Love Her To Death by M. William Phelps Page B

says when he’s given the information that his wife’s death was no accident. Reaction during a situation like this is everything to a cop. Ever since Jan’s death, Roseboro didn’t seem to have any emotional response whatsoever. Nearly everyone close to him during this time period later agreed that his demeanor was flat. Nonverbal.
    Not even detached. But just, well, level.
    Was Roseboro mourning the death of his wife?
    In addition, Neff said later, the other purpose of the interview was to get an account from Roseboro of how he had removed his wife from the pool.
    It was 2:11 P.M. when Jan Walters and Keith Neff knocked on the Roseboros’ front door. Michael Roseboro’s black SUV was parked in the driveway alongside a few other vehicles. It was clear that he was home, and not alone.
    “Can we talk to you again?” Neff asked after Roseboro opened the door.
    “Sure … yeah, that would be okay,” he said.
    Roseboro invited the investigators into the newer section of the house. The kitchen and living room were connected to each other. It was just the three of them. Everyone else was in another part of the house.
    “We need to get some detail about what happened,” Neff said.
    “Sure, sure.”
    “Okay, we’re trying to figure out what happened to Jan. Can you just go through your night once more for us, Mr. Roseboro?” Walters asked after Neff introduced him as a detective from the DA’s office in Lancaster.
    Roseboro did not hesitate. “I went to bed at about ten. Woke up at ten fifty-eight. Saw one of the torchlights were on and went outside. When I got to the first torchlight, I saw my wife in the pool.”
    Neff was thinking of the 911 call that he and Larry Martin had listened to earlier that day and the statement Roseboro had given him—and Patrolman Firestone—the previous night. This statement— went to bed at ten, found her in the pool near eleven —was becoming the Roseboro mantra.
    Like he’s reading from, a script, Neff thought.
    Walters watched Roseboro as he spoke, studying his movements and facial expressions.
    “How did you get her out of the pool?” Neff asked.
    It was odd to Neff, now that he’d had more time to think about the situation, that Jan Roseboro was found on her back in the deep end of the pool, then placed on the deck, one leg hanging over the edge, barely in the water. How had Roseboro hoisted her out of the pool?
    “When I got to that first tiki torchlight,” Roseboro explained, “I noticed Jan was in the deep end of the pool. Her face was facing away from the residence. So I jumped into the pool, swam to her, and started pulling her out by her sweatshirt … toward the two sets of steps in the deep end of the pool…. When I got to the steps and the ledge, I started pulling her up.” Roseboro demonstrated his actions as he explained what happened. “I reached around her, crossed her arms, reached around her, and was using her forearms, the wrist area, kind of her shoulders, to pull her up onto the deck.”
    Some struggle that must have been, Neff considered. Literally, Jan was dead and wet weight. Any husband would have had anxiety and fear and shock undoubtedly flowing through his bloodstream like adrenaline. Being a heavy smoker and drinker, Roseboro must have had a difficult time getting his wife out of the pool.
    “Go on,” Neff encouraged.
    “When I got her … to the deck, I had pulled her out by the sweatshirt. I checked for a pulse and started pushing her on the chest. Then called 911.”
    Keep him talking…. “Okay. Then what happened?”
    “The 911 operator instructed me to check for an airway obstruction and then told me how to do CPR … which, I believe, it was, um, two breaths for thirty compressions.”
    As he told this part of his story, Roseboro acted it out. “He told me,” Neff later said, “that she was … He was demonstrating it and was leaning forward with his arms out and said that she was submerged in the water in the deep end of the