20/20 - True Crime Vault: The Secret in Her Eyes

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

The two athletes seemed to have a perfect marriage, but the wife's sisters say that changed dramatically when her husband revealed he cheated. Originally broadcast: March 29, 2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's made to perform in the toughest conditions. It's more than a compact machine. It's a cat. Get the work done. Get a cat. Visit Torremontcat.com slash compact to discover our compact machine lineup. This is the 2020 True Crime Vault. Why was this night so much different than the others?

Because he was going to murder her! We wish you the best and the warmest feelings this holiday season. Janet, what would you like to say? One of these nights you search for the light Only find the truth Sir, 911, we're in a very hard to sleep. I'm out of here! My wife is dead! My instantaneous reaction was, oh my god, Raven has killed Janet.

That's my new knife. But then he married this woman. Did he mention his ex-wife? Yes, um, as we were just starting to date. Did he say she was murdered? This is the first night you're spending with your new husband, and the biggest topic is the deceased wife. That's a red flag.

Get out now. I was heartbroken. Nothing was happening. I was like, he's going to get away with this. The evidence just was not there. Nothing was happening. I was like, he's going to get away with this. The evidence just was not there. Evidence that can only be uncovered by looking directly into Janet's eyes. There's only one way to find out. The body of Janet Averroa, a young wife and mother, is being exhumed tonight.

She can't even rest after she's dead. Someone who pretty convincingly had killed his wife is getting off almost scot-free. So this is a typical college love story, you know, at Southern Virginia University. Raven Averroa and Janet Christensen met in college. They were both athletes, both very attractive, and he was smitten by her right away. Raven swept her off her feet. She was convinced that he was the one.

He's very charismatic. He knows how to talk to people. He was Prince Charming, and she fell for him hard. She came from a big family, big close-knit Mormon family. Janet was a confident young woman. You even see it in the photographs, right? You see this beautiful smile. you see this warm spirit, and Janet's family described her as such, that she was smart, she was friendly.

She loved children. She had an opportunity to watch all of mine as they grew up. It's not just that she loved them, I mean they all gravitate towards her. They loved her. Janet was funny, she was them, I mean they all gravitate towards her. They loved her. Janet was funny, she was sweet, she was kind, she treated everyone with respect. She made me laugh a lot. Outgoing? Definitely. Definitely she was outgoing. Soccer, swimming, basketball, she was, yeah, she was into a lot of sports and very outgoing with that. She was in a lot of sports and very outgoing with that. She already had a boyfriend, but he was very persistent in pursuing her and finally cracked

that veneer that she had. Raven Abaroa, he can be charming, he can be charismatic. He will win you over. He will make the room like him. What would she say about him? She was just infatuated. I mean, he has this going for him. He's going to be successful.

He tried very hard to make everybody believe he has a perfect life. I was wary of him, and my first impression was, why is he trying so hard? But I thought, you know, okay, Janet likes him. This is her boyfriend. He made Janet happy, and I love seeing that. Raven talked about his courtship with Janet to a local North Carolina news program. She was beautiful, attractive.

I just felt so much comfort when I was with her. It's the perfect equation, if you will. Attractive young woman, attractive young man, we share the same faith. So for Raven and Janet, it just seemed like a natural progression of their friendship. They got married at a very young age and decided to live their life together. The fact that Raven was Mormon, that mattered to her. Raven had won over Janet's family by talking about what a devoted Mormon he was, that he'd gone and done mission work, including in Peru.

She married in the Washington, D.C. temple and always carried the spirit of Christ with her everywhere she went. Life for the two of them began in this small colonial town called Smithfield, Virginia. They went to the local church, they made lots of friends with their neighbors. Just part of a big family, Raven and Janet both came from big families

and they didn't have any family in the immediate area, so they kind of adopted us. Janet has said, you know, Raven looks up to you, Tim, as a father. Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas. There's this video Christmas card they sent out, and they look very happy.

They look like a loving couple, the picture of the perfect marriage. We wish you the best and the warmest feelings this holiday season. Janet, what would you like to say? I would like to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Raven proudly shows off one of his presents, a new knife to add to his collection. That's my new knife. I got it for Christmas. Thank you, bought it myself. My dad would be very proud. I like to collect knives. Yeah, he appeared to have his act together.

I mean, he was young, newly married, had bought their first home, you know, had a couple nice cars, you know, a motorcycle, and like, wow, this guy's kind of off to a pretty fast start. They decide to move to Durham to take jobs with the sporting goods company, and they find a house there out in the suburbs. But just three and a half years into their marriage, Raven tells Janet that he's having an affair.

He's committed adultery. He came to her one day because he wanted to be out of the marriage and explained to her that he had been cheating on her with several different people, so he ended up leaving. And very soon after that, she found out she was pregnant. She didn't know what to do. She didn't want to raise the baby as a single mother. He leaves, she's left alone, she doesn't know who to turn to. She'd be confined in some of her neighbors, the only people that are close

to her. You could tell she wanted, she needed somewhere to go. She was crying, very distraught and she she told me she loved Raven and that she didn't want to have this child by herself. Janet has to debate with herself. Do I stay with this person who has disrespected our vows, our covenant, or do I try to salvage what's left of my family even though it's a tenuous relationship at this point. And I kind of read him the riot act in a major way.

You know, what the hell do you think you're doing? You're married, your wife is pregnant, you need to grow up real quick. We promised, swore up and down, that he would no longer cheat on her, that she was the only one for him, he would make it work. Soon after, you know, Kaden was born. After he moved back in, according to Janet,

it was a day-by-day process. So she really never knew what to expect. I wouldn't say that she was happier in her marriage, but she was happy to be a mother. He told me on several phone calls that Janet and him have mended the fence. He realized what the problems were. It was lack of communication.

He's grown up. Is that going to make this work? Janet didn't know it, but her youngest brother, Mark Christensen, says he had already witnessed Raven's mood swings. He says one day, Raven falsely accused him of stealing money, and then things turned violent. He just snapped. He started saying the craziest things to me, and it still haunts me to this day.

He said, you don't know who I really am and what I'm capable of. And I just stared at him, grabbed him really hard, and slammed my head against the wall. I was scared. I was some scrawny little teenager. I've never seen someone's eyes turn like that before, just full of rage, full of hate. Mark says he never told Janet because he didn't want to add trouble to an already fragile relationship. The couple is now back together, but Raven is stressed about the money.

They go to the church for help, and they're actually able to get financial assistance from the church. Their landlord is very gracious as well, giving them two months free rent so that they don't have to worry about that. Things were really tough. Financially speaking, things were really tough. Raven's boss discovered that there was some unaccounted for inventory that was missing. He had been stealing merchandise. Raven was caught embezzling.

Apparently he saw this as a way to overcome some financial hurdles in this young marriage. Raven then ultimately pleads guilty to the theft charges. Raven appears to be sort of like the ultimate opportunist. People like him, they're basically antisocial. They don't really care. And they're going to do whatever makes them feel good or makes them money. One spring night, April 26, 2005, he says he's going to go play soccer and that Janet

is at home getting ready to go to bed. And that's where the story takes a turn for the worst. Raven went off to play an indoor soccer game with his buddies and believed that Janet and their baby boy, Katen, would be going to bed. He stopped at a convenience store on the way home. Gets back at 10 o'clock, goes upstairs in their house, and finds Janet covered in blood. I'm out of here! My wife is dead! She's in shock and there's blood everywhere. She's in shock?

Yes. Okay, you're gonna have to calm down. How old is your wife? She's 25. I'm sending the paramedics to help you now. Stay on the line. I'll tell you exactly what to do. Raven sounds hysterical, very upset, on the verge of tears. He's frantic. He's saying Janet's dead.

Can you tell how many times your wife has been shot? Like right in the chest. She was in a pool of blood. Couldn't be saved by the paramedics and first responders who arrived. There is another breaking story right now. Just before 11 Tuesday night, Durham police are called to this Ferran drive home. Responding to a call from the victim's husband, Raven Averroa. When they arrive, they find 25-year-old Janet Averroa. Murders aren't saying how she was killed.

My parents were called, I think, about 5 o'clock in the morning. And Raven was on the phone and they couldn't understand him. And the sight of police tape and investigators in this normally quiet neighborhood came as a shock. He was calling to tell them that Janet was dead and she had committed suicide. I just stared. I couldn't say anything. I was frozen. I think I was in shock the whole day. We automatically knew that was not right. She wouldn't have done it to Kate. No, she would have never killed herself, ever. We knew that wasn't true. Friends tell us she was married with a newborn baby

and was looking forward to life as a mother. I got there and saw the yellow crime lab tape. I was like thinking, maybe it's not this house. Maybe it's next door. But it won't. It was her house. I said, is it a little tiny blonde-headed girl that's dead? And I didn't want it to be her.

But it was. Hours after the discovery, the body of the young woman was removed from the home. We watched as they brought her body out of the house. out of the house. The police quickly learned that she stabbed multiple times, and that's what causes her death. She was not shot. Investigators captured images inside the house. There are things out on the counter. In particular, her engagement ring and her

wedding band are out. You see these pieces of potential evidence scattered throughout this home that's now become a crime scene. The police find when they search the scene a bloody footprint, a fingerprint. It's noticeably absent. It's Raven's laptop as well as a knife that went missing apparently that night. It was clear that this is a homicide. Police immediately find that there are no signs of forced entry.

No sign that anyone smashed a window to get in, broke down a door to get in. No evidence of anybody else being in the home that wasn't supposed to be there. As soon as you came through the door, she locked the door. You have an entire community rattled, concerned. Been safe up until now, I guess. I just hope they catch you overnight.

Someone has come in and killed this pretty young mother. There seem to be very few clues. The killer is somewhere in our community. They don't feel safe until they find out who did it. A lot to think about considering where she was killed. Janet Ebroa was found inside her Farrin Drive home with what appeared to be a stab wound in her chest. Janet's family holds a vigil in downtown chest. Janet's family holds a vigil in downtown Durham. They want to bring as much attention to this case as they possibly can.

When Kaden was five months old, she brought him by the office to visit. I was holding him and he was looking at his mommy, squealing with excitement. People wore purple ribbons in honor of Janet, in honor of her life that was stolen so tragically. You are his child, his love not surrounds you. At this time, no one has been charged and the case is still under investigation. It has been classified as a homicide. We'd like anybody that has any information to call us. No matter how insignificant, they may think it is.

I kept talking to Raven about, you've got to help solve this case. Janet's family is desperate to find out what happened to her. But Raven, it seems, not so much. Just days after the murder, he leaves the state with his little boy, Kaden. Was it just too painful for him, or was he running away? His family was in Utah, so to me, that made logical sense. But he hasn't helped the police. He hasn't set out a reward of, you know, help me find my wife's killer.

My thought is if somebody murders my wife or a child or any close family member of mine, I'm banging on the police door saying, what have you done lately? Raven did nothing. He left and never came back. Raven provided cooperation at the beginning

of the investigation, but there have been subsequent requests for interviews that have gone unanswered. Janet's sisters start playing detective. Like amateur sleuths, they discover some things that just don't add up. He had taken out a life insurance policy soon after she was pregnant with Kaden. Even before his wife is buried, he

calls to cash in that life insurance policy. How much was the policy? 500,000 on her. Is he capable of doing that, doing it for the insurance money? Absolutely. Any doubt in your minds that Raven killed your sister? No.

No. And Kaden, the baby, was in the next room. Yep. How could a father do this? It's all about him. It's not about Janet. It's not about Kayden. It's about him and his needs and his wants at that point. He is a violent person. I've seen that side of him. I've seen the evil in him. We would obviously like to talk to Raven. He hasn't been ruled out as a person of

interest, but it's still an open investigation. Raven goes on a local Fox program called NC Wanted. He makes clear that he's not the killer and that he wants Janet's case to be brought to justice. The bottom line is that I wasn't involved with the death of my wife, that I would do anything in the world to keep her here with me. And that's something that I think that people who truly know me can understand and appreciate. Now there's physical evidence that seems to back up his claim.

That bloody footprint doesn't match Raven. And the fingerprint found at the scene unidentified. Who was that? Whose finger was that? One of these nights you search for the light, only find the truth. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BEMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. July 31st, Project Runway is back in dramatic fashion. This is more stressful than Cinderella at the ball. Welcome to the runway. Heidi Klum returns as host. One day you're in and the next day you're out. I'm here to show them who's the Queen with Christian Siriano

And judges Nina Garcia and law roach. I hated your dress. Hey, it's such a big word. It's a short word It's only four letters project runway July 31st on freeform stream on Hulu and Disney Plus To see a young mother killed while her baby slept on the other side of a wall was rather shocking for everyone. This community is still really desperate for answers, wondering where's the justice? Where is this killer? This killer is still out there. Raven moves to Utah where his family is. Janet's family was troubled by the fact

that he wasn't there with them, advocating for Janet, fighting for answers. Raven doesn't seem to be taking Janet's death too harshly. He's actually back on the dating scene. Back in Durham, everyone is focused on the case or trying to get answers, and Raven is in Salt Lake City. And then you learn that he's fallen in Durham, everyone is focused on the case or trying to get answers, and Raven is in Salt Lake City. And then you learn that he's fallen in love, that he's started a relationship with a young woman named Vanessa Pond. She wasn't interested in a relationship, but she meets Raven at the kids' school. Her daughter went to school with his son, Kayden. I wanted nothing to do with him or the conversation he was trying to have whenever we'd see each

other at daycare picking up our kids. He just started small talking and he asked me to lunch. He charms her and she feels sorry for him. She feels he's Mormon also like she and they decide to go ahead. She agrees to have lunch with him him Raven has a way with women He has a way of getting them to trust him He has this pattern of sort of sweeping these women up in this whirlwind before they know it They're too invested in the relationship to

Pay attention to what may be some red flags. What was it about him that you liked? he seemed very upfront very honest and genuine and attention to what may be some red flags. What was it about him that you liked? He seemed very upfront, very honest and genuine. And I found out that he was a single father. And I really, really admired that. I've been a single mom for five years. I know what it takes to raise a child. I thought, you know, maybe I'll give him a chance because,

you know, he could be a fantastic father, fantastic husband. He might be. I finally fell for the nice guy, is what I thought. Did he mention his wife or what happened to her? Yes, as we were just starting to date, you know, he just mentioned that, well, I should probably tell you, a lot of people think that my wife's not around because, oh, she's a drug addict or she's crazy, but my wife actually died.

I immediately felt so sorry for him. And I felt as though I wanted to be there for him and accept him and cater. And to take them in and give them all the love that they're missing out on. Did he say she was murdered? He said that there was an intruder and that his wife was killed and that he'd found her.

And he'd left it at that. Vanessa's the daughter of a cop. Vanessa decides to do a little homework. Find out about this guy. So my curiosity got the best of me and I Googled her name and then I Googled his name as well. Breaking story right now,

the 25 year old Janet Averroa murdered. She was stabbed to death. Stabbed three times. Stab wound in her chest. No one has been ruled out as a suspect. She was really rattled when she found out the truth about Raven. That night I stayed up until about four o'clock in the morning reading blogs, watching his interviews, reading all the news stories about it, going out of my mind. Thinking what?

I wasn't convinced that he was innocent. She sees an interview that Raven had done with a local TV station back in North Carolina. I remember watching the interview, and I wasn't convinced. In the interview they asked him what he saw, what he came home to. I don't like talking about what happened to her. It's not because I don't love her, it's not because I don't want to find out who did it.

It's because I have so many good memories with her. So I went over and I spoke with him, asked him the questions that I had and he removed any and every doubt from my mind. He had his stories about how people were trying to frame him, about how horrible the cops were. Were you worried that this might be a mistake? I didn't have a question in my mind at the time. Vanessa's parents definitely were concerned for the pace of the relationship, so they even took it upon themselves to ask Raven directly if he was responsible for Janet's murder.

They confront him about this. What happened to Janet? What's the real deal here? His response was, he kind of sidestepped the question. He didn't say, yes, I did it did it or no I didn't do it. He said, I loved my wife. I loved her so much. Which insinuates that he didn't do it, but he didn't come right out and say that he didn't.

He was in tears and she went over and put her arm around him to console him and comfort him. She says, no, I know the guy by now, and I'm really convinced that he's not guilty of this. Raven was able to calm her fears. Raven was able to convince her that he loved his wife, that he loved his son, that he was fighting for justice, that he wanted answers just as badly as Janet's family did.

And Vanessa was willing to accept this. Soon after that, Raven asked my dad for my hand in marriage and my... Raven may be ready to move on in Utah, but back in North Carolina, Janet's friends and family can't let it go. When they hear about his new love interest, they pick up the phone and they give Vanessa

a call. We were fearful for her, as we are fearful for any woman that he becomes involved with. And they said, well, Vanessa, if we can tell you one thing, it's get out now. Get out. I was heartbroken. I did not want to believe at all that he had done this. And she still married him? Yes. What does that tell you?

That he is a really good salesman. The wedding and the reception took place in September in our yard. He asked Raven, just take good care of my little girl. He promised me he would. They're on their way to starting this new life, and that's the veneer. That's the presentation. But what's actually happening behind the scenes is the polar opposite of that.

It's in Las Vegas on their honeymoon where there's the first sign of trouble. And then he cuddled up closer to me, and he said, I promise I'll never hurt you. That's a red flag. It's been three years now since that awful murder of Janet Abaroa. But now Raven is happily married, it appears, to a new woman in Utah.

They go on their honeymoon in Vegas and Vanessa recalls Raven talking about Janet. You're talking about your deceased wife on the evening of your honeymoon. He started talking about Janet and how mad he was after she died. Not how sad, not how heartbroken. Just mad. And then he cuddled up closer to me and he said, I promise I'll never hurt you. And he said, I promise I'll never hurt you. This is the first night you're spending with your new husband,

and the biggest topic is the deceased wife. That's a red flag. Yeah, it is an odd thing for a newly married husband to confess to his wife, I would never hurt you. Yeah, it is an odd thing for a newly married husband to confess to his wife, I would never hurt you. I mean, I'm sure Vanessa's like, oh, you would never hurt me. Why would you say that? You know, I would just assume that you would never hurt me. You're my new husband. Within moments, he could switch.

He could say the most horrible things and then moments later, he would apologize. I'm sorry, I was just mad. That's just what I say when I'm mad. That's just what I do. According to Vanessa, things started getting really bad. What started out as verbal abuse is now physical abuse. He grabbed me from the door and threw me up against the wall, and then I fell. Later, he tried to convince me that I had tripped. Vanessa's able to make the determination based on the deterioration of this new marriage that something is amiss here and that she may not have married the person that she thought she married. The ink hasn't even dried on Vanessa's marriage license and she realizes she's made a terrible mistake. The light just disappears from his eyes and he becomes another person.

And that part is terrifying. Are you convinced you would have been his next victim? Yeah. And just like that, after just four months, the marriage is over. Vanessa no longer believes in Raven's innocence, but police back in North Carolina are still struggling years after the murder to find direct evidence of his guilt. And Janet's family, well they just about had enough. At this point we pretty much all knew he did it. I couldn't fathom why he hadn't been arrested. I was so mad because nothing was happening.

I was like, he's going to get away with this. The family had their suspicions all along. When I found out that she had died, even when it was believed at first that she committed suicide because that's what Raven told us, I knew that he had something to do with it. I wanted to believe that it was somebody else, but it kept just going through my mind and

the only person I pointed to was Raven. My instantaneous nanosecond reaction was, oh my God, Raven has killed Janet. Raven was flat broke. He had lost his job for embezzling. They were getting assistance from the church. He would do anything to get more money. He desperately needed cash. Not long before Janet's murder, Raven took out a half million dollars

life insurance policy for his wife. And they never missed a payment. Raven never missed a payment on those life insurance policies. I mean, here's a guy who's on church welfare, he's lost his job, but he's still paying his $154 a month life insurance. You know, me, if I can't put food on the table,

maybe I shouldn't be paying for life insurance. Dan's sisters then start cataloging all the lies that Raven has been telling him. And they realize he's been lying to them ever since he said, I do. the lies that Raven has been telling him. And they realize he's been lying to them ever since he said, I do. Even lying about whether he did missionary work, he claimed he did, in Peru.

He never went to the mission training center. He never had a passport. He never went to Peru. So if you're gonna enter into a relationship with a young Mormon woman, and you're gonna lie to her parents about what happened on your mission that you didn't even go?

His whole existence with that family and with Janet was based on a monumental lie. From the very beginning? From the very beginning. Liar, cheater, deadbeat, but a murderer? Well, the Durham police were not willing to take that step, at least not yet. The police have a huge handicap. No direct evidence tying Raven to the murder. The direct evidence they do have, that mysterious bloody footprint, the inconclusive fingerprint, points away from

Raven Abaroa and suggests there may have been a stranger in the house. With cases like this, we are constantly looking for enough information where we feel we can present this to a jury and we can win beyond a reasonable doubt. That's our the burden of proof. This is a circumstantial case. It's hard. It's not easy. Well, you know what? Sometimes justice isn't easy.

It's been four years. I don't... I've done nothing. The family's very frustrated. The sisters decide to turn up the heat on this very cold case, so they sit down with me on ABC's Primetime Crime in an effort to get some more attention. Cases that seem impossible to crack. Crimes that seem impossible to solve. That's why there's primetime crime. He's out free out there. Yes he is.

Doing what he wants. Yes he is. Does that anger you? Very much so. Yes. And fearful for other women or other people that come in contact with him. But he needs to be stopped from hurting anybody else, like Vanessa.

I mean, we're concerned about other people getting hurt. If we could prevent that, then we feel like we're at least accomplishing something and that Janet's death wasn't just for nothing. We wanted to get Raven's side of the story, so we go to his mother's house outside of Salt Lake City. I knock on the door, I talk to them, but they turned me away saying they would not comment on this case and neither would Raven.

I was very happy that my sisters went to ABC and went public about him. I was hoping that this would put pressure on the police, put pressure on the DA. Now this made public, people are going to start getting outraged. I think when TV gets involved and tells the story and what's going on, it helps move justice along. After our program airs, my interview with those sisters, something remarkable happens. The very next day we get a call from the Durham Police Department saying we've assigned a new detective to the case. A new detective takes over this case and he's about to change the course of this entire investigation.

I feel myself getting frustrated. I'm not 100% sure why. Inside the Durham Police Department, this case is going from one detective to another detective to another detective. Eventually, it's assigned to an investigator who starts to see things that others didn't see before. I came with a fresh set of eyes and then I kind of ran with it. Charles Soule was one of the first police officers on the scene the night Janet got murdered. He showed up with a canine unit. Well now, four years later, as a detective, he takes over the entire case.

Raven, who's a talker, which for a detective, that's a home run. I mean, if your suspect's talking, regardless of what he's talking about, that was good. Raven seemed comfortable talking. He'd already done an interview with NC Wanted that was later published online. I'd always go in and give a kid a kiss. And that's when I found out

that something wasn't wrong and Janet died that night. I wasn't there. Raven basically, within two weeks, packs up and moves across the country. He had left and gone to Utah. My training was, hey, let me call this guy and see if he wants to talk to this North Carolina detective. I kind of studied Raven. I mean, he's certainly a narcissist, My training was, hey, let me call this guy and see if he wants to talk to this North Carolina detective.

I kind of studied Raven. I mean, he's certainly a narcissist, and I played the dumb southern cop, and he ate it up. What's sort of odd is that Raven records his conversations with Detective Soul. And this is sort of predates the social media selfie video time that we live, but he's literally shooting video of himself and then offering courtside commentary. Alright, we'll see you later.

I don't feel too good about that. I feel myself getting frustrated. I'm not 100% sure why. You know, the more stuff I give them, the more stuff that gets leaked. He was unnerved by these conversations. He knew this detective was drilling into things that hadn't been scrutinized that closely before. I need to win the lottery.

You know, if I were to win $3 million, I would dedicate $2 million to fighting this. Two-thirds of my winnings, if you would. So, Owen, to make Janet's name more recognized at Southern Virginia. I thought it was very bizarre that he talks about, I need to win the lottery. Oh, by the way, I would do something for Janet as well. So come on. Narcissistic, anti-social, egotistical personalities do things like this because they think they're clever.

Unfortunately, for them, is that they're also sort of giving the police additional pieces of information about you and how you think. Very quickly Detective Soul realized that Raven was telling different stories at different moments in time. He wasn't keeping his story straight. The lights were on, the lights were off, the child was crying, the child wasn't crying. The night that your wife dies is something that you would probably have emblazoned in

your mind and you would remember it in rather vivid detail. You don't get those things wrong if you're telling the truth. Do you feel like doing CPR with help? She's not with me. She's not. I need my face help. You need your what? My face help with my church.

I need my help, please. Not once does Raven ever ask for help for his wife. You need your what? Not once does Raven ever ask for help for his wife. And when people call 911, that's what they do. As a detective looks at the crime scene to assess the possibility of an intruder, he wants to see if there was a struggle. Because if she didn't know the person who came in, there likely would have been a fight.

They expected to see items smashed, doors off hinges. Nothing was disturbed in that room. As a matter of fact, the blood was contained in a very small space. And you gotta remember, just on the other wall is her child. So it would have been normal for that room to be destroyed in the struggle. The detectives see very little that would lead them

to believe this was a home invasion or a burglary. So then the question would be, who could have done that? To have someone break into your house, pass a wedding set, you know, her diamond ring, or an engagement band, the electronics which are common, stolen in a break-in, and go upstairs to steal a knife and a computer, it was very odd. Remember, Raven had told police there was a knife missing from his collection. Detective Sol says when he asked Raven about it, he was very touchy on that subject. When I brought up the whole throwing knife thing, it always was kind

of like the dentist poking at a tooth that's bad. He became frustrated with me, like, why do you care about this? Well, it's kind of important your wife was stabbed to death. Raven then makes another video where he actually has a two-edged knife that he holds and he twists. Now, all of a sudden, Raven has a knife that he says was overlooked by investigators at the crime scene.

This is a knife that has been in my possession since I got my stuff back from my brother my dad moved out of my house for me after Janet passed away. His message to the police in that video holding that knife is this was in the house where my wife was murdered. How did you not find this in the crime scene? One ploy that I think Raven's trying to put out there is that the police are incompetent, that the knife in question was there, it wasn't there and they didn't find it. But I think Raven's trying to obviously

discredit whatever investigation they're working on that involves him. You got to remember we're talking about less than a 10 by 10 room. So for a knife that's that big and you're there cleaning up a room where there was a murder, a stabbing, you're going to overlook a knife. It's a throwing knife, but I'm going to be, I'm mailing this to the detectives. It just kind of was bizarre that, you know, he would all of a sudden mail a knife. Was he taunting police officers? Could this be the murder weapon? There's something else that intrigues detective Sol

in the crime scene photos. The first thing I'm looking at is, well, her contact lens case is open. I said to myself, well, she's ready to go to bed, you know, and she still has her contacts in. You know, that's unusual. That gives him a hunch that maybe Raven Averroa's story about Janet going to bed before he left for that soccer game may not be the case.

The only way for detectives to find out if Janet was wearing her contact lenses when she was killed is to exhume her body. It definitely seemed like Detective Soul was digging deep, literally and figuratively speaking. Detective Soul comes face to face with the victim, Detective Sol was digging deep, literally and figuratively speaking. Detective Sol comes face to face with the victim, looking for a piece of evidence that can only be uncovered by looking directly into Janet's eyes.

In March 2017, police in Ketchikan, Alaska got a worried call. And I haven't heard from them, so I'm getting worried. It was about a beloved surgeon, one of just two in town, named Eric Garcia. When police officers arrived to check on the doctor, they found him dead on a couch. Is it a suicide? Is it a murder? What is it? From ABC Audio in 2020, Cold-Bblooded mystery in Alaska is out July 29th Listen wherever you get your podcasts

I'm Ryan Coogler when Katrina hit in 2005 the images on the news were impossible to ignore But we didn't see where the stories behind those images We got you baby the people the decisions Systems that fail this ain't no game We set out to tell those stories through the voices of the people who the decisions, the systems that failed. This ain't no game. We set out to tell our stories through the voices of the people who live through the disaster. This is their account of what really happened and why it matters today.

Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time premieres Sunday at 8 on National Geographic and streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. At first he comes off very charming. Prince charming. Within moments he could switch. He told me how much he hated me and how much he didn't care if I died. Are you convinced you would have been his next victim? Yeah. Did he mention his wife? Did he say she was murdered?

He got away with murdering my sister. The body of Janet Averroa, a young wife and mother, is being exhumed tonight. I'm to physically check her eyes. And now finally, her husband Raven is on trial for her murder. He's waiting for with the knife. Bam.

Then suddenly, the proceedings come to a screeching halt. Lawyers discover email between Janet's ex-boyfriend and Janet. The defense tried to paint it, could this guy have done this? Less than 60 days later, she was murdered. And we get this bombshell announcement. Screw the justice system, screw the defense. I know this happened. He's going to walk free. In my mind, that makes every woman out there a target.

Don't walk, run. It's been five years since Janet Abaroa was found dead in a pool of blood in their home by her husband. The investigation is painstakingly slow. Janet Ebroa was found inside her Ferran Drive home with what appeared to be a stab wound in her chest. Durham police have not named any suspects, but will only say her murder was not random. Days went by, months went by, eventually years went by. It was frustrating and upsetting, and it was also sad for us

because we wanted justice for my sister. For Janet's family, there was only one suspect, and that suspect was Raven Abreuah. The common sense stuff in the case it just didn't add up. And one of the more intriguing pieces of evidence is that half a million dollar insurance policy that Raven bought on Janet just months before her murder. Certainly the insurance policy is a quick one to jump right to. When I got the case, I dug back on one of the first police incidents that a vehicle that he's financing

just spontaneously can bust. An insurance claim is made. It just burned up, no longer existed. I just thought, wow, that's kind of strange. And then he lands this job where he eventually is charged with embezzlement. It's important for this case because I think that that was a big part of the motive is, is the financial situation with Raven.

And then there's that picture of the contact lens case that belonged to Janet. At this point, they have possible motive, they have leads, they have strong suspicions, but they want physical evidence. The contact lenses, if they can find them, could be just that. She always took out her contacts before going to bed. And I mean always. We shared a bathroom all through high school.

We went to college together. We shared hotel rooms. She high school. We went to college together. We shared hotel rooms. She always took out her contacts. It's an important piece of information to punch holes in Raven's story. Raven's story is that she was going to bed as he was leaving.

The fact that her contacts were not out, I knew right away that she was not in bed. I knew that he was lying. The only way to support it would be to physically check her eyes because the ME's report didn't denote contact lens being present when they did her autopsy here in North Carolina. Contact lenses on a dead body are often overlooked during an autopsy because medical examiners won't necessarily look for them unless they're given reason to do so. Detective Sowell needs to determine were her contact lenses in her eyes at the time of

the murder. There's only one way to find out. I received a strange phone call from Detective Charles Sowell. He said if somebody exhumed a body that had a contact lens in it, would it still be there? And I said, soft contact lens will degenerate over time. The exhumation was something that we didn't want to have to do unless we felt like it was going to be necessary. And the family was supportive of it.

It's hard because she was being dug up and then, OK, she was already murdered. Now she can't even rest after she's dead. It's a little emotional, but at the same time, I was thinking, if this is what it takes, we have to do this. It was a big deal when her body would be exhumed. It was the lead story that night on our newscast.

At the cemetery, workers began the process using a backhoe to remove Janet Abaroa's vault and casket. When they exhumed Janet's body the medical examiner's office finds little bits of fragments. Could those be Janet's contact lenses? They send them out for analysis. After I received these fragments and I then cleaned them the material actually resumed a convex shape typical of your contact lens, but the key was finding the numbers one, two, three. This was conclusive evidence that this was an AcuView contact lens. But this type of evaluation had never been done before, so to prove the scientific validity of his work, this ophthalmologist had to conduct an experiment.

So I then did a burial simulation study using pig eyes. With regular contacts, I had to show what happens to a contact lens over a period of time if it is buried with the body. I applied the contact lens, I applied a lens cap, which is done at your funeral home, and I got these little caskets and buried them actually in my backyard. And the final analysis showed that the contact lenses did change just like the ones we discovered.

That's the physical evidence that kind of shoots down Raven's stories about Janet getting ready for bed and him going off to a soccer game. And Detective Soule believes that these inconsistencies are evidence of someone who may not have told the truth from the start. Now that the body's been exhumed, they're also looking for more.

For some reason, I'll never understand. He mailed us a knife. And we did some tool marking based on the bones that were cut to match them up with the knife that had been sent to us. They were able to say that the wounds were consistent with the knife that was found. If the knife is clean, you're never going to be able to say it was the murder weapon.

After a while, Detective S Sol is building a profile. They have his financial history. They have his odd behavior. They have his infidelity. And what he sees is a person who appeared to be this loving, attractive, doting father who may, in fact, be someone who is a murderer. This was a tough case to build.

But finally, they felt like they had enough to tip the scales to charge Raven and bring him in. I'd never really had face-to-face with Raven at the time. When I explained to him who I was and where I was from and then, you know, presented him with a warrant, I mean, he was, you know, visibly nervous and shook it. Raven is arrested and then extradited to North Carolina, where he will be put on trial

for the first-degree murder of his wife. And by the way, he's about to come face to face with a trail of mistresses. I just wanted to be done with it. Raven Aberola. He's living in Idaho at the time. He's arrested and then extradited back to North Carolina to face the murder charge.

The fact that it took so long for him to be indicted and arrested, it was frustrating and upsetting. The arrest of Raven Abaroa puts Janet's death back into the spotlight front page news again. Tonight jury selection is underway in the Raven Abreuah murder trial. I was concerned because a lot of the evidence was circumstantial, but I felt that if the jury looked at the evidence and all the circumstantial evidence objectively, they would see that it was him. Eight years have passed since Janet Aberro's death, and now finally her husband Raven is on trial for her murder. For Janet's sisters, it's been a long journey. Remember, they helped reignite the investigation when they spoke out publicly to us.

The court was packed every day. Raven's family was there. Janet's sisters, lots of reporters, lots of spectators, members of the public, online sleuths. Her sister Erica gets chills when she sees Raven for the first time in years. The whole trial, every time that he was brought in, he never looked in our direction. He never looked at me. He never looked at my sister. And he just had his head down the whole time. I mean, an innocent man would want to reach out to the family and say, I didn't do this.

Raven went from just this baby face kid to, he a little grizzled a little hardened and just very emotionless Adrian Nelson provides really pivotal testimony in this trial She is one of Janet's very best friends Janet seemed to talk to her about what was happening in her marriage She was concerned that Raven was bipolar and that he would not take his medication. She didn't know what she was going to get from day to day. But that most of the time if it was good she was waiting for it to get bad again. I can't stand to look at you, get out. I don't want to be around you. I don't want to see you. And then the next week he's up on the stand at church sharing how much he loved his wife

and how much she meant to him. She spoke with Janet the day of the murder and broke down in tears on the witness stand talking about losing her friend to this violent murder. I spoke to her the day of her murder. I felt like something was wrong. And what'd you do? I asked her, I said, is Raven being nice to you?

Is he treating you good? And I asked her like three times. And she wouldn't answer me. She would turn it back on Caden. The prosecution uses a classic technique. When you don't have enough forensic evidence, you attack the character of the defendant. One of the best ways to do that is parade all the ex-lovers, his mistresses. Did he flirt with you? Yes. Did you flirt back with him? Yes.

Pretty soon. Annabel Javiza was a student, and she and Raven met at a college party while Raven was married to Janet. What if your wife finds out? You know, what if she looks at your cell phone records or anything like that? He said, I've got a different SIM card that I use and I switch out the SIM card so she won't ever know

that I've text messaged you or called you. She's actually a teenager, a 17 year old and talks about how frightened she was when she was on a date with Raven. Annabelle testified that one night in his car, Raven pressured her aggressively to have sex with him. She panicked. We pulled off and eventually we ended up having sex.

And I just wanted it to be over. And I just kept going like this and saying, okay, if something happens to me, I'll leave, you know, my hair in here, something, you know, so if they search the car, then they'll be able to find my DNA or something knowing that I was here. Raevis seems oddly disengaged. He seems unplugged, disinterested in what's happening moment to moment in this trial. The whole thing just makes me feel small and little.

I just wanted to be done with it. Typically you say that the most powerful evidence can be physical evidence, but in a case like this, being able to have woman after woman testify about how scary he was, it's arguably even more powerful. The stories in that trial were horrific. The hair in the back of my head was standing up, it chills. I think that what happened to her, again, part of the mosaic. If you put your nose up next to a mosaic, you're not going to see anything. But as you back away, and starting putting these pieces together, in a circumstantial case, which this is, if you put it together and back away,

it tells a story and tells a pattern. What was it like being in the courtroom and seeing Raven? That was very hard. More than anything, it was really, it was very hard to see his face. How did he look? He looked cold. If an innocent man were sitting in the courtroom hearing all of this about his own wife,

shouldn't he be heartbroken? The star witness in this case was Raven's second wife from Utah, Vanessa Pond, and she testified how horrible the abuse was, psychological and physical. He told me how much he hated me and how much he didn't care if I died. how much he didn't care if I died.

And he expressed how much he wanted to hit me. And he swung his hand back and he stopped right before he hit my face, he got in my face and laughed at me for flinching. I then had to compose myself and be late to my bridal shower. It was very painful, and oddly enough, I still felt conflicted. Still? I knew that it was the right thing, and I knew exactly how I felt about it,

and I knew that he had done it. I knew he was responsible. But you had once loved this man. I had once believed he was the love of my life. And that confliction was very, very strange to feel. Vanessa Podd became one of the most important witnesses. But there was an additional layer of heartbreak to this tragedy.

Not only was Janet a young mother with a six-month-old baby boy, she was pregnant too. She cried and said that it wasn't going to be good, that Raven wasn't going to be happy that she was pregnant. In the weeks before her murder, Janet was keeping a secret. Months after her murder, we finally get her autopsy report. And it hits our newsroom and we realize not only was Janet a young mother with a six-month-old baby boy, she was pregnant too, which was just another heartbreaking layer to this tragedy. I did not know that she was pregnant.

She did not tell us. I believe that that put a lot of extra stress on him. It wasn't just the issue of killing his wife, Janet. It was the unborn child that he slaughtered. He never had a chance. Why? of killing his wife, Janet. There was the unborn child that he slaughtered. He never had a chance. Why? Very few people knew about that, but among those who did,

her friend Kathy Cheek. She went to the doctor. She cried and said that it wasn't going to be good, that Raven wasn't going to be happy, that she was pregnant because she didn't want a child at that time. When you look at a murder and believe that it's a domestic murder, you then go to motive. In this case, a couple things jump out.

One is that Raven had taken out a fairly large insurance policy on Janet and that she was also pregnant, which means that he was then going to have to deal with a child. He's used to living hound hog. He's used to living high on the hog. He's used to stealing, getting his money. Then you got insurance. He couldn't afford anything else, but he kept paying that. He was biding his time. He was waiting. The problem with that is Janet got pregnant again.

I think that Raven thought that the grass was going to be greener on the other side of the fence. And I think what Raven saw is the ability to collect this money. Next, the state presents evidence that Raven carefully planned his alibi and the home burglary story. And Janet's sister Sonia says she found his behavior odd. I felt like he wasn't fully cooperating with the detectives, so I went through his belongings. And what if anything did you find? Janet's sister Sonja says she found some computer disks. She found that odd because remember,

on the night Janet was murdered, Raven says his computer was stolen. I looked through the disks on the computer. All the files had modified data for 2505, which was the day before her murder, which, like I said, was alarming to me because one of the things the detectives first told us was they didn't believe that it was a break-in

because the only thing that was missing was his laptop and knives. He downloads, backs up all of his files off of his laptop onto disks just hours before his laptop is stolen and his wife is murdered by an intruder. That's how he spent his day, ladies and gentlemen, on April 25th, 2005, dropping in Dragon so he could get everything on that disk.

He knew what he was gonna do. He knew what was gonna happen the next day. He couldn't lose his computer stuff. So he backed up his computer stuff. Raven says that on the day of the murder, he took off from work. He spent the day at home watching Kayden, his son, and running errands. But before he went out to play soccer, prosecutors say he did something he had never done before. He locks the family's guard dogs in a back shed.

Normally the dogs sleep in crates under a counter in the kitchen inside their home. Do you know whether the dogs stayed inside or outside? Janet said they stayed inside. She said while Raven was away at games, she liked to keep him in the house because she felt protected. Detective Sowell believed that the dogs were removed from the house because Raven didn't want them to be around this violent murder,

that the dogs would have reacted and tried to protect Janet. Why was this night so much different than the others? Because he was going to murder her. Prosecution also attacks Raven's alibi for being almost too perfect. Raven tells the police a story that he leaves the house, he goes to a game, he interacts with people. They find witnesses to support that he was at these locations

sort of during the timeframe that he claims that he was there. Raven indicated that he got at these locations, sort of during the time frame that he claims that he was there. Raven indicated that he got to the game location with just enough time to warm up before the game started. He indicated the game lasted one hour. After the game, he left the sports arena and only made one stop before arriving home. The purpose of the stop was to buy Gatorade. What he's obviously trying to do is create a situation where he physically was not at home, so he could not have harmed his wife. So he's sort of building his own defense

as he presents the story. But he tells me in a phone conversation, well, you knew where I was at, you know, after, because I went to the gas station and it was video and I'm saying to myself, well where would you have known that? Again, I go back to the staging. He's smart enough to know he's got a document where he's at. It seems to prove Raven's story, but detectives say it proves something else, that Raven was planting his alibi. Despite all that planning, Raven still makes a big mistake when asked about the moment

that he finds Janet's body. He said once he entered the residence, he had made his way down the hall toward the master bedroom in the office. He stated that he saw that Janet's eyes were open and her lips were blue. Raven told a church member something very different from what he told police that further highlights inconsistencies from the night of the murder. He said he came home, went upstairs, and found Janet on the floor, and he immediately grabbed her and I believe he said to me that

that she had asked him why do I hurt so bad and his response was I don't know. The jury when they heard that they were shocked and it's like how could Janet say that because you said when you found her she was dead. I mean you can't have it both ways. These inconsistencies in Raven's story help bolster the prosecution's case because the sense is that he's there that night and these are details that he should remember. At this point the prosecution feels they've done their job, they've proven their case, but what about that bloody footprint and fingerprint that don't match Raven? That's when the defense team throws the prosecution a curveball, calling a new witness to the stand. Janet's ex-boyfriend.

Did anybody ask you to submit a DNA sample of fingerprints or anything? No, no one's asked. Could he be the intruder? Boy, do I got a story. Who you? About a young man and the boy he used to be. From executive producer Sterling K. Brown, the new Hulu original, Washington Black,

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Someone in the DA's office discovers a long-forgotten hard drive from Janet's computer. This surprise hard drive was definitely a pivotal moment in the trial because it spoke to the thoroughness of the investigators. It spoke to whether this was something the prosecution had withheld. As soon as the state became aware Thursday morning that these items did exist, we immediately brought it to court's attention, and it was turned over a Thursday afternoon.

They're trying to dissect what kind of internet searches were being done before the murder, what kind of email contact there was? Lawyers discover email back and forth between Scott Hall, Janet's ex-boyfriend, and Janet. Miss Averroa and a former boyfriend of hers, they're emailing each other every single day, and they're trying to hide this. Some of the emails are flirty. Some of them are sexual nature. Janet dated him for a very long time,

and she was always, I guess you would say, flirtatious with Scott. She still communicated with him, but when Raven moved in, she officially ended it with Scott to start dating Raven. The defense immediately went to the judge and asked for a mistrial. The holding of those emails has allowed the state, with its witnesses, to present a very dishonest portrait of Ms. Aperol, a dishonest portrait of my client, and a dishonest portrait of their relationship.

Let's create this portrait of this domineering, controlling, awful person. And by doing so, that helps us convince the jury, well, no one else would have done it. It had to be him. But the judge isn't buying it. The motion for mistrial and of course, discretion is denied.

The judge says that this was just sloppy record keeping by the prosecution. The defense tried to paint it to be is if she were in some type of relationship with an ex-boyfriend and could this guy have done this because that relationship wasn't moving forward. That was, I think, their presentation of a possible suspect. And one of the things you talked about in these emails was other people not finding out about the emails, right? That's correct. And specifically, you didn't want your wife to find out about it. Of course not.

Let me ask you something, Mr. Hall. This is a woman you dated for three years in high school, is that right? That's correct. And these text messages are March 3rd of 2005. Is that right? So less than 60 days later, she was murdered. Okay. Is that right? Yes.

Did anybody ask you to submit a DNA sample, fingerprints or anything for exclusionary purposes? No, he happy to do it, but no one asked. Nothing for it. He did say that he was at home in Virginia, and there's no way that he was anywhere close to Durham, North Carolina on the night of the murder. Where were you on April 26, 2005?

I was home. And why were you home? I had injured my back the weekend prior, so I was pretty much dead already. I couldn't walk. Nothing for you. The defense, through this whole trial, they're trying to create reasonable doubt.

Raven may not be a model husband, a model father. He's got some problems, but he's not a killer. There is this footprint on the property, and the defense attorneys just drive home that it was never matched to any of Raven's shoes. We do know that all of Raven's shoes. We do know that all of Raven's shoes were tested, including the ones that he was wearing that night,

and there was no blood on the bottom of those shoes. There was no blood on the bottom of any of his shoes. But the state shows the jury one photo in particular that may show why a match for the footprint was never found. The defense told you they tested all of the defendant's shoes, but none of these were tested. None of them.

What do you see right there? 409. So he had time to plan. He had time to act. He had time to clean up. The defense argues that the state always had it in for Raven Abaroa, and they keep holding up that missing hard drive from Janet's

computer pointing to it as Exhibit A. Let's talk about what that hard drive represents because it symbolizes, as much as anything, the prosecution of this case. It shows a pattern of the way the state deals with information. The defense went on picking apart the state's case piece by piece, trying to blow up that beautifully crafted mosaic. When it points away from Raven Aperola without the presumption of innocence, everything's suspect.

When you back up a computer disk, that becomes suspect. Leaving the dogs outside, somehow that is suspect. Everything is suspect when you presume guilty. The prosecutor had this dramatic moment in closing arguments where she's trying to mimic what Janet went through after she was stabbed. He calls her, come upstairs, Janet. He's waiting for her with the knife.

Bang! She never saw it coming. She clutches her chest. She goes down to her knees at this point. What's he do? He comes up behind her. He's got to finish it. He's already started it.

He's going for her neck. She's trying to block him. He stabs through her finger and ends up making a little mark. She falls face down. That's what this defendant did. The prosecution lists all the motives that Raven had for wanting to kill his wife.

An unhappy marriage with an unwanted baby on the way, that deep financial hole. Did that half a million dollar insurance policy provide a way out? And they drag out that bizarre video by Raven. I need a win-or-watering. You know, if I were to win $3 million, I would dedicate $2 million to fighting this.

That's what I need, because this is a fight. You need money, you need power. After a five-week trial, everyone's ready for closure. The jury will be responsible for the verdict. Guilty of first-degree murder or not guilty. Raven Abaroa was a horrible husband. There's no doubt about that. Verdict watch happening now in the Raven-Aboroa murder trial.

But defense attorneys will tell you an adulterer does not a murderer make. It's been 34 days, a lot of emotional testimony. And now the jurors are going to have to decide, is that proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Raven Abaroa killed his wife? We were all pretty unanimous in that the defendant had done some fairly reprehensible things. It was just a matter of whether that was to the level of committing murder. This was a long trial. Janet's family was there watching every moment of it, hoping, praying for a guilty verdict. They believed Raven was guilty of

murdering Janet and they wanted him locked up for life. It takes the jury three days but they finally walk into the courtroom and they deliver a shocking decision. We consider ourselves to be at an impasse, and that no additional time for deliberation will be of any benefit. We are a hung jury. The jury was divided. Divided 11 to 1. One person was a holdout, one person voting not guilty,

and that was Raven Abaroa's ticket to freedom. We can't make you reach a verdict. The court in this discretion will declare a misdraw. You could see Janet's family is just crestfallen. They're heartbroken. their pain is palpable, quite frankly, in the courtroom because they really thought this was the case that was going to seal Raven Averroa's fate. That was our chance.

We did our best and we failed by one person. We couldn't convince him enough. We couldn't make him see the truth. When they played the 911 tape, it felt very real to him. My wife is dead! She's been shot or something has run everywhere! She's been shot! We felt like it was maybe a little bit of remorse over committing the crime,

whereas he felt like, you felt like he generally was shocked by finding his wife dead. Is your wife conscious? No, she's in pain. She's crying. Her eyes are open. Hang with me now. Just calm down, okay? He decided that it was better to let a guilty man go free

than it would be to send an innocent man to prison. Prosecutors very quickly decide that it was just one holdout on that jury. They're going to try him once again and try to get a guilty verdict. So when you hear we're going to have to retry the case, what goes through your mind? It pretty much collapses. Dread. Definitely dread. It's going to be another long six weeks. You didn't want to go through another trial. No. We wanted it trial. No. No.

We wanted it over. Over and done. Everybody's ready to sit through this trial once again, and we get this bombshell announcement from the district attorney's office. You plead guilty this morning, sue him to a plea law. Yes. A coward's plea.

One of Durham's most high-profile murder cases coming to an end tonight. Raven has agreed to enter what's called an Alford plea, and it becomes essentially a guilty verdict on a manslaughter charge with a maximum of 10 years in prison. An Alford plea is an odd wrinkle in the law, because you're basically saying,

I'm going to take responsibility for this, but I'm not admitting guilt. I'll take the sentence, but I'm not saying I did it. Janet's family told me they accepted that deal for a lesser charge reluctantly, because they didn't want to risk Raven getting acquitted after another lengthy trial. I believe that they did not want, under any circumstance, for Raven Abaroa to get away

to escape justice. Is it justice? It's a rough shot at justice. The defendant will receive an active sentence of 95 to 123 months. Raven's sentence, eight to 10 years, the maximum allowed under the deal. And with time served, Raven could be out in less than four years.

Taking this deal and getting eight to 10 years instead of the possibility of life in prison is a big win for Raven Abaroa. Raven Abaroa is going to be released from jail. He's going to walk free. In my mind, that makes every woman out there a target. Raven was quiet throughout the trial. He never said a word.

But during this last part of the sentencing, he stands up and he explains why he's accepted this Alfred plea. I would just like to state that I didn't receive a fair trial the first time. I don't think I'll receive a fair trial the second time. The fact is I love my family very much and I don't think it's worth risking the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for something I need to do.

I take this plea to ensure that that doesn't happen. And that's the only reason I did not kill my wife. That was like he was stabbing us right in the heart. We've had an open wound. It hasn't been healing at all. And him doing that, just put salt in it. I'm angry for him taking her and him taking Kaden's mom away.

I wish that he would have just left. He would have just divorced her and left her alone. He just didn't leave her alone. He just let her go. I've asked this question so many times, I've quit asking it. What happened to divorce? Why not just get a divorce?

When he gets out, I hope he goes back to Utah and tries the best to raise his son and put this behind him and Correct the error of his ways, but I'm not I Don't know his record tells us different doesn't it and Raven's ex-wife Vanessa pond Well, she has a warning for any woman involved with Raven your advice to women who? Come in contact with. On Christmas Day of 2017, Raven Abaroa walked out of prison in North Carolina, a free man. You don't kill someone you love and just go to prison for a few years. I didn't think that would happen.

I thought, you go to jail the rest of your life. I guess that was naive of me. Raven Abreuah was one juror away from serving life in prison. He should feel very lucky that he's a free man. Was there justice here? It's not justice, but it is an end. Right.

And we can move on. Guilty despite what he said in that courtroom. He's guilty. Oh, definitely. He pled guilty. He is guilty. It is on the record that he killed Janet According to these photos posted by his mother on her Facebook page Raven is now sporting a beard and living happily it appears alongside his now teenage son I Feel for him so much because everything

Will be out there as he grows. He'll learn all these things about his father. He'll learn these things about his mother, a mother that he never knew. And I really hope that he turns out okay. Since Raven's release, we hear he's working and has even started dating. Human beings tend to repeat their behavior time and time again. People like me, it would be a concern that he could easily repeat past behavior. Do your homework. Talk to somebody.

Google Raven Abaroa. There's a lot of truth there. I mean, he's a charming, engaging individual who's smart, but what you see is not what you're going to get. What Janet bought is not what she took home. And unfortunately, it cost her her life. We reached out to Raven Abreuah for comment, but he declined our request.

Your advice to women who come in contact with you? Please, please don't be drawn in. And please get away as fast fast as fast as you can. Don't walk, run before you're caught in the trap. I was lucky enough to get out. Janet was not. I don't want to see that again. Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault.

We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes. See you then.