“The Phantom” has finally been arrested for a murder committed in 1993. Richard Werstine, 56 years old, was apprehended in late April for the murder of his roommate, a singer in a rock band, after more than 30 years on the run, as reported by American media and local authorities cited by NBC.
His escape came to a pitiful end in a dog park in Panama City, Panama. Since 1993, Werstine had been accused of killing Rodney Barner, his best friend, roommate, and rock singer from a local band in Detroit. Before disappearing, Richard Werstine used many aliases to evade justice. He was found in possession of multiple fake identity documents at the time of his arrest, and he could only be positively identified through his fingerprints.
Shot while sleeping
In the 1990s, Rodney Barner, 23 years old, was known by his stage name Rawn Beauty in the rock band Cold as Life. On September 15, 1993, he was shot in the head while sleeping. Described as a “wild vocalist of legend” whose antics inspired many songs of his band, according to the magazine Revolver.
Shortly after the murder, Richard Werstine was indeed arrested… and then released on bail. However, he never showed up for his court date. Local authorities issued a warrant for his arrest almost a year after the murder, in June 1994.
Nicknamed “The Phantom,” he is described as “very cunning and skillful during his fugitive life,” according to local police. “He’s a liar. He believed what he said and built an entirely new life,” stated James Allen, deputy assistant chief of the US Marshals Service. Evading regularly, Werstine managed to elude investigators among his various residences and multiple aliases over the decades. Despite being arrested several times during his fugitive life, especially in Michigan and Arizona, the connection to the Detroit murder was never proven… even after exchanging gunfire with the Flagstaff police in Arizona in 1999, during which he was shot in the arm.
In Panama for 20 years
It was not until 2026 that the investigation led to finding him in Panama… where he had been living illegally since 2005. “He had connections in Panama and was simply living a new life. He thought he would never be caught,” indicated James Allen. proudly stating, “Fingerprints don’t lie.” Allen justified the length of the investigation by pointing out that “tracking fugitives was much more difficult 30 years ago: it was in the 90s, before the internet when fingerprint databases were not as accessible as they are today. So, when we reopened the case in 2022, I had to practically start from scratch,” he assured.
