Posted on Fri, Jul. 28, 2006

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Mother guilty in death of daughter

By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Kelsey Roberts

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FORT WORTH -- A Keller mother was convicted Thursday afternoon of smothering her daughter last year to get even with her husband as the couple was going through a divorce.

A Tarrant County jury deliberated 2 1/2 hours before they found Norma Jean Roberts guilty of murder in the killing of her 11-year-old daughter, Kelsey.

"She is a vicious, selfish, manipulative, controlling and angry woman," Phelesa Guy, Tarrant County assistant district attorney, had told jurors during closing arguments earlier in the day. "This was thought out by a woman who lost control of a situation."

Jurors will return to Criminal District Court No. 213 today to decide Roberts' punishment. Testimony is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m.

Roberts faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of life, a prosecutor said.

Roberts showed no emotion Thursday afternoon as state District Judge Bob Gill read the verdict. It was a sharp contrast to her behavior during the trial, during which she constantly wept as witnesses testified.

Roberts' defense attorneys had sought to convince jurors that she was insane when she smothered Kelsey during the stress of a divorce and child custody dispute.

But prosecutors painted a different picture during their closing arguments.

The 50-year-old mother is not eligible for parole because of an attempted-murder conviction in Travis County. She was sentenced to 10 years' probation for shooting her third husband, according to court records. She had told Steve Roberts, her fourth husband, that she had shot her third husband because he had been verbally and physically abusive. She completed her probation in 1996.

Prosecutors told jurors in their closing arguments that Norma Roberts had targeted her daughter to get back at her husband. She had been jealous of the relationship that her daughter had with her father and she was angry with the pending divorce, Guy said.

Roberts found out about the divorce in February 2005, when she found a bill from an attorney her husband had hired. A few weeks later, she became further enraged, prosecutors said, when she went with her husband to visit a priest for what she thought was a counseling session. It turned out to be a meeting to inquire how to annul the marriage, prosecutors said.

Investigators believe Roberts smothered her daughter, then carved a hate letter to Steve Roberts on a dining-room table, expressing her anger over the divorce and custody arrangements. Kelsey would live one week with Norma Roberts and one week with her father.

Guy told jurors that Norma Roberts may have been faking her unresponsive state after she was found unconscious in her Keller home on Aug. 5, the day she killed Kelsey. Evidence indicated that Kelsey fought her mother before she died. Roberts had cut her wrist and overdosed on sleeping pills.

A noose was found in the kitchen, and another noose was found in Roberts' bedroom.

The decision by the jury of seven women and five men came after prosecution rebuttal testimony Thursday morning.

A Dallas psychiatrist testified that Roberts was suffering no major mental illness at the time of her daughter's slaying.

Dr. Mitchell Dunn told a Tarrant County jury that Roberts did not show any signs of problems on the morning of Aug. 5. She went to a mall that morning with Kelsey, who was killed that afternoon.

"At the scene, she carved out a note on a table, taking the time to capitalize letters and place exclamations. The message had incredible anger at her husband," Dunn told jurors. "She did know right from wrong on that day."

The testimony came on the fourth day of Roberts' murder trial as prosecutors presented witnesses to rebut defense experts who had told jurors earlier in the week that the Keller mother suffered from major depression.

Dr. Richard Schmitt, an Arlington clinical psychologist, testified this week that Roberts had suffered anxiety attacks over the years and developed phobias of scorpions, snakes, spiders and bad weather. The bad-weather phobia stemmed from her sister being killed in a tornado, Schmitt testified on Wednesday. But a relative testified Thursday that Roberts never had a sister who died in a tornado.

Dunn testified that someone suffering from major depression would exhibit sadness for long periods of time.

"Even when her daughter would be visiting, she would have been withdrawn," Dunn said. "But she wasn't that way."

Before Dunn's testimony, one of Roberts' aunts testified that Roberts told her in February 2005 that she was afraid she would lose her daughter to her husband because of her financial situation.

"She was very emotional. She had just found out that Steve had filed for divorce," said Anita Barrera of San Angelo. "She said, 'If I can't have her, no one else will.' I told her, 'Please don't say that.'"