Police, after nearly 30 years, have identified the man responsible for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old Bowling Green girl in 1996.
DNA evidence led the FBI to identity 61-year-old Robert S. Froberg, as the man who kidnapped and murdered seven-year-old Morgan Violi on July 24, 1996, according to Kyle G. Bumgarner, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
Froberg is currently serving a 40-year prison sentence at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, Alabama, after being convicted of robbery. His release date was in June 2029. He now will be taken into federal custody and charged with kidnapping resulting in death.
Morgan was abducted from the Colony Apartments while playing with her sisters and friends. Witnesses, according to court documents, saw a Caucasian male grab Morgan, put her in a maroon Chevrolet van and drive away.
Two days later, the van suspected to be involved in the abduction was found in Williamson County, Tennessee, south of Nashville, and searched for evidence. Morgan’s body was found on October 20, 1996 — three months after her abduction — in the woods in White House, Tennessee.
“The complaint alleges that with recent advancements in forensic testing of DNA evidence, a hair found in the abandoned van was tested by the FBI laboratory and returned an association with Robert Scott Froberg, who was then serving a lengthy sentence in the Alabama Department of Corrections,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky said.
With that lead, investigators determined that Froberg escaped from jail in April 1996, traveled to Pennsylvania where he was arrested, and then escaped again. Froberg then traveled to Dayton, Ohio, and stole a maroon Chevrolet van approximately a half a mile from his parent’s house.
Froberg traveled south, exiting I-65 in Bowling Green where he spotted Morgan playing in her apartment complex, snatched her and drove south.
According to the complaint, Froberg was recently interviewed by law enforcement and confessed to driving Morgan into Tennessee and strangling her to death.
“Morgan Violi’s family never gave up on her, and neither did the Bowling Green community or its law enforcement community,” Bumgarner said. “For years, this community has feared that Morgan’s abductor lived silently among us and that one of our kids could be next. Investigators in the FBI and the Bowling Green Police Department have worked tirelessly to bring justice for Morgan. They applied new technology, re-examined old evidence, and never stopped searching for the truth. Yesterday, we filed a criminal complaint charging Robert Scott Froberg with her kidnapping, resulting in her death.”
If convicted, the defendant faces only two potential sentences: life in prison or the death penalty, according to Bumgarner. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.
This case is being investigated by the FBI and Bowling Green Police Department.
To read the criminal complaint, click here.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
