Authors: M. William Phelps
Angie wrote how this would happen, “no matter what.”
Answering that, Michael said if Angie ever tried to leave his side, he would “superglue” her to his hip.
In return, Angie said she wanted “to be Mrs. Angela Lynn Roseboro more than anything else….”
Anything.
Roseboro said they could forget about superglue (Angie had suggested he wouldn’t need it, anyway, because she was all his), but that maybe “some oil” would be nice. He then mentioned how he had been thinking about the marriage a lot lately, and how he wanted to have their kids present for the ceremony.
Angie agreed, adding that it would be a blessing to show the kids how much a couple could love each other, before asking Roseboro if he was “being naughty” by mentioning oil. If he was, she said, she “would love that,” but there would have to be a shower involved and Michael would have to wipe the oil off her wet body.
It was a strange set of comments, considering that they were sandwiched between such serious talk about the kids and how Angie wanted them to “feel the love we have” between “us.” She began the e-mail by speaking of their children; went into that “naughty” talk of oils and showering together; and ended with more talk of how much they needed to show the kids that they loved each other. It was as if that “love” they described, over and over, was centered around the sexual attraction they had for each other and the different things they wanted to do in the bedroom to satisfy such an unquenchable thirst for sex.
Family values. Sex. Love. Family values.
A strange way to look at beginning a new life together.
Michael took the bait and admitted that he was indeed being naughty, blaming Angie for bringing “out
that side” of him. He warned her that if they had to shower, it “would start the whole cycle over again.”
It had been only a few hours since Roseboro had described how terrible he was feeling at having to embalm Grandpa Louie. Yet, here he was, on that same morning, undoubtedly preparing for the old man’s wake later that day, talking about rubbing oil all over his lover and then taking showers with her and showing their children how a
real
love worked by having them present at their wedding. The line between fantasy and reality was blurring for Michael Roseboro. He and Angie Funk were deeply locked inside this pipe dream of an alternate reality; yet neither was doing anything to make it actually come true.
At Fairview Cemetery, eighty-nine-year-old E. Louis Roseboro, a church organist for forty years, on top of being a mortician, and a fifty-year member of Ephrata Lodge #665, was laid to rest on Friday morning, June 27, 2008. Pa left behind two sons, Harry, husband of Marian (Gockley) Roseboro, and Ralph, husband of Ann (Myer) Roseboro, along with five grandchildren, Daniel, David, Melissa Voler (Michael Roseboro’s sister), Erik Snyder, and Michael Roseboro, along with thirteen great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death,
said the obituary Michael Roseboro likely wrote,
by a daughter, Mary Ann Snyder.
Angie Funk made it. There she stood, graveside, taking part in the ceremony. When asked about her attendance later, “I knew his grandfather,” she said under oath, as if they had been old friends.
As the proceedings went forward, Angie became incensed when she saw Jan kiss Michael, but she could do nothing about it. That kiss upset her deeply, she said later, and also made her jealous.
Nonetheless, after the ceremony, Angie walked away without saying anything.
For the next several days, heading toward the end of June, Angie and Michael kept up the sexual pressure on the relationship, meeting to have sex, talking dirty on the cell phone, texting each other what was dozens of times per day, and meeting again inside the funeral home. (She never mentioned “the kiss” to Roseboro in any of her e-mails.)
On June 30, a Monday, Angie e-mailed Michael, saying how glad she was that “we had [last] Saturday.” The “whole world disappears,” Angie explained, when she was with her man. The relationship was steaming along at breakneck speed now; the sex the best Michael had apparently ever had. What had been a former mark, a piece of prey, was now an obsession he could have whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Roseboro returned the e-mail, which was more of the same “I cannot live without you; I adore the air you breathe; you make life worth living” gushy spew they had been sharing with each other now for over a month. The sugary compliments seeped out of Michael—the tight pants Angie wore, the way she kept her hair, the perfume she sprayed on her neck, the cards she sent. It was as if anything she did was perfect. They used the word “love” as commonly as a conjunction or pronoun. To them, love was passion. Love was lust. Love was the intense euphoria they felt while either talking about having sex or actually committing the act.
In the following e-mails—on that same day—you could almost feel the desperation in Michael Roseboro’s tone as he extolled the need to be with Angie all the time. It was beginning to be too much for him to bear. He couldn’t work. Certainly couldn’t sleep or think. Drive. Walk. Eat. He could do nothing—without Angie slipping into his thoughts. He was so consumed with desire that it was all he could do not to
run across the street, grab Angie, take her in his arms, and have her there on the front lawn or foyer inside her house. The way he described his feelings was almost like a Bogie and Bacall film he had just seen on cable. Yet, the longing was the driving, motivating factor behind whatever Roseboro now said or did. One would have to ask how long this overly sentimental talk between them could go on
if
they left their spouses and actually moved in together?
In an e-mail at 8:22
A.M.
on June 30, 2008, Michael Roseboro made a direct promise to Angie Funk. He said he would always take care of her and her girls—that he would love them, as if they were his own.
Angie darted an e-mail back saying she had wanted the same things. Yes. She had been thinking about this, too. How perfect was this? The both of them concerned with their children, and her new man now willing to take care of them. She couldn’t imagine life without him, Angie said after glorifying his willingness to include her children in their future. He was her “world,” her “heart and soul.” It was getting hard, Angie said halfway through her response, to have to wait around for
something
to happen. What, indeed, were they waiting for, actually? Was there a plan?
Michael Roseboro said he didn’t “want to wait” anymore. He then described the “deep need and desire” he had within him to be with Angie.
It was almost “unbearable to hold inside” anymore, Roseboro explained.
29
Sometime after Jan Roseboro’s death, Angie Funk shared a letter with police. Michael Roseboro had scribed the missive on the night of his and Angie’s one-month anniversary, which would have been somewhere around June 30, 2008.
My Dearest Angela …,
the letter began. The previous night had been another round of sleepless hours of darkness, Roseboro explained, which he had gotten all too used to by that point. His life—every aspect of it—was now consumed with the thought of being with this woman, having sex with her, sharing his life with her, and marrying Angie inside the next year. Michael could not get the idea of marrying Angie from his mind, he admitted in this letter.
Looking back on the relationship, studying every nuance of it, a part of it all seemed as though Roseboro had a terrible lack of personal insight: He never saw who he was as a father and/or husband (to Jan and his children). And yet none of that mattered anymore. He could not rationally take a look at his life and see that Angie Funk, an object of his desire, represented a fantasy and surrealism. She was a
thing
he had sought out
to conquer, a woman he’d had his eye on for what was years, by some estimates. Now that he finally had a taste, he needed to take it to the next level in order to justify the amount of time and thought she had taken from him. And that’s what it came down to for Roseboro:
more.
Running around town wasn’t enough. Meeting and having sex wasn’t doing it. Talking to Angie on the phone dozens of times per day, sending dozens of text messages and scores of e-mails wasn’t satisfying this man’s gargantuan thirst for this woman.
He was now convinced that only marriage could put the kibosh on such a ravenous appetite.
For every obsession, there is a consequence for the obsessed. There has to be. It makes it all worth it. A fan becomes infatuated with a celebrity. Those feelings fester inside him for weeks, months, years. Finally, overcome with emotion and confusion, not to mention an inconceivable amount of desire to gain control of the situation and a fear of losing her, he suddenly realizes one day he’ll never have her (maybe he steps into reality for a moment) and lashes out, shooting or stabbing her to death.
If I cannot have you, no one …
This letter Michael Roseboro wrote in late June was the first time he had ever discussed “how far” the relationship had come in such a short period of time. He called his love for Angie—again—“immeasurable.” He said he would never let Angie down—ever—and placed that promise at “the depth of [his] soul.” He admitted that Angie was now his “dreams,” “passion,” “longing,” “laughter,” “tears,” “hopes,” “future,” and “love.” She was
everything.
His entire being—Roseboro said in not so many words—was built around this unassuming, average-looking, five-foot-five, part-time insurance consultant, wife, and mother of two—a woman across the street from his work he had watched and groveled over. And now she was all his.
In that handwritten letter, Roseboro acknowledged he would “go to any length to show” Angie how much he adored and loved her.
Any length.
Still, while Roseboro was saying all of these things to his most current obsession, he was back at home on the computer, searching for pastors and beach resorts in the Outer Banks to renew his marriage vows to Jan. In fact, Michael had even set a date: August 13, 2008, now just six weeks away. He was forced into marking the calendar, because he wanted many of Jan’s friends and family there to share in the celebration and surprise.
“He doesn’t tell [Angie] about his plans to renew his wedding vows with his wife,” DA Craig Stedman said, “because he’s telling [Angie], of course, all along [that] ‘my wife doesn’t mean anything to me, our relationship is nothing, there’s no love there, we’re not really together, we’re only in the same house.’ That’s what he’s telling [Angie].
“Lies.”
Many would later ask:
What in the world was Michael Roseboro up to?
Two worlds—of which he was actively participating in—were on a collision course. He had to know this.
“What he’s doing,” Stedman added, “is carrying on an affair in secret. Secret sexual encounters. Secret e-mails. Secret from the whole world, from anybody in his world, but him and his girlfriend. Secret texts. E-mails that are so full of obsession that you actually probably [cannot] believe the content….”
As the month of July beckoned, Roseboro was “a man who’s living on borrowed time,” Stedman said. Roseboro’s cell phone bill was $688 for that one month he had been with Angie, all because of the text messages and phone calls. The bill itself looked like a teletype readout for a list of someone’s assets, with Angie Funk’s
number coming up repeatedly, page after page after page, as if misprinted.
“So he’s … running out of his ability to carry on two relationships,” Stedman concluded, describing Roseboro’s state of mind as he headed into the month of July—“and to plan
two
weddings at the same time.”
30
Jan Roseboro knew about Michael’s affair, one source told me. Not that she knew her husband was running around the county, having sex with Angela Funk inside vacant apartments, his SUV, and the funeral home. But Jan
knew
when her husband was stepping out. He had done it before, plenty enough times, and Jan had caught him. Add to this something Jan had said to a friend weeks before her death: “Mike has an awful lot of paperwork to do at the funeral home lately….”
Jan was not some naive housewife.
She damn well knew.
Few women can deny that feeling, no matter how much they try to repress, stuff, or ignore it. It might be the way he acts. The fact that he wants to have
more
sex—doubling up, if you will. Or that he brings home flowers for no apparent reason, out of character. Maybe he likes to minimize the computer screen when his wife walks into the room. Or hang up his cell phone quickly when the Mrs. comes around, and rushes to get the mail on certain days. A wife’s intuition cannot be stifled; it is too strong an emotion. And Jan was a smart woman. If her husband had done it once before, was it so hard to believe he would do it again?
Susan Van Zant, a family consumer science teacher during the time of Jan’s murder, had been working for the Cocalico School District since 1974. Jan’s sister was well known around town. She had kids of her own. She had even grown up in the original house on Main Street in Reinholds/Denver that Michael and Jan Roseboro had converted into that U-shaped “estate,” if you’ll permit the term, which now took up the corner lot.
Jan and Suzie were close, and they had lived about three miles from each other, or in the same house, for what was forever. Being the older sibling, Suzie viewed Jan, she later said, “like a daughter.”
Jan had grown into the person Suzie had envisioned when they were kids. Down-to-earth. Kindhearted. Easy to get along with. Modest. Cheerful. And, for the most part, happy. Jan was so at ease with life that she owned a cell phone, but, Suzie later said, she “never checked her messages,” or even used it if she didn’t have to. And that was Jan. She’d just as well sit outside, enjoy her new pool and the kids, and leave the darn cell phone inside, where it belonged. That, or hang out with her dogs, whom she loved greatly. Whenever Jan was outside by the pool or hanging around, maybe weeding the garden, walking around the land, her dogs went with her.