What Happened Inside This House Was Terrifying! True Crime Documentary With a Chilling Turn No One Saw Coming

Transcribed by ESO, translated by — Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, received a call from a man who thought his wife had drowned in their swimming pool. He said he had discovered her in the deep end, with her shorts and shoes still on. He explained that he had once worked as a lifeguard and knew how to perform CPR. Then he asked the dispatcher what he needed to do. Three children were sleeping inside the home. Over the next few days, investigators began concentrating on several things that did not align with an accidental death, a bucket, a cloth, and a cleaning solution beside the pool. Outdoor lights that, according to neighbors, had gone out approximately an hour before the emergency call. Injuries that a fall into the water could not account for, and an interval of about 90 minutes during which just two adults had been at the property. Following those clues would take investigators into a family Enterprise more than a hundred years old, an affair that had lasted less than two months, and a courtroom where jurors would decide whether an apparent drowning told the whole story. This is Jan Roseborough's story. To see how that summer night unfolded, we must first go back several decades. A woman's body is discovered below the cliffs, and everyone accepts that she died by accident. Yet certain truths never fade away. They remain with the people who will not give up searching. John Elizabeth Binkley entered the world on July 2, 1963, the daughter of Evelyn and Samuel Binkley. She was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, alongside her sister Susie and her brother Brian. In 1981, she finished her studies at Coalico High School. In 1985, four years afterward, she earned her degree from Penn State University. Banking became Jan's profession. Eventually, she managed the Fulton Bank branch in Reinholz, a small town in the county's northern region. The job placed substantial responsibility on her shoulders, supervising employees, overseeing accounts, and maintaining the confidence of customers from the surrounding community. That professional life deserves a place in her story, because later public accounts would largely define her through her death. Long before that, she was a college graduate who had established a successful career in her own right. During the late 1980s, Jan started seeing Michael Allen Roseborough. The two families were already acquainted. Michael belonged to the family behind the Roseborough Funeral Home, a familiar institution in the nearby borough of Denver, Pennsylvania. The business had remained a family operation for over a century. Michael would serve as one of its co-directors, entering a line of work grounded in reliability, confidentiality, and daily encounters with families coping with bereavement. Following roughly a year together, John and Michael wed in 1989. They went on to have four children. John continued working at the bank until the arrival of their second child in 1995. She then gave up her managerial role and devoted her efforts to her children and the community in which they were growing up. Her responsibilities did not disappear with that choice. Instead, she took them into another part of her life. Her involvement in local activities was considerable. Jan sat on the Denver Fair Committee, became president of the East Coalico Swim Team, and handled the finances as treasurer of the Coalico Creek Watershed, an environmental group. She also loved gardening, animals, yoga, and keeping fit. Her relatives would later say that children occupied the central place in her life, and she remained consistently engaged in charitable work. Those commitments reached into several areas of the community. Athletics, financial oversight, environmental protection, and public events. Taken together, they portray someone energetic, capable of organizing others, and widely present in the life of her town. There were painful losses along the way. Samuel, Jan's father, passed away in 2003. Her mother, Evelyn, died in May 2008. During that same month, another development began to take shape. Angela Funk lived nearby with her husband, Randall Funk, who went by Randy. They had two daughters. Angela and Michael Roseborough had been casual acquaintances for years, crossing paths often, including recurring morning meetings at a local Turkey Hill convenience store. In the spring of 2008, the connection changed. Angela later testified that their romance started on May 29th. By June, they were having a sexual relationship. Its intensity developed quickly. In her account, Michael was the first to tell her he loved her, and he was also the first to suggest marriage. They saw one another regularly in an apartment associated with Angela's family in other places, and even inside the Roseboro Funeral Home. Before long, they were discussing separating from their spouses. Those discussions also revealed a practical complication. Angela testified that she feared a divorce might deprive Michael of a portion of the family's funeral business. Within only a few weeks, clandestine encounters had become conversations about building a life together. Reaching that future would require the dissolution of two marriages. One had lasted almost 19 years and included four children, a home together in Reinholz, and a family identity connected to an enterprise that had survived for generations. Michael was 41 and Jan was 45. By July, the affair was still under two months old. Tuesday, July 22, 2008. That afternoon, from approximately 1.30 until 4.30, Michael Roseborough was with Angela Funk. She testified that they spent those hours together. Later, Michael returned to his family home in Reinholz. There was a swimming pool in the backyard, and the family gathered around it during the evening. Michael and Angela spoke by telephone again at 8.42 p.m. The eldest Roseboro child was visiting a friend that night. The other three children, ages 12, 9, and 6, remained at home. Soon after 10 p.m., neighbors observed that the exterior lights usually lighting the pool area were no longer on. Police said that for approximately 90 minutes before the emergency call, Michael and John were the only adults present at the house and grounds. Nobody else saw what occurred between them in that interval. No recording captured it. No person outside the couple observed it. There is no dependable account of anything they said to one another. The evidence left behind afterward provides the only basis for reconstructing those minutes. At about 11.03 p.m., Michael dialed 911. He told the dispatcher that he thought his wife had drowned, describing how he had found her in the pool's deep end, dressed in shorts and shoes. Initially, he said he had removed her from the water. He then gave answers that appeared to place her back in the pool before correcting his account once more. Although he said he had been a lifeguard and understood CPR, he asked the operator to guide him. He stated that she had no pulse and followed the instructions he received for attempting resuscitation. During one part of the conversation, he said he thought he was going to throw up. He also explained that three children were asleep in the house and listed their ages. The call contained confusion, and investigators would scrutinize it in the months ahead. But confusion alone establishes nothing. Someone facing a real emergency can struggle to communicate details clearly. Its significance depended on whether his statements matched the evidence found at the scene. Paramedics arrived to find Michael trying to resuscitate his wife. Their efforts did not save Jan Roseborough. She died at the age of 45. In his first statement to police, Michael said he had spent the afternoon and the earlier part of the evening with his family beside the pool. He reported going indoors around 10 p.m., falling asleep, and awakening approximately an hour later to find Jan in the water. The hours he had actually spent that afternoon with Angela Funk were absent from his account. The medical findings almost immediately sent the investigation in another direction. Water inside Jan's lungs showed that she had still been drawing a breath when she entered the pool. Drowning had occurred, but there were also head injuries, additional trauma from blunt force, and indications of strangulation. Court papers cited in initial news coverage described a patterned wound on her head with an L-shaped impression compatible with a tool. They also included allegations that she had been struck and kicked. Forensic pathologist Dr. Wayne Ross assessed the evidence. Ross assessed the evidence. He considered the bruises on Jan's neck consistent with a particular type of neck compression. In his conclusion, the injuries taken together indicated an assault preceding the drowning. The first accounts of the head wound did not name an exact implement, and investigators never recovered a weapon corresponding to that mark. The inquiry was no longer centered on how a woman could accidentally enter a and be unable to escape. Investigators now had to determine who had caused her injuries, and how the surroundings at the pool fitted into the attack. Several objects near the water deepened their concerns. A bucket, a rag, and a cleaning product. Injuries of the kind Jan sustained would ordinarily produce substantial bleeding. Nevertheless, investigators said they detected no blood in the areas they examined, whether within the home or outside it. The lighting became another point of interest. Detective Keith Neff proposed that switching off the light soon after 10 p.m. might have allowed someone to clean the pool area under cover of darkness. Weather complicated the examination of the exterior scene. Heavy rainfall came after Jan's death, limiting what investigators could determine from evidence outdoors. They also examined Michael's injuries. There were scratches close to his mouth and a cut on his left hand. He attributed the marks on his face to playing with one of his daughters. Investigators questioned whether a child's nails could have produced those scratches. Material collected from underneath Jan's fingernails was tested, and the DNA found there was link to Michael. Investigators regarded that result as a significant development. An affair might supply a possible motive for an attack. Biological evidence might connect an identifiable individual to a physical struggle. Meanwhile, police were uncovering Michael's involvement with Angela Funk. In examining their communications before Jan died, they sought the computer he used at work. On Saturday, August 2, 2008, just 11 days after Jan's death, police arrested Michael Roseboro on a criminal homicide charge. He was detained without bail, and authorities described him as their sole suspect. A few days afterward, District Attorney Craig Steedman publicly stated that Michael had a motive. A preliminary hearing took place before a district judge on September 26, 2008. Angela Funk testified about the affair in their discussions of divorce, including her worry that Michael might lose a share of the funeral business. Michael's lawyer argued that, after discovering his wife, his client had sought assistance and attempted to bring her back. The judge ruled that the prosecution could move forward to a trial. That decision advanced the legal process. It did not establish guilt. A jury would ultimately have to answer that question. Before the trial got underway, another fact emerged. Angela had learned that she was pregnant, and Michael was the baby's father. Testimony placed both her discovery and her disclosure to Michael after Jan had died. He had not been told before her death. The prosecution sought confirmation of fatherhood before the birth. Investigators used a prenatal paternity test, a method the testing company would later publicize in connection with the case. Its findings never became trial evidence because Michael eventually acknowledged being the father. The trial began in July 2009. Craig Steedman headed the prosecution, while defense lawyer Alan Sadamsky represented Michael. The state's argument developed through several connected layers. Prosecutors presented the affair as a motive. Michael wanted a future with someone else but would face major consequences if he obtained that future by divorcing Jan. The autopsy demonstrated an assault before the drowning. His DNA had been recovered beneath John's fingernails. The cleaning supplies and lack of detectable blood pointed, in the prosecution's view, to changes made to the scene. Prosecutors also introduced evidence concerning the pool lights, maintaining that the system was sufficiently complicated to make switching them off difficult for an unfamiliar intruder. Angela Funk occupied a central contentious place in the testimony. Lawyers repeatedly questioned the seriousness of the incident. Angela said the relationship mattered deeply to her. The defense portrayed their conversations as sexual exchanges rather than an actual commitment to a future together. The prosecution also disputed her description of intimacy with Michael after the murder. Randall Funk, Angela's husband, told the court that she had been at home the night Jan was killed. The defense drew attention to the evidence the state could not produce. Michael had not confessed. Nobody had witnessed the assault. Investigators had found no murder weapon. Michael Roseboro himself did not testify. The defense's key witness was Sam, the couple's son. He said that before leaving the house that evening, he had seen his mother scratch his father's back beside the pool. His testimony offered an innocent explanation for the genetic beneath her nails. Dr. Ross challenged that interpretation. He referred to the quantity of material recovered and its survival despite the time Jan's body spent underwater. In his view, routine physical contact did not adequately explain those findings. An outside attacker was another possibility raised by the defense. Some of Jan's jewelry could not be located, and the defense suggested that an intruder committing a robbery might have killed her. Prosecutors answered with surveillance video from a bank recorded earlier that day. Jan was not wearing the disputed jewelry in that footage, weakening the assertion that she had been wearing it during the attack. After spending almost a year behind bars, Michael Roseborough awaited the jury's decision. On Thursday, July 30, 2009, jurors announced their verdict following less than five hours of deliberations. They convicted him of first-degree murder. A separate concern arose shortly afterward. News reports disclosed that two jurors had written Facebook posts about serving on the jury. Certain posts expressed frustration over the trial's duration and inconvenience. Of greater concern, a friend responded to one post by calling for punishment of the defendant. The issue was potential outside influence, whether individuals outside the court had reached jurors who were required to judge the case solely from the evidence presented. Judge James Cullen weighed whether the situation required a hearing of the defendant. The judge's response was, "There is no evidence that the defendant is guilty," Cullen said. On September 25, 2009, Cullen handed down the required punishment of life imprisonment without parole. Michael continued to dispute the verdict. Steedman characterized the murder as an act motivated by selfishness. In October 2009, the defense sought a new trial through a formal motion. At the very least, it requested permission to question the two jurors about possible influence from their Facebook connections. Steedman said he believed the conviction would survive the challenge. It remained in place. On August 30, 2011, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court refused Michael Roseboro's petition for allowance of appeal, ending the prospect of additional discretionary review. The short order did not provide a detailed determination concerning Facebook. Its consequence, however, was unmistakable. The conviction remained intact. The prosecution of Roseboro depended on circumstantial evidence, with its force arising from the way the separate findings aligned. No individual piece alone supplied the entire case. Medical evidence formed the first foundation. Water in Jan's lungs alongside trauma to her head, other blunt force injuries, and evidence of compression around her neck transformed an apparent accident into a homicide investigation. The order of events was essential. She was attacked before she drowned. A straightforward accidental fall could not explain that progression. Biological evidence formed the second foundation. Genetic material under a victim's fingernails is a familiar sign of a possible struggle. Yet a husband's DNA found on his wife has restricted significance by itself because spouses regularly touch each other in ordinary, harmless ways. The defense recognized that limitation, making Sam's description of his mother scratching his father's back especially important. Prosecutors countered by emphasizing how much material had been collected and how it remained beneath her nails. Michael's observable facial scratches and injured hand provided additional support for that argument. The physical surroundings formed the third foundation. Cleaning equipment at the pool, a lack of the blood investigators would expect, and lighting extinguished shortly after 10 p.m. created a pattern compatible with an attempt to conceal events. Individually, none of those circumstances establishes guilt. Considered together, and alongside the state's contention that an outsider would find the lighting controls difficult to use, those details weaken the suggestion of an intruder. The fourth foundation was the chronology. Michael's description of an afternoon with his family did not agree with Angela's account of being with him. His inconsistent answers during the 911 call were also recorded as evidence. Still, uncertainty or emotional distress in an emergency conversation cannot by itself demonstrate a lie. There were genuine holes in the evidence, and those holes shaped the defense's approach. No recovered weapon explained the patterned wound on John's head. There was no witness to the attack. Reign complicated the exterior evidence, and the prenatal paternity test, although frequently discussed in later accounts, was never shown to the jury. The verdict came from the collective weight of the motive, the medical findings, the DNA, and a scene that did not substantiate an alternative to the prosecution's explanation. Neither a court nor a clinician has given Michael Roseborough a psychiatric diagnosis. The evidence provides no grounds for attaching one to him. It does, however, permit a closer look at his actions. The pace of the affair stands out most. His romance with Angela started near the end of May. Only weeks later, he had professed love and brought up marriage. By July 22nd, with fewer than two months having passed, he was spending the afternoon with her and speaking to her that evening while his wife and children were at home. This behavior suggests a strong absorption in an imagined future and a readiness to maintain two simultaneous lives, concealing one from the other. At the center of the prosecution's argument was a problem of how to leave. Divorce was an option, but it involved costs, bringing a 19-year marriage to an end, facing the response of their community and, according to Angela's testimony, potentially harming his ownership interest in the family enterprise. Prosecutors maintained that Michael wanted to begin his new life while avoiding the consequences of ending the existing one. His later actions also show a pattern of trying to control the account of events. In speaking first to police, he excluded his afternoon with Angela. He explained his facial scratches through an encounter with his daughter. Investigators believe the surroundings display evidence of cleaning. Those details each suggest an attempt to influence how others interpreted what had happened. Tension runs throughout the story. Michael's occupation required calmness around death. That professional experience neither accounts for the killing nor implies a greater capacity for violence. It does, however, help make sense of the community's difficulty in connecting the man they knew publicly with the jury's conclusion. Angela Funk's reliability as a witness was contested during the trial. She was never charged over Jan's death, and the record established neither that she expected the attack nor that she participated in the attack. The family afterward. Once the trial was over, four children were without their mother, and their father was imprisoned for life for her murder. Jan's sister, Susan Van Zant, assumed responsibility for caring for all four. A local news account in 2012 reported that the children continued to reside in the family home with her looking after them. Michael's mother, Ann Roseborough, and his sister, Melissa Vera, openly backed his assertion that he was innocent. The disagreement that had separated the two sides in court also ran through the family. Caring for children living with such devastating loss led Susan into advocacy. Jan's relatives founded Jan's Circle of Friends, which supports programs serving children affected by domestic violence or by losing a parent to death or incarceration. Its assistance goes toward professional services and opportunities for children whose home lives have been disrupted. Over time, that effort continued to expand. By 2019, the organization had collected more than $183,000 across five years. Also in 2019, Domestic Violence Services of Lancaster County named Susan the recipient of its inaugural Catalyst for Change Award, honoring her support for children and survivors. Figures published by the organization state that since 2012, Jan's Circle of Friends has raised and distributed over $724,000, directing 90% of the money of the organization. In 2016, the organization has raised $183,000. In 2017, the organization has raised $183,000. In 2017, the organization has and looking after the children in her world. Her family elected to continue building upon that part of her life. If this story kept you listening, subscribe and enable notifications to catch the next case. Share your thoughts in the comments. Which piece of evidence do you think determined the outcome?