Police renew focus on missing man's boyfriend — a sheriff's supervisor — after bones found
(Photo courtesy Fairfield Police Department, Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
The Fairfield Police Department searched the home of a San Francisco Sheriff’s Department supervisor in connection with a once-missing person whose skeletal remains were found in an open field last month.
The search, which was first reported by KNTV (Channel 11) last week, comes as police focus new attention on Lt. Phil Lasater, the former boyfriend of Hercules engineer Zachery Rose.
Rose was last seen at Lasater’s home in rural Fairfield in February 2018. Lasater called 9-1-1 to report Rose had simply walked off into the night.
A missing person’s case was filed, and for two years, police urged members of the public to come forward with information about the case.
Few tips trickled in until January 16 when police said someone discovered human remains in an open field near the intersection of Peabody Road and Cement Hill Road. Search crews had previously combed through that field and nearby ones shortly after Rose was reported missing.
Details of what led police to that field on that morning have not been revealed. But the location was not too far away from Laseter’s home.
Lasater has not been cleared in connection with Rose’s disappearance, and he remains a person of interest in connection with the mysterious death of his former husband, William Volkl, a 41-year-old man who passed away at Lasater’s home in 2004.
In a telephone interview in 2018, Lasater made unfounded claims that he was the target of a “smear” campaign by the Fairfield Police Department, an allegation that the agency later refuted.
Family members and friends of both men say Lasater’s stories don’t add up, and they suspect he may have had some involvement in each case. The Solano County Sheriff’s Office was unable to conclude how Volkl died — he had a history of health problems, including obesity — but the coroner noted that blunt force trauma to the man’s neck couldn’t be ruled out.
“I never once believed that it was an accidental death or because he was obese,” Crystal Travis, Volkl’s cousin, said in an interview.
Equally suspicious is the mother of Zachery Rose, who noted that he reportedly left behind his truck, wallet and cell phone the night he disappeared, something she said was highly unusual for her son.
“Zach didn’t walk anywhere voluntarily,” Robyn Rose, Zachery’s mother, told KNTV in an interview. “Especially late at night in the middle of winter.”
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