospital and pronounced dead, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
Isabel Rosin’s death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County medical examiner’s office and her husband of three years was charged with her murder. Additional testing will show if she had ingested a psychoactive drug.
While the couple was under the influence, Brian Rosin, 34, allegedly sent his wife several texts explaining that he knew she would not remember “all the things she did to him during the trip” and he wanted her to know how it “tormented” him.
He additionally texted he was angry that he “wasted a trip” dealing with her changing moods, which he described as shifting from violent, to screaming, laughing, singing, crying and trying to take off her clothes, Murphy said.
After a violent exchange in which Isabel Rosin allegedly threw Brian Rosin into a table, she began to scream in the middle of the apartment.
Fearing his neighbors would think he was abusing her, Brian Rosin placed his wife on a couch and put two pillows over her head until she stopped breathing, and then called 911, Murphy said.
A neighbor heard someone say, “You hurt me,” but didn’t think it was serious enough to act on, Murphy said.
Brian Rosin sent other texts to his wife while they were on drugs, including one that said, “I hope you are happy and it was worth trying this drug,” Murphy said. His last text to her said, “I’m sorry.”
Brian Rosin’s phone records also show a one-minute phone call he made that day to his father, who later told his son in a text not to speak with police, Murphy said.
Brian Rosin’s defense attorney, Mark Kusatzky, told Judge Wesley Willis Thursday, “This was a sudden and intense tragedy” but that “we don’t believe this is murder.”
Brian Rosin, who suffers from depression and seizures, worked as a DJ and was studying phlebotomy at Columbia College, Kusatzky said. The couple lived off of Isabel Rosin’s income as a manager at a Lens Crafters, but she lost her job during the coronavirus pandemic and showed decompensation with schizophrenic episodes, Kusatzky said.
Willis called Isabel Rosin’s death a “tragedy.” The judge ordered Brian Rosin held on $100,000 bail and recommended that he be placed on home electronic monitoring if he was able to post bond.
Brian Rosin is expected back in court again on June 10.