Dear Reader,
Congratulations on picking up the latest real-life thriller by acclaimed investigative journalist M. William Phelps. You are about to experience a gripping and provocative true story that illuminates the best—and the worst—of human nature in a drama of powerful passions, coldblooded murder, and ultimate justice.
Fans of M. William Phelps will recognize his uniquely compelling storytelling skills. Those new to his masterful narrative style will be happy to add him to their lists of favorite authors. And I think readers everywhere will be riveted, as I was, upon seeing this shocking story unfold.
Deep in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, Michael Roseboro and his wife seemed to have it all—a beautiful family, a stunning home, and plenty of money. But Jan’s murder led to an investigation that exposed the festering lies at the heart of their lives together. A secret life, a mistress, and a cunning plot are just some of the elements in this headline-making case. Now M. William Phelps takes you to the heart of the story for the first time.
If you enjoy reading LOVE HER TO DEATH, we’d love to hear from you at marketing@kensingtonbooks.com.
Don’t miss M. William Phelps’s other acclaimed true-crime thrillers, available from Pinnacle!
Happy reading,
Michaela Hamilton
Executive Editor, Pinnacle True Crime
LOVE HER
TO
DEATH
M. WILLIAM
PHELPS
All copyrighted material within is
Attributor Protected.
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals connected to this story.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
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Copyright © 2011 by M. William Phelps
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eISBN-13: 978-0-7860-2788-0
eISBN-10: 0-7860-2788-6
First printing: March 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Highest Praise for M. William Phelps
Also By M. William Phelps
Author’s Note
Book One
The Undertaker and The Po-Po
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty-One
Book Two
The Mistress and the Mortician
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
July 14, 2008: Eight days before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Three
July 15, 2008: Seven days before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Four
July 17, 2008: Five days before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Five
July 21, 2008: Twenty-seven hours before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Six
July 22, 2008: The morning before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Seven
July 22, 2008: The afternoon before Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Eight
July 22, 2008: The evening of Jan Roseboro’s murder
Thirty-Nine
July 22, 2008: The night Jan Roseboro was murdered
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Book Three
Morbid Curiosity
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Book Four
Where I’m Calling From
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Sixty-Five
Book Five
Angie and the Rock Star
Sixty-Six
Sixty-Seven
Sixty-Eight
Sixty-Nine
Seventy
Seventy-One
Seventy-Two
Seventy-Three
Seventy-Four
Seventy-Five
Seventy-Six
Seventy-Seven
Seventy-Eight
Seventy-Nine
Eighty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
One
About the Author
Highest Praise for M. William Phelps
Kill for Me
“Phelps gets into the blood and guts of the story.”
—Gregg Olsen
Death Trap
“A chilling tale of a sociopathic wife and mother willing to sacrifice all those around her to satisfy her boundless narcissism … Fair warning: for three days I did little else but read this book.”
—Harry N. MacLean
I’ll Be Watching You
“Skillfully balances a victim’s story against that of an arrogant killer as it reveals a deviant mind intent on topping the world’s most dangerous criminals. Phelps has an unrelenting sense for detail that affirms his place as one of our most engaging crime journalists.”
—Katherine Ramsland
If Looks Could Kill
“M. William Phelps, one of America’s finest true-crime writers, has written a compelling and gripping book about an intriguing Ohio murder mystery ultimately resolved by circumstantial evidence. Readers of this genre will thoroughly enjoy this book.”
—Vincent Bugliosi
“Starts quickly and doesn’t slow down…. Phelps consistently ratchets up the dramatic tension. His thorough research and interviews give the book a sense of growing complexity, richness of character, and urgency…. A great true-crime story.”
—Stephen Singular
“Phelps’s sharp attention to detail culminates in this meticulous re-creation of a tragic crime. This gripping true story reads like a well-plotted crime novel and proves that truth is not only
stranger, but more shocking, than fiction. Riveting.”
—Allison Brennan
Murder in the Heartland
“Drawing on interviews with law officers and relatives, the author has done significant research and—demonstrating how modern forensics and the Internet played critical, even unexpected roles in the investigation—his facile writing pulls the reader along.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Phelps expertly reminds us that when the darkest form of evil invades the quiet and safe outposts of rural America, the tragedy is greatly magnified. Get ready for some sleepless nights.”
—Carlton Stowers
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
“An exceptional book by an exceptional true-crime writer. Phelps exposes long-hidden secrets and reveals disquieting truths.”
—Kathryn Casey
Every Move You Make
“An insightful and fast-paced examination of the inner workings of a good cop and his bad informant, culminating in an unforgettable truth-is-stranger-than-fiction climax.”
—Michael M. Baden, M.D.
“M. William Phelps is the rising star of the nonfiction crime genre, and his true tales of murderers and mayhem are scary-as-hell thrill rides into the dark heart of the inhuman condition.”
—Douglas Clegg
Lethal Guardian
“An intense roller coaster of a crime story … complex, with a plethora of twists and turns worthy of any great detective mystery, and yet so well-laid out, so crisply written with such detail to character and place that it reads more like a novel than your standard nonfiction crime book.”
—Steve Jackson
Perfect Poison
“True crime at its best—compelling, gripping, an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Phelps packs wallops of delight with his skillful ability to narrate a suspenseful story and his encyclopedic knowledge of police procedures.”
—Harvey Rachlin
“A compelling account of terror … the author dedicates himself to unmasking the psychopath with facts, insight and the other proven methods of journalistic legwork.”
—Lowell Cauffiel
Also By M. William Phelps
Perfect Poison
Lethal Guardian
Every Move You Make
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Murder in the Heartland
Because You Loved Me
If Looks Could Kill
I’ll Be Watching You
Deadly Secrets
Cruel Death
Death Trap
Kill for Me
Failures of the Presidents (coauthor)
Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy
The Devil’s Rooming House: The True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer
This book is dedicated to all victims of crime.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I conducted what are referred to as “deep background” interviews with many of the key players involved in this true story. Somewhere near two hundred interviews in all. Along with e-mail messages, memorandums, telephone records, letters, affidavits, suspect and witness interviews, trial testimony, and various other forms of documentation, I was able to create scenes that reflect the views of my most cooperative, trustworthy, and vociferous sources.
I interviewed lots of sources who knew Michael Roseboro, Jan Roseboro, Angie Funk, and their families, many of whom would like to remain anonymous—along with scores of others connected to these people by various degrees of separation. In the end, those I expected to talk, talked; and those I suspected wouldn’t talk, didn’t talk. This happens with each book I write.
That all being said, there was so much information available in the public record (and beyond) that this story, literally, told itself.
I hope you—the ever-important reader—agree and enjoy.
BOOK ONE
THE UNDERTAKER AND THE PO-PO
Two Ways there are: one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the Two Ways.
—The Didache
1
She was fighting for her life. That was about all East Cocalico Township Police Department (ECTPD) patrolman Michael “Mike” Firestone knew as he sat behind the wheel of his cruiser, flipped on the lights and siren, and sped off.
It took Firestone five minutes to get to the Roseboro residence in Reinholds, Pennsylvania, from the ECTPD, in nearby Denver, after the call from Lancaster County-Wide Communications (LCWC) had come in. “The reporting person,” Firestone was told along the way, meaning the 911 caller, “had woken up and found his wife in a swimming pool on the property.”
And that was all Patrolman Firestone knew going into the situation. Yet, that name, Roseboro … It was synonymous in this part of Lancaster County with wealth, status, good standing. You mention the name Roseboro to any store clerk or Denver native and you’d likely hear, Don’t they own that funeral home?
Indeed, the Roseboro family had been morticians for over a century.
On that night, July 22, 2008, at nine minutes after eleven, Firestone pulled into the Roseboros’ driveway off Creek Road, a half-tarred, half-gravel, slight uphill path heading toward a white garage off to the right. The massive home took up the entire corner lot of West Main Street (Route 897) and Creek Road. The smaller garage Firestone had pulled up in front of faced the east end of the Roseboros’ pool, the back of the home itself. This smaller garage stood about twenty to thirty feet in front of a much larger and longer cooplike structure used years ago to house turkeys when the land was a farm. On either side of the smaller garage were walkways, one heading toward the house, the other into the pool area. Looking, Firestone spotted emergency medical technician (EMT) Cory Showalter, who had been called on his pager and had driven from his house a half mile down the road, beating Firestone to the scene. Showalter, a thirty-year volunteer for Reinholds Ambulance, six years with the Adamstown Fire Department, was performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a middle-aged, white female, with long, flowing blond hair, who was lying on the ground next to the pool. By trade, Showalter was a full-time painter, and he was quite familiar with the layout of the Roseboro house. He knew the Roseboro family personally, having been hired by Michael Roseboro to paint part of a new addition on the house.
“I saw,” Showalter later said, “when I got there … I saw it was Mike that was—he was kneeling beside Jan.”
Jan Roseboro, the forty-five-year-old wife of the undertaker, was on the ground.
Lifeless and unresponsive.
Firestone had an “immediate view” of the back side of the Roseboros’ house as he parked and dashed from his car toward the pool deck area. After having trouble getting into the patio through the iron gate, because he could not get the latch to open, Firestone said later that he thought maybe Michael Roseboro had walked over and opened the gate from the inside for him. Either way, when Firestone got close enough to Roseboro, he noted that the husband appeared calm. His breathing was normal. Roseboro didn’t appear to be sucking in or gasping for air, as if winded. He wasn’t sweating, either. In fact, Roseboro seemed fairly “with it” for a man who had, only moments before, found his wife comatose inside the family swimming pool. Moreover, he “was not dripping wet, if he was wet at all,” Firestone remembered. Calling 911 minutes prior, Roseboro said he had just pulled Jan out of the water.
Heading for the victim, Firestone noticed that Showalter was kneeling beside Jan, his hands crossed over her chest, shoulders hoisted upward, chest out, performing CPR. Jan was wearing a sweatshirt and shorts. She was on the ground, a halo of water stain on the concrete surrounding her body.
Because the Roseboros owned such a large corner lot (probably the biggest in the neighborhood), to the south of the pool area, heading toward the turkey house, was a wide open space, a grassy knoll fenced in by a line of trees and thorny pricker bushes and a swamplike ravine. Beyond that were three additional homes (all facing Creek Road), their backyards edging th
at wooded area, which was actually part of the Roseboros’ property.
As Firestone came upon Showalter, he nodded to the EMT, who was working arduously to get Jan’s motionless body to show any signs of life. Sirens were going off around them. The fire department, located on West Main Street, almost diagonally across from the Roseboro home, was but a five-minute walk from where they were.
Around him, Firestone noticed several—he wouldn’t know the number until he later counted (six)—tiki torches set around the pool, on the opposite side of where Jan’s body was positioned. All of them were burning. What was more, the entire area was well lit by spotlights from the house.
“Once I went through the gate and walked up to the edge of the pool,” Firestone later said, “… I noticed there were interior pool lights on, as well as that dusk-to-dawn light, which was on the freestanding garage.”
Michael Roseboro was dressed in what appeared to be (but no one was certain) red boxer shorts, nothing else. “It was either boxer shorts or a swimsuit,” someone on the scene later said.
Roseboro stood nearby, Firestone observed, with no expression on his face.
“It was noticeable how not upset he seemed to be,” Firestone later remarked.
Perhaps the guy was in such a state of shock, denial, or both, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Besides, it was better that the husband of the victim stayed back at this point.
Jan was positioned between the (deep end of the) pool and the main house, her head facing the back of the home, her feet partially in the water, hanging over the pool coping (edge mold). Her body was on a slab of the concrete decking bordering the pool. That sweatshirt and a sports bra she was wearing had been cut off her body.
Showalter had not seen any vomit around Jan. This told the experienced medic that she had not coughed up any water. Coming up on the body and Michael Roseboro moments before Firestone had arrived, Showalter had started CPR immediately, yelling to Roseboro, “Open my bag…. Get my airways out!”
Roseboro reacted quickly. He dug in the bag, found the piece of plastic, and then handed Showalter the oral airway, a small half-moon-shaped tube that medics stick in the mouth to keep the tongue down so air can get into the lungs as quickly as possible.