Love Her To Death by M. William Phelps Read Free Book Online Page A

stay in the pool?”
    “I left the pool around ten P.M. and went inside. My stomach did not feel too well. I asked her if I should put the torches out. She told me she was going to stay outside and watch the planes a little longer. She told me she would be in, ‘in a little bit.’”
    Neff was able to stay focused on what Roseboro told him; he could type and listen at the same time. If he missed something, he’d ask Roseboro to stop so he could catch up. The conversation never grew into anything other than two men sitting, casually talking to each other about an event they had probably wished had never brought them together.
    Neff next asked Roseboro to explain what hadhappened between the time he last saw Jan—10:00 P.M. —lying poolside, and the time he spied his wife floating in the pool, somewhere between the top of the waterline and the bottom.
    Almost an hour had elapsed, according to Roseboro.
    “In the summer,” he said, “[our three youngest children] sleep on the floor in our bedroom. [Two of them] were sleeping, and [the other] was almost asleep. I told her good night. I turned off the TV and fell asleep.”
    “Did you wake up?”
    “I woke up at ten fifty-eight P.M. I looked out and saw the torches were still lit. I went outside to put the torches out. I went to put the first torch out, and saw Jan.”
    Neff asked where she was.
    Roseboro said Jan was on the “bottom of the deep end.” So he “jumped in and pulled her out. I laid her on the deck and called 911. I started giving her CPR. Someone from 911 walked me through it. I kept going until the ambulance got there.”
    In succession—Neff considered as Roseboro spoke—this guy walked outside in his boxer shorts to blow out the torches, noticed that his wife was on the bottom of their pool, jumped in, swam down into the deep end, grabbed hold of her, pulled her out, laid her down on her back, then called 911. Roseboro was likely huffing and puffing after all of that. Out of breath and frantic.
    Neff asked if Roseboro noticed “anything about Jan” that night that might have been different.
    Roseboro ignored that question and instead said he felt for a pulse, but he did not feel one, adding that Jan never swam in the clothing he found her in.
    “Did the kids ever wake up?”
    “No.”
    It was after 2:00 A.M. Neff asked Roseboro if he needed to take a break and collect his thoughts, maybe just chill out for a bit, use the bathroom, grab a smoke, relax.
    Roseboro said he would like that.
    *  *  *
    During the break, Larry Martin put in a call to Lancaster County assistant district attorney (ADA) Kelly Sekula. She had been informed of what was going on since Martin and Keith Neff had gone out to the scene and arrived back at the station house with a strange feeling there was more to an adult drowning in her own pool by accident. Martin had called ADA Sekula earlier and asked about boundaries and what the ECTPD should do in this situation. Sekula, in turn, woke up the district attorney (DA), Craig Stedman. They talked about the situation and agreed something didn’t seem right. They had better work closely with the ECTPD to make sure everyone was on the same page. If it was an accident, they would find that out. If it was more, well, at least things would be done under the supervision of the prosecuting attorney’s office from the get-go. It couldn’t hurt.
    Martin explained to Sekula exactly what had transpired thus far.
    “I’ll call you back,” she said.
    Sekula called Craig Stedman and conferred.
    “All we can do is a consent to search,” Stedman told his ADA. “Call me back and keep me in the loop as to what’s going on.” Stedman and Sekula talked for a brief moment more about what the ECTPD actually had—which amounted to nothing—and what they could do legally at this point.
    When Sekula got back on the phone with Martin, she said, “We don’t even have a crime here, Detective Martin. A consent to search is all we can