us.”
Perhaps by rank alone, Martin had become the case manager of the investigation, which would keep him at the station logging and posting what each investigator did during the course of his or her day. There were now between ten to fifteen investigators activated for the Roseboro investigation. The media was sniffing around, looking for a crumb to run with. This was huge news in Denver/Lancaster, where the Roseboro name carried some serious social weight. With all of the media coverage that would ensue as soon as word got out that Jan had been murdered, and the presence of so many investigators coming to help, Larry Martin needed to keep everything tight. As the night and day shifts investigated different aspects of the case, both would need to know what the other was doing; and now with so many additional investigators part of the case, Martin had to delegate jobs and keep everyone on the same page while, at the same time, utilizing each investigator’s talents and experience.
The other advantage to having a case manager was so Martin could check off assignments as they were completed.
“You didn’t want to find out two weeks after the fact that this person was never interviewed, or that was never looked into.”
Coordination. Information was going to flood in. Someone needed to pore through it all and manage it. In addition, with extended families on both sides—the Roseboros and the Binkleys—scores of interviews were going to be conducted.
“And so,” Martin said, “we all got together and decided what to do next.”
The other important piece in managing the case was Heather Smith, the ECTPD office manager. Neff pulledMartin aside and told him, “We need her to help with organizing—she is great with computers and putting things together.”
Neff didn’t need to be sold on the idea. Heather, with twenty years on the job, was good at what she did.
“Heather was always willing to help,” Martin said. To Neff, “Absolutely.”
Indeed, Smith’s input would prove crucial to the case, as Heather began to painstakingly keep track of what everyone was doing and how the information coming in was stored and categorized. When it came time to track people down via phone numbers, Smith would be the one to make those calls, look up the numbers, find addresses, and then put all of the info into some sort of graph or chart that the detectives could easily understand, plus coordinate for a possible (and potential) prosecution down the road.
Routine morning meetings between detectives, which Martin and Neff began right away, would soon prove to be essential in solving this case.
Whenever a murder is committed in Lancaster County, the county’s Major Crimes Unit (MCU) is officially activated. There’s no Bat Cave button to be pushed, or alarm sounded. The MCU is not a separate team of investigators, as the name might suggest. The MCU operates like an ad hoc force that forms on an as-needed basis. What this meant to the ECTPD and the Roseboro investigation was that the ECTPD would have the help it needed from any law enforcement agency in the county.
For Detectives Keith Neff and Jan Walters, who had shown up at the ECTPD that afternoon, July 23, the first job in front of them was to contact Michael Roseboro and see when he would be available for another little sit-down.
ADA Kelly Sekula got busy on the DA’s end, writing a search warrant for the Roseboro residence. The Roseboros’ pool was a crime scene, along with the entire house.
As Sekula wrote inside the ECTPD in Denver, Neff and Walters got together and talked about how they were going to approach Roseboro. What was the best way to talk to the guy, now that Jan’s death had been ruled a homicide? This would be a far different conversation from the one Larry Martin and Keith Neff had with Michael Roseboro the previous night.
Surprise was the best way to go about talking to Roseboro at this point. Go over there and knock on the door; see what he
Perhaps by rank alone, Martin had become the case manager of the investigation, which would keep him at the station logging and posting what each investigator did during the course of his or her day. There were now between ten to fifteen investigators activated for the Roseboro investigation. The media was sniffing around, looking for a crumb to run with. This was huge news in Denver/Lancaster, where the Roseboro name carried some serious social weight. With all of the media coverage that would ensue as soon as word got out that Jan had been murdered, and the presence of so many investigators coming to help, Larry Martin needed to keep everything tight. As the night and day shifts investigated different aspects of the case, both would need to know what the other was doing; and now with so many additional investigators part of the case, Martin had to delegate jobs and keep everyone on the same page while, at the same time, utilizing each investigator’s talents and experience.
The other advantage to having a case manager was so Martin could check off assignments as they were completed.
“You didn’t want to find out two weeks after the fact that this person was never interviewed, or that was never looked into.”
Coordination. Information was going to flood in. Someone needed to pore through it all and manage it. In addition, with extended families on both sides—the Roseboros and the Binkleys—scores of interviews were going to be conducted.
“And so,” Martin said, “we all got together and decided what to do next.”
The other important piece in managing the case was Heather Smith, the ECTPD office manager. Neff pulledMartin aside and told him, “We need her to help with organizing—she is great with computers and putting things together.”
Neff didn’t need to be sold on the idea. Heather, with twenty years on the job, was good at what she did.
“Heather was always willing to help,” Martin said. To Neff, “Absolutely.”
Indeed, Smith’s input would prove crucial to the case, as Heather began to painstakingly keep track of what everyone was doing and how the information coming in was stored and categorized. When it came time to track people down via phone numbers, Smith would be the one to make those calls, look up the numbers, find addresses, and then put all of the info into some sort of graph or chart that the detectives could easily understand, plus coordinate for a possible (and potential) prosecution down the road.
Routine morning meetings between detectives, which Martin and Neff began right away, would soon prove to be essential in solving this case.
Whenever a murder is committed in Lancaster County, the county’s Major Crimes Unit (MCU) is officially activated. There’s no Bat Cave button to be pushed, or alarm sounded. The MCU is not a separate team of investigators, as the name might suggest. The MCU operates like an ad hoc force that forms on an as-needed basis. What this meant to the ECTPD and the Roseboro investigation was that the ECTPD would have the help it needed from any law enforcement agency in the county.
For Detectives Keith Neff and Jan Walters, who had shown up at the ECTPD that afternoon, July 23, the first job in front of them was to contact Michael Roseboro and see when he would be available for another little sit-down.
ADA Kelly Sekula got busy on the DA’s end, writing a search warrant for the Roseboro residence. The Roseboros’ pool was a crime scene, along with the entire house.
As Sekula wrote inside the ECTPD in Denver, Neff and Walters got together and talked about how they were going to approach Roseboro. What was the best way to talk to the guy, now that Jan’s death had been ruled a homicide? This would be a far different conversation from the one Larry Martin and Keith Neff had with Michael Roseboro the previous night.
Surprise was the best way to go about talking to Roseboro at this point. Go over there and knock on the door; see what he
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