A film crew has been prowling around Libertyville, digging up history on the Rouse murders and awakening youthful memories that still give me chills.

In June 1980, I was finishing my junior year at Libertyville High School when my dad read the horrifying details in the newspaper. Darlene and Bruce Rouse, prominent owners of a chain of gas stations, had been brutally shot at close range in their bedroom overnight. Bruce Rouse had also been stabbed multiple times and beaten.

"They think one of the kids did it," my father said. I could hear the tension in his voice.

Did I know the family? Not really. But the three Rouse siblings ran in some of the same circles as my friends. They were among the wealthier families in the community, and lived in a woodsy estate in unincorporated Libertyville, just outside the village boundary.

My dad must have wondered how anyone my age could be capable of such a thing.

Back then — and today — Libertyville prided itself on its image, and with good reason. Many viewed the north suburb as a privileged place to grow up — with a charming downtown, involved parents and high-performing schools.

Unless you were a cynical teenager who couldn't wait to ditch the place.

Even through the lens of jaded youth, the murders were shocking. My friends and I had always worked hard to present ourselves as indifferent to most adult concerns, fashioning ourselves as rebels. We thought we were cool.

From 1995: SON CONFESSES TO 1980 SLAYING OF PARENTS

Murder was not cool.

The understatement sounds ridiculous now. But for me, it describes best the shallow, limited ability I possessed as a teenager to comprehend the horror of the murders and the impact that they must have had on our parents.

The incident also dredges up old resentments I felt growing up in a place that I believed to be more concerned about public appearances than authenticity. Family secrets such as abuse, drug use or mental illness weren't openly discussed, though divorce rates had soared by the close of the 1970s.

As an angsty teen, I attended some of the same drinking parties as the Rouse siblings, Kurt, then 20, Robin, 16, and Billy, 15. After their parents' murders, rumors spread quickly. Everyone thought one of two Rouse brothers did it. Both had troubled relationships with their parents, but then, that did not make them unusual.

In 1995, Billy Rouse was living in a ramshackle houseboat in Key West, Fla., having squandered his inheritance on drugs and alcohol, when police came calling again in connection with a bank robbery, according to news reports. He confessed to the murders, was arrested, convicted a year later and is serving an 80-year sentence.

From 1981: Rouse killings still frustrate cops

Suspicion for years had turned to his older brother, Kurt, who looked the part of a hippie in 1980, with straggly blond hair, according to news reports. He lived in an old servant's cottage behind the family's home because of his strained relationship with his parents, and later moved to California.

One friend remembered a young Kurt Rouse confronting her at a party when the murders remained unsolved. "You think I did it, don't you?" she recalled him asking her.

Robin Rouse, at age 19, died in a single-car crash in Racine County, Wis., in 1983.

Today, friends recall the Rouse murders with a mixture of curiosity, fear and dread. The killings were a jarring reality check that tempered our idealism and conflicted with our youthful disdain for authority.

"It was creepy-scary," said Cindy Hutson, 54, who lived in Mundelein, where the Rouses were also well known. She remembers glancing at the family mansion every time she headed north on Milwaukee Road to Wisconsin. Young people traveled the route often those days, because the drinking age was 18 in Wisconsin as opposed to 21 in Illinois.

"We thought it was like something that would be on television," she said. "We were extremely blue collar, and the Rouses were like — having money. The Rouses were the rich people. Rich people got killed."

Since then, the Rouse murders have come up from time to time in the news. After the murders, the mob briefly took ownership of the house, running an illicit casino that attracted high-rollers in the early 1980s. A Lake County crime boss was bludgeoned to death on a staircase in the home before a federal investigation closed the operation down, according to news accounts.

The home's sordid history does not exactly mesh with a 2014 announcement that Libertyville was named one of the top 10 safest communities in Illinois by Movoto Real Estate.

So I was not surprised when I read that Mayor Terry Weppler in October made a point of telling the documentary's film crew during a Libertyville board meeting that the Rouse mansion was actually outside the village proper.

"The bad things that happened did not happen in our town," said Weppler, 63, in a phone interview later. "My big concern is they want to talk about the gambling."

Filming around the village started in the fall, but it's uncertain if and when the documentary will be aired, Weppler said. He knows history is out of his control, and that bad things happen in every community but, "I always describe Libertyville as what Norman Rockwell would have painted."

In 2002, the mansion burned, attracting a crowd of observers. Later, the abandoned building was demolished, leaving room only for memories.

lblack@tribpub.com

Darlene J Rouse