Love Her To Death Read online

  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 [email protected].

  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

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2011 by M. William Phelps

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  All Kensington Titles, Imprints, and Distributed Lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational or institutional use. Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington special sales manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018, Attn: Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  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

  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.