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...CENTRE, Ala. — A Cherokee County jury has recommended the death penalty for the Georgia woman convicted in the shotgun slaying of her ex-husband’s wife, Darlene Roberts.
Barbara Ann Roberts, 52, was convicted of capital murder Friday night after a weeklong trial in state Circuit Court in Cherokee County. Darlene Roberts, who worked for
Inland Container Corp. in Rome, was killed April 6, 2006, near the Alabama-Georgia line.
The jury recommended death after a hearing Monday. Circuit Judge David A. Rains will sentence Roberts in August.
District Attorney Mike O’Dell described Barbara Roberts as a woman obsessed with her ex-husband, Vernon Roberts.
“It was an obsessive rage. There was premeditation,” O’Dell said.
O’Dell and Assistant District Attorney Bob Johnson outlined Barbara Roberts’ plan to kill Darlene Roberts. The plan included the purchase of a shotgun and target practice at a gun club.
It also included the h
Dr. Robert Schiess III is expected to stand trial on a capital murder charge in November. |
elp of her friend, Dr. Robert Schiess III, a neurosurgeon with whom she shared an apartment in Conyers, Ga., part of the time. She also had a residence in Rome.
Schiess is charged with capital murder and is expected to stand trial in Circuit Court in Centre in November.
Prosecutors said the defendant and Schiess terrorized Darlene Roberts and hunted her down with a shotgun before killing her at a pond off Cherokee County Road 941.
Roberts told investigators she had had intimate relations with her ex-husband and Schiess found out. He was enraged and wanted to hurt Vernon Roberts by confronting his wife, Darlene Roberts, she said.
Barbara Roberts said Schiess shot Darlene Roberts and then hit her in the face with the butt of the shotgun because Darlene Roberts was “freaking out.”
But a cellmate of Barbara Roberts testified Roberts said she shot her ex-husband’s wife twice with a shotgun in the field off County Road 941.
Tonya Regalado, now an inmate at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, said she shared a cell with Barbara Roberts for about seven months in 2007 at the Cherokee County Detention Center. She had no knowledge of the case except what Roberts told her, she said.
Roberts told Regalado the kick from the shotgun when she fired it at Darlene Roberts broke her glasses and bruised her face.
A photo of her bruised face was found on a camera card in Schiess’ apartment in Conyers.
Barbara Roberts and Schiess were arrested April 19, 2006.
On April 6, 2006, Schiess and Barbara Roberts parked Schiess’ black pickup truck on Darlene Roberts’ route home from work at Inland Container Corp. in Rome to her home in Cherokee County.
Barbara Roberts said she was in disguise with a hooded sweatshirt and a mask. The hood of the truck was raised, and Schiess flagged Darlene Roberts down, Barbara Roberts told investigators.
When Darlene Roberts stopped to help, Schiess bound her hands and feet and put gauze in her mouth, Barbara Roberts said.
Darlene Roberts escaped from her abductors and ran into the pasture.
“They chased down Darlene Roberts and shot her like an animal,” Johnson said during closing arguments at Monday’s hearing.
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