Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Perpetual Teen: Treva Throneberry

 


Treva Joyce Throneberry (born May 18, 1969; also known as Brianna Kenzie, Brianna Stewart, Cara Leanna Davis, Cara Lewis, Cara Williams, Emily Kara Williams, Keili T. Throneberry Smitt, Stephanie Lewis, and Stephanie Williams) is an American woman who spent most of her twenties pretending to be a teenager and engaging in other forms of con artistry for which she was eventually convicted and imprisoned.

Throneberry made numerous false claims of sexual abuse, including that she was a victim of satanic ritual abuse, to gain money. She traveled across the United States, residing in foster homes, colleges, and with any family that would take her in, using false identities. Her father, Carl Throneberry, said, "She's just going cross-country and using different names and receiving welfare."

After she was arrested in 2001 and charged with fraud and perjury, Throneberry's true identity was established by DNA testing. Some observers of her post-arrest behavior have speculated that her assumption of different identities may have been the result of delusions or dissociation which arose from real trauma that she suffered as a child. Court-appointed psychologists, however, deemed Throneberry to not be delusional and therefore legally responsible for her actions.

Throneberry was convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, Washington. She was released after serving two years and three months of her sentence.

Early life and education

Treva Joyce Throneberry was born on May 18, 1969, in Wichita Falls, Texas, to Carl and Patsy Throneberry. Her father had dropped out of school in the sixth grade and was illiterate. The family later moved to Electra, Texas, where Throneberry and her sisters were sexually abused by their uncle Billy Ray. In December 1985, after accusing her father of raping her, Throneberry was removed from her family and placed with a foster family back in Wichita Falls and enrolled in the local high school. She began to tell stories about how she had been abducted and raped by Satanists.

In May 1986, Throneberry was sent to a local mental hospital, Wichita Falls State Hospital, after threatening to kill herself. While there, doctors said her condition was a characterological disorder, prescribing her with Trilafon, Tofranil and Xanax. Throneberry refused to speak with her family when they visited. When she was discharged in October 1986, she was transferred to the Lena Pope Home for Troubled Girls, a residential treatment center in Fort Worth. While at Lena Pope, her therapist set a goal for her: to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships. She kept a distance from her family, only occasionally sending letters.

Throneberry graduated from Fort Worth's Arlington Heights High School in 1987 and moved to nearby Arlington. There, she rented her own apartment and worked as a hotel maid.

Crimes

For most of the 1990s, Throneberry wandered around the country using various names and identities. She said she was a teenager with an abusive background, lived in homeless shelters and foster homes, and enrolled in local high schools. Throneberry also claimed that her Satanist father had raped her and killed her mother, and also accused her foster parents and other families that had taken her in of sexual abuse for which police could not find any evidence. All cases were dismissed.

In 1993, Throneberry was living in Corvallis, Oregon, and passing herself off as a teenager named "Keili T. Throneberry Smitt" and "Keili Smitt", staying with a family she had met at a church. She went to court in Benton County, Oregon, to legally change her name to Keili Smitt. Throneberry falsely reported to Corvallis police officers she had been raped by her father, who she at that point falsely claimed was a police officer in Oregon. Throneberry was charged with filing a false police report in Oregon.

Three years later, Throneberry was in Altoona, Pennsylvania. She said that she was a 16-year-old named "Stephanie Danielle Lewis" and was fleeing her Satanist parents with the help of the religious underground. After eighteen days of investigation, police contacted a girl she had known in Texas and found out who she really was. She was arrested, charged with giving false information, and sentenced to nine days in jail. After her release, she disappeared again and continued her wandering.

In 1997, when she was claiming to be 17-year-old "Brianna Stewart" (she was 28 at the time) in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, Throneberry falsely accused a 47-year-old security guard named Charles Blankenship of rape. He pleaded guilty to "having sex with a minor" and was sentenced to fifty days in jail. After her fraud was exposed, a judge expunged Blankenship's conviction.

Beginning in 1998, between the ages of 27 and 31, Throneberry posed as an initially 16-year-old Evergreen High School student named "Brianna Stewart", living in various strangers' homes around Vancouver. She had a 2.83 grade-point average and got a D grade in drama class. Throneberry had a boyfriend for a year and a half and told him about her alleged abuse. Sympathetic benefactors gave her money and shelter, but she eventually betrayed their trust by making false claims of abuse. In hindsight, many of the foster home providers said they began to suspect that she was not a teenager; one dentist noticed that Stewart no longer had wisdom teeth and that the scars from their extraction were healed, unusual in a teenager. Throneberry graduated from Evergreen High School as "Brianna Stewart" with the class of 2000 and enrolled at Clark College.

In 2016, Throneberry resurfaced under the alias "Brianna Kenzie" and accused a local man of sexually assaulting her while she was working as a hotel employee. She was later fired after hotel employees learned of her prior record.

Popular culture

Throneberry's story inspired "Shangri-La", episode 2 of season 13 of Law & Order, as well as "Pretend", episode 21 of season 8 of Law & Order: SVU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treva_Throneberry

Bobbed-Hair Bandit: Celia Cooney

 


Celia Roth Cooney (1904 – July 13, 1992) was an American who went on a robbing spree in the spring of 1924 in New York City. Cooney robbed 10 buildings with her husband, Ed Cooney, before she was caught. She became known as the Bobbed Haired Bandit for her exploits. The robberies received significant media coverage, making headlines in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. The newspapers criticized Commissioner Richard Enright and the New York City Police Department for their inability to catch Cooney. In response, Enright ordered the largest manhunt in the city's history.

Cooney evaded capture for 65 days, eventually fleeing to Florida after a botched robbery of the payroll office of the National Biscuit Company. While in Florida, she gave birth to a child, who died several days later. She was caught on April 21, 1924, and sentenced to twenty years in prison, of which she served seven. After leaving prison, she spent the rest of her life in relative obscurity, dying in 1992.

Early life

Celia Cooney was born in 1904 in New York City. In 1922, she met Ed Cooney, with whom she fell in love. The wedding took place on May 18, 1923. Ed Cooney was a mechanic at the Ostrander Corporation, and Celia Cooney also worked there. After their marriage, Celia became pregnant.

Robberies

Her first robbery took place on January 5, 1924, when Cooney entered a Thomas Ralston grocery in Park Slope and asked for a dozen eggs. She subsequently held up the store and stole a total of 680. The robbery received a smattering of coverage in the Brooklyn Eagle and Brooklyn Citizen. Celia and Ed Cooney soon moved to 1099 Pacific Street. They spent the money quickly, and subsequently robbed an Atlantic and Pacific at 451 Ralph Avenue, and an H. C. Bohack store. In total, they netted about $365 from the two robberies. The New York Daily News and Telegram, and Evening Mail covered the robberies, with the Mail coining the nickname "bobbed hair bandit".

The robberies began to attract media attention, with newspapers ridiculing Richard Enright for his inability to catch the bandit. On January 14, Enright announced that he had caught the bandit. He claimed that it was Helen Quigley, a twenty-three-year-old actress. Cooney subsequently left a message at a drugstore on Dekalb Avenue. "You dirty fish-peddling bums, leave this innocent girl alone and get the right ones, which is nobody else but us ... We defy you fellows to catch us." Another robbery occurred on Union Street on January 20. The various robberies were covered on front pages in the Daily News, Brooklyn Standard Union, Eagle, Citizen, New York Post, New York Journal-American, The New York Times, and others. At least one poem was written about the robberies.

Enright continued to be heavily criticized for his inability to catch Cooney, as they robbed more stores. As the robberies continued, Enright stepped up his efforts to catch Cooney, naming Mary Cody and Rose Moore as suspects. F. Scott Fitzgerald would later claim that his wife Zelda Fitzgerald had been accused of being the Bobbed Haired Bandit, being stopped on Queensboro Bridge in Queens. The newspapers continued to cover the chase, with the New York Herald and others comparing Cooney to a modern-day Robin Hood. Enright soon assembled 850 detectives and made catching Cooney their top priority, giving the detectives permission to shoot on sight. Despite having an additional 200 policemen on patrol, Cooney still evaded capture.

Enright eventually established a group of eight detectives known as the "bobbed-hair squad" that consisted of William Casey, Frank Gray, Joseph McCarthy, Joseph Owens, Peter Mathers, and Charles Motjenacker, tasked solely with catching Cooney. On March 5, he ordered half of his reserve police force in Brooklyn to aid the detectives in stopping Cooney. That same night, she robbed another drugstore and again evaded capture. With the search intensifying, the Cooneys lay low for much of the rest of March, even as the news began covering the topic further.

The robberies that the couple was pulling off, while drawing much attention, were often bringing in just barely enough to survive on. To secure their financial well-being, the couple planned to rob the payroll office of the National Biscuit Company warehouse. The robbery occurred on April 1, 1924. They held up the cashier, Nathan Mazo, and several employees. Mazo attempted to stop the robbery, and Ed Cooney subsequently shot him, as he believed that Celia had been hurt. The couple fled, leaving $8,000 behind in the open safe.

The Cooneys fled New York on a Clyde Line steamer and travelled to Florida. In New York City, the failed robbery set off a large manhunt, but the police failed to find them. On April 3, they arrived in Jacksonville, Florida. Cooney's baby was born on April 10, and within two days it died. On April 15, the police disclosed the identity of Celia and Ed Cooney to the public, and on April 21, 1924, at 1:00 in the morning, the couple was arrested in Jacksonville by new New York detectives.

Capture and trial

The capture of the 'Bobbed Hair Bandit' made the front page of many New York City newspapers, as well as the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. As she was brought up to New York City for her trial, thousands of people turned out to see her as her train passed. When she arrived in New York City, a large crowd greeted her. The New York World described the crowd: "Neither Presidents nor Jack Dempsey had attracted such a throng to Pennsylvania station as Celia Cooney, Brooklyn’s Bobbed Haired Bandit nor her husband, Edward did when they reached this city at 3:30." She was tried in Jefferson Market Courthouse, and sentenced to twenty years in prison. She spent her time in Auburn Prison.

Later life

Ed Cooney had his fingers smashed in a machine while in prison, and had his arm eventually amputated below the elbow. Weakened, he developed tuberculosis and died in 1936. Before his death, Ed filed a $100,000 lawsuit in 1931 against New York State because of the loss of his arm. His lawyers, Samuel S. Leibowitz and Jacob Shientag, won the case, granting a settlement of $12,000 to the family. The couple was released on October 16, 1931. Celia Cooney spent the rest of her life in relative obscurity, working as a typist and later at Sperry Gyroscope. She married Harold La Grange in 1943 and died on July 13, 1992. Cooney's exploits would soon enter popular culture, with lectures, plays, and songs featuring her story. In December 2021, true crime comedy podcast My Favorite Murder released an episode covering Cooney's story. In January 2025, the true crime comedy podcast "Morbid" released an episode covering Cooney's story.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Celia Cooney.

Duncombe, Stephen; Mattson, Andrew (2006). The Bobbed Haired Bandit. NYU Press – via Project MUSE.

Mahon, Elizabeth K. (2021). “Celia Cooney: The Bobbed Haired Bandit.” In Pretty Evil: True Stories of Mobster Molls, Violent Vixens, and Murderous Matriarchs. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot, pp. 157–174.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Cooney

Colin Howell

 


Colin Howell (born 14 March 1959) is a Northern Irish convicted double murderer. The murders and the surrounding story were the subject of an ITV drama series, The Secret, broadcast in April and May 2016.

Howell killed his wife, Lesley (née Clarke), and the husband of his lover, Trevor Buchanan (who was an RUC officer), in what appeared to be a suicide pact between the spouses of two lovers. The bodies were found in a fume-filled car in Castlerock on 19 May 1991. In 1998, Howell confessed the murders to his second wife, but she agreed not to inform the authorities. She was investigated following his arrest, but was not charged.

Howell's ex-brother-in-law has since accused him of murdering Harry Clarke, Howell's then-father-in-law, who died only 11 days before Lesley.

After murdering his wife, Howell received a payout of £400,000. He later lost £350,000 in a get-rich-quick scheme which had claimed to find Yamashita's gold in the Philippines. Howell had been led to believe he would make £20 million; however, he only acquired a few brass ammunition boxes, containing silver coins, worth about £30. Howell initially invested £100,000 but, over six months, steadily invested more after being told that the gold was buried under booby-trapped tunnels. He sold his shares in two dental practices and attempted to persuade friends to invest.

He believed that this, and the death of his son, were punishments from God.

Howell, a native of Portadown and a dentist by occupation, was a deeply religious father of nine and a former lay preacher. He married Lesley in July 198,3, and they had four children together. They were members of the local Baptist church. After his wife's murder, Howell married Kyle Jorgensen, a native of New York, with whom he had five children.

In 2009, Howell confessed his role in the murders to elders in his church, who urged him to inform police. He pleaded guilty to the murders on 18 November 2010 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum 21-year jail term before the possibility of release.

His former lover Hazel (née Elkin, formerly married to Trevor Buchanan, married David Stewart after seven-year relationship with Howell) claimed in court that she acted under duress, but was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan in March 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years. The trial judge stated that Hazel Stewart could have prevented Buchanan's death.

Police investigators were later criticised for having overlooked some facts, most notably that the driver's window was open and that Buchanan's leg was hanging out of the open car door; in addition, a witness had told police that Howell had previously tried to murder his wife.

On 17 May 2011, Howell pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting nine female patients in his surgery over several years. He was consequently stripped of his National Health Service pension.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Howell

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Death of Conrad Roy

 


Conrad Henri Roy III (September 12, 1995 – July 12, 2014) was an American marine salvage captain who died by suicide at the age of 18. His girlfriend, 17-year-old Michelle Carter, had encouraged him in text messages to kill himself.

The case was the subject of an investigation and involuntary manslaughter trial in Massachusetts, colloquially known as the "texting suicide case." It involved scores of text messages, emails, and phone calls recorded between Carter and Roy in the lead up to his death, in which Carter repeatedly texted Roy to kill himself. Roy had seen numerous mental health professionals and had been prescribed psychiatric medication.

After a bench trial, presiding judge Lawrence Moniz found Carter guilty of involuntary manslaughter, concluding that she wanted Roy dead and that her words coerced him to kill himself. Moniz's decision rested chiefly on Carter's final phone call in which she ordered a terrified Roy to go back inside his truck as it filled with carbon monoxide. Initially sentenced to 2½ years in prison, Carter had her penalty later reduced to 15 months, of which she served 11 months and 12 days. The case raised questions about the nature and limits of criminal responsibility.

Roy's mental health and relationship with Carter

Conrad Roy was born on September 12, 1995, in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. He worked with his father, grandfather, and uncle for several years in his family's marine salvage business, Tucker-Roy Marine Towing and Salvage, Inc., in the New England area.

In the spring of 2014, he earned his captain's license from the Northeast Maritime Institute by completing three months of night classes. In June 2014, he graduated on the Honor Roll (highest grades) from Old Rochester Regional High School (ORR) in Mattapoisett. He was a high school athlete who played baseball, rowed crew, and ran track. He graduated with a 3.88 GPA and was accepted to Fitchburg State University to study business, which he never attended.

Michelle Carter was born on August 11, 1996, in Massachusetts to Gail and David Carter. She went to King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham. In 2014, she was prescribed citalopram, also known as Celexa, to treat anxiety and depression.

Carter and Roy met in Florida in 2012 while each had been visiting relatives. After this initial encounter, they saw each other in person again only a handful of times over two years, despite having lived only about 35 miles (56 km) away from each other. Instead, they mostly exchanged text messages and emails.

According to court documents, Roy had allegedly been physically hit by his father and verbally abused by his grandfather. He attempted suicide in October 2012, after the divorce of his parents. After learning that he was planning to kill himself, Carter repeatedly discouraged him in 2012 and 2014, and encouraged him to "get professional help." However, her attitude changed in July 2014, when she started thinking that it would be a good thing "to help him die." In June, Roy texted Carter, suggesting they act like Romeo and Juliet, who implied that they both agreed to kill themselves.

Roy struggled with social anxiety and depression, for which he had seen several therapists and counselors, including a cognitive behavioral therapist in the weeks before his death. He had been hospitalized for an acetaminophen overdose at the age of 17; he was talking to a girl he had met in a group, and she called the police. Like Carter, he had also been taking the antidepressant citalopram. In the United States, citalopram carries a boxed warning stating it may increase suicidal thinking and behavior in those under age 24. In 2016, the judge had refused the defense's request for funds to hire an expert on Celexa, describing it as "speculative". Videos that Roy made of himself talking to a camera formed an important part of the case.

Roy's death

On Saturday, July 12, 2014, following digital exchanges with Carter, Roy died by suicide by poisoning himself with carbon monoxide fumes in his truck in a Kmart parking lot in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

Roy's funeral was held on Saturday, July 19, 2014, at St. Anthony's Church in Mattapoisett. The Captain Conrad H. Roy III Scholarship Fund at the Northeast Maritime Institute in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, was established in his memory.

Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter

Court: New Bedford Juvenile Court

Full case name: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Michelle Diana Carter

Submitted: February 4, 2015

Decided: June 16, 2017

Verdict: Guilty of involuntary manslaughter

Case history: Subsequent action--Defendant was sentenced to 2½ years in prison (sentence later reduced to 15 months).

Case opinions: Decision by Lawrence Moniz

Michelle Carter was indicted on February 4, 2015, and arraigned the following day in New Bedford Juvenile Court in Taunton, Massachusetts, on charges of involuntary manslaughter. The grand jury found enough to charge her with "wantonly and recklessly" assisting the suicide. She was 17 at the time and the court indicted her as a "youthful offender" rather than a "juvenile," meaning she could be sentenced as an adult.

In June 2015, a district court judge denied a defense motion to remove the Bristol County District Attorney's office from the prosecution. The defense argued that DA Thomas M. Quinn III should be removed because he is a first cousin of Roy's grandmother, Janice Roy, and therefore Conrad's first cousin twice removed. However, Quinn had already handed the case over to Deputy DA William McCauley.

On July 1, 2016, an appeal of the grand jury indictment to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was also denied, allowing the case to go forward. Justice Robert J. Cordy, writing for the unanimous court, found there was probable cause to sustain the manslaughter indictment.

On June 5, 2017, the day before the trial was scheduled to begin, Carter waived her right to a jury trial. Therefore, the case was heard by Judge Lawrence Moniz in the Bristol County Juvenile Court of Massachusetts, in Taunton. Carter was represented by Joseph P. Cataldo and Cory Madera. As there was limited legal precedent for prosecuting the encouragement of suicide, Cataldo initially asked a Taunton Juvenile Court judge for summary dismissal, arguing that Carter's texts were protected under the First Amendment and that the text history showed that Roy had been contemplating suicide without Carter's input. The judge declined this motion.

On June 16, 2017, Moniz found Carter guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He stated prior to his ruling that it was Carter's phone calls with Roy when he was in his truck gassing himself (as described by Carter's texts to friends), rather than the preceding text messages, that caused him to go through with killing himself. Moniz found that Roy had broken the "chain of self-causation" towards his suicide when he exited the truck. Carter urged Roy to return to his truck, and it was her wanton and reckless encouragement that caused his death.

After the guilty verdict, Roy's father stated publicly that the family was pleased with the verdict but that they wanted privacy. Roy's mother, Lynn, appeared on the CBS 48 Hours show, saying she didn't believe Carter had a conscience and that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Carter remained free on bail pending her sentencing. On August 3, 2017, Moniz sentenced Carter to serve a two-and-a-half-year term, with 15 months to be served in the Bristol County House of Corrections, the balance of the term suspended, and five years of probation. Soon after the sentencing, Carter's lawyers asked Moniz to issue a stay of the sentence until all of Carter's Massachusetts court appeals were exhausted. Moniz granted the stay with the condition that Carter avoid the Roy family.

On February 6, 2019, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Carter acted with criminal intent when she encouraged Roy's suicide, so her involuntary manslaughter conviction was upheld, and Carter's 15-month prison sentence would be enforced. The rest of the 2½-year sentence was suspended, followed by five years of probation.

Under order from a Massachusetts judge, Carter began serving her sentence on February 11, 2019. Carter had a parole hearing for early release, and her request was denied on September 20, 2019.

Carter's lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States in July 2019 based on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds. Carter's defense lawyers argued that Roy had a history of suicide attempts and the decision to end his life was his own, that Carter was "bewildered" over the case against her, and that, "taking all the texts in context, she tried to talk him out of it." They argued in initial hearings that the defendant had broken no law, had a First Amendment right to free speech, and was a juvenile. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in January 2020, leaving in place her conviction.

On January 23, 2020, Carter was released from prison more than three months early due to good conduct. Massachusetts state law allows inmates to reduce their sentences by 10 days per month for exemplary behavior. Carter served 11 months and 12 days of her 15-month sentence.

Legal repercussions

Possible effects

Some expected the case to set a legal precedent, regarding, as Ray Sanchez and Natisha Lance of CNN put it, "whether it's a crime to tell someone to commit suicide." Sanchez and Lance also stated that "The ruling [...] may spur lawmakers to codify the behavior highlighted in the case as criminal." The judge had noted that Carter had willed Roy's death, that she did not order him out of the truck and that her actions "put him in that toxic environment" which "constituted reckless conduct" and "that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy."

While U.S. law does not allow the lower-court decision to bind other courts, legal professionals believe it could have a social effect by raising other courts' attention to new, digital methods of committing crimes. The case also attempts to redefine the social spectrum in which attitudes and behaviors would qualify as criminal that were not considered criminal before.

Civil suit

In August 2017, Lynn Roy filed a $4.2 million wrongful death lawsuit for the death of her son against Carter, a suit which Lynn Roy's attorney later reported as "resolved" without comment, and which was dismissed "with prejudice and without costs." This docket record of appearance is consistent with an out-of-court settlement. Settlement agreements often contain provisions that limit public comment by the parties.

In media

On June 16, 2017, 48 Hours aired "Death by Text," an in-depth investigation of the events surrounding Roy's death.

On September 23, 2018, Lifetime released a telefilm entitled Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill, which stars Austin P. McKenzie as Conrad Roy and Bella Thorne as Michelle Carter.

A Dateline NBC episode regarding the case, entitled "Reckless," aired on NBC on February 8, 2019. In addition to covering the court proceedings of Carter's conviction, Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning interviewed both the prosecution and defense attorneys, along with Conrad Roy's family members.

On July 9, 2019, HBO released a two-part documentary on the case called I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter, which explored the complicated relationship between Carter and Roy, drawing on some of the thousands of texts they exchanged over two years to chronicle their courtship and its tragic consequences. The film premiered at South by Southwest 2019 and was directed and produced by Erin Lee Carr. The same week as the documentary's release, Carter's lawyers submitted a petition to the Supreme Court to consider her encouragement to commit suicide as protected free speech. Constitutional law scholar Eugene Volokh was reported as saying he did not expect the justices to take the case. The court declined to take up the case in January 2020.

On August 15, 2019, it was announced that Universal Cable Productions was developing a television series inspired by the case. On August 7, 2020, Variety reported that Elle Fanning would be starring as Michelle Carter and the series would be titled The Girl from Plainville, which would be on Hulu. Fanning, Liz Hannah, Patrick Macmanus, and Brittany Kahan Ward are executive producers of the series, and Unbelievable director Lisa Cholodenko was announced to direct the first two episodes.

On May 7, 2021, the band SKYND, known for their true crime-inspired music, released a single titled "Michelle Carter" based on the events of the case. SKYND commented on the case to Wall of Sound, saying, "She could have helped him, but instead she repeated herself over and over again telling Conrad to kill himself."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

Piper Rountree Part II



 Piper's Revenge

Shots in the Dark

In the early dawn hours of October 30, 2004, Professor Fredric M. Jablin, 52, sleepily made his way out of bed. Dressed in his pajamas and slippers he ventured out into the darkness to fetch the morning paper that had recently been tossed on his driveway at 1515 Hearthglow Lane.

Most of his neighbors in Tuckahoe Village, a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, were still fast asleep, as were Jablin's two daughters aged 8 and 15 and his son aged 12. They would soon awaken to a nightmare.

Around 6:40 am, neighbors were jolted awake by a frightening sound. According to Mark Bowes' Richmond Times-Dispatch article, they reported hearing a "bang, bang, bang," which one woman hoped "was a [malfunctioning] transformer." Yet, her husband who was also awakened by the noise knew it wasn't "because of the three precise shots," it was reported. There was little doubt it was a gun being fired.

Harry Swartz-Turfle of Court TV stated that yet another neighbor, Bob McArdle, was startled by the shots and dashed to his window to see what was going on. McArdle saw a person running down the street, although he could not make out the description because it was too dark. He and other neighbors were prompted to call 911.

It took only a few minutes for the police to respond. Several officers searched the surrounding neighborhood but could find no indication of foul play. However, "when the sun rose about a half hour later" Jablin's body was discovered lying dead in his driveway next to his Ford Explorer, Harry Swartz-Turfle reported. He had been shot in the arm and back while retrieving his newspaper.

Shock and profound sadness spread across the community with the news of Jablin's death. The rumors quickly made their way around the campus where he worked as an organizational-communications scholar at the University of Richmond's Jepson School. Neighbors, colleagues and student simply couldn't fathom why anyone would want to harm such a beloved man who was devoted to his children, students and job.

Yet those who knew Jablin intimately had their suspicions. The professor was just beginning to get his life back together after a nasty divorce and custody battle with his ex-wife Piper Rountree, 43.

Rountree, "a former Texas prosecutor, school board association attorney and amateur artist" wasn't at all happy about losing custody of her children, as well as "the bulk of the couple's assets," Bowes reported. Jablin's family and friends began to wonder if Rountree might have killed Jablin out of revenge. Investigators came to a similar conclusion and promptly arrested Piper Rountree.

Piper and Fred

Piper Rountree was born and raised in a small farming community in Harlingen, Texas. According to Paige Akin writing for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, she was the youngest of five siblings, including two brothers and two sisters. Rountree's father was a military surgeon and her mother was a homemaker.

Rountree was reported to have had a happy childhood and family life. She had close friendships and was liked by her fellow students although she wasn't the most popular girl in school, fellow classmate Lavon Guerrero suggested. Rountree excelled academically and was eventually accepted by the University of Texas at Austin in 1978. As an undergraduate, she studied speech communication.

The following year, Dr. Fredric (Fred) Jablin left a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin and took a new position teaching communications at the University of Texas at Austin. He was recently divorced and looking for a new beginning.

In 1981, he taught a course in organizational communications, for which Rountree registered. Jablin was immediately captivated by Rountree's artistic and energetic nature. Their student/teacher relationship ended in the fall of 1981 and six months later they began a romantic relationship.

The two were smitten with one another and became increasingly inseparable. In 1983, the couple moved to San Antonio, Texas when Rountree was accepted as a law student at St. Mary's University. Jablin did not give up his position at the University of Texas because his career was just beginning to take off, despite the 180-mile commute from his new home.

Later that year, the couple married while Rountree was still enrolled in law school. The marriage initially got off to a good start but it wasn't long before cracks began to appear. According to Bowes, Jablin reported in later court documents that he "became aware early in their marriage that Rountree suffered "emotional problems," after learning that she had been bulimic and was receiving psychological counseling 'because of family issues.'"

Red Flags

Rountree's emotional instability became increasingly apparent in her social life soon after she graduated in 1986 and moved back to Austin with Jablin. Even though she obtained employment as an assistant district attorney for Hays County, Texas soon after graduation, she quickly tired of the position and quit after one year, Bowes reported.

From then on she tried her hand at several different positions, which included that of school board association attorney, working for a private law firm and a position with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. None of the positions lasted longer than two years because she was either fired or quit out of dissatisfaction. She then set up her own practice in 1993 but after a year she gave it up because Jablin was offered a new position with a significant salary increase in Virginia at the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership.

In the meantime, Rountree and Jablin were in the process of raising their two children, a pre-school-aged daughter, Jocelyn, and a toddler son, Paxton, whom they both adored. The new job in Richmond offered a release from the financial burdens the family endured in Texas, mostly caused by Rountree's habit of overspending. In order to enhance their standard of living, the family moved to the Richmond area and Jablin began his new career as a professor of organizational communications.

After the move, Rountree decided to put her career on hold and devote herself to her children, full time. Rountree and Jablin's third child, Callyn, followed a couple years later. Akin said that, "even though Rountree got to spend more time making a home for her children, she wasn't content."

Bowes stated that the couple's marriage became "exceedingly strained in 2000," around the time Rountree "suffered a major depression" after undergoing an ectopic pregnancy and hysterectomy. It was also at this time when Rountree started having an affair with a married ophthalmologist.

Bowes reported that the "fatal attraction type relationship" with the doctor eventually led to the destruction of his marriage, exacerbated by Rountree's repeated death threats against his wife. When Jablin learned of the affair he was devastated and decided that the marriage was beyond salvage.

A Bitter Breakup

Rountree and Jablin separated in March 2001 and immediately began divorce proceedings. On request of the court, Edwin A. Bischoff, a Richmond-area attorney was "appointed commissioner in chancery in the Jablin-Rountree divorce" and asked to compile a review of the couple's marriage, Bowes said.

Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle quoted Bischoff who told the court that prior to the divorce proceedings Rountree experienced "significant episodes of mental health problems, drinking and abuse of prescription drugs." It was further reported that she also "circulated false reports of spousal abuse," which eventually "had little bearing on the case."

Moreover, the court learned that Rountree had run the family into considerable debt, which caused significant problems within the relationship. Within four years, Rountree, who was briefly in charge of the family's finances, amassed a credit card debt of more than $50, 0000, some of which was allegedly used to fund outings with her lover.

The court also heard that the ophthalmologist who was having an affair with Rountree often accompanied her and the children during summer activities in 2001. This news greatly shocked and saddened Jablin who wanted to protect the children from the couple's mounting marital problems.

In July 2002, after an emotionally and financially draining battle, the judge overseeing the case granted the couple a divorce on the grounds of adultery. Soon after, proceedings began concerning custody of the children. Jablin petitioned the court for sole custody of the children because of Rountree's mental instability.

Jablin's attorney stated in a petition to the court that Rountree had a "history of depression, which is manifested by periods of agitated and distressful conduct [and] impulsive acts, including fleeing from the area or threatening to take the children from Richmond, periods of infidelity, pleas of hopelessness and aberrational conduct including speaking to angels," Bowes reported.

After an eight month-long bitter battle, a Virginia court granted Jablin sole custody of the children and ordered Rountree to pay $890 a month for child support. Akin reported that according to Jablin's friends, "Rountree never came to terms with losing custody" of her children. She was also angered that Jablin "was awarded the bulk of the couple's assets," Bowes said.

In March 2002, Rountree moved to Houston, Texas where she had a license to practice law. Akin reported that she also moved to the area to be closer to her sister Tina Rountree, 52, a nurse practitioner specializing in menopause treatment and weight management who owned and operated the Village Women's Clinic near Rice University.

It was further reported that Tina helped her sister by finding her a one-room office space in which to rent for her legal practice. When her practice proved unsuccessful, Rountree began work at a land title company in August 2003.

That same year, Rountree filed for bankruptcy in Texas and moved in with her sister. Half a year later, Rountree was found in contempt of court in Virginia for not paying child support.

According to Swartz-Turfle, "by late September 2004, Piper Rountree owed almost $10,000 in back alimony." Rountree's financial and alleged mental problems, exacerbated by the fact that she didn't see her children except for a few times a year, eventually caused her to resort to measures that would have deadly consequences.

The Investigation

Soon after Jablin's body was discovered, investigators turned their attention to Rountree, who clearly seemed to have a motive to murder him. However when questioned, Rountree claimed that there was no way she could have killed her ex-husband because she was halfway across the country at the time, in Texas. Suspicious of her story, investigators began to piece together Rountree's movements at around the time of the murder. It didn't take them long to find holes in her alibi.

A forensic team seized several objects from Jablin's house, which they hoped would provide clues to aid in the investigation. Some of the articles included, "two cell phones, information from a Caller ID, photos, a pair of glasses and a 1999 Ford Explorer,” Bowes reported. Other items were confiscated from Rountree back in Houston, which included a wig, a computer and her cell phone records, among other things.

Investigators also interviewed numerous witnesses, including a Southwest Airlines employee, employees at the Houston Hobby Airport, a rental car service employee near Norfolk International Airport, a hotel manager in Henrico, Virginia and a patron of a Houston bar, as well as family members, friends and colleagues of Jablin and Rountree.

A significant piece of evidence that initially tied Rountree to the murder involved calls made from her cell phone. After reviewing the call records, investigators discovered that she was in the Richmond area the day before the murder up until the time around Jablin's death. From that moment on, the evidence began to pile up against Rountree.

Investigators learned that at 4:30 pm on the day of Jablin's murder, a woman checked in on a Southwest Airlines flight to Houston under the name of Tina Rountree. They interviewed airport employees at the Virginia and Houston airports to see if anyone could identify a picture of Piper Rountree as the woman traveling under the name Tina Rountree. Several people claimed to recognize the picture, although the woman they saw had blonde hair unlike the woman in the picture that was a brunette.

Based on the information they pieced together, investigators eventually determined that Piper Rountree did indeed travel to Richmond for a couple days before leaving on the afternoon of Jablin's murder. They also determined that she traveled in disguise, wearing a blonde wig and using her sister's identification.

After further investigation, it was discovered that Rountree bought two wigs on October 21st on the internet ordered from an e-mail account in her name. The wigs were mailed to a Houston post office box that bore the name of a former boyfriend of hers and were delivered prior to her flight to Virginia, days before Jablin's death, Bowes stated in an article.

After traveling to Houston, Henrico County investigators interviewed a Southwest Airlines clerk who remembered Rountree traveling to Virginia on October 28th. Kathy Mollie said that Rountree declared an unloaded gun at the time of check in. Akin quoted Mollie who said that Rountree appeared nervous and that "it seemed that there was something on her mind, that she was very much in a hurry," almost as if she was "trying to distract" her.

It was further reported that soon thereafter Mollie involved a baggage screener named Allan Fenestrate who worked for the Transportation Safety Authority in Houston who also recalled Rountree and the fact that she was "a bit nervous and fidgety" about the gun that she claimed belonged to her father. Bowes suggested that the gun she carried was a ".32- or.38-caliber revolver," which had the ability to shoot the bullets that killed Jablin. The gun that Rountree allegedly carried was never found.

Mounting Evidence

In the week after the murder, Rountree gave police the number of a bar patron whom she claimed would provide them with an alibi as to her whereabouts on the night of October 29th, twelve hours prior to the murder. Rountree said that Kevin O'Keefe, a 51-year-old electrical engineer, saw her that evening at the Under the Volcano bar in Houston, which if substantiated would make it difficult to prove she was at the murder scene in Virginia.

When police interviewed O'Keefe on November 5th, he said that he recalled seeing Rountree, although he wasn't entirely sure it was on the night in question. O'Keefe claimed to have been extremely busy that week and that he "didn't know which way was up," Bowes quoted him as saying.

O'Keefe told investigators that on November 3rd, Rountree came to the bar looking for him in a distraught state, claiming that "her boyfriend, who she lived with four years ago had been stabbed" and the police needed to confirm she was at the bar the evening of October 29th, Akin reported.

When O'Keefe suggested it was possible that he'd seen her that evening, Rountree disappeared only to return a short while later with two men, one of whom was a notary, asking for him to sign a statement to substantiate her alibi, Bowes reported. O'Keefe refused and instead gave her his number to give to police in case they needed his testimony.

He later realized that he hadn't seen Rountree on the evening in question but actually on a different day during that same week. A bartender substantiated his story. It was evidence that proved to be damaging to Rountree's already shaky alibi.

Back in Virginia, investigators interviewed rental car service employee Tarra Waterford near Norfolk International Airport who claimed that someone resembling Rountree rented a minivan from her on October 28th. That same day, a Henrico, Virginia hotel manager also said she remembered a woman fitting Rountree's description registering for a room on October 28th for two nights.

The hotel was approximately 5 miles from Jablin's home. The manager said that the woman produced identification under the name Tina Rountree but specifically asked to sign in using a different name, which struck the manager as unusual. Rountree checked out of the hotel on October 30th, hours after Jablin's murder.

Moreover, investigators tied Rountree to a bank debit card that a former boyfriend named Jerry Walters, acquired for her after she declared bankruptcy. He opened the line of credit for her so that she could pay her bills, although he never contributed any money. The card was used to purchase items including the wigs she allegedly worn while on route to Virginia from Houston and the Southwest Airline plane tickets registered in the name Tina Rountree.

She also used the card to secure reservations at the Henrico, Virginia hotel where she signed in under an assumed name, to withdraw cash at several locations in the same area and to make a purchase at a CVS pharmacy, also in Henrico, which included a pair of latex gloves.

The overwhelming evidence against Piper Rountree eventually led to her arrest on November 8, 2004 for the murder of her ex-husband and the felony use of a firearm. Piper Rountree's arrest came soon after a custody hearing, where she lost guardianship of her three children to Jablin's brother of northern Virginia. Rountree was held in the Henrico County jail to await trial scheduled for January 2005. She faced 20 years behind bars, if found guilty.

Also on November 8th, Tina Rountree was arrested "on suspicion of tampering with evidence in the case," Melanie Mayhew reported in The Collegian. According to Akin, authorities said that she likely "helped Piper Rountree destroy evidence related to Jablin's murder, including a wig, makeup and computers." Her court hearing for the third-degree felony took place in July 2005 in Harris County, Texas where the offense allegedly occurred.

On Trial

On January 28, 2005, Rountree underwent a pretrial hearing at the Henrico County Circuit Court. Murray Janus represented her case before Judge L.A. Harris, Jr. The lead prosecutors in the case included Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Duncan P. Reid and Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Owen I. Ashman.

During the hearing, the prosecution presented a steady stream of witnesses who provided evidence against Rountree, mostly placing her in Virginia at the time of the murder. Some of the witnesses included Mollie, Benestante, O'Keefe, Waterford and the Henrico hotel manager where Rountree checked in on October 28th. The judge found the evidence sufficient enough for the case to go to trial, which began several weeks later.

February 22nd marked the opening of Rountree's trial beginning with jury selection. Eventually, a seven-man, seven-woman jury was selected followed by opening statements from the prosecution then the defense teams. Witness testimony began the next day and lasted until February 26th.

One of the many witnesses to take the stand was Jerry Walters, Rountree's ex-boyfriend who she dated for ten months up until February 2004 and who had previously opened a line a credit for her. He claimed that while Rountree was in jail she sent him a letter suggesting that they marry in order to "spare" him testifying against her, since "by law a husband could not testify against a wife and vice versa."

Walters told the court that Rountree called him the evening of Jablin's murder and informed him of his death. She then asked him to fly from Louisiana where he lived to Houston, although he declined the offer, Akin said.

Walters said that the next day he learned that the line of credit he set up for Rountree was in default because, according to Rountree, the debit card had been stolen the week before, it was further reported. He only later learned from investigators that many of the items linking Rountree to the murder were purchased from the bank account he set up for her. Walters closed the account soon thereafter.

Another witness who testified was Crystalee Danko, a Sprint telephone employee who produced cell phone records placing Rountree in the area of Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia between October 28th and 30th. She also provided records that proved Rountree was also in Virginia earlier that same month. The evidence directly contradicted Rountree's account that she was in Houston at the time of Jablin's murder.

Three days into the trial, other testimony was heard including that of the Henrico hotel manager and the manager of the boutique where Rountree bought the wigs she allegedly wore on route to and from Virginia during the last week of October 2004. Investigators were able to provide video surveillance tapes showing Rountree at Henrico County ATM money machines around the time of the murder wearing one of the blonde wigs she purchased from the boutique over the internet.

Perhaps one of the most damaging pieces of evidence was that presented by Mac McClennahan, who dated Tina Rountree at the time of the murder. He claimed that on the evening of October 26, 2004, he and Piper Rountree went to a Houston shooting range and practiced firing rented guns.

He also testified that he gave her a .38-caliber revolver in 2002, which he "found inside Tina Rountree's house," Akin stated. Following Jablin's death, McClennahan said that Rountree tried to convince him not to tell investigators about the practice shooting at the fire range because, "it'll just complicate things."

A Losing Battle

On the fourth day of the trial, several other witnesses presented testimony to the court, which included a parking lot official from Hobby Airport in Houston who said that he saw Rountree's black jeep parked at the airport from October 28th to October 30th, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Two other witnesses testified that they saw Rountree days before the murder at a shooting range in Houston, using her sister's identification. Rountree allegedly bought a box of ammunition for a .38-caliber gun, similar to that believed to have killed Jablin.

That same day, O'Keefe took the stand and recounted his conversations with Rountree at the Houston-area bar, where she tried to get him to sign a notarized statement that he had seen her October 29th. His testimony was followed by Piper Rountree's testimony in her own defense. Her account of events was the most revealing, which inevitably changed the climate of the entire proceedings.

While on the stand, Rountree tearfully professed her innocence, claiming that she was in Houston when Jablin was gunned down in front of his home. She said that she never owned a gun and never had her sister Tina's driver's license. She claimed that she was often mistaken for her sister "both in voice and in physical appearance," suggesting that it was her sister in Houston at the time of Jablin's murder instead of her.

When lawyers confronted her with the evidence they had against her, she refuted it all or simply claimed ignorance. Throughout her testimony she became increasingly less convincing, which proved to have disastrous results for her defense?

On the fifth day, closing arguments were heard before the jury deliberated on the case. By mid-afternoon, a verdict was returned finding Piper Rountree guilty of murdering her ex-husband and the felonious use of a firearm. As the verdict was read, Rountree could only sob. It was recommended that she be sentenced to life in prison, plus a mandatory three years on firearm charges.

During the sentencing trial in May of that year, Henrico County Circuit Judge L.A. Harris, Jr. sentenced Rountree to life in prison plus three years. The judge said to Rountree during the hearing that "the evidence certainly shows that it (her intent) was willful, deliberate and premeditated" and he admonished her for having "absolutely no remorse," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Rountree was led away from the courtroom to Henrico's Jail East where she was temporarily imprisoned. In July 2005, she was transferred to Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia, where she will be imprisoned for the remainder of her sentence. She is expected to be up for parole in 2020, when she's 60-years-old, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

https://murderpedia.org/female.R/r/rountree-piper.htm

 

Piper Rountree Part I

 


Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Revenge - She was intent on regaining custody of the children and cashing in on Jablin's $200,000 insurance policy

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder: October 30, 2004

Date of arrest: November 8, 2004

Date of birth: 1960

Victim profile: Fredric Mark Jablin, 52 (her ex-husband)

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Henrico County, Virginia, USA

Status: Sentenced to life in prison on May 6, 2005. She will be eligible for release after she turns 60

Piper Rountree gets life

She will be eligible for release after she turns 60.

In a last-ditch effort to save herself from a lifetime in prison, Piper Rountree spoke directly to the judge.

"If someone out there would have asked me several months ago, I would have said my children needed a father, regardless of the things between us," she said, sobbing. "I still maintain that. They also need a mother."

Despite Rountree's pleas for "compassion and mercy," Henrico County Circuit Judge L.A. Harris Jr. decided that her crime was so deliberate that she should spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Shortly after noon yesterday, Harris sentenced Rountree, 45, to life in prison for the shooting death of her ex-husband, Fredric Jablin, plus three years for using a firearm in the crime. That's the sentence recommended by the jury that took less than an hour to convict her of first-degree murder in February.

"In this particular case, the evidence certainly shows that it was willful, deliberate and premeditated," Harris said, speaking to Rountree. "You had a detailed plan to carry out the end result."

He also admonished Rountree for showing "absolutely no remorse" about killing Jablin, a popular University of Richmond professor and the father of her three children.

"There's no way that these children will ever totally recover from that," Harris said. "I think when you look at everything; the jury did the right thing."

When Harris sentenced Rountree, Michael Jablin let out an audible sigh of relief. In an interview immediately following, he said, "Having this over us was like a storm cloud. But we know where Piper will be, hopefully for the rest of her life. I thought possibly she might show some remorse, but obviously, she has no remorse for this, and that's sad."

Rountree will be held in Henrico's Jail East for the next three months, until space is available at a Department of Corrections facility.

After she was sentenced, defense attorney Murray Janus said that Rountree plans to appeal her conviction but that he will not represent her. Janus asked that a public defender be assigned to her case.

Rountree will be technically eligible for release when she's 60. In Virginia, most felons may petition for parole if they have served at least 10 years of their sentence by the time they turn 60, or at least five years by the time they're 65. But the board does not have to grant parole, and Rountree's attorney said he doesn't think she will be granted release.

Jablin was ambushed in his driveway on a chilly October morning. Prosecutors proved in February that Rountree, Jablin's ex-wife and a Texas lawyer, shot Jablin twice, in the arm and in the back, when he went out to retrieve the Saturday morning newspaper Oct. 30. Their three children were asleep upstairs when Jablin was killed.

Prosecutors proved that Rountree traveled from Houston to the Richmond area Oct. 28 wearing a disguise and pretending to be her sister. She stayed in an Innsbrook-area hotel that night and the following night, and then awoke early the morning of Oct. 30 and drove to the house she once shared with Jablin. She shot him twice, and then ran away, prosecutors said. His body was found about an hour later by a neighbor.

Rountree killed Jablin, prosecutors argued, because she wanted custody of their three children and because she was more than $7,000 behind in her child-support payments. Jablin and Rountree had been married for 19 years before they divorced in 2002, and Jablin was awarded full custody.

After Fred Jablin's death, Henrico courts awarded custody of the three children to Jablin's only sibling, Michael Jablin. They live with Michael, his wife and their children in Northern Virginia.

For most of the 1½-hour court appearance, Rountree sat with her hands clenched tightly in a fist covering her mouth. Her shaggy brown bangs hung in her face, covering her eyes. Occasionally, she wiped tears away with a tissue. She smiled briefly to her family and friends when she entered the courtroom.

Her mother, a nephew and two friends testified about what a wonderful mother and artist Rountree has always been.

"Piper is a beautiful, gentle spirit," said longtime friend Lavon Guerrero, who traveled from Austin, Texas, for the sentencing. She also described Rountree as a "tremendous homemaker" who was "100 percent there for her kids at all times."

"She connects to plants and animals," Guerrero added.

Rountree's mother, Betty Rountree, said her youngest child was "a delight to raise" and a great mother.

"She had the ability to go down to their level, as opposed to being an adult and staying up there," Betty Rountree said.

She added that after Piper Rountree lost custody of her children during her divorce, she never recovered.

"You cannot take your children away from a mother and come out with the same person," Betty Rountree said. "It's almost like God gave children to a mother, and the father comes second."

In the end, though, even a great mother could be a calculating killer, Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Wade Kizer argued.

"At any point in time, she could have turned back and we wouldn't be here right now," he said. "She has shown absolutely no remorse whatsoever for this murder. She makes herself out to be the victim -- that she was a loving mother, and [that] this is everybody else's fault but hers."

He added that the children will never recover from losing their parents, "if they live to be 80 years old."

Rountree: victim of conspiracy?

The former wife of a University of Richmond professor convicted of gunning him down in his driveway after a bitter divorce says she is the victim of a conspiracy.

In a two-hour jailhouse interview with The Associated Press, Piper Rountree called herself a battered woman who was the target of a "mob mentality" by corrupt police officers and overzealous prosecutors who were blinded by a compulsion to convict her.

"I'm a victim, and luckily I see myself as a victim with a voice," said Rountree, 45, who was sentenced this month to life in prison. "I believe that there's something much bigger than just me going on... I'm just an indication of what's happened, of where an abused and victimized wo- man ends up further victimized by a system."

Jurors in February deliberated less than one hour before convicting Rountree of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony for the Oct. 30 slaying of Fredric Jablin, who was 52. Jablin was gunned down as he walked outside his Henrico County house to retrieve the morning's newspaper. The couple's three children were asleep inside and were not harmed.

Prosecutors said a vengeful Rountree killed Jablin because she was intent on regaining custody of the children and cashing in on Jablin's $200,000 insurance policy. The couple divorced in 2002.

Rountree, who worked in Houston as an attorney, has maintained that she was asleep at her sister's home in Houston at the time of the murder.

 

"In the divorce, I was angry," Rountree said, seated at a table in a blue-and-white cement-block interview room at Henrico's Jail East in New Kent County. "Did I have thoughts of hurting him? You know, I would say, 'You know, I wish he'd get run over by a truck or something.' Those are the natural things you feel in a divorce. Do you act on those things? No."

Her voice soft and steady, Rountree dissolved into tears several times during the interview when discussing her children.

When asked outright if she murdered Jablin, Rountree brown eyes unblinking, the tips of her French-manicured nails pressed together -- answered immediately: "No, I didn't. The question is, is who did. And obviously I'm gonna have to find out sometime."

Though she refused to say who she believes killed her ex-husband, Rountree said she was told one of the initial prime suspects in the case was Jablin's brother, Michael Jablin, who now has custody of the children.

"Fred did not like Michael... I know that he [Michael Jablin] certainly hated me, he hated my sister, and he still hates my family," Rountree said. "If you look at money, if you look at position, if you look at opportunity, you know, the normal type of motives, Michael Jablin inherited ... $2 million or so ... from Fred's death. He was the one who stood to gain the most."

Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Wade Kizer, who prosecuted the case, called those allegations "absolutely false." Michael Jablin was never a suspect, and, although he is the trustee of Jablin's estate for the three children, has not personally inherited any money, Kizer said.

Rountree described her 19-year marriage to Fredric Jablin as stormy and troubled, and said her ex-husband mentally and physically abused her and the children.

"He had a much escalated temper from the very beginning," Rountree said. "When somebody in a position of strength is able to make you feel, after verbal abuse, that you are no longer worth the breath that you breathe, that is abuse."

Despite their troubles, Rountree said she is upset that Jablin is dead.

"Granted, we didn't get along," she said. "But he had a whole lot to offer. And he was making a lot of steps towards at least trying to do some of the things he needed to do for the children."

Prosecutors presented the jury with a mountain of evidence during the five-day trial. Police said Jablin appeared to have been killed with a .38-caliber revolver -- the same type of gun prosecutors allege Rountree practiced with at shooting ranges in Houston. The prosecution also said Rountree purchased wigs to disguise herself while traveling from Texas to Virginia. And cell-phone records placed Rountree's phone in Richmond the weekend of the murder.

During the interview, Rountree admitted she did go to a firing range, but said she was simply there to practice shooting for her own protection. She did buy the wigs, she said, but they were meant for a costume she planned to wear to a Halloween party. And her cell phone was a communal business phone that could have been used by anyone -- or the cell-phone records could have been tampered with, she said.

And what about witnesses who placed Rountree on the weekend of the murder at a Houston airport heading to Virginia, at a car-rental agency in Norfolk and at a hotel close to Jablin's home?

Those witnesses were coerced by prosecutors who were intent on getting a conviction, said Rountree, who also accused the police of fabricating evidence against her.

Kizer dismissed Rountree's arguments.

"She's just got to come up with some explanation other than to admit ... what she has done," he said.

Rountree has appealed her conviction. In the meantime, she says she is spending her time reading the Bible, playing chess, walking 10 miles a day around the jail track and offering legal advice to her fellow inmates.

She misses certain comforts, such as a good cup of coffee. But mostly, she said, she misses her children: Callyn, 10, Paxton, 13, and Jocelyn, 15. She's had no contact with Paxton or Callyn since she was incarcerated. Jocelyn visited her once in January.

"I miss being able to hold my kids," she said tearfully. "I miss reading to them, I miss playing with them."

But for now, the woman who calls herself a spiritual leader, and whom prosecutors call a cold, remorseless murderer, says she has nothing left to do but pray that God will set her free.

"God works in different ways and I know God is on my side he just has different plans than I had ever envisioned for me," Rountree said. "I've always asked to be put in a place where I can be of most use to him. I didn't ever imagine it to be here."

Va. v. Rountree: Ex-wife on trial for professor's murder

Bob McArdle was lying awake in bed when he heard three gunshots outside his suburban Virginia home. He rushed to the window and saw a lone figure running down the street. It was 6:39 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2004, the day before Halloween. McArdle called 911.

When two Henrico County police officers arrived minutes later, McArdle talked to them about the gunshots and the person he'd seen running. It could've been a jogger, he said. It could've been a man or a woman. He didn't know.

The officers searched the area, but left when they didn't find anything suspicious. It was dark, after all, and McArdle might have been mistaken about the gunshots.

 

But when the sun rose about half an hour later, it revealed the body of McArdle’s neighbor Fredric Jablin faces down in his own driveway, still dressed in pajamas and slippers. He was shot twice, in the arm and in the back.

Within two weeks, police discovered cellphone and bank records indicating the professor's 44-year-old ex-wife, Piper Rountree, had flown to Virginia from her home in Texas at the time of the murder. Alleging that Jablin's shooting death was the culmination of a bitter custody battle, Henrico County prosecutors charged Rountree with first-degree murder and the felonious use of a firearm.

Rountree claimed she was in Texas at the time of the murder, and pointed to inconsistencies in the records used to track her movements. Airport authorities had checked in Piper Rountree's sister, Tina, at the airport, and Tina Rountree was known to share her sister's cellphone.

Was Piper Rountree a jealous ex-wife who resented her alimony payments and would kill for custody of her three children? Or was it a case of mistaken identity?

A broken home

Rountree and Jablin met in 1981 when Rountree was a student and Jablin a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. They married in 1983 and had three children during almost two decades of marriage.

But in late 2000 or early 2001 their relationship began to sour. According to court records, Piper Rountree had an affair with a Richmond-area doctor.

Jablin petitioned the court for a divorce, which was granted in July 2002 on grounds of infidelity. Eight months later, the same Virginia court gave custody of the children to Jablin and ordered Rountree, a lawyer, to make monthly alimony payments of $890.

Rountree, who was living with her sister, Tina Rountree, declared bankruptcy in 2003. By late September 2004, Piper Rountree owed almost $10,000 in back alimony, according to prosecutors.

At the time of his death, Fredric M. Jablin had a $200,000 life-insurance policy. His ex-wife Piper Rountree was the sole beneficiary.

Friends of Jablin and Rountree told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that in October 2004, the professor was in his first serious relationship after the divorce, and Piper Rountree didn't want another woman near her children.

The investigation

According to police, Piper Rountree enacted a cross-country murder scheme in which, donning a blonde wig and using false documents, she used her sister's identity to fly from Texas to Virginia and kill her ex-husband.

Murray Janus, Rountree's defense attorney, conceded that "somebody flew on Southwest Airlines" at the time of the murder, but that there were "too many discrepancies" to prove it was Jablin's ex-wife.

Prosecutors traced Rountree's cellphone signal to local transmission towers across the country from Texas to Virginia on Thursday, Oct. 28. Sprint cellphone records showed the signal from Rountree's primary cellphone went from Houston, Texas to the Richmond, Virginia area during the two days before Jablin's murder, and the signal returned to Houston on Saturday, Oct. 30.

The defense claimed Piper Rountree maintained several cellphones and shared some of them with her sister Tina.

Detectives also traced a debit card under the name of Jerry Walters that Piper Rountree was known to use. The card's activity followed a path similar to Rountree's cellphone signal.

Walters, who was dating Rountree at the time of the murder, told police he got the card for Rountree. Weeks before the murder, she told him the debit card had been stolen.

The same debit card was used on Oct. 21 to buy two wigs from an online store. Piper Rountree admits buying the wigs, but says they were for her sister Tina. Rountree told police that her sister would often give wigs to cancer patients at the clinic where she worked

The airport

Kathy Molley, a Southwest Airlines customer service employee at Houston Hobby Airport, remembered a woman buying a ticket on Oct. 28, 2004. The woman, a pretty blonde, was anxious to get her ticket.

Molley remembered telling the woman she had a "cute name" Tina Rountree. The woman bought a round-trip ticket to Norfolk and said she had a gun to check.

Federal law requires a cable lock for any weapon that's checked through security and inspection by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer. The woman passed both requirements.

Prosecutors said the woman checking in as Tina Rountree was actually Piper. They pointed to her debit-card records showing a purchase of a cable lock the morning of Thursday, Oct. 28.

Mac McClennahan, Tina Rountree's boyfriend, testified that he gave Piper Rountree a .38 revolver in 2002. Rountree denied owning a gun.

A TSA officer had to double-check the woman's identity, and would have given special scrutiny to someone checking a gun onto a flight, defense attorney Murray Janus argued. Tina Rountree's identification indicated that she had brown eyes. Wouldn't the officer be suspicious if he saw Piper's blue eyes that day?

By Saturday night, Virginia police were trying to find the ex-wife of murder victim Fredric Jablin. They called Houston police, who posted officers at the airport with pictures of Tina and Piper Rountree, hoping to catch one of the sisters returning to Texas. The police didn't see either.

The case

The prosecution built a circumstantial case against Rountree using maps, charts and records of the cellphone and debit card Rountree was known to use. No DNA, fingerprints or other physical evidence were found at the scene of Jablin's murder.

In his closing argument, Henrico County prosecutor Wade Kizer summarized the evidence against Rountree, telling jurors that Rountree wanted to have custody of her children and erase her alimony debt.

In Rountree's defense, several people testified that Piper and Tina Rountree have similar voices and appearances, are often mistaken for each other, and share cellphones.

Piper Rountree claimed she was in Galveston on Thursday, Oct. 28, and in Houston the following two days. Martin McVey, a business associate of Rountree, claims to have seen her in Texas on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 30.

The verdict

The trial of Piper Rountree began on Feb. 22, 2005, in Henrico County, Va.

On Feb. 25, after deliberating for less than two hours, the jury found Piper Rountree guilty of the first-degree murder of her ex-husband Fredric Jablin. The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole. Judge L. A. Harris scheduled sentencing for May 6.

After the verdict, Michael Jablin, the victim's brother, told reporters, "Nobody wins in this. My brother's children are all losers in this." ~CourtTV.com