November 9, 2005
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

LARRY ROBERSON CHARGED WITH 1st-DEGREE MURDER 

An Orange City man was formally charged Wednesday with killing his wife. Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators charged Larry Roberson with 1st-degree murder after he confessed to bashing his wife over the head with a baseball bat and then choking her with an electrical cord. 

Roberson eluded authorities for 10 days when he disappeared following the discovery of his wife’s body inside a storage shed behind the couple’s Cypress Avenue home. But investigators with the Sheriff’s Office’s Major Case Unit were hot on his trail. Shortly after the body was discovered, investigators staked out a hotel in Orange City after learning that Roberson had used his credit card to pay for a room there. Roberson, however, checked out of the hotel and never returned. Investigators later spoke to several family members who had received calls from Roberson while he was in hiding, including a sister who said he had confessed to her that he had killed his wife. The search zeroed in on Levy County after cell phone records revealed that he had been making calls from that area. Roberson was captured in the woods in Levy County on Sunday and returned to Volusia County the next day. 

Investigators were initially called out to the Robersons’ home on the evening of Oct. 25 after a relative became worried that he had been unable to reach Roberson’s wife, Debra Roberson. When the relative called on Oct. 24, on what would have been Debra Roberson’s 53rd birthday, Larry Roberson answered the phone and said his wife was too sick to come to the phone. Investigators now believe Roberson killed his wife on Oct. 21. Led by a foul odor to a locked shed on the property, deputies cut the padlock on the morning of Oct. 26 and found Debra Roberson’s body. By then, Larry Roberson had fled in his wife’s pickup truck. Debra Roberson’s body was found on the floor of the couple’s shed, her hands tied behind her back with an electrical cord. The body was wrapped in plastic and a blanket with rope around it. After his arrest, Roberson confessed to Sheriff’s investigator Larry Horzepa that after arguing with his wife over money and looking at houses, Roberson said he snapped and grabbed a baseball bat and struck his wife over the head as she got out of the shower. Roberson said he then strangled her with an electrical cord -- the same cord he used to bind her hands. While the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t ruled on the official cause of death, an autopsy revealed that the victim sustained a scalp injury and also had ruptured blood vessels in her neck consistent with strangulation. After reviewing the findings of the investigation with the State Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s investigators obtained an arrest warrant late Wednesday morning charging Roberson with 1st-degree murder. The warrant, signed by Circuit Court Judge Hubert Grimes, was served on Roberson at Florida Hospital in DeLand, where he is receiving medical treatment.

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Additional press releases:

Sheriff's Office Investigating Suspicious Death Near Orange City
Body In Shed Confirmed To Be Adult Woman 
Body In Shed Ruled A Homicide 
Murder Victim's Husband Located In Levy County, Confesses To Killing