Woman Murdered by Trans House Guest, Body Found in Freezer | VIDEO
Recently released bodycam footage shows Las Vegas Police officers finding the body of a murdered woman in a chest freezer. Officers made the grizzly discovery while performing a welfare check at the mobile home of Monique Gilbertson, 68, in November of 2024.
According to the 26 minute 57 second body cam footage which paid subscribers will find in full below the paywall at the end of this article, the wellness check was requested by the front office of the mobile home park, who normally spoke with Gilbertson “every day.”
Office staff also told police that Mo, as she was known to friends, used to walk her beloved dog in the neighborhood regularly but hadn’t been seen for quite some time.
When no one answered the door at the home, police called a local locksmith to help them gain access to the residence and perform a search for the missing woman. After the locksmith began his work, a 37-Year-old man named Daniel Roush appeared at the door, acting bewildered.
Daniel Roush, aka Jazzlynn Marie Roush, aka Jazmen on Facebook, describes himself as a “trans female just trying to find my place in this world. Not sure if I'll ever find it.”
Roush told police several different stories about why he was there, first claiming to rent the property and then claiming that he was was housesitting for Gilbertson.
“She’s not here right now,” Roush told officers repeatedly. “I’ve been renting this property. I’ve been here since September.”
Roush later contradicts this claim, telling police, “She has me house-sitting right now. I have paperwork that I’m supposed to be here.”
Roush and his wife, Gina Roush, identified by police as Gina Lopez, eventually let officers inside after police threatened them with arrest, declaring that they were acting suspiciously.
“It’s weird that you are being very defensive about this,” an officer said. “You need to step outside right now. I’m giving you a legal and lawful command. If you do not obey that command, I’m going to take you to jail, and I’m going to charge you.”
Officers allow them to secure a malnourished looking dog outside before entering the home. The mobile home park office told police that Gilbertson never went anywhere without her dog; police can be heard in the bodycam stating that the dog as still present at the home. Gilberton’s car was also outside, they noted.
As officers searched through the dark, cluttered disaster of home, they found urine and feces “everywhere,” amidst the mess, with one officer exclaiming aloud, “This is gross, dude.”
In less than ten minutes, officers found a locked freezer hidden beneath piles of clothing and a roll of toilet paper in a utility room in the house one officer describes as “gross, dude".
“He’s freaking out, saying we can’t open it,” an officer said, referring to Roush. After getting the locksmith to open the freezer, one of the officers says, “There’s something in there.”
“Yeah, there’s a person in here,” one of the other officers replies.
“Go get him in handcuffs,” an officer said, referring to Roush, who was identified by both police and prosecutors as a man named Daniel despite legally changing his name to Jazzlynn in 2022, according to Law and Crime.
According to court documents, Roush was homeless before Gilbertson invited him to temporarily move in with her after meeting him at a Home Depot and hiring him to do some work on her home.
Gilbertson reportedly grew upset “about how filthy” Roush was, and was concerned enough about kicking him out that she reported changed the locks.
“There was text message correspondence indicating that Monique had let Roush live with her for a while to help him get him on his feet as he was transient,” Clark County Deputy District Attorney James Puccinelli said, adding that she had “kicked him out of the residence and he was not supposed to be there.”
“Good luck to you. I just can’t live with anybody, I’m so sorry,” one text message Roush received from Gilbertson said, according to grand jury transcripts.
“I helped you for way longer than I thought I would so just think of it as a gift. So, you have to find another person.”
When questioned by police about the body in the freezer, Roush told police, “I put her in the icebox because I didn’t know what to do.”
Gilbertson was “folded” in the freezer and appeared to have been “frozen for some time,” Deputy DA Puccinelli said. Investigators believe Gilbertson was murdered around October 22 — the same day she told Roush he was no longer welcome to stay in her home. Roush was arrested on November 6.
Roush initially claimed to have found Gilbertson slumped over in a dining room chair, but gave conflicting statements on where she was found, and told police that he thought she overdosed on fentanyl or cocaine.
Gilbertson did have fentanyl in her system when she died, according to court documents. Prosecutors allege that Roush “force-fed” Gilbertson fentanyl in order to “willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, and with malice” cause her death, Law and Crime reported.
According to an arrest report, Roush’s wife admitted to officers that they intentionally gave Gilbertson an overdose of fentanyl, and that Roush smothered Gilbertson with a pillow before putting her body in the freezer. Lopez also later admitted to helping Roush put Gilbertson in the freezer, according to grand jury transcripts.
Although some press outlets have reported that friends never knew her to drink or use drugs, the Las Vegas Review Journal quotes Gilbert Brown, a friend of Gilbertson, who told the Journal that Gilbertson’s drug use and other personal problems were “her downfall.”
“She had an addiction to legal and illegal drugs, mostly cocaine, and that just caused problems,” Brown told the Journal, describing Gilbertson as a lonely person looking for friends.
Roush is being held without bail in Las Vegas at the Clark County Detention Center, where transgender inmates are housed separately from other prisoners. He has been charged with second-degree murder, and the DA has submitted the case to a committee hoping to recommend prosecutors look for the death penalty in the case, according to court records.
Roush is also charged with Abuse of Old/Vulnerable Person with Death or Serious Bodily Harm, Residential Burglary, Administration of a Drug to Aid Commission of a Felony, and possession of about 80 grams of 3 different controlled substances.
Roush’s wife, Gina Lopez, is also facing charges related to the incident but only for drugs. So far, she has not been charged with murder. Lopez is being held at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center after her probation was revoked in an unrelated child abuse case, according to the Journal.
According to court records, Lopez told police she is estranged from Roush, although it’s unclear what this means given that they were arrested together and Lopez also told police she occasionally stayed in the mobile home with Roush.
Lopez’s sister, Monique Renaud, offered testimony to the grand jury that before the pair were arrested, Lopez and Roush visited her driving a vehicle she believed belonged to Gilbertson, and that she heard them discuss “how to get rid of the body,” according to grand jury transcripts.
She also testified that Lopez was selling birds that Gilbertson owned and brought jewelry and rocking chairs to Renaud’s home that presumably belonged to Gilbertson.