On June 30, 1973, fourteen-year-old Rebecca Ann Rathbun was working as a live-in babysitter for the Torgerson family in Rochester, Minnesota, when she was strangled to death alongside 23-year-old Lana Torgerson and Lana’s two children, three-year-old Sylvia and 14-month-old John. The killings were carried out by Lana’s husband, David James Torgerson, who had a documented history of mental illness, prior violent behavior, institutional stays and assault convictions, and who had escaped from a work release program before the murders.

David Torgerson was taken into custody and confessed to the four June 30 slayings and to two earlier strangulation deaths of 18-year-old women, Julie Mehrman and Linda Wandrus, in 1969. He was found competent to stand trial, but on November 6, 1973 he died by suicide in his cell; no jury trial or conviction occurred. Rebecca Rathbun was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Stewartville, Minnesota.