During this call, Anna went on and on, challenging any piece of evidence we discussed. She claimed documents I was given by Ben Smith and Trent Vileta (she had no clue as to what documents I had) and others were forged in order to make sure I believed in Tracey’s guilt.
I asked her pointed questions about Tracey’s odd behavior.
Lies, she said. All of it. Nothing but lies.
“But your daughter is a convicted murderer,” I explained, this after I realized I was not going to get through. Murder was one of many, many crimes Tracey committed throughout her life. “You are making it personal between Ben and Trent and Tracey—and even yourself.” They were doing their jobs. That’s what this is about: two lawmen going after a criminal and presenting the case in court to a jury.
Good guy versus bad girl.
The jury believed the good guy.
I mentioned the fraudulent driver’s license and passport.
She shrugged it off as nothing.
You see, for me, this is where the conversation with Tracey’s supporters ends. Yes, Anna and I spoke for an hour. But it does not matter what that conversation involved, really. All of the documentation and reports and trial transcripts and thousands upon thousands of pages of evidence generated in this case (by the FBI, Secret Service, Sac County Prosecutor’s Office, three different sheriff’s departments, several local police departments, DCI, Virginia law enforcement, law enforcement from Nebraska, Illinois, and England, Customs, paperwork and trial transcripts from divorce proceedings, depositions, insurance company investigations, and on and on and on), not to mention all of the forensic evidence, unquestionably prove that Tracey Richter Pitman Roberts is guilty, Tracey is a pathological liar, Tracey forged paperwork for fraudulent purposes, and that Tracey committed an endless range of crimes—that is, beyond the murder of Dustin Wehde. The psychology reports alone—hundreds of pages—documenting Tracey’s life of divorces and trumped-up sexual assault accusations against a dentist and her ex-husband further prove Tracey Richter is, beyond a doubt, a psychopath.
At the least.
I, as a book writer/journalist, do not matter in this. A jury convicted Tracey. Not Ben Smith. Not Trent Vileta. Not DCI. Not the AG’s office. Not Michael Roberts or John Pitman. Not me. Twelve of Tracey’s peers voted to convict her on the evidence presented. What I say, what anyone says, is immaterial. I am obligated to the facts as they are generated by investigators and the public record left behind. I have written thirty-one nonfiction books. Every one of those books has been based, like this one, on documentation, the court record, evidence, and the scores of interviews I conduct personally with those involved who are willing to talk to me. That’s it. Anna Richter is trying to tell me that all of these agencies involved—over a dozen, amounting to hundreds of investigators—conspired to convict her daughter. There is information in this book Anna and Tracey’s supporters will read for the first time. Neither I, nor those involved, made it up. It was produced by Tracey’s conduct and documented by her doctors, her victims, and the justice/court system. You cannot rely on the system in one instance and pooh-pooh it as corrupt in another.
After our call, I wrote Anna one short e-mail asking about Tracey’s upbringing, her childhood, and so on. I felt there were answers in there somewhere. I wanted to know what happened to Tracey, where her life took a turn toward the dark side. And yet, there may be nothing there: the simple answer could be that Tracey is inherently evil. Those people are out there, too.
I can honestly say I don’t trust you to be fair, Anna wrote back.
From there, she explained how she believed Michael Roberts had “hired” me “to write” the “book” in his favor. She added how if I was to “look into everyone” standing behind “Tracey’s arrest,” I would clearly “see” how “they are all connected to Michael.”
Think about that statement.
I had heard from others that some who had gone after Tracey were subjected to false accusations of the vilest nature being published about them on the Internet, and that their names were connected to algorithms in search engines that would produce results next to phrases like “baby raper” and “pedophile” and other despicable associations and terrible, reputation-destroying accusations of sexual abuse and other illicit behaviors the person had never committed. Hearing this reminded me of what Alex Gibney went through with his Scientology documentary for HBO. You present facts in a case and you become the target. I suspect after or before the publication of this book, some of the same will be projected on me. And yet none of it changes the facts in Tracey’s case or the behavior she has shown throughout her life.
Anna continued, saying that if she were a writer, she “would not base” a book about this case “on what they have given you.”
I had explained to her during our call that I use the court record as a roadmap to guide me through a case—i.e., documents created during what was a ten-year investigation, including thousands of pages generated by Trent and Ben’s predecessors, when Trent and Ben had no idea this crime had even been committed.
A week later, after another long e-mail rant, Anna ended by saying my “gullibility in this case” was a suggestion that I needed “to look for a different profession.” She concluded by saying “all” of them (I’m guessing Bert, Tracey, and Anna) “look forward” to the publication of my book, which “will be,” Anna claimed, “very easy to discredit,” as will “your so called facts.”
I found this last statement extremely revealing: my facts. It’s as if I am the one who produced the mountain of evidence in this case against Tracey. I’ve heard this before. It’s a shoot-the-messenger thing. Look, Dateline and other news magazine-type television shows have covered this case. I suppose they all went through the same thing. In the end, nothing changes the fact that Tracey was found guilty of murder.
Weeks would go by and I would not hear from Anna Richter. Then, out of the blue, unsolicited (I sent her two e-mails: one introductory e-mail and that follow-up asking about Tracey’s childhood), I would see an e-mail from her in my in-box. In September 2015, I got this: Love to know where you get your info from. It was the opening line of yet another diatribe rife with accusations and character assaults. Anna routinely referred back to our phone conversation. What really stoked her, something she could not let go of, was that I had uncovered Tracey speaking with an English accent while she was living in Omaha—a piece of information I had shared with Anna on the phone. Anna claimed she had spoken to friends of Tracey’s in Omaha, and none of them “ever heard her speak with an English accent.” She added how “people are feeding you false info,” before saying how “funny” she found it that I saw Tracey as “guilty after going thru the paperwork,” but in the meantime, every attorney that had gone through it felt “the exact opposite.”
I found this last observation to be incredible.
Read it again, please.
You see what I mean?
Anna then told me a story about a car salesman, adding how certain “people” were “feeding” me “info.” Then a direct threat: Will it be worth your reputation?
Anna claimed she had spoken to Bert and that he was going to call me.
Bert never called.
A week or so later, another e-mail arrived. This one said Ben Smith had employed Michael Roberts to write a warrant to search Anna’s home.
So MUCH corruption in this case, she said, adding how “sorry” she was that I had been “unable to see it.”
She then assailed Dennis Cessford, saying he was “either senile or a liar.”
“I would not base my book on what they have given you.”
Later that same day, Anna sent a follow-up. In this e-mail, she spoke of being certain that none of what she has sent me “matters” because I was “already convinced” that Tracey “is guilty.” She talked about how she had called Bert after speaking with me and asked him if Tracey had ever gone paintballing with them. I had told her I had a source claiming as much.
&n
bsp; Bert said never. Not once.
She then explained how she had spoken to Bert about “his polygraph” and that her grandson had said “he will call you regarding that.”
She said the reports I was basing my book on were “bogus.”
Then it was back to the English accent. She needed to know where I got this information.
Concluding this e-mail, she sarcastically offered me “good luck” with the book, especially because it “will be based on lies.”
Several weeks went by and I had not heard from Anna. As much as I wanted to tell her to go away and stop threatening me, I never responded to any of her e-mails.
Then, on October 9, 2015, she sent another.
It was more of the same: I’m an idiot. I know nothing. I better watch out. I’m being lied to by a prosecutor and all of the law enforcement agencies involved. Michael Roberts is paying me. People are “laughing” at me.
She claimed I was “making excuses” for Michael and Ben, and this told her “who” I was “working for.”
A month went by. Thanksgiving came. On Black Friday (2015), Anna returned. She was onto another topic now. One we had discussed during that phone call months before.
She wanted me to “show” her “where Tracey says she thought John Pitman was involved.” She then wanted to know if I ever got my hands on “the correct polygraph” law enforcement had done with Michael. She claimed the polygraph report I “read to” her during our phone call “was done by the person who Michael paid.” I never read her a polygraph; I read a sentence from a report about an interview Anna did with the police in which the polygraph was mentioned.
Then, once again, Anna brought up the English accent. She’d figured it out.
I know Tracey . . . and I pronounce the words tomatoes and vase differently, she wrote. She wanted to know if that constituted the two of them talking with an “English accent”?
She then asked if I was “the person” responsible for producing a “very anti Tracey program” that aired on TV?
Not sure which show she was talking about. I wasn’t involved in any show about Tracey. I came to this case long afterward.
Then more attacks and veiled threats. Anna said she was “surprised” I could write a book “on nothing but hearsay.”
Again, witnesses, the court record, published reports, not to mention countless other sources of information and author-conducted interviews, are now hearsay.
Concluding, Anna said she was certain I did not “want the truth or facts.” But, she added, that is “fine.” She maintained that when the book is published, she would have enough “documentation to prove most of it is fiction.” Then she would “be able to pay off [her] loan.” She called me “naïve” to consider that “there will be no repercussions” against me or anyone I spoke to for the book. She said she had every “right to defend myself and family.”
This e-mail came with a postscript. In it, Anna demanded that Tracey “have the names of the women who said she talked with an English accent.” (I never said my source was female.) But, Anna continued, she could “probably guess who they are.” She was “positive” she would be able to “prove they lied” to me. Yet, she didn’t think I wanted to “hear the truth” because it “would show” I hadn’t done “a very good job investigating the facts.”
I suspect as time goes on and this manuscript leaves my hands, I will continue to receive e-mails from Anna. And when the book is published, I suspect more then, too. Please check my website for updates in this regard—I just may have to dedicate an exclusive page to it.
* * *
Ben Smith filed a garnishment action against Tracey in early 2014 in order to collect what the SCSO calculated to be nearly $240,000 in court costs, restitution, and other expenses incurred during the state’s investigation and prosecution. Iowa Department of Corrections was ordered, effectively, to confiscate any and all money in Tracey’s prison accounts. She would not be allowed money for the commissary or phone calls ever again.
“I wanted to make sure any money belonging to Tracey Richter was seized and sent, instead, to Dustin Wehde’s family,” Ben said. A judgment had been made against Tracey ordering her to pay the Wehde family $300,000 in restitution. At the time prison officials confiscated her accounts, Tracey had between $600 and $700.
Her first appeal was denied by the Iowa Court of Appeals. Judges Amanda Potterfield, David Danielson, and Mary Tabor unanimously concluded that the evidence did not “preponderate heavily against the verdict.”
Tracey claimed ineffective counsel, for the most part. In a statement, the judges said, in part: Having failed to prove the requisite prejudice, the defendant’s ineffectiveness claim fails.
Tracey then filed for what is called postconviction relief, which is, simply, just another way for a convicted felon to appeal his or her case. The convict is hoping for a modification of her sentence, a new trial, or even a direct order for immediate release. It’s akin to a Hail Mary pass in football. The felon tosses the ball into the air in the final seconds of the game, hoping a judge catches it in the end zone.
By November 2015, however, those referees in the end zone ruled it incomplete and indicated game over.
Tracey’s postconviction relief was denied.
* * *
Tracey Richter Pitman Roberts is now where she belongs: in prison for the rest of her life. I could write another fifty to one hundred pages about the problems and chaos she has caused from behind bars, another fifty to one hundred pages about her life before and after meeting Michael Roberts and the battle between Tracey and Ben Smith, including lawsuits that have been filed. The woman is a menace. She is a cancer on the face of society, a wretched human being who should not be allowed but an hour a day of recreation from solitary confinement. Her entire life is focused on revenge and retaliation against those she believes put her where she is. The fact of the matter remains beyond any doubt: what we don’t know about Tracey Richter and any additional crimes she’s committed would be enough to sentence her to a second life term.
When this book is published, I will be called a liar, a writer who failed to present the “real” facts, someone who was taken in by Ben Smith and his cronies, fed a mountain of corrupt material, a journalist afraid to see the truth. Tracey and her supporters will make things up about me and post them online. They will attack my character and my profession. They will promote an agenda of lies about my work that will be nothing more than a bunch of bullshit. That is inevitable. But the one thing that will never, ever change here is the evidence against Tracey Richter. All of which I presented without bias in this book.
* * *
Finally, then, the one person I chose not to interview for this book, someone who wanted me to call him, was Michael Roberts. I didn’t need or want to. The record was quite abundant and clear on Michael. He had given countless depositions, police interviews, and a polygraph. On top of that, talking to Michael would have fed into Tracey’s agenda. Michael Roberts might or might not be a lot of things, but the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that Michael is one more in a long line of Tracey Richter’s victims.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There is no way I could have written this book without the help of Ben Smith. We must have exchanged close to five hundred e-mails after an initial two-hour conversation. I quickly learned that Ben wanted the truth to emerge without restriction: Here it is, you read it, study it, and draw your own conclusions. He never gave me simplified answers to my questions. He always argued his case and then pointed to the factual documents, recordings, or particular file in the court record where I could find evidence to back it up. Ben might have made mistakes within the scope of the investigation and prosecution and definitely upset some people with his tenacious way of doing things, but there was a driving force here for Ben—always.
Justice for the victims: Dustin Wehde and his family.
I thank Ben for pursuing this case and for answering my questions, even when he knew the answers
would not reflect positively on him.
Likewise, Trent Vileta was a source I could dart off five e-mails to in the morning, with questions ranging from the color of a car to the purpose of a blood spatter photo, and Trent would not send back answers, but rather where I could find those answers in the court file and record. That, to me, shows a tremendous amount of integrity and confidence in the truth.
Trent made a point to talk to me about his mentors and former colleagues, specifically his partners while in the Milwaukee Police Department: Phil Hanyard, Dave Larson, and Steve Butzen. And in doing so, he clarified how personally law enforcement officers take their jobs, and how protecting the public is always the main goal (which we rarely see mentioned in the mainstream media coverage of crime): “Phil and Dave are still Milwaukee cops, but I have lost touch with Steve. . . . I think we all can point out the friendships we develop working as cops are different than anything else, except for maybe the military. Those guys would have thrown themselves in front of a bus for me, and I won’t ever forget that.”
I was preparing to start another case in late winter 2015 when I reached out to my good friend, producer Donna Dudek, from Jupiter Entertainment, who is always sending me great leads on incredible stories (thank Donna for Death Trap, one of my fan favorites). I told Donna about the case I was considering and asked if she knew anything about it.
“That’s a good case,” she said. “But Tracey Richter . . . that is a great case—one that has your name written all over it.”
I had seen Tracey’s story briefly on TV (particularly Snapped, which Donna worked on, and Dateline) and read a few news accounts, but never followed it with any particular interest. But after Donna made the suggestion, I dove in.
Thank you, Donna, for another spot-on recommendation.
My readers are constantly there for me and I appreciate and adore each one of you—I truly mean this from my heart. Thank you for supporting my dream and allowing me to do what I do every day. I am in awe of your dedication. I hope never to disappoint.
Beautifully Cruel Page 32