Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup in the driveway. Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson thinking quickly, if not clearly cried rape, authorities say. Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.
On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment against the wife, not the husband. In a case likely to reinforce the state's reputation for common sense don't-mess-with-Texas justice, the grand jury declined to charge the husband with murder, the charge on which he was arrested by police. "If I found somebody with my wife or with my kids in my house, there's no telling what I might do," said Juan Muniz, 33, who was having lunch today with one of his two small children at a restaurant in the middle-class suburban Dallas neighborhood where the Robersons lived. "I probably would have done the same thing."
Tracy Roberson, 35, could get two to 20 years in prison in the slaying of Devin LaSalle, a 32-year-old UPS employee. Assistant District Attorney Sean Colston declined to comment on specifics of the case or the grand jury proceedings but said Texas law allows a defendant to claim justification if he has "a reasonable belief that his actions are necessary, even though what they believe at the time turns out not to be true."
Mark Osler, a Baylor University law school professor and a former federal prosecutor, said the grand jurors evidently put themselves in the husband's place: "I can see one of them saying, 'I would have shot the guy, too. I was just protecting my wife.'"
The December night before the shooting, Tracy Roberson sent LaSalle a text message that read in part, "Hi friend, come see me please! I need to feel your warm embrace!" according to court papers. LaSalle apparently agreed. Darrell Roberson, a 38-year-old employee of a real estate firm, discovered the two, his wife clad in a robe and underwear. When Tracy Roberson cried that she was being raped, LaSalle tried to drive away and her husband drew the gun he happened to be carrying and fired several shots at the truck, authorities said.
His wife also was charged with making a false report to a police officer for allegedly saying she was raped and could get up to six months behind bars on that offense. It was not immediately clear whether she had a lawyer. She had not been arrested as of this afternoon.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2007 06:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
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#1
"SPICY" indeed! Good for Texas--the husband is most assuredly NOT the guilty party in this case. As I understood the law down there, the key fact is that she claimed she was being raped. That justified her husband's use of deadly force. If she had admitted she was philandering, I think her husband would have had to shoot BOTH of them in order to get off on an insanity plea.
Posted by: Mac ||
03/31/2007 6:50 Comments ||
Top||
#2
When will the 'Group of 88' from Duke chime in defending the little o'poor Miss Tracy? /sarcasm
#5
Is it just me or does anyone else find it intensely satisfying that the wife must now bear the consequences of both her false accusation of rape and the death resulting from it? I'm actually quite glad to see the husband walk. Even in the worst light his actions are nigh well exemplary.
#7
And Im telling you son,
Well, it aint no fun
Staring straight down a forty-four.
Well he turned and screamed at linda lu
And thats the break I was looking for.
And you could hear me screaming a mile away
As I was headed out towards the door.
wont you give me three steps,
Gimme three steps mister,
Gimme three steps towards the door?
Gimme three steps
Gimme three steps mister,
And youll never see me no more.
Muslim teaching assistant Aishah Azmi has lost her appeal against an employment tribunal's decision that not being allowed to wear a full veil at work was discrimination. Aishah Azmi, 24, was suspended on full pay after staff at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said pupils found it harder to understand her.
A Leeds employment tribunal dismissed three of Mrs Azmi's claims of discrimination and harassment, but found that she was victimised and awarded her £1,000 for "injury to feelings". A month later, the local education authority sacked her from her post as a bilingual support worker.
#4
Slingshot the little fuckwit back to whatever utopic Muslim cesspit she came from. She can wear her niqab all she wants there. In fact, she'll get the crap beaten out of her if she doesn't.
#5
Suspended on full pay? And here I am, working 60 hours/week like a chump. Maybe we should all pull the veil stunt and see if we can't get a free ride for whining too.
Panic struck the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir yesterday following rumours, circulated via text messages, that two men's mobile phones exploded as they answered calls from mysterious numbers. The texts were a hoax.
"Vs" stage protest at White House. About 60 protesters dressed up as the Guy Fawkes look-a-like "V," from the movie by the same name, staged a protest at the White House yesterday...
One of the most touching photos in years taken by an AP photographer moved across the wires last night and few newspapers published it. The Daily Mail did. It showed President Bush helping Robert Byrd walk.
The occasion was the overdue awarding of a congressional Gold Medal to the Tuskegee airmen who served in World War II. There is irony there.
But there also is compassion from President Bush. This may be why the photo received so little play in the newspapers today.
#2
Byrd was there? And lightning didn't strike him? Proof God forgives even the worst. Be glad when this gasbag leaves this realm. Amen to award for the Airmen, RIP
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2007 22:00 Comments ||
Top||
#3
words fail. Makes me wish I was a better person.
A Manhattan art gallery canceled on Friday its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked Jesus, after an outcry by Roman Catholics. The sculpture "My Sweet Lord" by Cosimo Cavallaro was to have been exhibited for two hours each day next week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.
The display had been scheduled to open on Monday, days ahead of Good Friday when Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus. But protests including a call to boycott the affiliated Roger Smith Hotel forced the gallery to scrap the showing. "Your response to the exhibit at the Lab Gallery is crystal clear and has brought to our attention the unintended reaction of you and other conscientious friends of ours to the exhibition of Cosimo Cavallaro," Roger Smith Hotel President James Knowles said in a statement addressed to "Dear Friends."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2007 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11128 views]
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#6
Cavallaro is hardly being original. Check out these 20-year-old Tom Waits lyrics:
Dont go to church on sunday
Dont get on my knees to pray
Dont memorize the books of the bible
I got my own special way
Bit I know jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
I fall on my knees every sunday
At zerelda lees candy store
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Keep me satisfied
Well I dont want no anna zabba
Dont want no almond joy
There aint nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well its the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate jesus
Can satisfy my soul
(solo)
When the weather gets rough
And its whiskey in the shade
Its best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But thats ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Good enough for me
Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Keep me satisfied
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup in the driveway. Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson thinking quickly, if not clearly cried rape, authorities say. Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.
Panic struck the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir yesterday following rumours, circulated via text messages, that two men's mobile phones exploded as they answered calls from mysterious numbers. The texts were a hoax.
The occasion was the overdue awarding of a congressional Gold Medal to the Tuskegee airmen who served in World War II. There is irony there.
