“Tracey went back to their home,” Ben continued, “took a bubble bath and, an hour after the incident, called the cops on Michael. When the cops got there, Tracey told her fictitious version of events and then had Bert make a statement that he, Bert, had been abused by his [step]father, Michael.”
Michael spent the night in jail. Because of Bert’s allegations, Child Protective Services (CPS) conducted an investigation, which Tracey wasn’t expecting. This addition to the truth, if you will, wound up being the beginning of a situation Tracey would soon find herself in with no way out.
CPS reports are, by law, given to the biological parents. So John Pitman, Tracey’s ex, received a notice that Michael had abused Bert (which was untrue).
When she realized what she had done, “Tracey had Bert lie [again] and tell Child Protective Services he wasn’t referring to Michael when he said his father hit him, but rather his biological father, Dr. Pitman,” Ben Smith added.
Thus, Pitman received a notice of the allegation of abuse against Bert by Michael—but also that he, too, was once again the target of a child abuse investigation. This after Pitman had fought and proved false two sexual abuse claims already by Tracey.
This became, in effect, the catalyst that sparked Pitman’s filing for a change in custody in late 2000—a filing on Pitman’s behalf, Ben Smith went on to claim, that facilitated Tracey’s new plan to now make sure that Pitman lost this new child custody case.
Tracey had backed herself into a corner. She had lied once more and this time created a mess she needed to somehow get out of.
“Which is where Dustin Wehde comes into it all,” Ben concluded.
36
WITH THAT SHAKING-THE-BABY incident behind them, John and Tracey tried to move on and raise Bert. John wanted to make it work. He yearned to see a stable environment for his son. Yet, he knew with Tracey involved, there was never going to be peace. She was always creating some sort of drama, always coming down on John for something, and always looking to pick a fight. Yes, John was not the ideal husband and dad, but his work was something Tracey had known about before she agreed to marriage. She knew John’s work would take precedence.
In December 1990, John took a call from the reserves. He was being put on active duty because of the Gulf War. There was a good chance he was going to be shipping out to the Gulf soon and would have to drop everything.
Turned out that after heading off to San Antonio for a couple of weeks for training, John was sent back home. Upon his return, the marriage “went better,” a report indicated, but that respite did not last long. By 1991, Tracey was acting even crazier than she had. Her complaining about everything increased tenfold. She was more “intense” and lashing out more frequently.
According to a report, John said: “At one point she seemed almost pathologic.”
The complaints Tracey lodged “became tirades.” She ranted, raved, screamed, yelled, and became violent. She accused John of “saying things” that he did not recall ever saying. She called him a “rotten husband.” She claimed he “neglected” her. She continued to bash John’s parents.
Tracey would go into a rage and John would try to calm her down. She would strike him. She was vicious and vindictive, the report explained. John felt like he was being “beaten up” all the time. He would walk through the door after a twenty-hour shift and she’d go crazy on him, screaming the vilest curses, accusing John of all sorts of things he never did.
John decided to get a job inside a lab, which turned into still a lot of hours, but he was home more and at consistent times.
It did nothing. In fact, Tracey was now incorporating more “physical violence” into her tirades after John started working at the lab. She struck John repeatedly with an “open hand” on his torso, intimidated him, and tried to push John into striking back.
Then she started throwing household objects.
Once again, if you ask Tracey about all of this, she blamed John’s parents for turning him against her and claimed she had “only hit John once,” a slap across the face for something cruel he said.
Another concern of John’s became the family finances. He was working more, making more than enough money to provide for the family, on top of Tracey’s odd jobs, and yet it was never enough.
Tracey, of course, was spending money as if they had a printing press in the basement. She bought a new car for $10,000—cash.
As Tracey resented John on every possible level and continued to spend more money than they had, she decided to bring something new into the relationship.
37
FOR EVERY ACTION, THERE IS a reaction. The fall of 2001 drew near. Tracey was feeling the strain of perhaps losing the child support she had been getting from Dr. Pitman, not to mention losing custody of Bert. She had brought this on herself with that fiasco of her kicking in the walls, taking a bubble bath, and then calling the cops on Michael. (He eventually plead the case, though none of the charges were ever dropped. In fact, a recording of Tracey would surface later on, in which she admitted to making up the allegations of domestic abuse against Michael.)
Tracey’s attempts to portray Pitman as sexually abusing Bert had failed. Every single exam, every single accusation she had ever made against John Pitman over the years—thus subjecting Bert to several colonoscopy-like exams for sexual abuse—had been proven to be nothing more than unfounded nonsense, trumped up by a woman hell-bent on destroying a man and his reputation so she could keep the cash flowing. None of it worked. Tracey had made it all up, according to the state and several investigations into the alleged abuse. The court was going to side with Pitman and his new motion to gain custody of Bert. In turn, Bert would have to go live with Pitman and his current wife in Virginia. One could easily say that as the fall of 2001 approached, Tracey needed to accept this or come with a new plan to stop it.
Back in May 2001, Dr. Pitman and his new wife, Lisa, were interviewed at length regarding the most recent custody action. The report itself noted that Pitman had “two sexual abuse allegations” lodged against him: one in 1993 that had been “overturned” by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services; another—which just so happened to be the previous Christmas before Dustin was killed—in 2000 that Sac County Human Services investigated thoroughly and also deemed unfounded. Because of his work schedule, when they first separated and later divorced, John did not fight Tracey for custody of Bert. Even though he had been through hell with her, John felt Bert was better off with Tracey until he could go for custody himself. John Pitman was certain she wouldn’t stand in the way of him being able to “maintain a meaningful relationship” with his son.
That, of course, did not happen. Then one day John “expressed concerns about bruising on Bert” during a divorce deposition and Tracey snapped, retaliating by hurling those nasty sexual abuse accusations at him. One of the major issues John faced in his fight against any accusations, in his opinion, was that Tracey’s father was a detective in the same police force investigating the sexual abuse claims. He also sat back and watched as Tracey doctor-shopped for the right therapists and physicians who might believe her claims. How nasty was Tracey in her intention to paint John Pitman as a bad person? There was one time when Tracey allegedly had a friend distribute “flyers in the hospital parking lot [where Pitman worked] which said [he] was a child molester and should be removed from hospital staff.” Another time, when John attended a school conference, Tracey told school personnel he was a child molester. She was relentless and vicious in her personal and professional attacks. It was also alleged that Tracey was influencing Bert, telling him to accuse his father of the abuse.
All of this was a lead-up to the night Dustin Wehde was murdered, law enforcement believed. Another argumentative fact later became that Dustin was never at the Robertses’ house. At one time, Tracey had said he was “always” hanging around with Mona and coming over to see if Michael wanted to hang out and play paintball.
But this was not true, Mona in
sisted.
“Michael always picked him up at our house,” Mona insisted. “Dustin went nowhere, Dustin did nothing.”
38
TRACEY TOOK OFF HER TOP. Then she unsnapped her bra and removed it. In the adjoining room were several day-care kids, including Bert. But here was Tracey, sitting at the kitchen table with her large breasts exposed, two women she knew looking on in absolute shock, all of it taking place inside a day-care center.
“What do you think?” Tracey asked.
In early 1991, Tracey had spent thousands of the family’s dollars on breast implants. It was April 1992 and Tracey was showing off her new breasts to a friend and the Pitmans’ new babysitter, Monica (pseudonym). It was an incredible lapse in moral judgment and behavior, showing how vain and delusional Tracey actually was to think this was okay.
Tracey had been working at a medical facility and “began an affair with a man” who worked there. She blamed him, claiming he was obsessed with her and one day cornered her in a dark room and forced himself on her. She loved the attention, at first, she later admitted. It was something she was not getting, according to her, at home. So she “had intercourse with him” two times and then “called it quits,” leaving her job.
At home, to John, it was a different story.
“I’m being sexually harassed,” she told him. Tracey said the guy was someone closely connected to the owners of the company. “He is possibly even following me. He asked me out one day and I refused. Since I said no, the company has been complaining about my job performance.”
Monica, the babysitter, had been working for the Pitmans for some time by then. According to what Monica later said, “Tracey told me all about the affair.” Tracey had even said she became pregnant with the guy’s child at one time and aborted it.
As Monica became a part of their lives, watching Bert almost every day, she and Tracey grew close. They had coffee together. They even went out to nightclubs when John was working. These weren’t your average nightclubs, though. Monica, whom John and Tracey both liked, had once worked as a stripper and took Tracey to a few strip clubs. Monica and Tracey had met through a friend of Tracey’s. When they went out together, Tracey would call on a friend of Monica’s to watch Bert.
Right away, Monica found an issue with Tracey’s mothering skills.
“Bert was often dirty and/or inappropriately dressed,” Monica reported later. Because of this and several other things Monica uncovered about Tracey, their relationship deteriorated.
The one major problem Monica had was that Tracey got involved with several “shady characters” she had met at the strip clubs, both male and female strippers who used drugs “and possibly engaged in other illegal activities.” Tracey seemed to be drawn to people like this.
Then there was that moment at the day-care kitchen table when Tracey whipped out her breasts. It was all too much for Monica.
“Hey, don’t do that,” Monica said. “Put your damn clothes back on. That’s inappropriate—this is a day care, Tracey!”
Tracey buttoned up, took Bert, and stormed out of the day care. It was weeks before she and Monica spoke again.
Beyond those incidents, there were all the men, Monica said, claiming Tracey was not only having an affair with a guy she worked with, but a male dancer and another man—all at the same time.
“She even sold one of their dogs and told John that it had been run over by a car,” Monica told authorities.
When Tracey found out Monica was onto her, she spun it and claimed Monica couldn’t be trusted because she was having an affair with John at the time.
The arguments between John and Tracey became progressively more violent (on Tracey’s end) and meanspirited (on Tracey’s end). John was not a mean person. He worked hard. He was happy being a father to Bert, a husband to Tracey, but it was getting old. Tracey was not changing. She was not falling into the role of mother and wife. If anything, her behavior became more bizarre and mysterious and criminal.
“I wish you were dead,” Tracey said one night to John during a fight. “I wish that you had gone to Desert Storm and died.” She slapped him across the face.
* * *
The next major event was the gun discharging into the ceiling, which Tracey would later explain to Dennis Cessford as he questioned her at Loring Hospital about the execution of Dustin Wehde. To Cessford, of course, Tracey maintained that it was all John’s fault. She said she had accused him of infidelity and he produced the gun in a threatening manner. After he left, the gun discharged as she went to unload it.
John, however, not long after the incident occurred, told a completely different story.
According to a report, John was inside the garage attached to their condo, working on the family car that night. Afterward, John went inside and took off his shoes, which were rather greasy. Once Tracey saw the shoes on the floor, however, she “went wild.” She picked them up, opened the garage door, and tossed the dirty shoes into the garage at John. Then she went after him, screaming about being a slob, messing up the condo, never listening to her.
“You are never going to leave this house alive,” Tracey said at one point. Her internal rage was taking over. “I am going to kill you.”
“Calm down. . . .”
“Get out. Just get out of this house, John.”
John didn’t want to argue, or see Tracey’s obvious rage escalate into anything more violent. So he left.
While walking out the door, according to John’s recollection, he “heard a gunshot.”
John was terrified. He turned around. Ran back into the condo. Tracey was talking to herself. She was on the couch, sitting in a “calm” manner.
It was bizarre.
Strangely, Tracey asked John: “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
John walked over.
“Everything is okay,” Tracey said. “I tried to kill myself. But I’m fine now. I need to lie down.”
John looked up. There was a bullet hole in the ceiling.
Tracey walked into the bedroom. Scared what might happen next, John called 911. When police and EMTs arrived, they gave John the option of either allowing them to take Tracey away to be evaluated or not.
“Take her away,” John insisted.
“No, please . . . no . . . no,” Tracey begged.
John looked at her. A social worker arrived on scene and, after evaluating her, didn’t want to admit Tracey. She didn’t feel it was warranted.
“She can stay,” John concluded. (A police report of the incident backed up John’s version.)
Tracey started to see a doctor about her issues after this incident. She went out and found a new job. For a while, they “did not argue as much,” said a report. The chaos seemed to settle down. Tracey was more subdued, quiet.
What was interesting about Tracey’s later versions of all this, while being deposed in numerous court proceedings, was that her tendency to lie pathologically was there from the beginning. The stories she told were, at times, the polar opposite to what had actually happened. In fact, Michael Roberts would refer to this side of Tracey as her “creative truth.” For example, after the gun incident and subsequent counseling, Tracey was asked why John didn’t participate in counseling sessions. “He didn’t want to. He blamed me,” Tracey alleged. But ask John why he didn’t go and you get the complete opposite story: “She made it clear that she did not want me there. ‘The counseling is just for me,’ Tracey insisted.”
39
TRACEY GOT A NEW JOB and worked part-time during the day. John felt a bit less stressed; however, he worried what she was going to do next. Then the behavior started all over again. He never saw any of the money Tracey earned, nor had he any idea what she did with it. Tracey never kept records of her spending, showed her husband any canceled checks, or gave an accounting of where the money she made went.
Then she fell in with a new group of people—and with that came another affair. John suspected this when, with Tracey working w
hat was only about twenty hours a week, she was never at home. She was always out, gone, always hiring a babysitter. She also started hanging out with Monica again. When he did run into Tracey at home or talked to her on the phone, John would ask where she was going.
“Work,” Tracey would say.
But she was dressed like a $500-an-hour hooker—dolled up in tight, short skirts, wads of makeup lathered on her face, skintight blouses showing off her large breast implants. The only thing missing was a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, stiletto heels, and her noisily snapping gum.
A friend was over one Sunday night. It was February 1992. They were still living in Denver. John was at the end of what he could put up with. Divorce, or at least a legal separation, was on his mind. John and his friend were talking. John got a call to head out to the hospital and, apologizing for having to run off, took off. It was just Bert, Tracey, and John’s friend.
“Listen, I need to head out to work,” Tracey said after dinner.
“Work?” the friend asked. “It’s Sunday night.” The friend was from out of town. He had been staying at the condo.
“Yeah, I know. But I have some paperwork to do, and if I do it now, I can sleep late tomorrow morning.”
It was around 7:00 p.m. It seemed like a logical explanation.
“Well, okay, I guess.”
“Yeah, watch Bert. I’ll be gone only a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”
Five hours went by. It was well after midnight. Tracey walked in. She was casual, as though she had been gone twenty minutes.
The friend asked what happened. Where had she gone?
“Oh, I got stuck there.”
While she was out, the friend happened to stumble upon the phone cord, which had been unplugged from the wall for some reason. It was strange, he thought. It hadn’t fallen out of the socket. Somebody had purposely unplugged it.
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