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