Dealing With The Aftermath

Today the jury will be charged, by the judge, in the Roseboro murder trial.
Then the deliberations will begin.
No one with any true conscience envies anyone on that jury.
They will have to decide if Mike Roseboro goes home to his children and family, or remains in prison for the rest of his life.
What a sobering and scary responsibility.
Either verdict will produce deep and loud reactions.
If he is acquitted, those who have no doubt as to his guilt will feel cheated and betrayed by the system. This will stand as the ultimate expression of the sheer lack of fairness in life.
The sadness and despair they will feel will take a long time, if ever, to deal with and work through.
They want justice for Jan. Just justice for Jan.
Her life goes on in her children. But for those who know in their hearts that Mike bludgeoned and drowned Jan, it will feel as if she suffered alone and no one ever stood up to ultimately defend her.
If Mike is convicted, his children will be the ultimate victims again. Not of the system, but of their own father, whose choices led to this culmination of depravity and violence.
His family will be able to visit him but the hope of ever even trying to recreate a life that they knew before will be forever denied.
From the first steps she took past the funeral home in hopes of attracting Mike Roseboro's eye, Angie held her children away from her, choosing her priorities.
And from the first chat over coffee and the ensuing invitation to lunch that Mike made to Angie, Mike effectively turned his back on his kids and followed a road that mattered only to him.
Every time each one answered their cell phone to take a call from the other, they added one more brick to their road.
And from the emails and even the much later prison calls, there was never a pang of guilt over what all of this had done or could do to the kids.
Angie didn't care if her daughters would "puke" at seeing her kiss Mike. Now THAT'S a Mom?
Hardly.
When Mike had sex with Angie in the funeral home, did he feel a twinge over betraying Jan and risking the stability and base for his kids' lives? Hardly.
If the affair did indeed only last seven weeks up until the murder, there were twenty fours in each day that offered each one of them the opportunity to stop the affair.
Not once have we seen a shred of evidence that the affair even caused a miniscule amount of discomfort or hesitation over the kids and what this would do to them.
Mr. Sodomsky has tried to portray this affair as simply based on sex.
I absolutely disagree.
There was a phone bill on the way and they both knew it.
There was no attempt to circumvent that bill from finding it's way into Jan's hands.
It would precipitate an explosion in the Roseboro home.
It would pierce Jan's heart, again, knowing that her husband was having another affair.
And it would blow the marriage out of the water.
If Mike didn't want that result, he would have taken other steps to conceal the affair.
Have a secret, private cell phone. Rent a PO box to get that bill....there were many things he could have done if he was just playing around and intended to maintain his marriage to Jan.
Angie knew they were walking on the line of being discovered and it was what she was waiting for as well.
She had said to several that she didn't know how much longer she could take being married to Randy. She was done. She just didn't have the spine to end the marriage in the right way.
She didn't have the spine or respect to tell Randy that to his face and then move out and file for divorce. She needed to line up her next landing spot before her marriage to Randy could end.
She wanted a smooth transition.
No matter the verdict, much is known now, thanks to the trial.
We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mike and Angie are the consummate liars.
No doubt remains about that.
Even on the stand, after placing her hand on the Word of God, Angie lied to the DA. She feigned a poor memory.
She couldn't even fake being remorseful there, in full view of Jan's loved ones.
What kind of a person could sit there, knowing her part in this tragedy and not hang her head and cry, telling the whole world how sorry she is?
That was her perfect opportunity to show that she was sorry for her role in this. But to say that you have to feel it. And she simply doesn't feel it.
The DA stood there for all of us in his incredulity. I know that he has encountered criminals, and sociopaths and even psychopaths.
But he stood there and faced a person with no remorse. A cold, calculating person who feels no responsibility for her part.
The fact that Angie and Mike made out behind the funeral home so shortly after Jan's death is the writing on the wall.
The calls and texts continued.
Even if Angie still had feelings for Mike, didn't it ever strike her as grossly inappropriate for him to be calling her when his wife had just been murdered and his children were devastated. Wouldnt' that have shown so clearly, to a normal person, that the wiring in Mike's makeup was a bit twisted?
No. She went and met Mike. We're all still shaking our heads over that one.
If the Roseboro marriage was over, for all intents and purposes, what of the nineteen years of marriage that had been invested. If the giddy I love you was gone from the marriage, didn't Jan even matter enough as the mother of his kids to make Mike sick at heart over her brutal death?
Nope.
He needed to be in Angie's arms.
Jan was nothing to Mike. Absolutely nothing.
If he wasn't her killer, didn't he cry over what a murderer did to her?
Didn't the years he knew her count for anything? No.
We know much about Mike and Angie now.
And what happens from here will tell us more.
If Mike is convicted, Angie will run with Plan B. Or Plan C, for now.
I ask you all this...
Angie was in love with Mike and promised to be by his side forever, no matter what.
So what changed? What changed so abruptly and so concretely for her to dump him from the witness stand?
Many think that Angie suspects strongly that Mike will be convicted. Why would that change the LOVE she has for him? If convicted, why wouldn't Angie, if she loved Mike, stick by him anyway? Many woman maintain love relationships with incarcerated husbands and boyfriends.
She could be the martyr, living from visit to visit.
Instead, she bailed on him. Why?
Mike is still there in the sense of love and his spirit.
Apparently that's not really enough for Angie.
She needs the rest of him to stay in love with him.
If he's convicted, there's no more money, other than what he can earn in the prison system.
Suddenly Mike's no longer looking like the catch of the century and she bailed on him.
Poor Mike. Not.
She constantly pushed the tone of their communications back to being Mrs. Angela Lynn Roseboro. How many times did she say she wanted to be Mrs. MICHAEL Roseboro?
Not so many.
It was about her being who she wanted to be, not about her love for being the wife of a man she adored.
If Mike would have just paid attention maybe he would have wised up before he chose his path.
Angie was telling him the truth, if he just paid attention. It was there, between the lines, the whole time.
So now we'll wait for the verdict.
If he's set free, what will Angie do?
What a dilemma!
Mike will be free and able to continue to earn money. And live large.
And now Angie went and shot her mouth off on the witness stand.....oh the dilemma she'll be in....
How long will she be able to stand knowing that all that money is still there, and more to come...and she chose to say she's done with Mike.
Angie never burns all of her bridges....she made sure of that too.
She still loves Mike deeply. She can't just turn it off.
So if he's set free...she can say that she just couldn't stop loving him....
Randy, keep a bag packed by the door, just in case....
It might take a while, but if Mike and his money are available, you're history, dude!
If Mike is convicted, Angie will remain with Randy, for a while. But not that long.
She'll have her next soft spot to land lined up in due time.
All we have to do is watch.
There have been places all along the road of this tragedy and afterward, where both of them have had the opportunity to choose.
Angie could have faced the courtroom and showed remorse. And she could have said how sorry she was to Jan's family. Even if they didn't believe her, she could have stood by her words and done the right thing.
Mike could have stopped cheating. He could have done the right thing.
But they were focused on themselves.
And now we'll see even more truth about both of them, no matter the verdict.
And I hope that the DA and the investigators are still burning with questions.
You're not done yet, Mr. Steadman.
Don't let those questions go totally unanswered. Let Jan sit on your shoulder until you know the whole story. There is far more to learn. And even if takes years, please don't stop looking for those answers. Mike's verdict will either set him free and unable to ever be charged again for this crime or it will send him to prison for life.
But the whole truth did not come out in the courtroom.
Please don't let the truth stay hidden forever.