Photo Credit: Montpelier Police Department
Raven Abaroa, pictured above, was at one point cleared of any charges after his wife Janet Abaroa had been found stabbed to death in April of 2005.
The case was cold until 2009 when Vanessa Pond, who married Raven less than three years after the death of Janet, came forward saying that she feared that Raven had killed his first wife.
It was then in 2009 that Durham Police Department Detective Charles Sole was put on to reopen the case and revive the investigation.
When investigating the evidence, something, in particular, stuck out to Sole.
In an interview with ABC News Sole said, "I noticed the contact case on the counter with the top off of it indicating to me that the like-, likelihood that the contacts were probably not in there, which would be contrary to her going to bed or, as Raven said, in the bed going to sleep."
Check out this local news report that talks about some of the crime scene photos that were presented at the trial.
This new information led to detective Sole having the body of Janet unearthed, with them wanting to see if Janet was wearing contact lenses. Janet was indeed wearing those lenses.
This new information led to Raven's arrest in February of 2010 and facing charges of first-degree murder. It would take three years until Raven would face a jury, which ended up being declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.
The crazy part with this story is that Raven ended up not even serving that much time in jail after this. When Raven was up to face a second trial, he entered an Alford plea for voluntary manslaughter.
With this plea, he acknowledged that there was evidence to convict him, but he wasn’t admitting guilt.
Raven was then sentenced to 95 to 115 months in jail and ended up being able to walk free on Christmas Day of 2017. With him now being free, Pond is now advising as many people as she can, to stay away from him.