Who Killed Janette Roberson?
A young woman was raped and murdered at work while customers shopped just feet from her.
Janette Roberson was a young woman full of life who loved her family and adored animals. At 27-years-old she was the mother of two children and married to their father, Alvin. The family recently moved from their home state of Georgia to Reed City, Michigan, to start a new life together.
Given her love of animals, Janette got a job working in the pet department at a local store called Gambles in the downtown area just off the main road. She often worked alone in a workspace that was a small 10-by-10 foot area in the basement of the store.
Murder
On January 19, 1983, Janette went to work just as she normally did and expected it to be a typical day on the job. However, sometime between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., Janette’s life would take a tragic turn when she encountered a man who would take her life.
No one knows exactly what happened in the store's basement to Janette as she was all alone, but a coworker of hers came down the stairs to find a horrific scene. She found Janette lying dead on the cold, concrete floor from blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds.
The Investigation
When the police arrived they found Janette had been murdered by items that were already in the store leading the police to believe her death was a crime of passion and had not been premeditated. The police were also able to determine that Janette had been raped by her killer.
During Janette’s murder, the store had been quite busy with multiple customers shopping on the floor above, yet no one heard anything out of the ordinary. The police identified all of the day’s shoppers, and they voluntarily came in for questioning, except for one man.
The police were unable to determine the identity of one of the customers who was described as a Caucasian male with sandy blonde hair. He wasn’t exceptionally tall and only stood approximately 5'9" and weighed about 170 pounds. The only other identifying feature was the blue jacket the man had been wearing. Despite an extensive search and a composite sketch that was released to the…
