her. beverly tried to make the most of her ordeal. she read poetry and taught computer classes to other prisoners. but her primary focus was her own case. i want to clear my name. i want to set the record straight. i want my life back. but by 1998 beverly had lost two appeals. the next step was federal court. katie knew she needed help and contacted steve northup, an experienced lawyer who agreed to take on beverly s case free of charge. i felt she was an innocent person. we don t have any dna evidence. we don t have any fingerprints. so we re never going to be able to prove definitively that she did not do it. northup filed a lawsuit in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus, charging the state of virginia was falsely imprisoning beverly monroe. it s the legal equivalent of a hail mary pass because the courts refused to review 90% of such cases.
roger wasn t a victim, he was a villain. beverly monroe s daughter came to her rescue. is your mother a murderer? oh, god, no. a recent law school graduate, katie monroe was convinced the case against her mother amounted to little more than speculation and conjecture. i could hardly imagine a weaker case. i can say with complete confidence that the prosecution did not prove that this was a homicide. because they d initially assumed the death was a suicide, police at roger s home hadn t preserved the crime scene. there was no physical evidence, no fingerprints, no fibers, nothing to implicate beverly. besides, says katie, that initial assumption that roger had killed himself was correct. both of the prosecution s firearms experts said that they couldn t rule out the possibility that this was a suicide. the defense theory that roger had killed himself because he was an aging, ailing emotional wreck. a man terrified of suddenly
trial, prosecutors told the jury this was a case of hell hath no fury. a woman scorned killing her lover in a jealous rage. but defense attorneys said the state had nothing more than beverly s vague statements which proved nothing at all. at most, what they elicited from beverly was a statement that she might have been present and asleep when roger killed himself and suppressed any memory of it. as the jury filed out, reporter arthur hodges says the whispers began again. and some in the courtroom thought the defense had done too good a job of vilifying roger burde. a lot of the dirt they dug up for roger ended up tainting beverly herself. so it made him seem like the kind of person that somebody would murder? right. because she stuck with him. it wasn t like a year or six months. 13 years. the packed courtroom was left to wonder who would the jury believe? it took just two hours for the jury to reach its decision. jurors found beverly monroe guilty of first degree murder. b
state had nothing more than beverly s vague statements which proved nothing at all. at most, what they elicited from beverly was a statement that she might have been present and asleep when roger killed himself and suppressed any memory of it. as the jury filed out, reporter arthur hodges says the whispers began again. and some in the courtroom thought the defense had done too good a job of vilifying roger burde. a lot of the dirt they dug up for roger ended up tainting beverly herself. so it made him seem like the kind of person that somebody would murder? right. because she stuck with him. it wasn t like a year or six months. 13 years. the packed courtroom was left to wonder who would the jury believe? it took just two hours for the jury to reach its decision. jurors found beverly monroe guilty of first degree murder. beverly and her family were stunned.
back then, beverly monroe had no way of knowing the many secrets hidden behind that mask, nor could she have guessed that roger s greatest desire would prove to be the one thing she could not give him. there was no way to imagine, when she met this seductive man, that disaster awaited them both. beverly monroe was in an unhappy marriage when she met roger, who was married as well. soon an affair began. they both loved classical music. he was learning to play the piano. she, the flute. and there was art. we were interested in a lot of the same things. you know, i had already started a small art collection. roger had turned his home, a 200-acre horse farm just outside richmond, virginia, into a virtual museum. he told people his collection of modern art and african objects was believed to be worth millions. this renaissance man threw