48 Hours - Two Wigs and A Gun a Pt 1

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Part one of the investigation into the murder of Fred Jablin. On October 30, 2004, Fred Jablin was gunned down in the driveway of his Virginia home. He was a well-respected college professor and devoted father to three young children. Police zeroed in on Fred's ex-wife, Piper, who owed him nearly $7,000 in back child support. Circumstantial evidence, including an airline ticket, two wigs and gas purchased in the area, all with a credit card in the name of Piper’s former boyfriend, indicated to investigators that Piper plotted to kill her husband using her sister's identity. “48 Hours" correspondent Harold Dow reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/25/2007. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today Now a special two-part edition of 48 hours People are involved here. Parents who work, parents who stay home. It's a type of neighborhood when the kids go to the bus stop in the morning, you know, the parents are there and Fred was there every morning. Fred was just a wonderful man. He enjoyed life like we all do here. I think his ultimate goal was to be a great dad,

to have a solid family. He was very, very involved with his children. The morning of the 30th, started out like any other morning. He was a fairly precise individual. He taught at the University of Richmond. It was his regular pattern to get up, make some coffee, come outside, retrieve the newspaper. At 6.30, Fred Jablum went outside in his slippers to go get his newspaper.

He was gunned down in his driveway. My name is Kobe Kelly. I'm a homicide detective with the Henrico County Police. I lost my best friend. I lost my brother. Who goes through life expecting to know someone who gets murdered? You don't ever expect to have a friend murdered. expect to have a friend murdered. I was in Texas. I was about ready to go out to a Halloween party with my sister and I got a call from a good friend of mine. She was just very, very upset and she said, Fred, Fred's been killed. And I was just stunned.

My name is Piper Roundtree. Fred Jablin and I were married for 19 years. She was devastated because of his death. He's the father of her children. I met Piper and thought she was odd until I met her sister and realized that Piper was the least of the two. They were very close. Tana was an interesting character in her own right. Am I going to call them both nutty? Okay, they're both nutty.

From day one, I was always disappointed that she married Fred. He was a very nasty, mean, egotistical person. I think that neither one of them acted in the manner which we would expect family members would normally act when they've learned that a former loved one has been murdered. My sister loves me. We're very, very close. She will go out to save people and do things for people that no other person would ever do. It's definitely not your run-of-the-mill case. You have a suspect flying in from out of state, carrying the weapon with them.

You have someone using a different identification. You have wigs and makeup and that sort of thing. I never would have dreamed that any of that family would have done anything like this. I would have bet money absolutely not. It's not what did I think about Fred Javlin's, did I kill Fred Javlin? Yes.

Um... I think about Fred Javlin's, did I kill Fred Javlin? Yes. Two wigs, a gun and a murder. In the fall of 2004, this sleepy suburb of Richmond, Virginia was all dressed up for Halloween, ready for its annual visit from pint-sized ghosts and goblins. But for this close-knit neighborhood, the spookiest day of the year arrived early. On the morning of the 30th, I got up planning on going to the gym to work out. I was putting on my running shoes. When all of a sudden, my husband and I heard three loud sounds.

Bang, bang, bang. We kind of looked at one another like, what could that possibly be? I said, well, maybe people are hunting, duck hunting, down around Tuckahoe Creek. Megan McCrary shrugged it off and went to the gym for her morning workout. But just down the road... The windows were open and all of a sudden I heard three gunshots go off. Bang, bang, bang. Neighbor Bob McCartel saw something he couldn't ignore. I saw someone running down the street in front of my house. It was so dark out, couldn't tell if it was a man or woman.

I couldn't tell. McCartell called 911, and within minutes, the police were searching the neighborhood. There were three police officers here with cars. First, they started driving with their search lights, and then they were out on foot with their flashlights. They came back to my house about 15 minutes later. Police told McCartell they hadn't been able to find any sign of a shooter or a victim. So I said, all right, well, when the sun comes up, I'll take a walk out and I'll see if I can find anything.

And if I do, I'll give you a call back. About 45 minutes later, my wife and I took a walk and we just walked down towards Fred's house and Zorin actually looked up and saw something up on the driveway. It was kind of strange because it was Halloween time and they had their house done up where they had like little things kind of sticking out.

So there was just like a pile almost, a lump. Lying in his driveway was Fred Japlin a well-respected 52 year old college professor a devoted father to three young children. I yelled at Doreen. I said call the police back I said it's Fred and he's dead. My page went off at about 730 a.m. I was a man down at Hearthblow Lane Which is about three blocks from my home. Around that time, and unsuspecting, Megan McCrary returned home from working out at the gym. I came in through the door,

was all set to cook everybody breakfast. Tim came into the kitchen and said, Megan, you need to come outside immediately. He held on to me, he said, Megan, Fred Javelin is dead. I said, what? Things like that, it's just, it doesn't happen. You know, that's not this neighborhood. He said, Fred Javelin is lying in his driveway, he is dead. All I could think of right then were those three children that were still in the house.

I was concerned about the children. I made an inquiry, I said, well, has anyone checked on the children? Officer Harry Boyd's children were close friends with the Jablin children. And no one here at that point knew about any children, so I told them immediately that there were three children somewhere. Police entered the home and found Fred Jablin's children, his 12-year-old son and his two daughters ages 10 and 15. All three children were asleep in their rooms.

We got them out as quickly as possible through another door so they wouldn't come out into this area of the home, of course, and see Fred in the driveway. Officer Boyd took Fred's children to his home nearby. Did you have an opportunity to sit them down and explain at some point what happened? Yes, we did. That's tough to do under the best of circumstances.

It was tough for all of us. It was just a nightmare to have to do that. They were, of course, very upset. We explained to them that their father had been shot and that we were trying to find out who may have done that and that they were going to be staying with me and my family until we could make arrangements to get their uncle and the rest of their family here. Their uncle, Fred's older brother Michael, lived about two hours away in Northern Virginia. My first reaction was disbelief. I called my brother's home, left a message, called

his cell phone, and no response. And then one of the Harico County officers told me the situation, and I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe what happened. Fred's ex-wife, Piper Roundtree,, too, was stunned when she learned of his murder. I'd got a phone call from a friend of mine who had heard about it and nobody knew what had happened. Piper was living in Houston, Texas, where she'd moved after their divorce. It was very sad.

He's the children's father. The children need two parents. They need a mother, they need a father. Back in Richmond, homicide detective, Kobe Kelly, was put in charge of the investigation. We saw the person that had come out here wearing a robe, wearing slippers. Detective Kelly's theory was that Fred Jablin was on his way to pick up his morning newspaper. I suspect that someone or something drew his attention back this direction as he was walking down to get the paper and that whatever confrontation took place probably happened right here in this area.

So are you speculating that perhaps Fred Javlin actually talked to this person? I think, in my mind, I think so. We'll never be able to prove that. There was no one out here to hear anything like that, but I believe so. It made sense to Detective Kelly that Fred Jablons may have known his killer So he talked to him walked away and was shot in the back And that would explain yeah, the bullets entering through the back of the arm and out the forearm And the other one entering his back and lodging inside his body after analyzing the crime scene

Kelly went to work on suspects. We were trying to find out a little bit about the victim, talking to neighbors, talking to friends and family, and just try to find out if he had any enemies or anyone that would think to do something like this. Now, Fred Jablin is a professor at the university here. Yes. As you look for suspects or thinking about possible suspects,

what thoughts went through your mind? Well, I think initially maybe a student that hadn't done well in one of his classes, As you look for suspects or thinking about possible suspects, what thoughts went through your mind? Well, I think initially maybe a student that hadn't done well in one of his classes, that comes to mind. Police went to the University of Richmond to check out that angle. We were trying to get to his office and see if there's anything there that would give us a direction to go to. Like bad grades or F's and stuff like that you'd be looking for things like that?

Absolutely. But Kobe Kelly knew what all homicide detectives know when looking for suspects. Start close to home. I learned pretty early on that people said, I have no idea who would want to do this to Fred, but have you talked to his ex-wife? Detective Colby Kelly reached Piper Roundtree in Houston.

And he said all the immediate family was under suspicion, Michael Javlin and me. At the time of the murder, Piper and her ex-husband had been apart for almost four years, and she had started a whole new life in Houston. Not only that, but police would soon learn that Piper had an alibi for the day of the murder.

It was the Saturday before Halloween. A family friend and attorney, Marty McVeigh, remembers Piper stopping by his Houston office on the very day her ex-husband was murdered, more than a thousand miles away. I was in my office, had my doors open for let the breeze come through and about 430 in the afternoon Piper Roundtree just walked in my office and sat down. Just a casual conversation, nothing out of the ordinary. While detectives continued to check out Piper's story, another name surfaced. I know she didn't kill Fred Jablin.

And unlike Piper Roundtree, this woman had nothing nice to say about Fred Jablin. He was a very nasty, mean, egotistical person. Piper's sister, Tina. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings,

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your favorite podcasts. In our conversations with some of the neighbors and people in the area, we knew that Piper did have a sister named Tina Roundtree. On the afternoon of Fred Jablons murder, Detective Kobe Kelly got a major lead from airport officials in Virginia. We found that Southwest Airlines had a passenger on their manifest with the last name Roundtree. And in fact the name on the ticket was Tina Roundtree. So you determined that there was a Tina Roundtree with a flight booked, a purchase ticket to Houston? Yes.

Airline records showed that two days before the murder, Piper's sister, Tina Roundtree, had flown from her home in Houston, Texas to Virginia, where Fred Jablin was killed. And now, on the afternoon of the murder, records show Tina is booked on a return flight back home to Houston, a flight that is already in the air. So did you make any contact with Houston PD at this point? We did, and they got their people together. And it's getting closer to the point

where the plane is going to land down there. So we were trying to explain to them a little bit about our situation, and also get them to get to the airport where this plane was going to land to try to identify the person traveling under the ticket Tina Roundtree. So what happened in Houston?

Well, the detectives arrived down there, and they had a couple of detectives, a lieutenant that was down there and several officers. And as they were approaching the gate, my understanding is that the plane was unloading. At that time, around 4.30 on the afternoon of the murder, Detective Colby Kelly didn't know what he, and we at 48 Hours, would soon discover. The Roundtree sisters have a remarkably fierce devotion to one another, and learning more about the extent of that devotion would become one of the stranger twists in this already twisted tale.

There are definitely two peas out of the same pod. Tina and Piper both the same type of person. Piper and I are, I mean we're soul sisters. We're incomplete without each other. She's someone that I need very very much and I get a lot from. We call each other two or three times a day. We're very, very tight. How would you describe her? Amazonian. That's usually the first word. Amazonian?

Yes. There's no one out there like Tina. She is able to do anything that she sets her mind to doing. Tina Roundtree is eight years older than her sister Piper, an age difference that mattered when they were younger. Mother used to always make me sleep with her, and I didn't like her crawling in my bed and having to sleep with her and she wouldn't be snuggled. She was a child, she was wanting attention. But the family environment was very, very close because my father was a physician in

the Air Force and we traveled every two years. And so just as we made ties we would have to break them and so there was a lot of dependency on each other. Today Tina and Piper are best friends. Over the last 20 years we've become very, very close. In fact, we sleep together frequently, even as adults when we go to each other's houses. She's just incredible. You walk around the village where, the area where she lives in Houston and most people have a story about Tina, one thing or another.

While the time Piper was in high school, the Roundtree family was living in a small town in Texas near the Mexican border, but Piper had bigger plans. I always admired her because she was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Piper headed off to the prestigious University of Texas at Austin with dreams of becoming a lawyer. She could do anything and she achieved everything from theater to spelling bees to boyfriends to friends having lots of friends and I always I didn't have all that. I mean, it's things you admire in other people, especially that you don't have or that you want. While away at college,

Piper caught the eye of another admirer, her communications professor, Fred Jablone. I suppose it was the classical case of a student falling for their professor. Fred Jablone was 29 and very driven. Piper was a free spirit and eight years younger. He is very witty and very different. He is very, very bright. One of the brightest men I think I've ever met. I've always looked up to him. He was exceptional. He was one of the best teachers. He also had a very quirky

side to him, as I've been described as having myself. I think those two qualities between us meshed a lot. They married two years later, in the fall of 1983. It was a really nice, warm relationship. We worked really well together. That's probably our strength. Professor John Daly knew Fred and Piper as newlyweds and was one of Fred's best friends.

We used to have lots of fun. We went out to get a drink after work at 10, 11 o'clock at night. If I remember correctly, Fred is the one who started this. One night we were just sitting there and working away on our typewriters and those day computers didn't exist and he just started barking just for fun. I really didn't know that he was barking at school as well. Oh you did it at home? Yeah, yeah. He used to get the dogs barking in the neighborhood.

That was one of those things that he particularly was proud about. Fred was also proud of his wife Piper and her plans to become a lawyer. Piper wanted to go to law school, so Fred said fine, let's try to get us into law school. After graduating from law school, Piper landed a big job in Austin as an assistant district attorney. I was a prosecutor for, oh, it all over a year, and then from there I went work for the school districts in Texas. She can do anything. It's amazing the knowledge that she has.

Her sister Tina settled in Houston and became a nurse practitioner. A few years later, Fred and Piper started a family. Fred's brother Michael says the marriage was solid. They had two lovely children who were born in Texas, Jocelyn and Paxton, and they enjoyed themselves. But for Piper, a working mom, life was hectic. I'd be in the courtroom, and I'd be looking at my watch, thinking, I've got to go pick up my child at daycare.

There were times when the kids were sick, and I'd take the kids into the court with me and the judge would be bouncing them on his lap in the middle of a hearing. I was the main support person in the first 15 years of her marriage or so when she lived in Texas. I would go visit them all the time. I babysit for them all the time. I was the primary other person. Then in the summer of 1994,

life for the Jablin family changed. Fred accepted an offer to teach at the University of Richmond and uprooted the Jablin family to Virginia. Piper did not want to leave Texas because that was her home base, that was her family was there. Right after we moved up here within two weeks, I had a ruptured atopic pregnancy and almost died.

And so had a completely revised outlook on really what was important. And after that the doctor told me that I would never have children again. It's just not going to be possible. And within about six months I became pregnant with my third child, Callie. And she was a gift from God. Piper decided to change the focus of her life and become a full-time mom to Cali, Paxton, and Jocelyn. She cooked for them, she played with them, they made cookies, they went rock hunting together. She took them fishing and she did all the things that typically a father would do.

Piper was like, she was like a little pied Piper. All the little kids would just come up and circle around her. Annie Williams was Piper's friend. Piper is wonderful about taking them outside and doing things and has more patience, probably, than I did. And she frequently would come pick up my son with roller blades or his bike and take him out to the park for a day just being outside all day. But Piper missed the rest of her family back in Texas and her marriage started to suffer.

You started to drift apart? Yeah, and we had pretty much two separate lives once we came to Richmond. Tina Roundtree never forgave Fred for moving her sister so far away. One of the main reasons that they moved to Richmond was so that Fred could get Piper away from her family because she's a very strong family person. Eventually Piper told Fred she was leaving him. She wanted to escape and she wanted to get away from him. And that's when the real trouble began.

Fred Jablone decided to fight for sole custody of the couple's three children. She was devastated. She was shocked, and we all were. Because you don't take children away from a mother who is a, she was a primary caregiver. While the idea of losing her children was devastating to Piper, it was inexcusable to her sister Tina.

I mean, how many hours I spent with her crying, I mean, she was crying, it was horrible. And she had a very close relationship with them, didn't she? It was, to see this precious three-year-old screaming to be with her mother. Piper's sister, Tina, doesn't try to hide her hostility towards Fred Jablon, even after his brutal murder. From day one, I was always disappointed

that she married Fred. He was ugly, I thought. He was a very controlling man. He built himself up by putting her down. But did Tina Roundtree hate Fred Jablone enough to kill him? On the afternoon of the murder, Detective Kelly was hoping for answers. Police officers were at Houston's Hobby Airport,

primed and ready to greet the plane carrying a passenger named Tina Roundtree. But what happened next surprised everyone. The Afternoon of Fred Jablons Murder The afternoon of Fred Jablons murder, police were working their first big lead, a tip that a Tina Roundtree was en route to Houston after spending the past two days in Virginia. It was Saturday, October 30, 2004. Detective Brett McDaniel had raced to the airport, hoping to meet the plane before it landed. I knew I was looking for a 40-something white female.

We had some driver's license photos of both Tina and the sister, as well as Piper Roundtree. Although the ticket was booked in Tina's name, Houston police were also on the lookout for another Roundtree, the dead man's ex-wife Piper, who may have had more of a motive than her sister. We were looking for females. We were looking for females, and I was putting my money on blondes. Piper had brown hair. Tina had blonde.

I stationed a uniform officer at the end of the terminal with a set of pictures and asked him as well to stop anyone he thought might be either of the individuals. The plane landed and the passengers filed off. We stopped probably at least a dozen women. After the last of the stragglers, the officers realized their target had slipped through their fingers. She just got past us. There were too many people, too few of us, not enough people to stop every possible female that could have been this person. Everyone had come off the plane and they had not located Piper, Tina, few of us, not have people to stop every possible female that could have been this person. Everyone had come off the plane and they had not located Piper, Tina, whoever would have

been traveling under that name. In fact, that mysterious passenger had managed to pick up her luggage at baggage claim without being noticed and then vanished. She was gone. The next day, with the investigation now focused in the city where both sisters lived, Detective Kelly hopped a plane to Houston from Virginia. Got up around 430 the next morning. Didn't get much sleep that night? No, not at all. 48 hours wanted Detective Kelly to show us what happened next, so we flew him

back to Houston to retrace his steps. We were interested in talking to Piper. Now certainly we were not ignoring anything that would lead us in a different direction, but at that point it was a pretty good place to begin. Detective Kelly met up with the Houston team working the case. Thank you. And together they headed over to Piper Roundtree's house.

Knocked on the door, rung the doorbell, looked in the garage, we can see the Jeep Liberty sitting in there. We were probably outside her house for a good 10 to 15 minutes, milling about, peeking in windows and knocking on the door, trying to get someone to come to the door. Never did. With no answer, they decided to pay a visit to her sister, Tina. We drove the whole half hour plus down to Tina's house. But just in case, one of the officers stayed behind at Piper's.

Did Piper ever come out of the house? She did. We got a call from Sergeant Ferguson who was sitting outside her house. He saw her vehicle leaving the driveway. A vehicle like this one. And he followed her. Sergeant Ferguson stayed on Piper's tail

and relayed the route she was taking to the rest of the team so they could turn around and join the pursuit. And what turned out was she began to head south on the interstate. We were heading north on the interstate. At some point we turned around and got in behind her. And the chase was on. We were certainly following her vehicle,

hoping to be able to talk to her one-on-one when she stopped. Now, she had to look in the rearview mirror and saw this police parade behind her, right? Absolutely. At one point she made kind of a last-minute diversion Now, she had to look in the rearview mirror and saw this police parade behind her, right? Absolutely. At one point, she made kind of a last-minute diversion from a one-off ramp, well, back onto the interstate, and of course, we were doing the same little serpentine move. And, yeah, I think she definitely knew. The pursuit ended on a residential street in central Houston.

She pulled into a parking spot. I got out of the car, approached hers, and introduced myself, introduced the other people around me. She said, come on inside. And we walked into the open door. Piper had driven to the law office of trial attorney and friend Marty McVeigh. As it turned out, McVeigh wasn't alone. There was also a female there, Tina

Roundtree, Piper's sister. Tina Roundtree, also a friend of McVeigh's, had arrived a few minutes before Piper. Tina Roundtree walks in my office. That's the first time I heard that Fred had been killed. She came in and said, did you know, have you heard Fred was killed yesterday morning? I said, no, I haven't.

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the rise and fall of getting exclusively with one 3 plus. I've heard from walking in my office door with four detectives, two from the Houston Police Department and two from the Henrico County, wanting to talk to her. I took Piper in my office, talked to her for a minute. She wanted to talk to them. They sat right here in this reception area and had a conversation.

I wanted to ask her, who do you think would have done something like this? And that was a good entree into getting her to talk to us. and had a conversation. I wanted to ask her, who do you think would have done something like this? And that was a good entree into getting her to talk to us. But Piper says she had only one thing on her mind. Who was taking care of her three children? It was just incredible, the total lack of interest that anybody had. Until that meeting, almost 36 hours after Fred's murder,

Piper hadn't been told her children were safe with Fred's brother Michael. And certainly anyone could understand that a mother concerned about her kids and the police were not putting her in touch with the kids. Anybody could understand that that would be an explanation for some of her behavior. At any point did you sense that Piper was being accused of this murder? To the opposite, they told her she was not a suspect. The majority of Piper's conversation with them was concerning her children. The meeting was cut short because McVeigh had to leave to pick up his son. Later, Detective Kelly decided to try another tactic.

He and a few other officers drove to Tina's house, hoping to speak with her alone. We had a conversation with her. She was fairly on target with where the kids, kids need to be with their mother. Those sort of questions, she said, you bring the kids here or something to that effect and then we'll talk again. We ended up getting pretty much ejected from her house. Meanwhile, Piper was doing her own detective work. She needed to firm up her alibi, putting her in Houston, not Virginia, the night before Fred's murder. She asked the bartender if she remembered seeing her.

Piper returned to this bar, the Volcano, where she claimed she'd been on Friday night to see if anyone remembered seeing her there. Bartender called me and said, do you remember her? And I said, yeah, I remember seeing her. She wanted our phone number so that she could give them to the police to substantiate that she was here.

All right, you said you did remember seeing her here. Right. What made you remember? Well, she has distinctive features, petite and pixie haircut, you know, she's cute. Gorgeous eye? Yeah. It was the alibi Piper was looking for, and she passed it on to Detective Kelly.

She left a message for me saying that there were two people, a guy named Kevin O'Keefe and a lady named Cheryl Cryder, who was a bartender at this volcano, that could put her in the volcano on that Friday night, which would be pretty good, because she obviously couldn't be in Richmond at the same time she was there. So now, Piper had witnesses who saw her in Houston the night before the murder to go along with her lawyer friend,

who saw her on the afternoon of the murder at the same time the airplane from Virginia was landing. If what you say is true, it would be difficult for her to get into your office at 4.30 in the afternoon. That's correct. And if she was on that flight, it would have been impossible for her to get to my office at 4.30 because I understand the flight didn't come in until 4.40. It was 10 minutes late. And it's at least a 30 or 45 minute drive from Hobie Airport to my office.

But Tina Roundtree says she couldn't have been on the plane either because she was seeing patients all day at her women's health clinic. Detective Kobe Kelly didn't know what to think but he was sure of one thing about the Roundtree sisters. I think that neither one of them acted in a manner which we would expect family members would normally act when they've learned that a former loved one has been murdered. Both of them acted oddly, as far as I'm concerned. And it wasn't long before the investigation would zero in on just one of them. Did you kill Fred Javlin?

It's not what did I think about Fred Javlin's. Did I kill Fred Javlin? Yes. That's impossible to... The answer is no. The answer is no. As Detective Kelly learned more about the Jablin's nasty divorce... It was very, very, very bitter. He started to see the scars it left with Piper and her sister Tina. It was very, very painful for me because I love her so much. We're part of each other.

Fred never understood what the problem was in the marriage or why we need to go through divorce, even though we'd been through counseling three times before and it, you know, just, it wasn't working. They've been married for nearly 19 years and it hadn't been working for quite some time. A year and a half before the divorce, Piper got a warrant charging Fred with domestic violence and filed for a protective order against him. And you witnessed some of this abuse either physically or mostly? Well physically no. Tina Roundtree only knows and believes what her sister told her. She had told me the next day that he had hit her. The only other instance I remember, it was as far as physical abuse goes. Mental abuse,

definitely it was sick. According to Tina, Fred's abuse was also directed at their three children. I saw him frequently lose his temper with the kids because you get into a mode when you're a professor and they all say yes sir and they do what you, he brought that attitude home with him. In almost all cases, we never use

just one sequencing of questions. And expected that Piper or the children especially do exactly what he said when he says it. In February of 2001, Piper finally moved out of the house and later filed for divorce. She finally had the courage to escape and become her own person again. In July of 2002, the divorce went through. When they first got divorced, there was like a joint custody arrangement. Piper lived down the road from my brother's home

and they tried to arrange joint custody. According to Tina, that's when Fred really tightened the screws. Once he had to face the fact that he was gonna, you know, have a loose face in the community, he was gonna be a divorced man, he all of a sudden switched gears. Fred decided to fight for full custody

of their three children. And according to Tina, Fred Jablin was a trained expert questions are something you don't think about at winning arguments. He was like a PhD professor in persuasive communications. So she, that was a tough one to go against from the beginning. At the custody trial, Fred pulled out all the stops. He wants to win and everything.

Yes, that was Fred. He can't take losing. He can't lose face. Fred painted Piper as an unstable mother. Fred would say, you know, she'd gone to this drug store. She apparently had an affair at one point. She apparently became unpredictable with the kids. And he told the judge that Piper had racked up more than $50,000 in debt without his knowing.

He had to make her look like the bad guy. Fred also accused Piper of being unfaithful. She did not have an affair. It was when they were separated. They were physically separated, and she was out of the house when she started seeing him. Michael Jablin wouldn't go into details with us, but he believes his brother's accusations and he wasn't alone.

Some of Piper's behaviors were questionable and some of her things she was doing for the sake of the children. Piper seemed to have just gone off the deep edge over a period of time. I think that judging the case, reviewed the facts and realized that Fred would make a better parent. In July of 2002, Fred Jablin won full custody of their three children. Piper could have visitation. And I think it took a lot of decisions on the judge's part to come up with that because normally mothers get custody.

And this case was very unique. The judge saw that Piper had some problems with Fred to provide more stability in the home life. Did it upset you that he got custody of the children? Well, yeah, naturally it did. I was very, very upset. Did your children understand what was happening? As much as they were able to.

The littlest is, was, you know, it's just very difficult. Remarkably, Piper Roundtree not only lost her children, but she was ordered to pay Fred Jablone almost $900 a month in child support, in part to pay back some of the thousands of dollars in debt she owed her ex-husband. Now you were paying child support to your husband. Yes.

Which is the reverse of the way it's normally done. Yes. Right? Yes, I the way it's normally done. Yes. Right? Yes, I was. Was that difficult for you? Yes, it very was. Piper had failed the bar exam in Virginia.

So, after the divorce, she struggled to find a job. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. She couldn't get a job. She's a licensed attorney in the state of Texas. She was a prosecutor. She'd get a job at Walmart, but that's not going to pay her $900 child support payment, nor put food on the table, nor provide for the children, which is her responsibility.

So Piper moved back to Texas to find work. She didn't have a choice. She had to leave Virginia. Of course they claimed she was abandoning her children. No, she had to survive because Fred gave her nothing. Fred took everything. It was very difficult to begin with, just starting out as sort of a new attorney because I couldn't really step back into the field that I was in after ten years of being out of the field.

So I started back into working just doing any type of case that walked in. I had three kids to support. Her three children stayed behind in Richmond, Virginia with their father. My brother was wearing two hats, a mom hat and a dad hat. He would attend soccer games, Cub Scout meetings, tennis tournaments, dance classes, he'd go to school. He'd be there all the time. He would be a school parent many times, and a classroom parent. He was very, very involved with his children. You know, you go up to the school and he had signed

up for all the parties, to bring napkins, drinks. How often was she allowed to see her children? Well, she allowed to see her children? Well, she had to ask for permission every single time. So actually, Piper saw them six days out of an entire month. And that was it. She had a bitter divorce with her ex-husband. Her ex-husband actually got custody of the children. Piper Roundtree ended up paying child support.

Marty McVeigh shared a law office with Piper in Texas. That's correct. Was she bitter about that? Did that bother her? Yes, she was bitter. When she talked to you about it? Oh, yeah. What'd she say? She didn't understand why she was being treated like she was

by the court and the judicial system in Virginia. And that was where most of her animosity was directed to. It was not directed at her ex-husband but it was the way she was being treated in her divorce case. She was not very happy when she was having to pay alimony when she was struggling and not having much money. Jerry Walters became close to Piper shortly after she moved to Texas and he he, too, says Piper never voiced any hostility towards Fred. She was not enamored with Fred by no means any longer,

but she did not walk around the house muttering under her breath, I hate Fred, I hate Fred. She didn't like the situation she was in, and she didn't like not having her kids, but she never alluded to doing away with Fred, no. If Piper was bitter towards her ex-husband, she hid it well. Her sister Tina, on the other hand...

And to see what the courts did then, and I'm kind of understanding it, seeing some blatant, some blatant misjustices. And did you ever see the children once Fred got custody of them? I wasn't allowed to go over there. I mean, how can you stop someone from seeing their aunt who comes all the way? And they did. They went to court and said, nope, can't do it. So you were not allowed to see them? No. Piper says she'd come to terms with her situation long before Fred was murdered, and so had no reason to kill him.

The money that I was making in Texas, I was fine. You enough to pay the child support to have a very nice lifestyle and see my kids and be with my kids. I didn't have any once except seeing my kids a little more maybe. And although she's not naming names, Piper says she's pretty sure she knows who did have a motive to kill Fred Joplin. Is it someone that might hate your husband, have a grudge against your husband? Yes. So much so that they'd be willing to murder him?

Yeah, I think so. But the truth was about to catch up with Piper Roundtree. Stay tuned for part two tomorrow.