DETROIT – When Zoeie Mendez looked down at the newly released mugshot of Richard Werstine, now 56, she paused. Werstine was wanted in the Sept. 15, 1993, killing of his roommate, Rodney Barger, her father, also known as “Rawn Beauty,” 23.
Barger was the original lead singer of the punk rock band Cold as Life.
The U.S. Marshals Service’s Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team arrested Werstine, a Detroit man they said had been on the run since the mid-1990s, two weeks ago.
“Oh wow,” the 34-year-old said quietly, looking at the new mug shot of Werstine from Texas.
“No, I haven’t seen that. He looks the same, but different,” she told the Investigators on Local 4.
The case has haunted Mendez nearly her entire life.
She was only 2 years old when her father was killed.
“I feel angry,” Mendez said. “I feel like something was stolen from me that I’ll never get back.”
‘My father was more than the headlines’
Mendez told Local 4 she wants people to understand what this has been like, especially as attention around the case spreads.
“My father was more than the headlines and more than this case,” Mendez told Local 4. “He was a real person with people who loved him, and this loss has affected our family for years.”
Mendez said watching people treat the case like “entertainment or gossip” has been painful, and she has felt “a lifetime of grief, confusion, and pain.”
“It’s not just a music headline,” Mendez added. “It’s literally something I have suffered through and through for 32 years.”
Mendez also said that after her father’s murder, it’s been difficult seeing people speak publicly as if they were always present, because “from my point of view, that was not my reality.”
Mendez described her father, Rodney Barger, as a complicated man, deeply loving, but also deeply troubled.
“My father loved my mother very deeply, but he also had a very dark side,” Mendez said.
Mendez said he had a reputation in Detroit as someone people feared. But to her, she said, he was simply “my father.”
“I know I was very loved,” Mendez said. “And I was a very important piece of his life.”
The years since her father’s death have been emotionally complicated, Mendez said, and she has often wondered what her life would have looked like if he had survived.
“He had an alcohol problem, and he was physically violent sometimes,” Mendez said. “So had I gotten older, maybe I would have gotten some of that.”
Still, she believes he was trying to turn his life around before he was killed.
“I do know he was trying to clean up his life toward the end,” Mendez said. “And that was right around the time he was murdered.”
Seeing the new mugshot of Werstine resurfaced waves of grief, anger, and questions she said she still can’t answer.
“Sadness,” Mendez said. “It’s heartbreaking for me to not know why. I don’t know why this thing occurred.”
The investigation into Werstine
“He was a ghost since ‘94,” a federal source told Local 4. “He was very cunning, very crafty while on the run.”
Officials said Werstine was arrested by Detroit police days after the killing, but later failed to appear for trial.
Federal sources provided The Investigators on Local 4 with an original arrest warrant issued back in 1994.
The warrant states that on or about June 14, 1994, a warrant was issued in the Detroit Recorder’s Court, Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan, charging Richard Werstine with Murder–First Degree, a felony under the laws of the State of Michigan.
Another warrant on July 29, 1994, states that two confidential informants swore that “Richard Werstine fled Detroit, Michigan, shortly after the crime to Greece.” The source knew this information “from personal knowledge of the defendant.”
In May 2022, the U.S. Marshals Service took over the case and said its investigation found that Werstine had been arrested multiple times over the years but had used different names, so his true identity was never known to the arresting authorities.
“We kind of just took over this case and started from the beginning, kind of took modern-day investigative techniques to a really old case from the early 90s, and just kind of unwrapped that spider web,” Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Allen said.
Officials said that the spider web stretched well beyond Michigan.
They said Werstine allegedly used multiple aliases in Michigan, Arizona, and other states for arson and gun charges.
“Nobody ever got a return on who they actually had,” Allen said. “So, he eventually left, got out of custody, and made his way to Panama, where he was for about 20 years.”
Over the previous year, the agency said the Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team (DFAT) developed leads focusing on Panama City, Panama, and worked with the Marshals Service’s Office of International Operations and Panamanian authorities to find him.
“The U.S. Marshals Service takes crimes of this nature extremely seriously, given the violent nature of the alleged offense and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution,” said Owen Cypher, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Michigan. “The dedication of all members of my staff who spearheaded the arrest of this fugitive, who has been on the run for over 30 years, is a testimony to their resolve. It sends a message to fugitives that there is no place you can hide that the U.S. Marshals Service won’t find you and bring you to justice.”
‘Fingerprints don’t lie’
On April 29, 2026, U.S. Marshals traveled from Detroit to Panama and, working with agents from the Diplomatic Security Service and Homeland Security Investigations, arrested Werstine.
Authorities in Panama City arrested Werstine at a local dog park without incident, the Marshals Service said.
Officials said Werstine had fake IDs on him at the time of the arrest, but fingerprint analysis identified him as Werstine. Federal authorities said Werstine confessed to his identity and to being on the run, and also admitted entering Panama illegally in 2005 and never obtaining legal status.
Allen said Werstine told investigators he was married in Panama and “basically had a whole new life.”
“He had roots in Panama, and kind of just lived a new life,” Allen told Local 4. “I think he thought that he would never be caught.”
Reporter: “Even though he had fake IDs on him.”
Allen: “Yes.”
Reporter: “And he’s had multiple aliases and here and in other states.”
Allen: “Fingerprints don’t lie.”
Werstine was returned to the United States. Sources tell Local 4 he is in Texas and will then be turned over to Wayne County authorities. Sources tell Local 4 Werstine is still awaiting extradition back to Michigan.
Allen said the effort to find Werstine stretched from the USMS headquarters in Washington, D.C. to Michigan and Panama, and he hopes the arrest “works toward bringing closure” to Barger’s family.
“It’s been 30 years, and now they can at least rest their heads at night and have some justice,” Allen said. “That doesn’t change what happened, but you know, at least there’s some closure that someone’s going to pay for what they did.”
‘I never thought this day would come’
Mendez said the reality of the last three decades is hard to reconcile, including what federal authorities have said about Werstine’s living conditions.
“I definitely think it’s unfair,” Mendez said. “Especially when I have been living so uncomfortably for my whole life.”
At the same time, she expressed gratitude toward investigators and the U.S. Marshals who tracked Werstine down.
“I’m very thankful,” Mendez said. “I never thought this day would come.”
Mendez also said seeing people use her father’s name, image, and tragedy “for attention, fame, money, or public interest” without asking and without respect has caused her pain.
“For years, I’ve had to sit back and watch people speak for him, profit from him, or publicly attach themselves to him while feeling like I had no voice in any of it,” Mendez told Local 4.
“At the end of the day,” Mendez said, “I want the focus to stay on my father as a human being and on the impact his death had on the people actually living through it.”
Local 4 has been in touch with a bandmate from Cold as Life, who respectfully declined to comment at this time.
Despite everything, Mendez said she still talks to her father sometimes.
“I want him to know I miss him,” Mendez said. “I ask him for protection and strength.”
Then, fighting back tears, she added: “I think he would be proud of who I am.”
Today, Mendez said she has built a family of her own and remains close with her mother.
She acknowledged life has not been easy, but said she is working to heal from the past.
“I think I’m doing pretty well as a mother,” Mendez said. “Fixing my own demons and things from the past.”
As attention around the decades-old case grows, Mendez said she hopes people remember there are real families behind stories like hers.
“One thing I’ve learned through this whole process is, give people some respect,” Mendez said.
“If you see somebody going through some type of grieving process, leave them alone; we are processing it on a whole different level.”
Mendez said she plans to attend the trial.