THE CRIME

On Thursday March 5, 1992, 60-year-old land speculator and art dealer Roger de la Burde was found dead in the library of his home on his 220-acre estate. He had been shot in the head with his own gun.

Investigators originally thought de la Burde had committed suicide. But within days they believed he had been murdered and his death staged to look like suicide.

His long-time companion, 54-year-old Beverly Monroe, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

THE INVESTIGATION

De la Burde's body was discovered Thursday morning by Monroe and Joe Hairfield, the caretaker of de la Burde's estate, who called the Powhatan County Sheriff's Office and reported that de la Burde had shot himself.

Sheriff Greg Neal arrived around 9 a.m. The crime scene was photographed, including close-ups of de la Burde's body the library in which he'd died, his bedroom and the contents of his pants pockets. Several photographs show two Marlboro cigarette butts in an ashtray and charred papers in the fireplace. Neither the cigarettes (which could have helped identify people who had been in the house near the time of de la Burde's death), the charred papers, Roger's bloodstained clothes, nor the sofa were collected or preserved as evidence. Further, the crime scene was not secured. Eight fingerprints were lifted from the scene; though at least two did not belong to de la de la Burde, they remain unidentified to this day. The one fingerprint found on de la Burde's gun was his own.

Monroe told Sheriff Neal that she had dinner with de la Burde the night of his death. She told him that she had left the house around 9:30 p.m. Concerned because she had not been able to reach him by phone, she came to the house that morning, where she met the caretaker and they discovered the body. A distraught Monroe told Sheriff Neal that de la Burde had been very depressed in recent months.

The next day Special Agent David Riley of the state police was assigned to the case. Photographs of the scene convinced him that de la Burde had been murdered and his death staged to look like a suicide. Within days, he focused his investigation on Beverly Monroe.

Her motive, investigators believed, was jealousy. For more than a year, de la Burde had been having an affair with a younger woman named Krystyna Drewnowska. Four days before he died, he told Monroe that Drewnowska was pregnant.

On March 26, three weeks after de la Burde's death, agent Riley interviewed Monroe for the first time. Monroe repeated the story she had given Sheriff Neal, that de la Burde had been alive when she had left his house at around 9:30 p.m. the night he died.

At Riley's request she took, and failed, a lie detector test. Riley told her that she was not telling the truth about leaving de la Burde alive. When she insisted she had not killed de la Burde, he suggested that she was there when de la Burde shot himself and had blocked out the memory. It was then, according to police, that Monroe changed her story and claimed that she had fallen asleep on the couch opposite de la Burde after dinner and had awoken when he shot himself.

Monroe was unaware that Riley believed de la Burde had been murdered and that in his mind her statement that she was there when de la Burde died was tantamount to a confession to murder.

Agent Riley then noticed that the tape recorder had been inadvertently turned off. Unbeknownst to Monroe, he turned the tape recorder back on but was unable to get her to repeat the damaging admission. Over the next few weeks, Riley recorded a number of conversations with Monroe in which she never again repeats the admission, although she clearly entertains the possibility that she may have been present when de la Burde killed himself.

By June 3 the state had decided to indict Monroe but dispatched Riley in one last attempt to get a confession in order to avoid having to go to trial. Riley phoned Monroe, who met him in a nearby park. According to Monroe, he told her that de la Burde's death had been ruled a homicide and that the prosecutor planned to charge her with first-degree murder. Monroe initially claimed to be certain that she left de la Burde alive but eventually signed a statement, drafted by Riley, in which she claimed to be at the house when de la Burde killed himself.

On June 10 the state indicted Monroe for the murder of Roger de la de la Burde.

THE TRIAL

The Prosecution's Case

The state's theory was that Monroe killed de la Burde out of a fear that she would be supplanted in his affections by Drewnowska and the new baby. Although jealousy was the prime motive, the state also presented evidence that de la Burde was working on a new will that would have substantially reduced her inheritance, a will that was never executed because of his death.

The crux of the case was the two statements Monroe had made, admitting that she was there when de la Burde died. But one of the problems the prosecution faced in terms of the jealousy motive was that Monroe had long known about Drewnowska and the plan to have a baby. However, the state argued, Monroe did not discover the actual pregnancy until days before de la Burde died.

The prosecution presented convicted felon Zelma Smith, who claimed that Monroe had tried to buy a gun from her a year before the murder, and the state argued that Monroe had only pretended to tolerate Drewnowska's affair with de la Burde and had been planning to kill him for some time.

In response to the defense's claim that Roger was suicidal, the prosecution presented numerous witnesses who said that de la Burde was upbeat and making plans as usual just prior to his death.

The state's firearm expert argued that forensic evidence proved de la Burde had been murdered. And as District Attorney Jack Lewis said, "If this is murder, the person who was with him when he died was the one that murdered him."

The Defense's Case

At trial, Beverly Monroe repeated the same story she had initially given police: On March 4, she'd eaten dinner with Roger at his estate and left him about 9:30 p.m. to return to her own home. There she chatted with her son and then drove to the Safeway, where, according to a receipt, she checked out at 10:40 p.m. The prosecution argued that Monroe could have killed de la Burde before she left his house or she could have returned to his house after going shopping and killed him then.

Beverly Monroe, the defense claimed, did not know Roger de la Burde had died until the next morning, when she and a caretaker found him.

The defense presented witnesses who said de la Burde had been depressed in recent months. They argued he likely committed suicide.

Further, the defense's firearms expert testified that forensic evidence, including the position of powder burns, was consistent with suicide.

Even if it were a murder, the defense contended, a long list of people had more motive to kill Roger de la Burde than did Beverly Monroe. Regarding the admissions she made on two separate occasions, the defense argued that Senior Special Agent David Riley coerced them. They argued that in Beverly Monroe's emotionally distraught state, Riley was able to trick her into believing that the reason she couldn't remember being with Roger at his death was because she was blocking it out in her mind, not because she wasn't there. In her testimony regarding the June 3 statement, Monroe claims Riley threatened to destroy her name and her family if she didn't sign. Riley denies that he did so. Monroe claims that until that time, she believed Riley was a friendly policeman who intended to help her through a terrible trauma. She didn't procure a lawyer until after June 3 and did not even confide in her daughter Katie, who is an attorney, about the interviews with Riley, apparently believing she had no reason to protect herself.

THE VERDICT

On November 2, 1992, a jury found Beverly Monroe guilty of both first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. She was later sentenced to serve 22 years in the Pocahontas Correctional Center.

THE AFTERMATH

In May 1995, Virginia's Court of Appeals denied Beverly Monroe's appeal of her conviction and sentencing. In November 1995, the Supreme Court of Virginia denied her petition for appeal. The court dismissed her petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in April 1997. Her case is now undergoing judicial review by a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia. The judge's findings could come sometime in 2000.