Queer Couple Found Guilty of Horrific Murder of Gay Couple’s Son
Gerald Rowe and Angel Anderson are facing life in prison for torturing and murdering 23-year-old George Randall-Saldivar.
Warning: This story contains graphic depictions of violence.
A jury found a San Francisco man guilty of the torture and murder of a 23-year-old man with whom he and his transgender partner had a sexual liaison.
According to testimony at trial, the victim, George Randall-Saldivar, met up with 52-year-old Gerald Rowe and 41-year-old Angel Anderson, a trans woman, for a sexual encounter on February 3, 2019.
They met at Rowe’s apartment at the Donnelly Hotel, which provides housing for low-income and homeless individuals.
After engaging in sex, Anderson allegedly confronted Randall-Saldivar with a machete and tied him up, reports San Francisco-based CW affiliate KRON-TV.
Anderson and Rowe then proceeded to torture Randall-Saldivar, placing a noose around his neck, with the rope tethered through a pulley device near the ceiling.
Randall-Saldivar’s hands were bound behind his back while Anderson and Rowe screamed at him, hit and punched him, sodomized him, assaulted him with plyers, and placed a bag over his head, according to charging documents.
At trial, prosecutors alleged that after subjecting Randall-Saldivar to about four hours of prolonged torture, Rowe left the apartment to buy fentanyl. Upon returning home, he and Anderson injected the 23-year-old with a syringe full of a lethal mix of fentanyl and water before stuffing his body into a suitcase.
“Within about 90 seconds, the victim began to convulse and struggle to breathe,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office wrote in charging documents. “Next, while still alive, Mr. Rowe and Ms. Anderson folded the victim into a large rolling suitcase, before zipping it up and waiting for him to die.”
Rowe reportedly ate junk food and played his guitar over the suitcase while he and Anderson waited to dispose of Randall-Saldivar’s body.
The following day, Rowe and Anderson donned disguises. They rolled the suitcase almost two miles from Rowe’s apartment to the waterfront along Rincon Park, where they tossed the suitcase containing Randall-Saldivar’s body into San Francisco Bay.
The suitcase was found floating in the water two weeks later, on February 18, near Pier 39.
According to the online news source SFist, two days after the body was discovered, Sacramento police alerted San Francisco police that Anderson, who had been arrested on an unrelated charge, had confessed to the murder while in custody.
She was transported back to San Francisco and booked into jail for murder a week later. San Francisco police arrested Rowe a few days afterward.
Anderson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, torture, and poisoning. Rowe was charged with first-degree murder, torture, poisoning, and conspiracy, and ultimately convicted following a jury trial.
Rowe is currently in custody awaiting sentencing, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Anderson, who is also in custody, could be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Both sentencing hearings are scheduled for March 18.
Randall-Saldivar was raised by a gay couple, Christopher Saldivar and Mark Randall.
They adopted him at age 8, rescuing him from the foster care system, where he had been placed after being found wandering the streets of Chinatown due to his biological mother’s inability to take care of him. In 2006, the Randall-Saldivar family was profiled in a Bay Area Reporter story focusing on Catholic Charities’ opposition to allowing same-sex couples to adopt.
Bevan Dufty, a former city supervisor and current member of the BART board of directors who was a family friend, told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019 that Randall-Saldivar was a “very gracious and kind person — even in trying circumstances.”
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke thanked members of the jury for finding Rowe guilty, expressing hope that his conviction would bring some small measure of solace to Randall-Saldivar’s fathers.
“We feel an overwhelming sense of relief for the victim’s family who have waited far too long to receive justice in this case,”Jenkins said in a statement. “Mr. Rowe and Ms. Anderson’s actions were heinous and a beloved son’s life was lost far too early.”
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