Robert Froberg is an accused killer who has been charged with the murder of seven year old Morgan Violi which took place in 1996
According to police reports Robert Froberg was on the run after escaping from prison when he would grab seven year old Morgan Violi in Bowling Green, Kentucky while driving a stolen van. The little girls body would be found in White House Tennessee and the stolen van was found in Franklin Tennessee
Robert Froberg who is currently in prison in Alabama serving a forty year prison sentence for robbery was interviewed by the FBI and told his DNA matched that found at the scene. Froberg allegedly confessed to the murder of Morgan Violi
If convicted of the murder and kidnapping of Morgan Violi Robert Froberg could face a life in prison sentence or the death penalty
Robert Froberg News
A two-time prison escapee has been charged in the abduction and murder of 7-year-old Morgan Violi 30 years after she disappeared.
Robert Froberg now faces life in prison or the death penalty, the United States Attorney’s Office announced Feb. 27.
Robert Froberg’s arrest is the apparent solution to a 30-year mystery after Morgan’s body was found in White House, Tennessee, and the van used in the abduction was found in Franklin, Tennessee. He is in prison in Montgomery, Alabama, on unrelated charges, U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner said.
Robert Froberg escaped from prisons in Alabama and Pennsylvania before Morgan’s abduction in 1996. He was interviewed by law enforcement this week in Alabama.
“Robert Froberg admitted he ultimately caused Morgan’s death in that van,” Bumgarner said. He detailed Froberg’s path across several states before and after the girl’s death, including a stop in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, where Froberg was caught in a treehouse with a boy. He was arrested by police and imprisoned, but he broke out again days before he stole a van in Dayton, Ohio.
As he made his way to Alabama on Interstate 65, Froberg stopped to search for drugs in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and that’s when police say he kidnapped Morgan.
The 7-year-old fought back, she screamed, Bumgarner said. Her mother let out a gasp as he spoke. Tears streamed down many family members’ faces as they blotted their cheeks with crumpled tissues.
“Morgan was a fighter,” Bumgarner said.
Investigators made the case against Robert Froberg by using more sophisticated DNA testing than was available in the late 1990s. First, they matched a fiber taken from Morgan’s body to the seat cushion the kidnapper used to transport her.
Then, they matched DNA on a hair follicle to Robert Froberg, Bumgarner said.
What happened to Morgan Violi?
It was a hot summer day on July 24, 1996, when 7-year-old Morgan went outside to play with a friend at the Shive Lane apartment complex she lived at with her mom and two sisters in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
A man driving an older-model, maroon Chevrolet van pulled up alongside the girls.
Witnesses said he jumped out and tried to grab the girl Morgan played with. When he was unsuccessful, he snatched Morgan, threw her into the van and sped away, The Tennessean reported in 1996.
The FBI described the man as about 20 to 30 years old in 1996, with light brown hair and medium height and weight.
According to reports, the van used in the kidnapping had been stolen from Dayton, Ohio, the day before the abduction. It was found in Franklin, Tennessee, at the Union 76 truck stop two days later, according to the FBI.
It took three months to find Morgan.
Her skeletal remains were discovered in White House in Robertson County, Tennessee, by a woman walking near her home, The Tennessean reported.
A witness told police that a van matching the description of the one used in the abduction had been spotted the day after the kidnapping in the area where Morgan’s body was found.
A cold case heats up
Just last month, the Bowling Green Police Department posted on Facebook seeking information in the 30-year-old case.
“If you have information, no matter how small, that could help investigators, now is the time to come forward,” the post said. “What you know could make a huge difference.”
The department asked tipsters to reach out to them or the FBI.
On Feb. 26, the Louisville office of the FBI sent out a cryptic notice for a news conference touting the news as “one of the most significant announcements by the United States Attorney’s Office in at least a decade.”
The announcement did not specifically name Morgan’s case as the topic of conversation.
In a packed conference room at the Bowling Green Police Department, law enforcement from Kentucky and Tennessee, reporters and city officials looked on as Morgan’s parents and family filed into the room. Taking the first three rows of seats, the family listened intently as Bumgarner announced charges against Robert Scott Froberg.
Robertson County Sheriff Michael Van Dyke and Chief Deputy Charlie Clark sat in the front row.
Marieca Brown, a retired major with the Bowling Green Police Department, was a young officer on patrol when Morgan was taken. A mother of children then 2 and 4 years old, she’d been out taking an aerobics class when the call came in for all officers to respond. She returned home to find that call for all units on her answering machine.
“I immediately got the kids situated and got showered and changed and ran into work early,” she recalled after the Feb. 27 news conference.
Brown, and the community, did not know just how big of an impact this case would have on Bowling Green for the next 30 years. Random kidnappings are rare. That scared people.
In the mid-1990s it wasn’t uncommon for children to play unsupervised, especially during summer vacations. But when Morgan was taken, things changed. Churches began to fill up with people seeking answers in God and as a place for children to safely play, Brown said.
“It’s one of those cases that you work in a career that is just etched and burned in your memory forever,” she said. “Anybody who’s ever had children or grandchildren, you know, that’s always everybody’s biggest fear, but then to see it actually occur, and for it to take so long. And so it’s a relief, it’s heartbreaking.”
To some degree, that fear hasn’t subsided, Brown said.
“Those of us that were young adults that had kids about that age remember this case, and now we’re starting to have grandkids,” she said. “And you know you have to think about that, and bottom line is you got to watch out for your kids. It just really makes you want to cling on to your children.”
Prison escapee charged in 1996 abduction, murder of Kentucky girl, 7
