When people go searching for the specifics of how tall was Timothy Scott Roman, they aren't usually looking for a simple number to win a trivia night. They’re looking for the centerpiece of one of Hollywood’s most bizarre and tragic legal defenses. It’s a story that involves B-movie royalty, secret CIA connections, and a medical treatment that sounds like it was ripped straight out of a Gothic horror novel.
Timothy Scott Roman stood 5 feet, 4 inches tall.
But that number—5'4"—wasn't just a physical trait. It was a hard-won victory of science over biology, and eventually, it became a central pillar in a court case that shocked Los Angeles in the late 1980s. To understand why his height matters, you have to look at how he got there.
The Struggle with Dwarfism and a "Frankenstein" Medicine
Timothy was born in 1964 to actress Susan Cabot, a woman famous for her roles in Roger Corman films like The Wasp Woman. From the beginning, Timothy faced a massive uphill battle. He was born with a form of dwarfism and significant pituitary gland issues. In the 1960s and 70s, the medical options for this were, frankly, experimental and a little terrifying by today's standards.
He didn't just take a pill.
For years, Roman received thrice-weekly injections of a growth hormone. Now, this wasn't the synthetic stuff athletes get busted for today. This was human growth hormone (HGH) derived from the pituitary glands of cadavers.
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Imagine that for a second.
To help a child grow to a "normal" height, doctors were harvesting hormones from the deceased. This treatment did exactly what it was supposed to do: it pushed him from what would have been a much shorter stature to his eventual height of 5'4". But it came with a hidden, lethal cost that no one saw coming until it was way too late.
The Night Everything Changed in Encino
By December 1986, Timothy was 22 years old. He was living with his mother, Susan Cabot, in their somewhat dilapidated home in the San Fernando Valley. The glamour of her early film career had faded into a life of seclusion and, according to court records, severe mental instability.
On the night of December 10, Roman called the police to report a home invasion. He claimed a tall man in a ninja mask had burst in and killed his mother with a weightlifting bar. It was a wild story.
The police didn't buy it.
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The "ninja" story fell apart almost instantly. Roman eventually admitted that he was the one who had bludgeoned his mother to death. However, his defense wasn't just "I snapped." It was "The medicine made me do it."
The Creutzfeldt-Jakob Connection
This is where the height issue turns into a medical nightmare. The cadaver-derived growth hormone Roman had used for years was later linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). CJD is a rare, degenerative, and invariably fatal brain disorder caused by prions.
His lawyers argued that the treatment—the very thing that allowed him to reach 5'4"—had basically rotted his brain. They claimed he suffered from "hormone-induced encephalopathy," causing intense irritability, aggression, and a complete loss of control.
Honestly, the jury was faced with a nearly impossible task. Do you convict a man for a brutal murder, or do you acknowledge that he was essentially poisoned by the medical establishment in an attempt to "fix" his height?
Why the Height 5'4" Became a Legal Benchmark
In the courtroom, Roman’s physical presence was a constant reminder of the case’s complexity. At 5'4", he wasn't a towering figure of intimidation, but he also wasn't the "dwarf" he had been born as.
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- The Physical Evidence: The prosecution argued that despite his relatively short stature, he was strong enough to wield a weightlifting bar with lethal force.
- The Defense Strategy: His legal team used his height as a visual representation of the "artificial" nature of his development. He was a product of a lab, a man whose physical growth had been forced at the expense of his mental health.
- The Outcome: In a move that surprised many, Roman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, not murder. He was sentenced to three years' probation. The judge clearly saw him more as a victim of circumstance and bad medicine than a cold-blooded killer.
The King Hussein Rumors
You can't talk about Timothy Scott Roman without touching on the wildest rumor of all. For years, gossip columnists whispered that Susan Cabot’s son wasn't fathered by her husband, Michael Roman, but by King Hussein of Jordan.
The CIA reportedly set the two up on a date in the late 50s. While never officially confirmed through DNA, the Roman family received a regular monthly stipend of $1,500 from the Jordanian government for years. Whether or not he was royalty, Timothy’s life was anything but regal. He lived in the shadow of his mother's declining mental health and the physical toll of his own treatments.
Actionable Takeaways: What We Learned from the Roman Case
The case of Timothy Scott Roman and his 5'4" frame changed more than just Hollywood history; it changed how we look at medical ethics and the "standard" of human growth.
- Medical Advancements have Risks: The Roman case was a major red flag for the use of cadaver-derived HGH. By the mid-80s, the FDA had shifted toward synthetic growth hormones to prevent the exact type of brain damage Roman’s defense team cited.
- Mental Health as a Defense: This was one of the first high-profile cases where a specific biological/medical treatment was used successfully to mitigate a murder charge.
- The Power of Narrative: The story of the "Wasp Woman’s son" showed how public perception can be swayed by the tragic intersection of celebrity and medical misfortune.
Timothy Scott Roman passed away in 2003. He lived a life defined by a struggle for "normalcy"—a struggle measured in inches and injections. While 5'4" might seem like an unremarkable height to most, for Timothy, it was a number that cost him almost everything.
If you're researching this case, the most important thing to remember is that the physical stats are only the surface. The real story lies in the tragic trade-off between physical growth and neurological health, a trade-off that ended in a dark house in Encino.
Next Steps for Further Research:
If you want to dig deeper into the medical side of this, look up the 1985 FDA ban on pituitary-derived growth hormone. It directly correlates to the timeline of Roman's treatment and his eventual legal defense. Additionally, checking the Los Angeles Times archives from 1989 provides the most granular details of the trial transcripts and the "ninja" defense that failed.