A man stands accused in the kidnapping and killing of 7-year-old Morgan Violi nearly 30 years after the Kentucky girl’s body was found in the woods in Tennessee, according to federal authorities.
Robert Scott Froberg has been charged in the cold case that had remained a mystery since 1996, U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner, of the Western District of Kentucky announced at a news conference on Friday, February 27, WBKO reported.
“Today is not about Froberg. Today is about Morgan Violi,” Bumgarner said, according to the TV station.
“Morgan was more than the worst thing that happened to her. She was a daughter. She was a little sister,” Bumgarner added. “She loved to dance. She loved to sing. She loved telling her older sisters she was bigger than them.”
A criminal complaint filed in federal court on Thursday, February 26, charges Froberg, 62, with one count of kidnapping resulting in death, records viewed by Luxury Handbag Shopping show.
Information on his legal representation was not immediately listed in court records the afternoon of February 27.
Froberg, who is serving a prison sentence in Alabama in connection with a robbery conviction, was transported to the FBI’s office in Montgomery, Alabama, on Tuesday, February 24, for an interview in connection with Morgan’s death, according to an affidavit obtained by Us.
FBI agents went to interview him after his DNA was linked to Morgan’s kidnapping, the affidavit says.
Before Froberg allegedly killed Morgan, he had escaped prison twice after he was convicted of a 1988 robbery in Alabama, according to the affidavit.
He first escaped an Alabama prison in April 1996, then fled to Pennsylvania, where he was ultimately apprehended and detained in the Northumberland County Jail, the affidavit says.
Then, in July 1996, Froberg escaped that jail when he climbed up a rain spout, made his way onto the facility’s roof and climbed down to the ground using a cable, according to the filing.
“Froberg stole a prison employee’s bicycle to complete his escape,” an FBI special agent wrote in the affidavit.
Following his escape, a maroon Chevrolet van was stolen from a home in Dayton, Ohio, about a half mile away from where his parents lived – and where he spent his childhood – that same month, the affidavit says.
On July 24, 1996, a suspect, who was unknown at the time, driving the van kidnapped Morgan from the parking lot of where she lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky, according to the FBI.
Morgan had been playing with her friend outside her apartment complex when the man, who has since been identified as Froberg, got out of his van and tried to kidnap Morgan’s friend, the affidavit says.
Morgan’s friend “escaped from the man’s grasp but the man was able to kidnap Morgan,” the FBI agent wrote in the filing.
A few months later, Morgan was found dead in the woods in White House, Tennessee, in October 1996, according to the FBI.
A piece of Morgan’s hair was ultimately found in the van that Froberg had allegedly driven after the vehicle was found at a truck stop two days after her disappearance, the affidavit says.
This piece of hair helped the FBI develop a DNA profile, which ultimately led them to Froberg, according to the FBI.
During his February 24 interview with FBI agents, Froberg admitted to kidnapping Morgan in 1996, the affidavit says.
He said that Morgan had been “crying and screaming” when he drove with her out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and “lied to her and told her he was taking her to her father to calm her,” the FBI agent wrote in the filing.
Froberg explained he ultimately pulled over at a barn in White House, Tennessee, where he strangled her to death, according to the affidavit.
“Next, Froberg said he stripped off Morgan’s clothes and discarded her naked body in the woods near the barn,” the affidavit says.
Froberg is expected to appear in court for an arraignment after he is taken into federal custody, according to prosecutors, WBKO reported.
