Janet Abaroa
44:49 Share

This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on your kids' spending with real-time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk-free at greenlight.com slash Spotify.

This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Sometimes the most painful part of getting sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy, that's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove those painful parts of getting better with things like 24-7 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical, healthcare just got less painful.

$5 and get $200 if your bet wins. Only on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

21 plus and present in Virginia. Must be first online real money wager. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. To enjoy this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Forensic Tales.

Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In April 2005, 25-year-old Janet Aparoa was discovered stabbed to death inside her North Carolina home. She'd been found by her husband, Raven. Nothing else in the home was disturbed, and the couple's six-month-old son, Caden, was found unharmed in another bedroom.

♪♪ ♪♪

Thank you.

Long before what happened in April of 2005, Janet Marie Christensen was born the seventh of ten children and grew up in a Mormon family. Her siblings described her as sweet, loving, and very athletic, her favorite sport being soccer. She was so good at it that she eventually attended college at Southern Virginia University, where she earned a spot on the school's NCAA Division III team.

It's this love for the sport of soccer that she met her future husband, Raven Abaroa, in 1998. He was a fellow soccer player who instantly swept her off her feet. Raven told friends that he thought Janet was beautiful and that he felt so much joy and so much comfort whenever he was around her.

When they met, they were both just kids, 19 years old. Janet was also seeing another guy, but as soon as she met Raven, she dumped him. Then in August of 2000, after two years of dating, Janet and Raven got married at the Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C.,

The couple quickly made a life for themselves. They moved into a nice home in the suburbs of Durham, North Carolina. They both took jobs at a sporting goods company, and everything seemed to be going really well, both individually and in their marriage. They seemed like the perfect couple, but pretty early on, they had problems.

Janet started telling her sisters that they were having some marital issues. Remember, Janet is just one of 10 kids, so she had a lot of siblings she could talk to. So Janet started telling them that things weren't going too well in their relationship, even though they had just gotten married and moved to Durham. According to her sisters, Janet told them that her husband Raven wasn't exactly how he portrayed himself.

He might have seemed like this charming and sweet guy in public, but when you were around him in private, he wasn't really like that. He was abusive, he was rude, and he can even be violent at times. So he definitely wasn't the kind of person that people thought that he was. And with a name like Raven, he just gave off the impression of being this cool and charming character.

but according to Janet's sisters, he wasn't. On top of being mean and violent, he was also accused of cheating on Janet with several other women. By early 2004, the couple separated. They even talked about getting divorced. But before they could make anything official, that's when Janet found out she was pregnant. She and Raven were having a baby boy.

So not surprisingly, the pregnancy changed everything, and the couple decided to stay together and work through their problems. On October 17, 2004, they welcomed their son into the world, who they named Caden.

And even while Janet was still in the hospital recovering, Raven promised her family that he would do anything and everything in his power to make this relationship work. He promised to never cheat on her, and he promised to be both a good husband and a good father. And for a while, he seemed like he kept this promise and the marriage was on the mend. Until two months later in December.

In December 2004, Raven was caught stealing from the sports apparel company where they both worked. He was accused of stealing around $10,000 worth of sporting equipment by listing them as employee purchases but never paying for them.

He would then turn around and sell the equipment to complete strangers, so he was stealing. So when the company found out about this, they immediately contacted law enforcement. Raven was fired, and they eventually charged him with five counts of embezzlement.

Janet also lost her job because she worked for the same company. Now, since Raven agreed to work with police and prosecutors and agreed to plead guilty, he avoided serving any jail time.

But it was around this same time that the couple's friends started noticing that they might be having more financial trouble. Even though they had both gotten new jobs after the legal troubles were over, they seemed to still be struggling with money. Things got so bad that even the landlord of the property where they lived threatened to kick them out because they weren't paying rent on time.

But when the landlord went over there and saw Janet sitting on the couch with her newborn son, he felt bad for them and decided, hey, you can stay here, you can live here, and I'll let you make up the payments. He didn't want to be the one to send a new mom and a new newborn to go live on the streets. So he let the couple catch up on the payments.

After that, everything was looking normal again. They had new jobs, they were navigating life with a new baby, and they were trying to get back on track financially. But now, it's April, and there's more problems. On April 26, 2005, Janet drove to daycare to pick up her son, Caden, and then she and Raven dropped her car off at an auto body shop to get some work done.

After that, they returned home where they met with a member of their church, and that person left around 7. Now, before we move on with the story, let's talk about this person for a second. His name was Michael Guzman. He was a Durham software development professional and a home teacher for the LDS Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

For those unfamiliar, home teachers in the LDS Church were members who visited families to share spiritual messages with them. The program has since been discontinued in 2018.

So on April 26, 2005, Michael Guzman was apparently there at the house as a home teacher for the couple. He was supposed to be there watching over and helping them as part of his church duties. We're going to talk more about him and his visit a little bit later on. Now, about an hour and a half later, around 8.30 p.m., Raven left in his car, a 1998 Dodge Durango, to go play soccer with some friends.

Later on, Raven said that Janet was already in bed when he left the house around 8.30 and didn't return home until after 10.30, sometime maybe 10.45 that night. The next part of this story comes directly from Raven, and you'll see why.

After he supposedly got home from soccer, he said he went into Caden's room to check on him and make sure he was still asleep, which he was. But right after that, he said he found his wife Janet on her knees, slumped over in the office, sort of like in the fetal position. Now, according to Raven, he didn't immediately approach his wife or think that anything was wrong. He said Janet would often get very bad cramps and she would sit like that.

So he didn't immediately suspect that anything was wrong. But when he got closer to her, he said he saw blood, a lot of blood. And that's when he knew that something was really, really wrong and called 911. In part of the call, he said this, quote, My wife is dead. She's been shot. There's blood everywhere. She's not breathing. End quote.

When the police and paramedics arrived, the two teams split up. Half attended to Janet, and the others went to make sure that Caden, the baby boy, was still okay. And he was. He was still fast asleep in his bedroom. But when they got to Janet, that was an entirely different story. She wasn't okay. She wasn't sleeping. She was dead.

Still getting around to that fix on your car? You got this. On eBay you'll find millions of parts guaranteed to fit. Doesn't matter if it's a major engine repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers.

eBay has that part you need, ready to click perfectly into place. For changes big and small, loud or quiet, find all the parts you need at prices you'll love, guaranteed to fit every time. But you already know that. eBay. Things. People. Love. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go.

So whether you're playing a game at home or attending one live,

You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5g reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U S two H 2023 results may vary, not endorsement of the restrictions apply. The North Carolina office of the chief medical examiner would say later that Janet had been stabbed three times. She hadn't been shot. Like Raven had said on the nine one one call.

Maybe he just didn't know what the difference would look like between a gunshot wound and a stabbing wound, or maybe it was just a chaotic situation. Either way, Janet had been stabbed three times and was now dead right there on the floor with her infant son slept in the room next door. Back inside the house, investigators went through every nook and cranny looking for forensic evidence.

So they went through the house and collected bloody footprints and bloody fingerprints. They also collected a block of knives from inside the kitchen, both of the couple's cell phones, a checkbook. They took soil samples from directly outside the house. A pawn shop ticket was recovered. Plus, they took the clothes that Raven was wearing when he discovered his wife's body.

It was a very extensive search that took about 24 hours to finish. The next step for investigators was to sit down and get Raven's story. And he told them everything that we've already talked about. He left for soccer around 8.30 that night. Janet was already sleeping in bed. And when he got home around 10.30, 10.45, that's when he discovered that she was already dead. That was his story.

Sometime after he left for soccer, someone must have broken into the house, killed Janet, and left the baby alone in the crib. But as the police are speaking with him, red flags are waving in their faces and they just can't ignore them. One, when Raven turned over the clothes he was wearing when he discovered his wife's body, there wasn't much blood on them.

So this struck investigators as odd. If he just discovered his wife on the floor covered in blood, wouldn't he also have some blood on him? He told them earlier that he held his wife after discovering her, and we already know that she was covered in blood, but he didn't have but a few drops on him?

Second, there were no signs of a break-in. Everything in the house seemed completely undisturbed. Even the baby was sound asleep in the bedroom next door. Wouldn't you think the baby would wake up to the sound of his mom being stabbed to death? Wouldn't she have screamed at least once? So there were no signs of a break-in, baby was sound asleep, and nothing else was disturbed in the house.

Besides Janet being discovered in a pool of blood on the floor, the house looks completely fine. But during the autopsy, the police learned something else. She was pregnant with her second child at the time that she was killed. She was only a couple weeks along, so she probably just found out. Right away, investigators got to work looking for her killer.

but nothing at the crime scene pointed them in anyone's direction. There were no signs of a sexual assault, so she wasn't killed over that. They knew she dropped her car off to get some work done on it, but that didn't lead anywhere. They looked at her close family members and friends. Nothing there either. No one had the motive to want her dead.

By all accounts, she was a very liked person and respected person with no known enemies. So the police kept their eyes on her husband, Raven. He wasn't considered a suspect or even a person of interest yet. They just kept their eyes on him.

While going through the couple's financial records, the police uncovered two things. Number one, there was a half-million-dollar life insurance policy on Janet. And number two, there was a million-dollar policy on Raven.

But that didn't necessarily mean anything. They were both new parents to an infant son. They probably just wanted to be protected in case anything happened to either one of them. Plus, from a criminal investigation standpoint, he had twice as much money on his life than she had on hers. So wouldn't it be the other way around if he had something to do with this?

But why spend so much money on life insurance policies in the first place when they could barely afford to pay their rent?

After about a month after Janet's murder, the police continued to work it. But oddly enough, Raven decided to move out of North Carolina to Salt Lake City with their young baby. He told investigators it was because he wanted to be closer to family. But not everyone believed that story. To the police, it seemed like he was running away.

But at this point, they had nothing. They had no evidence suggesting that he had anything to do with his wife's death. Over the next few months, Janet's family tried to keep in touch with Raven mostly because of Caden, but he didn't seem too interested.

It was like his wife was found brutally murdered inside their house. He was the one who found her. Then all of a sudden, he just got up, moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her family. The whole thing just seemed off. Well, that might make all sense, or it might make a lot more sense after you hear the next part of this story.

As soon as Raven arrived in Salt Lake City, he enrolled Caden in a daycare program. And at that location, he met a woman by the name of Vanessa Pond. Vanessa Pond was a single mother whose daughter also attended that particular daycare. So sometime after arriving in Utah, Raven and Vanessa connected through their children's daycare. They started seeing each other and they started dating.

and they were eventually engaged by the following Mother's Day in 2008. This happened at the same exact time the police in North Carolina were working to solve his first wife's murder. By September 2008, Vanessa Pond and Raven were married. They tied the knot in a small ceremony in the backyard of her parents' house. Back in North Carolina, Janet's murder investigation had turned cold.

It had been over three years and no arrests had ever been made. They also didn't have any forensic evidence connecting Raven to the crime, so there was nothing anything they could do. Of course, he was still considered a key person in the case, but without the physical or the forensic proof, there was nothing anyone could do.

When Janet's family heard that Raven got remarried, not only were they shocked, but they also wanted to speak with his new wife. They wanted to make sure that she knew everything about his past and what happened to his first wife. So one day, they picked up the phone and contacted her. They said, do you want to know what happened to your husband's first wife, Janet, our sister?

Later on, Vanessa would say that Raven was very honest and upfront with her when they first met at that daycare. She said he knew he was a single dad, and she really admired that, being a single parent herself. But when she went online to find out more about Janet's death, she said she didn't know what to think. She didn't necessarily think that he was guilty of her murder, but she also wasn't entirely convinced of his innocence either.

So Vanessa eventually decided to confront him about it. She had read everything about the murder online. She spoke with Janet's sisters. So she went to him seeking the truth. And this is what he had to say.

According to Raven, everyone was trying to frame him for Janet's murder. He said how horrible the police in North Carolina were and how he continued to try to contact them just to find out what was going on in the investigation. He told her he wanted to find out who killed his first wife just as much as everyone else did. According to him, he was just as much of a victim as Janet was.

But after this conversation, things completely changed between them. Not long after Vanessa Pond confronted Raven about this, she said he started acting differently. He was no longer this sweet and perfect guy that she thought he was when they first met. She would say later on that within seconds he would switch.

He could say the most horrible things, and then just moments later, he would apologize. Those outbursts even turned physical. On one occasion, Vanessa told ABC News that he grabbed her and threw her against the wall, causing her to fall to the ground. But later on, he tried to convince her that she had tripped, so he was essentially gaslighting her.

Four months into the marriage, Vanessa said she feared for her life. She worried he would do the same thing that he did to his first wife to her. So she moved out, took her daughter with her, and the marriage was legally annulled. Since they had only been married for a couple of months, they didn't need to go through the entire divorce process. They could just get it annulled.

Over the next year, Raven continued living his life. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't fully get away from what happened that night in April 2005 to Janet.

Here's something that I'm really looking forward to as the weather turns cooler. Football games, as many pumpkin spice lattes that I can get my hands on, and slipping into a cozy sweater from Quince. Quince is known for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50. And it's not just that.

All Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. That includes beautiful leather jackets, cotton cardigans, soft denim, and so much more. How are they able to do that? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, which passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices. And Quince is a great place to start.

And of course, premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece. Right now, I'm loving my cozy ultra form high rise flared pant. They just feel and fit just like many other expensive brands I've worn in the past.

Get cozy in Quince's high-quality wardrobe essentials. Go to quince.com slash tails for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash tails to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash tails

By the spring of 2009, Vanessa went public with her fears that he had killed his previous wife. She did everything she could to keep the investigation alive. She called up newspapers to tell them what happened so they could run stories about it. She called news stations so that they could do segments on Janet's death. She even traveled with her parents to North Carolina to sit down and speak with detectives.

But again, there was nothing they could do. No forensic evidence tied him to any crimes. Raven eventually moved again, this time to Idaho. He probably thought all of his troubles were behind him. He's already told the police he had nothing to do with what happened. There's no evidence against him. He probably thought that everything was well behind him.

But here comes February 1st, 2010, five years after Janet's murder. On February 1st, 2010, the police in North Carolina contacted the authorities in Idaho and had them set up surveillance on him. They waited for five-year-old Caden to be out of the house, and that's when they moved in and arrested him. He was now being charged with first-degree murder.

At this point, Raven thought the case against him was purely circumstantial. He thought maybe Vanessa Pond or Janet's sisters had convinced the police to arrest him. He really didn't think there was any evidence against him. He thought he would go along with it, go to jail for a night or two, post-bond, and this whole thing would be dropped. Except that's definitely not what happened.

As soon as he was put in jail, five-year-old Caden went to go live with Raven's mother and stepfather. They were even given temporary custody of him because his mom was already dead and is now his dad was in jail. So he went to go live with his grandparents until all of this could be sorted out.

Raven was then extradited from Idaho back to North Carolina, and his bail was set at $5 million, which he couldn't afford. So that meant he had to stay in jail until trial. He still had no idea what the police had in the way of forensic evidence. Let's talk about that now.

In 2009, Durham police assigned a fifth lead detective to the case, Detective Charles Soule, to take a fresh look at it from every angle possible. And one of the first things he did was take inventory of the evidence.

He wanted to know everything they had collected from the crime scene. And one thing that stood out to him was that Janet's contact lenses weren't in the evidence storage locker. He thought that was strange because some of Janet's family members had told the police that she always took out her contact lenses before going to bed. It was something that she did every single night. She would never go to bed without taking them out first.

But now, when Detective Charles Soule took inventory of the evidence, he didn't see Janet's contact lenses anywhere. Also interesting, when Raven provided his statement to the police on the night of the murder, he said Janet was wearing glasses when he left the house. So, where were her contact lenses?

If she took them out before going to bed and before Raven went to soccer, then they should be somewhere in the evidence locker. To try and find the answer to that question, the police exhumed Janet's body on July 20, 2010.

This was after Judge Douglas Herman signed an order allowing them to exhume her body from the Browns Mill Cemetery so that the DA could determine whether she had contact lenses still on her eyes or not. The idea was if she still had contact lenses in, she wasn't already in bed that night like Raven said. And if he was lying about that, what else could he lie about?

So after Janet's body was exhumed, her eyes remained in the custody of the Crime Investigation Unit of Durham until a forensic eye doctor could look at them. That person was Dr. Charles Swelling. His job was to determine whether Janet's eyes still contained the contact lenses.

And based on his testing, yellowed fragments of AccuView contact lenses were found on her eyes even all of these years later. That was the same brand that she always wore. She hadn't taken out her contact lenses like Raven had told investigators.

And that wasn't the only lie he got caught in. The police had found surveillance video from a convenient store earlier that day that showed him wearing a completely different sweatshirt than the one he said he was wearing when he went to go play soccer. So did he change sweatshirts before finding his wife's body?

He never said that he did during his original statement to investigators. And let's not forget, the sweatshirt he was wearing when the police showed up had very little blood on it. Although he said he picked up Janet and hugged her.

After several delays, the trial was eventually set for April of 2013. The prosecution presented Raven as a controlling husband. They had Vanessa Pond testify, saying how she saw him become violent on the soccer field and how aggressive he was toward her. Here's a direct quote from her testimony. When he sees weakness, he just comes at you harder and harder.

He told me how much he hated me and how much it didn't matter if I died, end quote. The prosecution also brought up the incident where he slammed her against the wall and then tried to convince her that it was just an accident, the gaslighting.

Other witnesses testified that Janet had told them that she was afraid of Raven's temper and how they were talking about getting divorced. They said the only reason that she stayed with him was because she got pregnant with their son. Otherwise, she would have left him, but she was afraid of being a single parent.

A few of the couple's neighbors said that they heard them fighting and arguing on multiple different occasions. However, none of them claimed to have heard anything on the night of the murder.

Finally, the forensic evidence. The first was the sweatshirt, the one that Raven wore when the cops got there. Prosecutors argued that it had such a small amount of Janet's blood on it, nowhere near the amount that you would expect to see if he had picked her up like he said that he did. Janet's clothing? Her shirt was said to have been soaked with blood. His sweatshirt? Practically nothing. Then, the contact lenses.

The same expert who tested Janet's eyes after her body was exhumed testified about finding the yellowed fragments of the same contact lenses that she was known to wear on both of her eyes. According to the prosecution, this meant Raven had lied when he said that she was already in bed when he left to go play soccer. This was a lie because she always took out her contact lenses before going to bed.

But since the contact lenses were found on her eyes after she was buried and years later, that's a huge problem. Now the defense's turn. Their position was that Raven had an alibi. He was at a soccer game with friends when his wife was murdered. So there was no way he could have done it. He couldn't be in two places at once.

The defense also had its own character witnesses. These people said that they thought Raven and Janet's relationship was great and that neither one of them said that they were having any problems. People also said that Raven was a great guy. He just wasn't someone capable of committing murder, especially murdering his own wife.

On top of that, the defense presented emails obtained from Janet's email account suggesting that she might have been talking to an ex-boyfriend at the time of her murder. So could he be a possible suspect? Someone the police never even looked into or considered? Maybe this ex-boyfriend found out that she was married, they were flirting in these emails, he didn't like that, and maybe he sought revenge.

If you remember from the top of the episode, another person was at the house that night, Michael Guzman, the friend from church. So could he be another possible suspect that the police completely ignored? That was the defense's argument, at least.

Although he really had no motive, I'm talking about Michael Guzman, he had no motive to want Janet dead. This was just the defense's way to basically argue, hey, there are other suspects out there, but since you had tunnel vision on me this entire time, you never really investigated these as possible suspects.

When it came to Sides, there wasn't a clear winner at trial. A big problem for the prosecution was that they failed to provide the jury with a motive. They couldn't tell them why Raven allegedly killed his wife. Yes, the couple was struggling financially. Yes, there was a $500,000 life insurance policy on her. Yes, they might have fought. He might have cheated on her.

But what exactly was the motive? The police and the prosecution never provided one. Another problem? There was no murder weapon. The knife used to kill Janet was never found. So, to the defense, that meant someone else killed her. And for the state, that just meant he did a good job of getting rid of it. Whichever side you believe, no murder weapon was presented at trial.

It was time for the case to be handed over to the jury. But instead of coming back with guilty or innocent, they came back and told the judge they couldn't agree. It was 11 to 1 in favor of guilt. There was one person who wouldn't budge. So the judge had no choice but to declare a mistrial. But that didn't mean Raven was off the hook.

Instead of taking the case to trial for a second time, prosecutors approached him with a deal.

Ever feel like you're too busy to eat healthy? Meal kits from Sun Basket are the perfect solution. We loved the Sun Basket recipes that we received, like the apple and brie flatbreads with roasted garlic pesto and the cheesy French onion meatloaf with lentils and mixed green salad. They were so delicious and so easy for this busy first-time mom.

Everything is pre-measured, pre-portioned, and easy to prepare. Plus, Sun Basket meals are dietitian approved, so you can feel confident that you're putting a healthy and delicious meal right there on the table. Plus, Sun Basket offers pre-made meals, delicious single-serving meals that are ready to eat in less than five minutes.

With zero prep or mess, they make a great, quick and healthy lunch or fast dinner on busy nights. You'll crave these delicious meals and it's so much healthier than takeout.

Go to sunbasket.com forward slash forensic tales today to save $120 across your first four deliveries. That's sunbasket.com forward slash forensic tales to save $120 across your first four deliveries. Plus, free shipping on your first order.

As a first-time mom, paying attention to my mental health has been very important recently. It's about my mental wealth. Investing in habits today that can help me with future challenges that I know I'm going to face. So I'm focusing on sleep, diet, exercise, stress management, and exogenous compounds. To help me with all of this, I've been taking Magic Mind, a tool to support my mental wealth without overpromising.

It's been helping me focus while achieving great restful sleep at night. I take Magic Minds focus shots in the morning, and it's made such a difference with my clarity. Then at nighttime, the sleep product has helped me wind down and fall asleep faster after a crazy busy day. And what I like most, all of the ingredients are third-party tested.

And Magic Mind donates five cents of each bottle sold to mental health charities that help U.S. homeless communities. For the first time, you can get the 24-hour pack, focus, and sleep shots bundled together for 40% off at magicmind.com slash forensic tales Jan, J-A-N.

There's no better time to start now. Make 2025 the year that you build your mental resilience. Save 45% off your 24-hour pack at magicmind.com slash forensic tales Jan. After the mistrial, prosecutors offered Raven a deal. They said if you agree to second-degree murder, you'll only get a sentence between 19 and 24 years.

But if you take the case to trial again, we're going to charge you with first degree murder, which automatically carries a sentence of life in prison without parole. So it's be out of prison in a couple of decades or spend the rest of your life behind bars. You choose. Well, he declined. He said no deal. But not long after that, he seemed to have a change of heart.

He could either take the case to trial for a second time and run the risk of going to prison for the rest of his life. He could take a plea for second-degree murder, which he already turned down, or he could agree to an Alford plea. He chose option number three, the plea.

In March 2014, he entered an Alford plea for voluntary manslaughter, acknowledging that there was evidence to convict him, but not admitting guilt. Not only was this devastating to Janet's family and friends because he wouldn't admit guilt,

But it was also a far less severe charge, voluntary manslaughter. That meant a judge sentenced him to between 95 and 123 months in jail. And he had already spent four years behind bars before the first trial. So he would essentially receive credit for all of that time already served.

At the sentencing hearing, Raven said this about his decision, quote, 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 a second time. I don't think it's worth risking the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for something that I didn't do. I take this plea to ensure that doesn't happen, and that's the only reason. I didn't kill my wife, end quote.

Vanessa Pond also spoke after the sentencing hearing, saying, quote, I was shocked. But more than that, I was shocked at what the plea deal turned out to be. That's just not justice. It's not justice. End quote. On Christmas Day 2017, Raven, now 39 years old, was released from prison. And immediately after that, he moved to Utah.

Since accepting the deal for voluntary manslaughter, he's now a free man. He also still maintains his innocence, saying that he never killed Janet.

He only agreed to the deal because he knew the evidence was enough to convict him. So what evidence was he really afraid of? I think the answer to that is two things. One, the contact lenses. A forensic examination found that Janet was still wearing her contact lenses when she was murdered, but finding that completely contradicted his story that she was already asleep when he left the house that night.

2. The lack of blood evidence on his sweatshirt. Had he hugged his wife like he said that he did, he should have had a lot more blood on him. But he didn't. So now it's your turn. Did Raven Abaroa murder his wife? Did he stab her three times inside their house before going to soccer to try to establish an alibi?

Could that explain why there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle anywhere else in the house? Could it also explain his lies, the contact lenses, the lack of blood on his clothing? Or did an innocent man take a plea deal? Is someone else responsible for Janet's murder?

Was it someone at the auto mechanic shop, the place the couple visited earlier in the day? Was it someone from church? Or was it someone the police had no idea about? And finally, do you believe the presence of contact lenses on Janet's eyes is enough forensic evidence to label someone a murderer? To share your thoughts on this week's episode, follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode sharing my personal thoughts. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review. You can also support the show through Patreon.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell. For a small monthly contribution, you can help create new compelling cases for the show, help fund research, and assist with production and editing costs. For supporting the show, you'll become one of the first to listen to new ad-free episodes and gain access to exclusive content.

Thank you so much to this week's newest patrons, Gina D and Pablo M. To learn more, please visit patreon.com slash forensic tales. Forensic Tales is a podcast made possible by our Patreon producers.

Thank you.

If you'd like to become a producer of this show, head over to our Patreon page or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

♪♪

If you're a facilities manager at a university, you know students rely on the cafeteria for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the occasional late-night snack. So when a dishwasher breaks down and dirty plates pile up, the mess hall can turn messy in the blink of an eye. Enter Grainger. With over a million industrial-grade products and fast delivery, the product you need now is never far away. So you can turn that dishwasher back into a lean, clean washing machine. Call, click Grainger.com, or just stop by.

Ranger. For the ones who get it done.