Police call deaths murder-suicide
HOLLYWOOD – She left for an ordinary vacation in early October, checking in from time to time on Facebook to show her loved ones back in Ohio and Kentucky what a great time she was having in Hollywood.
On Sunday, Renee Roth shared a video of herself playing a steel drum. She was full of giggles and it looked like she was having the time of her life. Two days later she checked in to the Ocean Alley Restaurant and Beach Bar. Twelve hours later, Roth’s body was found on the beach. She was murdered, police say.
Hours after daybreak, crimescene technicians continued to sift through the sand and place evidence placards in sand as beachgoers set up camp nearby. Police encouraged reporters to get the word out that the public’s assistance was needed: Did anyone hear an argument or see something strange on the beach between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., when Roth’s body was found in the surf?
In the course of their investigation, police learned someone else was dead. It was Roth’s traveling companion, George Haitz.
Now the crime scene was a boutique hotel on New York Street, where Haitz’s body was discovered.
Hollywood police confirmed late Thursday afternoon the bodies of Roth and Haitz, which were found nine hours apart, were a murder-suicide. Police said Haitz killed Renee Roth on the beach and then went back to his hotel room and took his own life. Police didn’t say how the two died, or specify ages or addresses for Roth and Haitz.
Roth was from Ohio, and Haitz from Kentucky.
Roth and Haitz had been in a domestic relationship for the past several years and there was a history of domestic violence, said Christian Lata, spokesman for the Hollywood Police Department.
At about 6 p.m. Wednesday, police removed Haitz’s body from Room 61 at the Hollywood Beachside Boutique Suites on New York Street. Roth’s body was removed from the beach area earlier that day.
Police, who had been silent since the initial announcement that a woman’s body was found on the beach in the morning, notified the media at 6 p.m. Wednesday that now two people were dead.
It happened in a tourist-oriented area, where many visitors come for vacation.
Among the tourists were three sisters who arrived at a the hotel for a beach getaway — but their getaway had turned into a crime scene. The street, cordoned off by
yellow crime-scene tape, was crawling with cops.
Silvia McLean, of New Jersey, and her sisters wondered what happened. Why were there so many cops and why were some wearing gloves? They figured someone had died, and they were right.
McLean and her sisters, Evelyn DiCenso, of San Diego, and Berta Aleman, from Pembroke Pines, pulled out their phones, snapped photos and took video as the body was taken away from the boutique hotel.
When they heard people talking about the woman’s body found on the beach overnight, they grew even more concerned.
“At first we thought that it was two women,” McLean said. “We thought they were killing women.”
So they slept with a chair wedged up against the door. “It’s freaky, it’s scary,” said DiCenso. “We tossed and turned all night.”
Roth’s daughter, Rebekah, of Lucasville, Ohio, turned to Facebook to announce her mother’s death and to raise funds for a burial.
“My mother left for an ordinary family vacation at the beginning of the month of October,” Rebeka Roth’s Facebook post began. She went on to explain that she was her mother’s only child and “have been hit drastically with this disturbing news. I have started this donation account … to help raise money to get her laid to rest.
“My world has been shattered …” she said. “My mother was and still is the most free-spirited woman I have ever met, one full of love, laughter and pure joy. I will always be your little girl, Momma. I love you.”