Monique Gilbertson and her alleged killer Jazzlynn Roush were pictured on social media. Jazzlynn Roush is accused of killing her former roommate and storing the body in a freezer.
The Las Vegas woman is said to have used fentanyl to kill her 68-year-old ex-roommate. Prosecutors claim that she administered the synthetic opioid to the victim before placing the body in the freezer.
Known on Facebook as Daniel Roush or Jazzlynn, the accused identified as a transgender female. It is alleged that she committed the crime to take control of the victim’s life, as explained by Clark County Deputy District Attorney James Puccinelli in an interview with local news outlet KLAS.
The 37-year-old is facing second-degree murder and other charges related to Gilbertson’s death back in November 2024.
“Daniel Roush gave Monique Gilbertson massive amounts of fentanyl in an effort to cause her to be deceased so he could go into her house and take over her life, essentially,” Puccinelli told KLAS.
On Nov. 6, authorities got a call from the manager at the property where Gilbertson’s mobile home was located to perform a welfare check on Gilbertson after attempts to contact her were unsuccessful. She had been living with Roush — who was identified by cops and prosecutors as a man named Daniel, despite her legally changing her name to Jazzlynn in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District in 2022 — after meeting her at a Home Depot and hiring her to do handy work, according to her arrest report.
“There was text message correspondence indicating that Monique had let Mr. Roush live with her for a while to help him get him on his feet as he was transient,” Puccinelli explained. “However, [Gilbertson] kicked him out of the residence and he was not supposed to be there.”
Police on Nov 6. went to the 5500 block of Tres Piedras Road where Gilbertson lived, about eight miles east of the Las Vegas strip, and tried knocking on the door to see if she would answer, to no avail.
“Officers entered the home and located two individuals inside who could not provide officers with the location of the elderly female,” Las Vegas Metro Police Department officials said in a press release. “While officers searched the home they located a deceased female in a freezer. Both individuals were detained as investigators determined their involvement.”
For around two weeks, Roush allegedly went about her day with Gilbertson’s body stowed away in the freezer.
It wasn’t until an office manager at the property began noticing things, such as Gilbertson’s car being parked differently and her dogs barking louder than normal, and called the cops that police say Roush’s chilling secret was exposed.
According to Puccinelli, Gilbertson — who was identified on Facebook by local news outlets — was “folded up” inside the freezer and appeared to have been “frozen for some time” when authorities discovered her body. Roush claimed in police interviews that she found Gilbertson dead roughly a week before Halloween after the “elderly” woman took some drugs.
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Allegedly scared about the consequences, Roush allegedly told police: “I put her in the icebox, because I didn’t know what to do. Until I could figure it out, I had her in the icebox.”
Prosecutors say Roush “force fed” Gilbertson with at least 400 nanograms of fentanyl — “willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, and with malice” causing her death, according to her criminal complaint, which was obtained by Law&Crime in November.
That’s 200 times the amount that could kill a person, KLAS reports.
