Love Her To Death
Page 36
“Adrienne,” an old friend said, “wanted to be liked. She loved to have friends.”
Slightly concerned, Joanne called a few family members and friends, while Tony went about his daily routine, undeterred by Adrienne’s uniform lying there on the floor. Who knew—maybe she had two uniforms? Perhaps she didn’t have to work, after all.
“I was not the least bit worried,” Tony later said. “Not then.”
Adrienne had been making lots of friends since moving into town. She was always hanging out with someone. One of her favorite places these days was the teen center at the YMCA. And, of course, the local mall.
Ten minutes went by. Joanne made several additional calls. “No one’s heard from her,” Joanne told Tony. Joanne didn’t like the feeling she had in saying those words. Something was wrong. She could sense it.
Gut instinct.
“Let’s take a ride to Checkers,” Tony suggested.
It would be a journey opening up a mystery that would end with the most gruesome, sinister set of circumstances and murder that East Moline has ever experienced—with a group of teens, their leader a young girl no one seemed to know much about, at the center.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Crime expert, television personality, lecturer, and investigative journalist M. William Phelps is the national best-selling, award-winning author of fifteen nonfiction books, all of which are still in print. Winner of the 2008 New England Book Festival Award for I’ll Be Watching You, Phelps has appeared on CBS’s Early Show, truTV, the Discovery Channel, Fox News Channel, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Learning Channel, Biography Channel, History Channel, Montel Williams, Investigative Discovery, Geraldo At Large, USA Radio Network, Catholic Radio, ABC News Radio, and Radio America, which calls him “the nation’s leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” Phelps has been profiled in such noted publications as Writer’s Digest, New York Daily News, Newsday, Albany Times-Union, Hartford Courant, Forensic Nursing, and New York Post. He has also consulted for the Showtime cable-television series Dexter. And has been a recurrent, featured guest on ID’s hit show Deadly Women. Phelps lives in a small Connecticut farming community and can be reached at his author website, www.mwilliamphelps.com.
Surrounding the Roseboros’ Denver/Reinholds, Pennsylvania, home, in and around Lancaster County, the Amish still hold true to the values of their ancestors. (Author’s collection)
Some call Lancaster County “God’s Chosen Land,” where the rolling hills collide with fairy-tale sunsets. (Author’s collection)
The Roseboro family called Denver home. (Author’s collection)
Pretty and intelligent, Jan Roseboro was the ideal mother, neighbor, friend, and wife. (Courtesy of Shawn Roseboro)
Jan liked to dress down. Here she is heading into Fulton Bank on July 22, 2008, unaware that a murderer was planning her death for that same night. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
East Cocalico Township PD Detective Keith Neff, who had never investigated a murder, was determined to find Jan Roseboro’s killer. (Author’s collection)
Detective Sergeant Larry Martin knew Jan Roseboro’s husband, funeral director Michael Roseboro. (Author’s collection)
Jan’s husband, Michael, took over the family funeral business from his father. (Courtesy of Shawn Roseboro)
The Roseboro Funeral Home has been a staple in Denver, Pennsylvania, for over a century. (Author’s collection)
Angela Funk became the center of Michael Roseboro’s affection and obsession in the weeks before Jan’s murder.
Angela Funk lived directly across the street from the Roseboro Funeral Home. She and Michael exchanged hundreds of emails, over one thousand phone calls and hundreds of text messages in the seven weeks of their adulterous affair. (Author’s collection)
Angela Funk came from a conservative Mennonite background. (Author’s collection)
Jan Roseboro walked into Fulton Bank, in Denver, wearing the same clothes she was later found murdered in. Note that Jan is not wearing any jewelry—a fact that would help convict her killer. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
This diagram shows the Roseboros’ in-ground pool. It seems unlikely that an intruder would have murdered Jan and then lit five tiki torches (below) before fleeing the scene. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
This diagram shows the “circular puncture-type wound with an L-shaped marking” that Jan Roseboro sustained to the back of her left ear. The deep gash went all the way to her skull. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
This series of diagrams show the number of injuries Jan Roseboro sustained on her body and head during the attack that ultimately killed her. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
This aerial photograph shows how many lights an intruder would have needed to turn on after murdering Jan but before fleeing the scene. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
In this aerial photo, it’s clear how unobstructed a view each neighbor had into the Roseboros’ backyard. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Jan’s glasses (above) were found in the bottom of the swimming pool alongside her cell phone and two stones. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
A close-up of Jan’s cell phone found on the bottom of the pool. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Forensics checked Michael Roseboro’s swimming trunks for blood, but found no trace. Still, Jan Roseboro’s husband claimed to have worn these shorts—soaking wet—to bed on the night Jan was murdered. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Jan was found unconscious and not breathing in the deep end of the in-ground pool, wearing the same sweatshirt she was photographed in at Fulton Bank earlier that day. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Michael Roseboro had three scratches on his face, one witness testified, which were “oozing” on the night of Jan’s murder. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Michael Roseboro also had fresh bruising on both his knees. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
This photo of Michael Roseboro’s right hand shows a bruise and slight cut just below the thumb line and to the left of the top knuckle. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Ten days after his wife was brutally strangled, beaten and drowned to death in the family’s in-ground swimming pool, Michael Roseboro was booked and processed on first-degree murder charges. (Courtesy of the East Cocalico Township Police Department)
Downtown Lancaster has not lost its flair for deep Puritan roots. (Author’s collection)
Michael Roseboro’s trial was the subject of widespread rumor and gossip in Lancaster County during the summer of 2009. (Author’s collection)
The entrance boasts of a castle-like structure, but Lancaster County Prison, where Michael Roseboro was held, provides anything but fairy tale endings. (Author’s collection)
After living the plush life of status, wealth, taking whatever he wanted, building a dream home he saw himself in during his retirement years, former undertaker Michael Roseboro now calls a lonely prison cell home. (Author’s collection)