Chicago Man Kills Wife With Pillow During Bad Mushroom Trip, Charged With Murder

A husband in Uptown, Chicago, on a bad mushroom trip, killed his wife with a pillow because he was worried that her drug-induced screams would alert the neighbors.

During the April 28 incident, the accused, identified as 34-year-old Brian David Rosin, smothered his 25-year-old wife, Isabel Rosin, with a pillow at their home in the 1200 block of West Carmen Avenue.

Cook County officers were alerted after Brian made a 911 call reporting about his unresponsive wife. The officers arrived at the scene and rushed Isabel to Weiss Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

An autopsy conducted by the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled Isabel’s death as a homicide. Brian was charged with murder.

Prosecutor’s records said that Brian told officers he covered Isabel’s face with a pillow to silence her drug-induced cries while she was on her schizophrenic episode after the couple consumed psychotropic mushroom.

According to Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy, while the couple was under the influence, Brian allegedly sent several texts to Isabel explaining that he knew she would not recall “all the things she did to him during the trip,” and he wanted to let her know how it “tormented” him.

Brian also sent texts saying he “wasted a trip,” expressing how angry he was for dealing with her changing moods, which he described as shifting from violent to screaming, laughing, singing, crying, and trying to take off her clothes.

According to records, Isabel pushed Brian into a table before beginning to scream in the middle of the apartment. Fearing that the neighbors would mistake her screams as abuse, Brian placed Isabel on the couch and covered her face with two pillows until he realized she stopped breathing.

Brian’s last text to her said, “I’m sorry.” The couple was married for three years.

Brian’s phone records show a minute-long call with his father, who later texted back, warning him not to talk to the police.

During the Thursday (May 21) arraignment, Brian’s defense attorney, Mark Kusatzky, told Judge Wesley Willis, “this was a sudden and intense tragedy” but that “we don’t believe this is murder.”

According to Kusatzky, Brian, who suffers from depression and seizures, worked as a DJ while studying phlebotomy at Columbia College. Isabel worked as a manager at a Lens Crafters. The couple lived off of her income until she lost her job during the coronavirus pandemic, after which she started encountering schizophrenic episodes.

Willis, describing Isabel’s death as a “tragedy,” sentenced Brian to be held on a $100,000 bail and that he be placed on home electronic monitoring if he was to bail out.