Chapter 8
Investigators spent a late night at work at the pond off County Road 941, with Investigator Mark Hicks, Lieutenant Jimmy DeBerry, and Chief Deputy Tim Hays staying overnight in the rain to protect the scene. The following morning, Jolly and his team, along with a large number of other officers, reported to the pasture at first light to begin searching the area for evidence again, starting to comb through the tall weeds looking for anything they had not been able to see earlier. Quite a few items had been collected the previous night, before it grew too dark to do a detailed search, but the deep, stamped-down layer of grass surrounding the pond could be hiding many crucial pieces of evidence, which would be more easily uncovered in the light of day.
Among the first and most obvious items that had already been recovered at the scene the previous evening were three shotgun shell casings, two blue and one red, and their wadding, found lying in the mud at the edge of the pond. Each piece was carefully bagged and labeled, to be tested for evidence in the event that the murder weapon was recovered. Some long strips of white cotton gauze had also been found and collected, one lying near the side of the Murano and one farther away, out in the field.
Most of the green plastic stretch film had remained looped around Darlene’s neck when her body was removed from the pond, but a couple of additional smaller pieces were found floating in the water; those had rough, jagged edges and looked as if they could have been ripped away from the main piece of green film by the shotgun blasts. They were all recovered and bagged.
The Nissan Murano was processed for evidence at its impound location, Larry’s Tire & Towing, in Centre, Alabama, by Investigator Jolly on the morning of April 7, along with Vernon Roberts’s brown GMC 1500 pickup truck, which had also been impounded until it could be thoroughly checked for evidence. There was nothing inside the pickup other than some personal items, which included an umbrella, a jacket, and some papers. A couple of red-brown stains on the headliner and passenger-side doorpost proved to be inconsequential.
The Nissan Murano, however, yielded much more pertinent evidence, including Darlene’s bags of groceries in the rear cargo area containing a receipt from Walmart in Rome, Georgia, dated 6:22
P.M.
on April 6, 2006. There was also a recoil pad for the butt stock of a shotgun lying on the floorboard on the driver’s side of the vehicle. A hair was adhered to the recoil pad, and it was carefully collected along with the pad.
There were several red-brown stains inside the Murano, and swabs were taken for analysis. They were located on the headliner, the door and steering wheel, and the passenger-side doorpost. Jolly also processed the Murano for latent prints, but none were recovered. Extensive photos were taken of both vehicles.
While Jolly photographed and collected evidence from the vehicles, the other officers continued to search the scene and found quite a few more items. Approximately ten feet from where Darlene’s body was found, a chewed piece of gum lay on the bank of the pond. The back of a watch was also found lying nearby, and a broken bracelet—silver with pink stones—was found near the gate at the pasture entrance. Several other items, which would later prove to be unrelated to the case, were found at the pond, likely dropped there by some of the many people who had come there regularly to fish. There were also many footprints in the mud at the edge of the pond, but the water content of the soil was so high after the rain that the prints had very little definition, and photographs of the prints show them very blurred and containing standing water.
Two other items, which investigators believed would prove to be evidence in the case, had been found thrown out on the side of the road near the scene. Two traffic barriers marked
Floyd Co
with highway signs attached, one reading
BE PREPARED TO STOP
and the other
MEN WORKING,
were obviously the property of the road department in Floyd County, Georgia, and had very likely been picked up off the highway and transported over the state line into Alabama by someone other than Floyd County Road Department employees. They were tested for latent prints, but the Department of Forensic Sciences was unable to recover anything from them.
News of the murder of Darlene Roberts spread quickly, both in Cherokee County and in Rome, Georgia, with the news media reporting in detail about the discovery of her body in the farm pond. Her coworkers at Temple-Inland were shocked to learn that Darlene had been killed only a short time after they had last seen her leaving work for the evening. Ralph Stagner, the Temple-Inland plant manager, told
Rome News-Tribune
and
Cherokee County Herald
staff writer Kathy Roe that Darlene had been liked and respected by both management and employees at the plant.
“She was a true professional,” he said. “We are all deeply saddened by this, and we will miss her. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family.”
Cherokee County sheriff Larry Wilson gave the press as many details about the slaying as he was able to disclose at that point in the investigation, saying that his officers knew the type of weapon used, but they had not recovered it.
“We’ll see if we can come up with a motive and a suspect,” he said. “We want to talk to anyone, neighbors, anyone who may have seen something.” Wilson said autopsy results were not expected for several days, and he was concerned that the heavy rain and severe weather, which was expected, might destroy crucial evidence.
On April 7 and 8, officers fanned out around the community, going house to house to talk with any of the area’s residents who might have information. Several had already come forward to report seeing a black pickup truck with a hard bed cover in the area at the time, and others reported having heard shots. Most of those who saw the black truck had been able to give a description of its occupants, a large gray-haired man and a smaller woman with brown hair. Some reported the two seemed to be fighting, and had seen the man hit the woman. Others reported that it looked as though the woman’s face was red and she was crying.
Three of the officers conducted a roadblock on the morning of April 8 at the intersection of County Road 182 and County Road 941 in an effort to contact more possible witnesses. While there, one of the men, David Storey, noticed a garbage collection can sitting nearby with a bag protruding from it. Storey saw a paper sticking out of the bag with the name
Roberts
on it, and he and the other officers decided to check the bag in case it contained more evidence. A stained brown straw purse was inside, along with a pair of blue jeans and some paper towels that appeared to be bloodstained. They also found some blue masking tape with tan paint and what they believed to be bloodstains on it, with some hair stuck to it.
Those items, as it turned out, had no value to the investigation, since they had come from Vernon Roberts’s home improvement projects on the day of the murder, but another item inside the bag did prove to be useful. It was the hangtag from a brown Rosetti viscose tote, a new purse Darlene had recently bought and had been carrying on the day of her murder. The straw purse found in the garbage can had evidently been discarded in favor of the new one that Darlene had bought during a shopping trip with Heidi a few days previously. Since the new Rosetti purse had not been recovered at the scene, officers now had a good description of exactly what kind of purse they needed to be looking for.
Later on the morning of April 8, the investigators at the scene decided to try to search for the murder weapon in the murky pond. They thought it might have been thrown in there after the shooting. It would require some special equipment, which was requested and was soon en route. While the officers waited for it to arrive, a partial pair of eyeglasses was spotted, almost completely hidden in the weeds and grass. The left arm, lens, and nosepiece of the glasses were collected by Investigator Mark Hicks and were turned over to the ABI for testing. This would soon prove to be the most important piece of evidence that would be found at the scene, and it provided the investigators with the break they needed to move forward very quickly with the case from that point. But until the analysis of the glasses was completed, there were still very many interviews to conduct and statements to be given.
Sheriff Wilson told the press that there were “some possibilities” for suspects in the murder, but he did not disclose any further details. The owner of the broken eyeglasses would soon be identified he knew, and then much more information on the suspects would be made public, and arrests in the case would soon follow.