Blair Roche

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Blair Roche (1969 - 1975) was a six-year-old girl kidnapped in the summer of 1975 by Brooklyn resident, Gerald Anthony Grice. Rorschach's dealings with Grice are a pivotal event, causing the vigilante to adopt more extreme methods in his investigative habits and his punishment of criminals.

Grice believed that Roche's family was the same that owned the Roche Chemical Company and intended to collect a large ransom. In actuality, the young Blair's family was not wealthy; her father was merely a bus driver.

Promising Blair's family that he would return her unharmed, Walter Kovacs as the early incarnation of his alter ego, Rorschach, investigated the case personally, later stating to his prison psychiatrist Malcolm Long, that he had "personal reasons." Rorschach traced Grice to his Brooklyn home, a dressmaker's shop called Modern Modes, and found evidence that Grice had murdered Roche. To dispose of any evidence, Grice burned her clothes, butchered her body and fed the remains to his two German Shepherds.

The discovery caused a severe psychological breakdown in Kovacs, who snapped and killed both dogs and waited for Grice to return. Handcuffing the man to a pipe, Rorschach handed him a hacksaw, stating that he "shouldn't bother trying to saw through handcuffs. Never make it in time", implying that Grice would have to cut off his hand in order to survive. Rorschach then set fire to Grice's house and waited outside to see if Grice would be able to escape. Grice didn't escape and burned to death.