Craig Stedman had listened open-mindedly to Allan Sodomsky’s closing. The DA had even agreed with Sodomsky on one major point. Sodomsky had told the jury during his closing that it made little sense for a killer to “stop the carotid neck hold” once he had gotten his victim into it. That theory, proven by both doctors, flew in the face of common sense. Reasonably speaking, a random killer would have grabbed Jan by the neck and choked her to death, tossing her limp (dead) body into the pool, before stealing that jewelry Michael Roseboro had claimed went missing.
Thus, in effect, Stedman believed, Sodomsky had argued for the state’s case in bringing up this idea. Addressing the jury early into his closing, Stedman said, “It makes no sense for a random killer to stop the carotid neck hold once you’ve got your victim in that. It makes absolutely no sense!”
Then the prosecutor sketched out the scene for jurors.
“You’re a random killer. You’re there to kill her. You do kill her. You’ve got her in a position where she’s unconscious … keeping [the choke hold] going until she is dead. Absolutely. [Mr. Sodomsky] is absolutely right! It makes no sense for a random killer to stop once he’s got her in that position.”
Then the drumroll and cymbal crash…. “But it does make sense,” Stedman said, raising his voice, “for one person to stop the carotid neck hold. This person,” he said thunderously, pointing to Roseboro. “You know why? Because he wants to make it look like an accident. You’ve got to stop the … neck hold before she dies so you can get her in the pool so she can gulp in water. If you kill her before—if you kill her before you put her in the pool … there’s no water in her lungs. There’s no drowning. There’s no accident.” He paused and lowered his voice. “You don’t get away with murder.”
Stedman went on to explain how Roseboro had gone to great lengths to make the murder appear to be an accident—but failed.
Then Stedman laid out his case, point by point, noting that Roseboro’s DNA underneath his wife’s fingernails and the scratches on Roseboro’s face told a story all by itself.
Whatever you want to call it, Stedman said, the writing was not on the wall. It was written all over Michael Roseboro’s demeanor and behavior, beginning with the 911 call, and following into those ten days after Jan Roseboro’s murder as he told one lie after the next, then had the audacity to write a letter saying Jan had had an affair.
This was all nothing more than a desperate man grasping for a lifeline.
One important factor Stedman brought up was that Roseboro had been expecting a phone bill days after Jan was murdered. The bill was $688 and some change. Jan did the household finances. She was going to see that bill and know her husband had been stepping out on her once again. Thus, the phone bill, that talk of marrying Angie and being with her all the time, along with his compulsive desire for the woman, had backed him into a corner. The time had come. He was going to lose everything, or so he feared. Sprinkle a bit of mania and a bastard child on that situation and you have a recipe for murder.
Stedman spent two hours outlining his case. In the end, he told jurors, “You’ve got a mountain of evidence…. Find him guilty of murder in the first degree, not because I say so,” he said, pointing at himself, “but because the evidence says so.”
It was 3:26 P.M.
The judge released the jury for the day. He wanted everyone back first thing in the morning, when deliberations were set to begin.
The following day, July 30, 2009, Judge James Cullen gave instructions to the eight women and four men of the jury.
By 9:53 A.M., Michael Roseboro’s fate was in their hands.