in the head. beverly told authorities her boyfriend had committed suicide. i was standing by the couch, and i just hit the floor. i don t know if i fainted or what. i just sank down to the floor. beverly called the police and told them he committed suicide and then telephoned her daughter katie, who she says was devastated but not surprised. it seemed within keeping absolutely. to roger s character that he might kill himself? absolutely. somebody whose mood swung. somebody who s so complicated. he was seeking something to be loved and admired, and he had absolutely no idea how to get it. katie was especially concerned how roger s death would affect her mother because beverly s father had also committed suicide. she lived with it all of these years, and i remember thinking, oh, god, not again. beverly says she was in a state of shock.
have to save the planet. and in chicago protesters gathered for a rally to address police violence and to call for mayor rahm emanual to step down. the city has seen a string of protests since the release of a police dash cam video showing teen laquan mcdonald being shot 16 times by a police officer. now back to our programming. beverly monroe and roger de la burde met at a work christmas party in 1979. they were both married, but sparks flew between them. and soon after, an affair started. eventually, they both divorced, and their relationship together went on for more than a decade, but not without its ups and downs. the european man had just turned 60, and according to beverly, was an emotional wreck. he wanted a legacy, a son to look up to him and to carry on his name.
northup says that, if indeed the state was right and roger had been murdered, there was ample evidence that others had reason to kill him. and the evidence added up to reasonable doubt. so you believe the prosecution simply did not prove its case? oh, i definitely believe that. one of the things that you learn if you spend any significant time with beverly, is it s really almost inconceivable she could do something like this. she s just not that kind of person. coming up, would the judge agree that beverly was innocent? beverly s daughters fight for their mother. the checks and balances that people expect or that should be in the system, they re not there.
2000, when we first spoke to him about beverly s case. i do have sympathy for beverly monroe. there are a lot of people that really thought she deserved a medal for having killed him. the state of virginia appealed the federal court s ruling and lost. sending the case back to the local prosecutor to decide if beverly monroe would face another murder trial. you know, clearing my name is a huge part of this. a year after the appeal, the prosecutor in powhatan county announced he would not retry beverly monroe for the murder of roger burde. this is a case without a crime. i think the only crime is what s been done to my family. and to roger. the prosecutor said he did not pursue a retrial largely because, after 11 years of litigation, the victim s family wanted to move on. he also noted that beverly
culminate in marriage? no, no, not in the beginning, not later. roger was difficult sometimes, but, you know, i could always tell him to go home. you liked having a certain degree of autonomy? oh, absolutely. but by 1991, as roger approached 60, his mood suddenly darkened. now retired, he began to think about his legacy. though roger had adult daughters, he became obsessed with the idea of having a son. he wanted somebody, a child, to look up to him. roger and i had conversations, repeated we always had these discussions not necessarily in the realm of reality, frankly. you make it sound almost as if this was a fantasy child? knowing roger, i think that was a fair assessment. roger thought he could live his dream of family legacy by producing a son, and it would be as simple as that. and beverly said roger had other worries, like his thwarted social ambitions.