Roberta Samard

[music playing] A grandfather killed in his house in Oregon. The victim was on the back porch. I've been told that a woman can possibly shower husband. The evidence appears to point to a tragic accident. There's really no sign of any struggle. A lot of mistakes happen in the dark. You can stub your toe or end up accidentally killing your husband. I just started doing that. But when details fail to add up, detectives begin to suspect a cold-blooded murder. And the bottom of a laundry hamper was a foreclosure notice. She had built house of cards on lies and deception. And information from beyond the grave reveals the killers' deceit. We're looking through this office. We come across this notebook. The last thing he writes is maybe I'll be on my own. The little lies turn into big lies, turn into how do I get out of this? [music playing] Millersburg, Oregon, is a town of about 3,000 people, halfway between Portland and Eugene. It's a small city in Lynn County that really doesn't have much crime, much burglary, much theft, hardly any major crime. In the early morning hours of November 16, 2015, this normally quiet community awakens to the sound of sirens as local sheriffs respond to a frantic 9-1-1 call. My husband is so lucky. He's been shot. Man, can you take a deep breath and tell me what happened? Deputies quickly arrive at the home of Ken and Roberta Samard, a couple in their late 50s and early 60s. When police arrive on the scene, it's still dark outside, you know, it's early morning hours. They encountered Roberta. She was in the house, still on the phone with 9-1-1. They brought her out to the front porch. They start talking to Roberta. She seems a little out of it. She is telling them, "I did it. I shot my husband." But she had planned to die by suicide. Her husband, he was going to leave for work and had at some point come back in and interrupted Roberta's plan to take her life. She happened to accidentally shoot him. Roberta is taken into custody and held in the back of their patrol car while detectives arrive on scene. I got paged out that a shooting that had occurred in Millersburg, which was only five to seven minutes away from my house. As you walk in the front door, there's a glass door that leads out onto a wood porch. The victim, Ken Samard, was on the back porch. It was pretty easy to tell. He was deceased. The gun was inside the threshold near that door. It was a pretty unique gun, like a snub nose, 38 stainless steel, but it had pink grips on it. From the looks of it, probably a female's gun. I was told that it was a woman had possibly shot her husband, but he wasn't supposed to be there. I thought maybe this guy left for work, came back and she thought it was a burglar and accidentally shot it. I have to look for a reason as to why this tragic event happened. If it isn't accident, we're going to have to figure out why it happened. We needed to obtain some more statements from her more in depth of what happened that morning. Ken Samard was born in Albany, Oregon on January 25, 1958. He was one of four siblings raised in a blue collar family. Ken was a very hard worker. He always had a job. He grew up farming. When he was probably 16, he worked in the fields doing the combining, windrowing, and plowing. He graduated in '76 and he joined the Navy. He married his girlfriend, Vicki, and he was in the Navy for four years and was stationed various places. He had a pretty funny dry sense of humor. His personality was one of, I would say, good character. He really cared about people. Ken was a very kind person. He went out of his way to help anybody. He loved to learn new skills and just being there for his family and really helping his family. When Ken returned home from deployment, he found work as an engineer. But the time away had caused him and his wife to drift apart. When he came home, the marriage didn't last very long. So they were divorced and soon after that he met Cindy. My dad met my mom through my uncle and his girlfriend. I have two brothers. Brad is the oldest. I'm the middle child and Matthew is the youngest. Dad took us camping all the time when we were kids and we'd go gold panning or go hiking or we'd go fishing or hunting or whatever and just always kind of had a good time. Unfortunately, his second marriage only lasted a few years longer than his first. My mom and dad were divorced when I was around two. My mom and dad both have really different personalities and wanted different things in life and it just kind of grew apart. Starting over for the second time, Ken was now in his early 30s. He took a job at a paper mill in Millersburg, Oregon and put his engineering skills to use as a member of the Oregon National Guard. We were in the maintenance section. He was a mechanic. So was I. We became fast friends. We're traveling to wherever the vehicles are that we're working on. Ken spent the following years focused on his work and his children. Then in 1996, 38-year-old Ken met the woman who had become his third wife, 43-year-old Roberta Bogart. Roberta was at the mill. She was a secretary there. They went out on some dates and next thing I know they were together. She was previously married and they had two boys. They grew up around here. Then they moved to Alaska. We were living with my mom and we were in school so it was just weekends that we would be with him. I was about 14 when Roberta and my dad started dating. She was nice. She was friendly. She always had a smile on her face, seemed to make my dad happy. Before we knew it, they flew to Las Vegas and got married. When you have Roberta as your wife, to share your life with her, to speak the truth to her in love, to honor and tenderly care for her. Yes, I will. Five years later, the couple bought their dream home in Millersburg. There's a five bedroom house with the huge barn with the property out of town. He really enjoyed that piece of land that he had. He would spoil her. Ken went and bought her a new car because he was making good money. They always seemed happy and go lucky. 13 years into their marriage, the couple's good fortune ended when the paper mill closed down and they both lost their jobs. if not resourceful. - He starts a company, he becomes a rougher. Then he falls on hard times again. When he falls off a roof, he injures himself where he shatters both of his heels. Despite that, Ken is a fighter. He says, "I'm gonna go back to school. I'm gonna learn a new trade." And so he begins studying to become an HVAC engineer. And so again, he picks himself up and he's studying to better his life. Ken seemed very excited about HVAC school and getting out there to help people and just making a difference in someone's life. At this point in Ken's life, his adult children, his three adult children are grown. They're out of the house, he's a grandfather. He's overcome some hard times, but he's with Roberta. They're living in their dream home that they had purchased and he's got a new career. Things are looking up for him. (dramatic music) Ken's recovery is brought to an abrupt halt after another accident has resulted in his death. - We're purchased in the back of a patrol car. The deputies unseen an R.I. went into the house, secured a Ken. He appeared dressed for work. I mean, he had a jacket on. His lunch box, a mug. His keys were back there on the back porch as well. - There's really no sign of any struggle. There are no, you know, there's no broken glass. There are no pieces of furniture, tip, dover. - The scene appears to match what Roberta told officers, but they won't know for sure until they conduct a thorough investigation. - We did the preliminary exam of the body and right in the creek of the neck, we found a gunshot wound. We're trained to determine if there's this gunshot wound match what Roberta's told us. The next step, there's gonna be a detective assigned to work on an application for a search warrant. So while we're waiting for that, we went back to our sheriff's office and sat in an interview room, an interview room, Roberta. - If you're not under arrest or anything, we're just trying to get kind of the facts and sometimes this easier to bring you down here and interview you. So, can you tell me what happened? I've been really sad. I'm depressed. I could have taken away our house from us and they just couldn't face it anymore. They just couldn't face all that. - You're gonna take the house here. - The house is being put closed. - I saw you, I saw you, I saw you, I saw you, I saw you. - The reality is that financial stress is it can be massive, it can be overwhelming for a married couple. So, people do make rash, drastic decisions. She said she was gonna shoot herself and Ken showed up and actually went off. He got shot, but in processing, all sorts of possibilities. So that's what we're looking for now is that what evidence can we find to support Roberta's statement? Or are we gonna find stuff that conflicts with that? - Coming up, Roberta reenacts the fatal shooting. - She says she's bringing the gun up to kill herself. It accidentally goes off and hits Ken. - But was it really an accident? - I wanted to believe her, I wanted to believe her so bad. (dramatic music) - Roberta Samard has just confessed to accidentally killing her 57-year-old husband, Ken, in a botched suicide attempt. Lynn County detectives press her for more details. - Roberta tells us when Ken left her word, she retrieves his firearm from the bedroom. - I was chasing her on my house and didn't just do it instantly, when I thought I had the chance. It's like it'd all like a think of was my kids. - And did you think Ken had already left? So, I think-- - Well, he walked out the door. He left the house. Usually doesn't come back. - She tells detectives that for some reason he came back in to the house and caught her in that very moment. - Like I mean, he must have seen the gun in my hand, but he messed up because he said, "What?" And he had this weird look on his face. And I said, "I love you." And then the next thing I knew, it went all off. - She said when she's bringing the gun up to kill herself, it accidentally goes off and hits Ken. (dramatic music) - What would be my response if I saw my spouse doing something like that? You know, I'd probably reach out and try to grab the gun. Well, if there's a struggle, she pulls away. He pulls it close. She loses her balance. Now the gun's up. Now it accidentally goes off. - He saw, and he was going to take-- he would take it away from me. He's stronger than I am. So he'd be so-- and so I just-- I can't see. I don't know what happened. - You're thinking, man, this lady just was in a mental health crisis now. She's just suffered this tragic loss. It's her husband. So yeah, not being able to remember minor details wasn't unusual. - Roberta's memory might be hazy, but she's clear about one thing. - Roberta maintains, I shot him, but this was not supposed to happen. This was an accident. I loved my husband. - We have a lot of these cases where some of you won't kill their spouse and then kill themselves. I've never found about that in the past. Ever? How about this woman? - Never. Never think about her again. Never. Never. (dramatic music) - Rather than taking Roberta's word at face value, detectives talk to the Samarit's loved ones to gain insight into their marriage. - Ken and Roberta live alone. They don't have any roommates. Your interview and family to see, oh, is it possible Ken's abusive? Is Roberta controlling? Nobody really says that. They describe Ken and Roberta as kind of the perfect couple. - Ken and Roberta did seem very happy when they worked together. They'd be joking and enjoying each other's company. - And all the time that I knew him and knew Roberta, he never said a bad word about her, right? He really cared about her. (dramatic music) - Ken's family was unaware of any financial troubles at home. - My uncle read in the newspaper that my dad's house was up for foreclosure. So he called my dad and said, hey, Kenny, what's going on with the house? You know, do you need some help? And my dad said, no, no, Roberta's got it all under control. She said it was a mix up and they changed mortgage companies or something and she sent the check to place A and it should have went to place B, but it's all covered. It's all good to go. - Loved ones also say they're surprised to learn Roberta had been struggling with her mental health. - She was always smiling. She was always positive, always up and going. - I never knew her to be suicidal or to be depressed. (dramatic music) - Despite receiving positive impressions from family and friends, the timing of Roberta's attempted suicide and Ken's sudden return doesn't feel quite right. - It seems a little unlikely that at that very moment, Ken might have walked in right as she planned to shoot herself, but it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. - There were a lot of questions asked where she said, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." - And we're imagining stuff on just limited information. If we put that with the actual physical actions, we can put it in perspective. - To verify Roberta's version of events, detectives offer an unorthodox solution. - Okay. But here's what we would like to do, today is at some point that maybe it would be well to do a reenactment for that. We have two people, one person's dead, one story. At this point she either didn't remember or he didn't grab the gun. Roberta Samard claims that she has accidentally killed her husband Ken during a thwarted suicide attempt. Detectives prepare to return to the scene to allow Roberta to reenact the morning's events. One of the things that helps us understand the chain of events that occur is a reenactment. So once Ken's body was gone, we proposed that to Roberta to do the reenactment back at the house. She agreed, so we drove her back and the house was still being processed for evidence and the like. But we did a video recording reenactment, my partner played the role of Ken. So let's go ahead and shut the door. And he's standing out there like about like that. He must have been like right there and when I opened up the door, I was standing like this and he took a step back. So we got the door here. All right, we like to form her down with Roberta. Yeah. So you have the finger down and he's right there. And then if you open the door, he's going to take a step back and open the door right. So when she opens the door, take a step back and then she'll open the door. It gave us kind of a perspective of how close they were to each other, which you know, probably two feet apart at most. So close enough to where Ken could have reached out and grabbed it. Roberta's reenactment suggests the barrel of the gun was about 18 inches from Ken when it was fired. Do you think that's what you know? I don't think he grabbed me. He grabbed us. I don't know. The story Roberta's telling detectives makes sense when you look at the trajectory of the bullet. The way it entered through Ken's neck, he's almost a foot taller than her and so she says the gun went off as I'm bringing it up to my head. That lines up. How she portrayed it, it was possible. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her so bad. But one of the things that stuck out my mind was here we are standing at a glass door looking out on a patio where just hours earlier her husband died. There was no emotion, no tears, nothing. After Roberta's confusing reenactment, investigators acquire a search warrant for the Samard home. They need to search every inch of this house to figure out what happened here. There has to be more information. So they begin searching the house. We're looking for any type of evidence that's either going to prove or disprove Roberta's story. There was a clean house. This is a well-kept older person's home just looked organized. In the course of their search detectives find something out of place. And the bottom of a laundry hamper was a foreclosure notice relating to the cell of Kenner Roberta's home for non-payment on the mortgage. It was rather weird where we found it because I know I don't and I'm sure a lot of people don't file important paperwork in the bottom of a laundry hamper. In an otherwise tidy home, it looks to investigators as though Roberta could have been trying to hide the paperwork from her husband. Roberta's signature was the only signature on those foreclosure documents. Ken's signature was not on them. In Ken's office they find something equally intriguing. They find a notebook that Ken had filled out was a really self-reflective type of notebook. It gives you a peek behind the curtain of their marriage between him and Roberta. Coming up, Ken tells his story from beyond the grave. It's really the only thing we have that gave us his thoughts and his feelings. As I'm reading Ken's notes, I'm thinking, "You poor bastard." Just hours after the shooting, investigators are conducting a thorough examination of the Samard home. Having just found a foreclosure document revealing the Samard's dire financial situation, another piece of evidence emerges in Ken's office. When we were looking, you know, we go room by room and as we're looking through this office, we come across this notebook. It was found in with his homework for the HVAC classes. It seemed like he would just been free-writing, you know, to get his emotions out. In his notebook, Ken complains about the frequent conflicts in his marriage. It had some notes in there about Roberta being controlling about money. He always has to ask permission for money or permission to spend money. In and of themselves, they weren't really anything, but it started to provide an insight into maybe this marriage or the things that Roberta had told us. Maybe the relationship wasn't all peaches and cranes. It spills it out pretty clearly that Ken does not have an accounting of where his money is going or their money is going. It does mention that she's allowed to spend money, but when he spends the money, it causes an argument. You really get this idea that he's helpless and that Roberta is the one who holds all the power in their marriage. Toward the end of the notebook, Ken even writes about leaving Roberta. I think he was just probably about ready to sever that relationship. To investigators, the notebook puts Ken's shooting in a new perspective. It's really the only thing we have that gave us Ken's thoughts and his feelings. So that's the closest we could get to how he was feeling or what his perspective of the relationship was. I never ever suspected that there was any problem in their marriage or that my dad had ever even had those thoughts. From the outside looking in, we thought Dad was happy he was living his life, he was having fun doing what he wanted to do. And that wasn't the case. Knowing the house was in foreclosure, detectives dig into where the money was going. Roberta liked having the fancy things and basically being viewed in a certain light. She liked to spoil her friends, like she liked to buy them, like extravagant gifts. I just can't imagine if you don't have the money to pay for your house, why you'd be buying extravagant gifts from your friends, other than to give this impression that you're well off and living this fabulous life. What they learned from this notebook is really important because detectives are looking at this wondering, could this be a motive as to why she shot him? The notebook, combined with a foreclosure paperwork, start to paint a clear picture. whether Ken gave her birthday impression that he was on the verge of leaving. Probably in her mind, she knew that once he found out about the house, he was going to be done. Investigators review Roberta's 911 call for further proof. Roberta, I'm sorry, I need you to take a few breaths and try and calm down. Can you check and tell me if you okay? Can you tell me where he was shot? Okay, can you check on him? I want to send medics to help him, I need you. You don't want to go see if he's okay? There's a lot of things during this investigation that that just didn't make sense. She can't tell the dispatcher where she shot him. She doesn't want to check on him, she during the interview, she acts like she's crying, but there's no tears. You put everything together and it's just a whole facade of a web of lies. After a swift investigation, detective sit back down with Roberta Samard, just 12 hours after Ken's death. We hadn't had a chance to get the autopsy done yet, through our operating on information that we had came back to the sheriff's office and had some follow-up questions. Here's kind of where we're at, is, you know, obviously something bad happened to the death of his cause. In looking at your story and everything you've told us, it rises to the level of a manslaughter. So you will be arrested today. I think you probably had that thought in your mind at some point. I think Roberta was in disbelief that she was actually getting arrested. In her mind, she thought she was going to be able to just walk out the front door of a free woman. As Roberta spends her first night in jail, local TV picks up the story. And investigators receive a call from a local real estate investor that helps put the pieces together. I was a house flipper, so I flipped homes, bottom out foreclosure options. And then I was watching a lot of the clock news and then I was totally shocked. My mind is like, oh my gosh, that's my house. The next morning I called the sheriff's office, basically like, hey, I own the house now. Do you need to talk to me? We learned Roberta had worked with the new owner to stay in the house for a few more weeks, which that time came and went. So she got another extension. You know, we're surmising that Ken never had an idea. The fact that the house was sold from under Ken's feet further immense detective suspicions. They asked if I had spoken with the husband. I've never seen him, never spoke with him, only dealt with Roberta. And, you know, in my conversations with her, she's like, oh, I handle the finances. I just don't want to upset my husband. Rather not a victor, so give her an extra week or so. And then next thing I know, the night before we're supposed to get possession of the property and her mugshot came across the train. I was so shocked just, you know, she was just like a little older lady. She was looked harmless. Brian's statement appears to confirm Ken didn't know he lost his dream home. The day Ken died was the day that they were supposed to be packed up and moved out of that house. There were no moving boxes. If I lost my house and I had to be out that day and my house was impacted, I probably wouldn't be going to work. I'd probably be packing. A month before all of this happened, my dad had started buying materials and they were still sitting out back to build on to the porch. So why would he be doing upgrades to a house that is going up for closure? My dad absolutely loved that house. He would have never lost that house, especially not for the minimal amount of money that was still owed on it. It seems Roberta had spent months hiding the truth from Ken, but time had finally run out and detective suspects she acted out of desperation. When you look at everything as a whole and you see the walls were closing in around her, I mean they were losing their house that day. But all of that could also lend itself to Roberta's story of that she was extremely depressed and had nowhere to turn and she was going to take her life. And so what detectives need is physical evidence that points to Roberta murdering her husband. On November 17th, the day after Ken's shooting, the medical examiner performs an autopsy. Investigators hope it will provide the proof they're looking for. The biggest finding in the autopsy was the wound Ken suffered was the close contact wound, which tells us that muzzle is going to be right up there, close in the center, there's going to be charring sitting around the wound and probably not going to happen from, you know, 18 or so inches away as she's as she described it. Roberta had told police she couldn't remember if Ken had tried to grab the gun to stop her from shooting that firearm. And what the autopsy revealed is there was no gunshot residue on Ken's hands indicating that in all likelihood he did not try to grab the gun from her or interfere. The evidence suggests her arm was outreached and she pulled that trigger intentionally to kill Ken some more. The autopsy blows this case open. We sent the firearm to New Oregon State Police. We wanted to know what the what the trigger pull on that firearm was because if it's one of those triggers that you barely touch it and it goes off, it gives credence to Roberta's story. In this case it was a pretty hard trigger pull. I had interviewed some people that had taken her to the the firing range and she had struggled shooting the gun. She had to squeeze that trigger pretty tight for it to go off which tells them you did this on purpose. This was intentional. Following Ken's autopsy, the charges against Roberta are increased from first degree manslaughter to murder. The trial was set for April 6, 2017 in the Woodland County Courthouse here in Albany. The outcome of Roberta Samar's murder trial hinges on the interpretation of the medical examiner's findings. The prosecution is trying to prove it was a close contact wound. The defense is trying to prove it wasn't. The trial was long, hard. Images I would never forget. But my dad's always been big on justice like you can't be a criminal in this world and not expect to pay the consequence for it. After eight days of arguments, the cases handed over to the jury. They take five hours to deliberate. The jury comes back and sides with the prosecution determining that Roberta is guilty of murdering her husband Ken. Roberta is ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison. I think 25 years is kind of a petty sentence. However, going in at 63, the odds are against her. I honestly don't think that you'll make it out of there. That being said, harsh as that may sound. I'm okay with that. Despite her conviction, Roberta continues to insist she's innocent and many questions still remain. In this investigation, the hardest thing for people to get their minds around is the whole circumstance is why Roberta resorted to killing Ken. What was the point of that? I still think it was going to be a murder suicide. She was going to kill him and then herself. Maybe it was. She wanted to save Ken from embarrassment of losing his house, but she checking down. (dramatic music) - I don't think at all that she was going to commit suicide. She's not that kind of person. I think that she just planned it wrong. - She had built a house of cards, on lies and deception, and the pressure cost her to snap. - I think it all could have been avoided if she would have been honest with Ken. I bet he would have worked through it with her. - When I think about her and how he died and what she did, I'm still very much so angry with her and doing everyone to see her face, really. - Roberta choosing to kill Ken didn't solve anything. I didn't solve any of her problems. She destroyed her own life. She took away a man who meant a lot to a lot of people. - Ken was someone I looked up to. He always listened. He could tell him anything. So I tried to be there for my child and my family and the way that he was for me. - I just thought he was still here and could play with his grandkids and watch him grow up. - I want people to know that my dad was a good guy. There was no physical, mental, emotional abuse. There was none of that going on. He loved her. He took care of her. I feel like Jesus, a reason why. We want the truth. Will we ever get that? Probably not. (upbeat music)