Authors: M. William Phelps
Roseboro, on the other hand, realized quickly after being locked up that the pie in the sky he had wanted all along turned out to be miles too high. The guy, apparently, had believed that he could go on cheating on his wife forever, and there would never be a price to pay for it. Well, the father of four (and another on the way) with all the money and social status, the world at his fingertips, was now a number in a system, like every other prisoner around him.
In late August, Keith Neff and Larry Martin brought Angie into the DA’s office so they could put on paper all she knew—and had told them over the course of the past few weeks. Craig Stedman and Kelly Sekula were there to advise and participate.
Angie was not happy about talking to the police. Her body language and awkward demeanor while answering questions told that story. She wanted this behind her. She wanted to walk away and believe none of it had ever happened.
The married (pregnant) mother talked about everything: her sex life with Roseboro, how and where they met, the “changes” Roseboro made for her (from rock music to country, a goatee, writing poetry), how often they communicated, how they were planning to get married, how Roseboro was going to leave his wife, and various other subjects the DA asked her about.
Because she understood the depth of her involvement, it seemed Angie was willing to open up. As the interview continued, with Stedman backing him up, Neff said, “There may be a new procedure involving obtaining your blood to test for DNA of your unborn child.”
The DA’s office needed to have positive proof that Michael Roseboro was the child’s father. If they went to trial before the baby was born, the DA was going to have to have DNA. Stedman wanted Angie not to make this a big problem for them. They reiterated the fact that this new test had zero risk of hurting the child or Angie. It was unlike, say, the more popular amniocentesis, a prenatal test doctors used by utilizing an ultrasound as a guide to direct them toward a “safe location” in the pregnant woman’s abdomen. Once that was located, a long needle was inserted into the amniotic sac to extract a sample of amniotic fluid through the needle, which could then be tested.
“I would give you consent,” Angie said, “to do the test.”
With the subject of the baby now out in the open, the interview centered on how Roseboro was feeling about the child. Had Angie talked to him before his arrest about the idea of being a father again.
Angie told them about the conversation she’d had with Michael when he brought up the idea of an abortion.
“Did you talk about the ramifications the pregnancy would have on him?” Neff asked.
“No,” Angie said. “We never did.”
“What do you think would have happened if Mike was never arrested?” The implication was made regarding the measure of their relationship, and where it would stand if Roseboro had never been suspected and/or arrested in the death of his wife. Would Angie and Roseboro, at some point, ride off into the sunset, as some of those e-mails suggested?
“There’s no way I would want to live in
that
house,” Angie said, speaking of the Roseboros’ home on West Main.
“Have you given any thought to what might have happened to you, given what you now know about this situation?”
“I have thought about that,” Angie answered. “It’s scary. I would not want to be with someone who is capable of that.”
“Have you talked to Mike about providing financial assistance for the unborn baby?” Neff asked.
She thought about it. “I do not plan on pursuing any financial help from him.” Then she laid a bombshell on them. “Randy and I will raise this baby,” Angie said. “I have no idea what the Roseboro family will do regarding the baby. I haven’t even asked Michael if he is willing to admit that the baby is his! And I have
not
yet decided whose name will be on the birth certificate: Michael’s or Randy’s.”
There was silence in the room. That was quite an answer.
Stedman asked Angie about the pool lights—if she could offer anything on that subject.
“I only heard about the lights after he was arrested. I never brought it up with Michael.” She explained how he kept telling her that same story about waking up, going to the bathroom, etc.
Keith Neff had an innocence about him that spoke to his comforting nature and soft-spoken tone. He could get people to open up because, simply put, when you’re in a room with Neff, he makes you feel like what you have to say is important and he is listening. This was no act on Neff’s part. It wasn’t some sort of cop veneer he had developed to get suspects and witnesses to talk. It is part of who Keith Neff is as a person. With that same likable pulse, Neff looked at Angie and said, “Do you think Mike did this?”
“I do not know,” she answered. “I just
don’t
know. In some ways, I don’t want to think that he did this—I cannot wrap my brain around it. I feel bad for Jan and the kids. I feel worse for the kids because Jan is dead. Whoever did do this should be in jail for the rest of their life.”
“Have you spoken to him lately?”
“Last time I talked with Michael was on August second. It was by phone. I have not spoken to him since his arrest.”
Michael Roseboro had hired a private investigator. Stedman asked Angie what, if anything, she had told the guy, adding, “Are you aware that Mike is denying that he’s had a relationship with you?”
“I gave all of the e-mails to the police,” she said, meaning that’s what she told the PI. “No. I was not aware that Michael is denying our relationship.”
Investigators had shown Michael Roseboro’s brother-in-law some of the e-mails he and Angie had exchanged, only because, when friends and family were interviewed, all had denied that Roseboro had been in a relationship with Angie. The denials were based on, of course, Roseboro’s outcry that the story was being made up to make him look bad. Stedman and his team, in showing the e-mails to Roseboro’s brother-in-law, wanted to prove, with Roseboro’s own words, that he was a liar. He had been lying to everyone about
nearly every aspect of the case and his actions leading up to Jan’s murder. Roseboro’s brother-in-law told investigators a few days afterward that he had confronted Roseboro with those same e-mails.
“He still denied the affair,” Neff explained to Angie, after telling her the story.
“Well, Michael is a liar because an affair
did
take place.” She was obviously upset by this betrayal. “I am not protecting Michael in
any
way….”
“Is there anything you’re worried about, regarding the investigation, or information that could be taken out of context?” Neff asked.
The insinuation was that perhaps Angie knew more than she was saying and might have played a role in the crime. It was not something the investigation had led them to believe; but they had to play devil’s advocate, seeing that Roseboro and his team could perhaps be planning a strategy around this harebrained theory. The idea, if you’re a prosecutor, is to ring every bell you can. Surprises will destroy you.
“I was
not
there!” Angie answered angrily. “There would be
no
evidence that I had
anything
to do with what happened to Jan.”
They believed her. It was the same sort of reaction one might have expected from Roseboro when he was accused of the crime, but never came.
More than that, Angie had an alibi.
“Do you find it unusual that Mike did not talk to you about what happened to Jan, or the fact that law enforcement were looking at him?”
“He never told me anything…. But he did say that his attorney told him not to talk about it to anyone.”
Back on the subject of the PI, Angie said she remembered telling the guy, “If Michael did this (murdered Jan), he needs to stop putting her and his kids through this.” Then, for no apparent reason, Angie blurted out: “My life is hell because of Michael Roseboro!”
“Angela, I want to ask again,” Neff said near the end of the interview—this after they had talked about some of the phone calls she and Michael had exchanged—“did Mr. Roseboro ever talk about a concern for his children, or did he ever mention that he hoped police would catch Jan’s killer?”
“No, he never made mention of either—that he hoped the police would catch the killer, or … [showed] any concerns for his children’s safety.” She went on to say that not once did Michael talk about the police searching for Jan’s “real” killer. Or show any anger that the police were accusing him. “There is a part of me that wants to think Michael would not do something like this,” Angie added, “because it is
unthinkable….
I want justice for Jan.”
The interview began at 4:20
P.M.
on August 21, 2008. By 5:20
P.M.,
the interview was over. Ultimately, Angie would be given a copy of the interview to read, and if she agreed with what she had said, she’d sign and date the document.
There was not one interview that she later reviewed on which Angie Funk did not sign off.
58
Craig Stedman had made it public that Michael Roseboro’s motive for killing Jan was the affair he’d had and his obsession with Angie Funk, and the two worlds he kept separate were beginning to implode on each other. The outspoken DA was sure that Roseboro had murdered his wife after an argument erupted over this “latest” affair.
Latest,
of course, hinting at the fact that there were others—although no one in the media picked up on that little
wink-wink
immediately. According to various news reports about July 22, Angie had told investigators her lover had promised her he was going to “wait until after his children went to bed that night to tell his wife … he was having an affair and was leaving her.” In the bench warrant detailing Michael Roseboro’s arrest, however, the wording is a bit different:
Funk further stated that she received a phone call from Roseboro at approx. 8:45 P.M. on July 22, 2008, at which time Roseboro stated to Funk that he was going to leave his wife so that he could be with Funk.
There was no mention of Roseboro having said he was going to wait until the kids went to bed before confronting Jan with the end of their marriage.
With that theory now whirling about in public, Stedman looked to back it up with hard evidence. Two additional search warrants were served. One—the third—for the Roseboro house on West Main and the other for Microsoft Online Services. The house warrant was a simple search for any documentation in the form of Jan’s will, financial records, and any life insurance papers in Jan Roseboro’s and/or Michael Roseboro’s name. The idea was to see if a second motive could be tacked on: if Michael had recently taken out a substantial life insurance policy on Jan. Investigators also wanted to see how much money was at stake in the marriage. How much did Michael stand to lose if he walked out on Jan? Maybe more important, how much did Jan stand to gain?
The Microsoft warrant was standard procedure—seeing that people live on their computers, BlackBerrys, mobile devices, and cell phones.
One of the next things on the agenda was to have someone monitor Michael’s calls from prison: to sit in a room and listen to the recorded telephone calls he made—a job that would soon yield a few rather interesting discoveries.
A strange dynamic began to play out in the newspapers as Allan Sodomsky talked about Michael Roseboro’s demeanor since his incarceration. “He is devastated,” Sodomsky said at one point. “The loss of a wife of nineteen years, and now he is separated from his children. His world is all about his children. The sun sets and rises on his children.”
As many in the community looked at this statement, and surely those who were close to Michael after Jan’s death, it felt contrived and ignorant. During the eleven days that Michael Roseboro was investigated before his arrest, not one friend, distant relative, or close family member reported seeing him busted up over his wife’s
death, or worried about his children. To say that he was “devastated” was more than a stretch. A devastated man who has lost his wife would not communicate with his lover nearly two hundred times in eleven days after his wife’s death.
On September 26, 2008, Michael was presented before Judge Nancy Hamill in courtroom number one, inside the Lancaster County Courthouse on North Duke Street, downtown Lancaster. He had the right to a preliminary hearing.
Craig Stedman was accompanied by Christopher Larsen, Kelly Sekula, and Andrew Gonzalez. Allan Sodomsky, of course, was there to represent Michael Roseboro.
The state brought in seven witnesses—Angela Funk among them. The state was under the burden of proof. Stedman needed to lay out his case with enough gusto to warrant a trial, but at the same time, not show all his cards. There was a fine line here. One of his worst fears was Angie, who had become, essentially, a wild card. By now, Angie had hired her own attorney (suggested by the defense). The relationship she had with the DA’s office was tense, to put it mildly. She was pregnant, still in love with Roseboro, and had an incentive for him to be found not guilty: raising the child together and living out that fairy tale.
“I limited my questions to her,” Stedman said, “to the absolute minimum. [But] we … had to use her to build a circumstantial case.”
Stedman’s hope was that by the time of trial, Angie’s testimony would be far less important. They were working diligently to establish motive without her, building a circumstantial case with hard evidence and other witnesses.
* * *
Confidence in a courtroom is not something you learn in law school; it is an attribute that comes from facing murderers, rapists, and standing two feet away from a guy who liked to touch kids and having the nerve not to allow emotion to control what you need to do to put a scumbag like that away for as long as you can.
Craig Stedman had developed his craft over the years. As a prosecutor, he had never lost a murder trial. Even better, he had always been able to obtain the verdict he sought, without settling for a lesser degree. He had worked on over one hundred homicide cases in various capacities, and still managed to hold on to what is a humble deportment, always quick to point out the obvious: “I must emphasize that any conviction is the result of a team effort with law enforcement, our victim and witness advocates, the secretarial staff here (inside the LCDA’s Office), and certainly not just due to me.”