AFFIDAVIT OF PROBABLE CAUSE

I. CRIME SCENE: MURDER OF ELLEN ROBB

On Friday December 22, 2006 at 1:45 PM, Dr. Rafael Robb called the Upper Merion Police Department to report that he arrived home and found his wife, Ellen Robb, murdered inside their home. Dr. Robb called the Upper Merion Police main number from his cellular telephone. As recorded in his call to the police, Dr. Robb told the dispatcher “I just came home and found my wife murdered on the kitchen floor” and that “she was killed.” When the dispatcher asked how he could tell his wife had been murdered, Robb replied “I know, her head is cracked.”

Upper Merion Police immediately responded to the Robb residence located at 670 Forest Road in Wayne, Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County. Police Officers Michael Ballman, Patrick Krouse and Gerald Davis arrived within minutes of the call. While Officer Ballman encountered and remained outside with Dr. Robb, Officers Krouse and Davis went into the home. Inside they located the obviously deceased body of Ellen Robb. While conducting a protective sweep of the house, officers opened the door to the Robbs’ daughter’s bedroom, freeing, then immediately containing, Copper the small family dog. While outside with Officer Ballman, Dr. Robb pointed out a broken window at the rear of the residence.

Montgomery County Coroner Jeanne Ottinger pronounced the victim dead shortly after 4:00PM. As part of Coroner Ottinger’s on-scene examination, she noted that the victim’s body was very cold to the touch and there was generalized rigor, or rigidity, in the victim’s extremities. This suggested to Coroner Ottinger that Ellen Robb had been dead well before noon.

Detectives from the Upper Merion Township Police Department and the Montgomery County District Attorney's Detective Bureau commenced a joint homicide investigation.

II. AUTOPSY AND INITIAL SEARCH

A. AUTOPSY

On Saturday, December 23, 2006 Forensic Pathologist Dr. Ian Hood conducted an autopsy on Ellen Robb”s body. According to Dr. Hood, the victim sustained multiple blows to various locations on her head. Dr. Hood opined she suffered a wound to the top back of her skull, and multiple blows to the front of her head and face that the killer inflicted while she was lying on her back on the kitchen floor. The force of these repeated blows crushed the victim’s face and caused her skull to fracture in numerous places. Dr. Hood noted the victim also suffered defensive wounds on both her hands and that two of her fingers were crushed. Dr. Hood opined that Ellen Robb was killed with a weapon with a long, cylindrical shaft.

He determined the cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma to the head; the Manner of Death is Homicide.

B. INITIAL SEARCH (670 FOREST ROAD)

1. Broken Door

Members of the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s Forensic Sciences Unit processed the scene of this homicide. The Robb home is a single-family, split-level residence with an attached garage. At the rear of the residence, detectives found the wooden door with the broken window as described by Dr. Robb.

The door is a wooden entry door with two glass windowpanes, one over the other. Two locking mechanisms existed, one a thumb turn on the doorknob and the other a double cylinder deadbolt requiring a key on each side. Both mechanisms were in the unlocked position. A key was in the double cylinder lock on the inside of the door. The door itself was in the fully closed position but, as indicated, unsecured. The broken window described by Dr. Robb is the lower of the two windowpanes. It was broken next to the door locks, providing reach-through access to the locks from the outside. The glass shards resulting from the breaking of the door were found scattered across the laundry room floor. In addition, the door opens in with a slight step down when a person enters. The sweep of the door, then, does not contact the floor. Police observed that the door did not disturb the broken glass shards laying on the floor inside.

Detective J. Michael Santarelli of the Montgomery County Detective Bureau examined the glass fragments that lay scattered across the floor and determined that anyone coming in the entry door, into the laundry room, would necessarily have walked on at least some of the broken shards of glass. Upon close inspection, Detective Santarelli found that none of the glass shards on the floor bore the characteristics of glass that has been compressed against a hard surface (i.e., the floor). There was no evidence these glass pieces had been crushed, chipped or finely cracked. Furthermore, no pieces of glass were found tracked or kicked beyond about five feet from the entry door.

2. Body of Ellen Robb

The fatal assault of Ellen Robb occurred in the kitchen of the home. She was found lying on her back in a massive pool of blood. Two recently wrapped Christmas gifts were on the kitchen table. Her glasses were neatly placed on the table. One of the gifts already had a completed To/From tag attached. The To/From tag for the second gift was completed but not yet attached to the gift; it was still lying on the table. Both of the tags were completed with pink ink. Detectives found the pink pen lying in the blood, next to her body. Upon inspection, detectives noted that the tip of the pen was cracked and a small portion of the tip of the pink pen was missing. They found the missing piece of the pen on the victim’s body during her autopsy. The fact that the broken pen and it’s broken-off piece were next to and on the victim’s body, respectively, and the fact the victim’s fingers were severely injured, leads us to conclude that she was holding the pink pen at the time she tried to defend herself from her attacker. Furthermore, this set of circumstances also supports our inference that her murder took place while she was preparing the gifts. There were just the two wrapped gifts present and no apparent unwrapped ones.

The trauma to the victim’s head was so severe that seasoned homicide and forensic detectives initially believed she had suffered a gunshot wound. It was not until completion of the autopsy that detectives confirmed she had been severely bludgeoned to death.

That the victim might have died as a result of a gunshot wound was also the first impression of Montgomery County Detective John Finor, a ballistics expert. Prior to his employment with the Montgomery County Detective Bureau, Detective Finor served the Philadelphia Police Department for 32 years, first as a patrolman, then as a Firearms Examiner. One of his regular duties was to assist members of the Homicide Division with their examination of fatal shooting scenes.

3. Bloodstain Evidence

Blood spatter stains were present on all four kitchen walls, the floor and the ceiling. The multiple, distinct blood spatter patterns are consistent with Dr. Hood’s conclusion that Ellen Robb was struck numerous times with the murder weapon where the weapon would become covered in blood during the attack and “cast-off” that blood to stain the ceiling, cabinets and walls. Despite an exhaustive search of the house, yard and surrounding streets, the police have not found a murder weapon. However, in the garage of the home, detectives discovered tools hanging from the wall all in a line. There was a single space where a tool previously had hung between two other tools. Police have not located the tool that hung in that spot.

Detectives discovered bloodstain evidence in other areas of the home. They observed a trail of blood that led from the kitchen, through the family room, and into the garage. This particular evidence consisted of blood droplets, smears and distinct footwear impressions. Many of these blood droplets were nearly circular, consistent with having dripped vertically from a hand, weapon or other item. The trail of presumed blood droplets ended in the attached garage. The large, bloody shoeprints faded in intensity as the wearer of the footwear, the murderer, made his way from the kitchen to the garage. Detectives did not find any footwear in the house that could have produced the bloody shoeprints.