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Grand jury clears husband who killed wife's lover, indicts her

Posted on 03/30/2007

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- A man who killed his wife's lover after finding them together outside their Arlington home has escaped murder charges from a grand jury.

Instead, the Tarrant County grand jury indicted Darrell Roberson's wife, Tracy, accusing her of causing the shooting by claiming she was being raped.

The 35-year-old wife is charged with manslaughter in the death of Devin LaSalle. Police said Mrs. Roberson invited LaSalle to her home in December with a text message that said, "I need to feel your warm embrace!"

If convicted as charged, Mrs. Roberson faces two to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Darrell Roberson arrived home and found his wife clad in a robe and underwear, with LaSalle outside in a pickup. They allege Mrs. Roberson told her 38-year-old husband she was being raped, so he fired four shots as LaSalle tried to drive away. One bullet struck LaSalle in the head.

Some legal experts say they've never quite heard a case quite like this. Texas Wesleyan School of Law associate professor Jason Gillmer said a husband "is entitled to defend his wife and his family against aggravated assault."

Wow thats wild stuff. How would it be justifiable if he killed him as he was driving away?

Will938 wrote:Wow thats wild stuff. How would it be justifiable if he killed him as he was driving away?

Who knows? The article reported that he was trying to drive away and maybe the REAL story was that he was driving towards the shooter to run him over. Ya never know.

"found his wife clad in a robe and underwear, with LaSalle outside in a pickup. They allege Mrs. Roberson told her 38-year-old husband she was being raped, so he fired four shots as LaSalle tried to drive away"

The comma after the word "underwear" makes it somewhat unclear to me if she was inside their house or in the pickup. IF she was inside the pickup and she indeed made the statement about rape, then a reasonable person would have to assume that, as the pickup was being driven away, that she was being kidnapped with the intent of sexual assualt. Pretty justifiable.

Edited to add: "after finding them together outside their Arlington home". I had The Wife read all of this and she said "She probably saved her own life!"

....

I was sure they were going to slam the husband. I see the common sense of it. She caused it by her betrayal of the husband and another lie that manipulated his view of events. He was defending his wife and possible other future rape victims in his mind. That is the moral thing even if it may be legally grey these days.

Maybe he knew she was cheating and just killed the guy and got lucky. I can't say. Either way, I am sure the wife is totally shocked.

Clearing him and indicting her made sense to me.

Sexual assault is anytime the woman says no, so the husband had reason to believe that a rape had occurred or was occurring (this article is unclear on exactly what he found them doing). He can shoot to stop a sexual assault. Now, this part is tricky if the guy was in the truck leaving since you cannot shoot to stop the fleeing felon in crimes against persons, just in crimes against property (another area of the law that only makes a weird twisted sense).

The woman was indicted because manslaughter is pretty easy and says the offense is to recklessly cause the death of another person. The woman did this by lying to her husband. The critical point will be to prove she knew her husband would shoot a rapist and disregarded that risk. That may not be that hard to prove.

And I have to agree with Greybeard's wife - she probably saved her own life for the time being.

I'm reminded of an old joke: a young woman took a break from plying the world's oldest profession, and stepped into a convenience store to buy a pack of smokes. She handed the clerk a twenty, but the clerk said, "I can't take this. It's counterfeit."

The woman started screaming: "Help! Help! I've been raped!"

The AP version of the story as it appeared in the Abilene Reporter-News can be found here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/ ... TE=DEFAULT

It states husband came home from a card game late one night. So, was he under the influence? I mean, some folks cannot play cards without whiskey and cigars, right?

Husband "found his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway."

Wife, thinking quickly, if not clearly, cried rape.

Husband drew a gun "which he happened to be carrying" and fired "several shots at the truck." Wife's lover was killed with a shot to the head.

Court documents show that the night before the shooting, wife had sent her lover a text message that read in part, "Hi friend, come see me please! I need to feel your warm embrace!"

The article also states that when discoverd, wife was clad in a robe and underwear. Furthermore, the lover tried to drive away so apparently some of the several shots fired were aimed at a moving vehicle.

Finally, this incident answers in part the haunting question, "What can brown for you?" You see, the lover was employed by UPS.