Love Her To Death

by M. William Phelps

  “And so,” Martin said, “we all got together and decided what to do next.”

  The other important piece in managing the case was Heather Smith, the ECTPD office manager. Neff pulled Martin aside and told him, “We need her to help with organizing—she is great with computers and putting things together.”

  Neff didn’t need to be sold on the idea. Heather, with twenty years on the job, was good at what she did.

  “Heather was always willing to help,” Martin said. To Neff, “Absolutely.”

  Indeed, Smith’s input would prove crucial to the case, as Heather began to painstakingly keep track of what everyone was doing and how the information coming in was stored and categorized. When it came time to track people down via phone numbers, Smith would be the one to make those calls, look up the numbers, find addresses, and then put all of the info into some sort of graph or chart that the detectives could easily understand, plus coordinate for a possible (and potential) prosecution down the road.

  Routine morning meetings between detectives, which Martin and Neff began right away, would soon prove to be essential in solving this case.

  Whenever a murder is committed in Lancaster County, the county’s Major Crimes Unit (MCU) is officially activated. There’s no Bat Cave button to be pushed, or alarm sounded. The MCU is not a separate team of investigators, as the name might suggest. The MCU operates like an ad hoc force that forms on an as-needed basis. What this meant to the ECTPD and the Roseboro investigation was that the ECTPD would have the help it needed from any law enforcement agency in the county.

  For Detectives Keith Neff and Jan Walters, who had shown up at the ECTPD that afternoon, July 23, the first job in front of them was to contact Michael Roseboro and see when he would be available for another little sit-down.

  ADA Kelly Sekula got busy on the DA’s end, writing a search warrant for the Roseboro residence. The Roseboros’ pool was a crime scene, along with the entire house.

  As Sekula wrote inside the ECTPD in Denver, Neff and Walters got together and talked about how they were going to approach Roseboro. What was the best way to talk to the guy, now that Jan’s death had been ruled a homicide? This would be a far different conversation from the one Larry Martin and Keith Neff had with Michael Roseboro the previous night.

  Surprise was the best way to go about talking to Roseboro at this point. Go over there and knock on the door; see what he says when he’s given the information that his wife’s death was no accident. Reaction during a situation like this is everything to a cop. Ever since Jan’s death, Roseboro didn’t seem to have any emotional response whatsoever. Nearly everyone close to him during this time period later agreed that his demeanor was flat. Nonverbal.

  Not even detached. But just, well, level.

  Was Roseboro mourning the death of his wife?

  In addition, Neff said later, the other purpose of the interview was to get an account from Roseboro of how he had removed his wife from the pool.

  It was 2:11 P.M. when Jan Walters and Keith Neff knocked on the Roseboros’ front door. Michael Roseboro’s black SUV was parked in the driveway alongside a few other vehicles. It was clear that he was home, and not alone.

  “Can we talk to you again?” Neff asked after Roseboro opened the door.

  “Sure … yeah, that would be okay,” he said.

  Roseboro invited the investigators into the newer section of the house. The kitchen and living room were connected to each other. It was just the three of them. Everyone else was in another part of the house.

  “We need to get some detail about what happened,” Neff said.

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Okay, we’re trying to figure out what happened to Jan. Can you just go through your night once more for us, Mr. Roseboro?” Walters asked after Neff introduced him as a detective from the DA’s office in Lancaster.

  Roseboro did not hesitate. “I went to bed at about ten. Woke up at ten fifty-eight. Saw one of the torchlights were on and went outside. When I got to the first torchlight, I saw my wife in the pool.”

  Neff was thinking of the 911 call that he and Larry Martin had listened to earlier that day and the statement Roseboro had given him—and Patrolman Firestone—the previous night. This statement—went to bed at ten, found her in the pool near eleven—was becoming the Roseboro mantra.

  Like he’s reading from, a script, Neff thought.

  Walters watched Roseboro as he spoke, studying his movements and facial expressions.

  “How did you get her out of the pool?” Neff asked.

  It was odd to Neff, now that he’d had more time to think about the situation, that Jan Roseboro was found on her back in the deep end of the pool, then placed on the deck, one leg hanging over the edge, barely in the water. How had Roseboro hoisted her out of the pool?

  “When I got to that first tiki torchlight,” Roseboro explained, “I noticed Jan was in the deep end of the pool. Her face was facing away from the residence. So I jumped into the pool, swam to her, and started pulling her out by her sweatshirt … toward the two sets of steps in the deep end of the pool…. When I got to the steps and the ledge, I started pulling her up.” Roseboro demonstrated his actions as he explained what happened. “I reached around her, crossed her arms, reached around her, and was using her forearms, the wrist area, kind of her shoulders, to pull her up onto the deck.”

  Some struggle that must have been, Neff considered. Literally, Jan was dead and wet weight. Any husband would have had anxiety and fear and shock undoubtedly flowing through his bloodstream like adrenaline. Being a heavy smoker and drinker, Roseboro must have had a difficult time getting his wife out of the pool.

  “Go on,” Neff encouraged.

  “When I got her … to the deck, I had pulled her out by the sweatshirt. I checked for a pulse and started pushing her on the chest. Then called 911.”

  Keep him talking…. “Okay. Then what happened?”

  “The 911 operator instructed me to check for an airway obstruction and then told me how to do CPR … which, I believe, it was, um, two breaths for thirty compressions.”

  As he told this part of his story, Roseboro acted it out. “He told me,” Neff later said, “that she was … He was demonstrating it and was leaning forward with his arms out and said that she was submerged in the water in the deep end of the pool” as Roseboro pulled her out. “I wanted to make sure his handling of her body could not account for the injuries.”

  It all seemed so awkward. Who would pull someone out of the water like that—better yet, his own wife?

  As the ECTPD, now with the help of the MCU, began to branch out and conduct a widespread investigation into the death of Jan Roseboro, one of the first things on the list was to create a victimology report, which took a look into Jan’s life to see what type of person she was and if anyone had a good reason to kill her. Who knew, really, if perhaps Jan had been living some sort of secret life? Or maybe was having an affair, broke it off, and her lover returned and drowned her as payback? What about a home invasion gone wrong? There were scores of possibilities to consider. At this time, nothing could be ruled out.

  “We were looking at about two hundred fifty people to interview in the early stages of the investigation,” Neff said.

  And yet, it all started with Michael Roseboro, Jan’s husband. The guy who had found her dead. The last person who had seen her alive.

  As Neff and Walters talked to Roseboro, near 2:30 P.M., Neff was still not convinced that Roseboro was being honest with them. Neff was now working under the assumption that Roseboro had killed his wife and tried to cover it up. The fact remained that if he had pulled Jan out of the pool by her arms, as he had explained in detail, why were there no scratches on Jan’s back or belly? The pool coping (edge mold) is rather rough, scratchy, like sandpaper. Why weren’t there scratches anywhere else on her body, indicating that she had been dragged?

  Something wasn’t right.

  Staring at Michael Roseboro, listening to him fin
ish his explanation, Keith Neff noticed something else that began to bother him.

  Scratches. Three of them. On Roseboro’s face. They were more pronounced now that they’d had time to scab over.

  When he noticed the scratches, Neff thought, Whoa.

  There were two scratches on the left side of Roseboro’s mouth, one on the right. Although Neff and Walters didn’t know it yet, the number and placement of the scratches were significant. Jan Roseboro had that hand with one fingertip missing. Just a stub, actually. So if—a big if, mind you—she had scratched her husband with that hand, it would leave only three scratches, as opposed to four from a normal hand.

  “I have a lot to do,” Roseboro said. “I need to write Jan’s obituary … and meet with the church people to set things up.”

  “We understand,” Neff said. “Is there a time we can talk to you again? We need to go over a few more things.”

  “Ah, maybe five-thirty today would work.”

  “At the station, okay?” Neff told Roseboro.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll be there.”

  As they walked away from the house, it occurred to Keith Neff and Jan Walters that Michael Roseboro had not asked one question regarding what had happened to his wife. Or, now that her death had been ruled a homicide, if they had a suspect.

  19

  Keith Neff and Jan Walters waited at the ECTPD for Michael Roseboro to show up. He said he’d be there at 5:30 P.M.

  Wouldn’t you know it—as the big hand hit the six, the little hand the five, there was the man of the hour: Michael Roseboro stepped out of his friend Gary Frees’s vehicle and walked into the station house.

  Roseboro came through the door with the same demeanor he’d had throughout the previous night. Some called it stoic. But “stoic” implied that Roseboro was struggling emotionally with his wife’s death and holding it together. That was not the attitude Keith Neff and Jan Walters observed.

  To them, Roseboro seemed like a guy who didn’t give a hoot.

  “Thanks for coming in, Mike,” Neff said, greeting him with a handshake. “Can you come on back into the interview room for us?” Neff and Walters stood with Roseboro and Gary Frees in the lobby.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Walters, Neff, and Roseboro sat down in the interview room. Frees waited in the lobby. As soon as they got situated, Walters came right out with it, perhaps at the risk of laying some of their cards on the table. “Mike,” the experienced detective said, “I want to thank you for coming in. Look, your wife’s death was not an accident. She was beaten and drowned.”

  Not a flinch. Not a movement. Not a word.

  Zombielike.

  “Nothing,” Neff said later. “The guy did not say or do anything when we gave him that news. He just sat there.”

  “There was no reaction,” Walters later added. “He said nothing. No gestures. Nothing.”

  Not even close to an appropriate reaction, Neff considered as he stared at Roseboro as Walters delivered the news. What is going on with this guy?

  “Mike, listen,” Walters continued, “since you’re in a police station, it would be proper if we advised you of your Miranda rights.”

  Roseboro had his head down. He made little to no eye contact with either Neff or Walters as they spoke.

  Neff took out a sheet of paper and read Roseboro his rights. They were not accusing him of the murder, officially. But they wanted Roseboro to understand that he didn’t have to speak to them without representation if he didn’t want. Essentially, Walters and Neff were saying that the questions they were going to be asking could get a bit more intimate and accusatory, so it would be best if he watched what he said or called his lawyer. The choice was his to continue.

  “Mike,” Walters asked, “can you read me a portion of it out loud?” Standard procedure. It was to show the detectives that Roseboro understood and comprehended English.

  Roseboro read. When he finished, Neff handed him a pen. Roseboro needed to sign the form indicating that he was willing to answer questions without a lawyer present.

  He signed the Miranda form. As he did this, Neff and Walters looked at each other with a bit of Okay, yes, this is good.

  Walters said they needed an explanation from Roseboro about what happened out at the pool. All those injuries the pathologist had reported on Jan’s body. Especially that gash in the back of Jan’s head. The fact that her lungs contained a soapy liquid meant she was alive when she went into the water. They never gave Roseboro all these details. But instead, Walters said, “Mike, it was just you and your wife at the house, except for the kids, who were sleeping.” The detective paused. “Mike, we need an explanation from you. You’re free to leave at any time. You are not under arrest. But we need to know what happened out there.”

  “No,” Roseboro said. Then, after a brief gap of silence, as though a lightbulb went off and he suddenly understood what was going on, Roseboro pointed at himself and said, “Hey, are you saying I am a suspect?”

  Walters didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Mike. Of course. You must have known it would come to this. It was just you and Jan out there.”

  Roseboro looked at the two of them. He didn’t like the tone or where this was obviously heading.

  “Can you think of any other explanation?” Walters asked.

  “No,” Roseboro said. Then he broke into that familiar monologue: “I got up around ten fifty-eight…. I saw the torchlights were on and I went out and found her.”

  Robotic. Rehearsed. Scripted.

  “Well, Mike, put yourself in our place,” Walters said while Neff studied Roseboro’s reactions.

  “I understand.”

  “Mike, do you have any other explanation?” Neff piped in and asked.

  “I don’t have one.”

  Roseboro wasn’t looking down at the floor any longer. Walters later said that he was “basically looking past us, down a little bit, but past us.” Walters was sitting in front of Roseboro, Neff to Roseboro’s right.

  “Can you tell us about those scratches, Mike?” Walters asked.

  “Oh, this,” he answered, touching his face. “I got those from my daughter. We were playing basketball at the house, inside the pool.”

  “Can we photograph those scratches on your face, Mike?”

  “Sure … sure.”

  Walters got up and walked out of the room, presumably to get a camera.

  When Walters was out of sight, Neff asked Roseboro, “What type of basketball did you play?”

  “The net, in the water.” Neff understood it to be one of those floating basketball hoops.

  “Mike, we really need an explanation from you about what happened to Jan. You don’t have anything you can tell us?”

  “No.”

  Neff decided to go for it. Give the guy a way out of this mess, if Roseboro wanted one. In a genial manner, one that said he was there to help Roseboro through this, if he wanted, Neff said, “Mike, we know this was something that either happened in the heat of passion or was planned out. But I don’t want to believe it was planned out.”

  Neff was trying to tell Roseboro, without coming out and saying it, that there might be a way to escape real prison time—if only he came clean. Maybe it was manslaughter? Perhaps he and Jan got into an argument and Roseboro snapped?

  “I didn’t do this,” Roseboro said in a near whisper. No defiance in his voice, or anger at the fact that two detectives were accusing him of brutally murdering his wife, a woman Roseboro had claimed he was going to renew his marriage vows with in a matter of weeks.

  “I am past that, Mike.” Neff heard Walters coming back into the room. “Do you have any questions for us, Mike?” Here they were telling the guy his wife had been murdered, pointing a finger in his face, and he had not asked them one question. They expected Roseboro to have nothing but questions.

  Roseboro thought about it. Then he said, “No.”

  Another detective took photographs of Roseboro’s goatee area, where the three scratches were loca
ted.

  “Thanks for coming in, Mike,” Walters said. “We appreciate it.”

  Roseboro left.

  Neff and Walters needed to get a search warrant in hand and head over to the Roseboro residence and comb through that house, inch by inch—without anyone breathing down their backs. They needed to find evidence to arrest Roseboro on first-degree murder charges. As the officers stood and watched Roseboro leave, the ECTPD had no evidence and no motive. Just a few scratches and a hunch. The Roseboro family had money. Jan and Mike’s marriage appeared to be solid. Why would this guy kill his wife?

  Soon after Roseboro left the parking lot, Neff grabbed one of the patrol officers and drove out to the Roseboro house, saying later, “We needed to take that house.” Seal it off until the warrant came through.

  By now, they were told by Kelly Sekula that a search warrant was imminent. It was only a matter of time and a judge’s signature.

  When Neff arrived with several officers, there were approximately thirty people at Michael Roseboro’s house, inside and out. The officers took down names as they explained that a search warrant was going to be served and everyone needed to leave.

  As Neff stood outside the house, he had no idea that the case was about to yield its first major twist (or break, depending on how you looked at it). It would soon be revealed that one of the most popular motivating factors for murder had been right underneath the ECTPD’s nose all along. It would have nothing to do with the Roseboro house or what the ECTPD was about to uncover inside, but everything to do with the type of human being, husband, and father Michael Roseboro was—something that would turn the small town of Denver, Pennsylvania, on its heels.

  20

  The first of two search warrants was signed by Judge Nancy G. Hamill, of the court of common pleas, on July 24, 2008, at 1:40 P.M. The ECTPD had two days to go through the Roseboro house. The warrant stipulated some of the items the ECTPD was looking for: trace evidence, including hair fibers, blood, bodily fluids, and fingerprints, along with any items with bloodstains or apparent bloodstains. It allowed the ECTPD to process the entire residence: pool area, patio, and any other common area, for blood spatter analysis. The fact that it had rained so heavily the night before and continued, on and off, throughout that day, worked against the CSI team. Yet luminol could reveal blood hidden in plain sight. Little mist here, a bit over there, and boom!—there it is, like invisible ink—that Day-Glo light indicating the presence of plasma.