VAN BUREN COUNTY, MICHIGAN: A man from western Michigan was found guilty of murder after running over a 64-year-old woman with his pickup truck and dragging her body to a forested location. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole on Monday, July 31. According to authorities, Colby Martin, 31, of White Pigeon hit Melody Rohrer, 64, in 2021 while she was taking a stroll in Van Buren County. Martin allegedly performed sexual activity on the corpse after placing it in his car.
As per Law and Crime, Martin is accused of sexually abusing the remains but the prosecution was unable to charge him for this because Michigan has no laws that apply in this scenario. Meanwhile, Rohrer's family said that she was also a wife, mother, and grandma. In the Van Buren County courthouse on Monday, they conveyed their pain through potent impact remarks.
In a police interview, Martin, who didn't know Rohrer, admitted to hitting her and leaving the body in St Joseph County, but he denied having any sexual activity with Rohrer's corpse. According to Dan Frattura, a former detective with the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office who testified at the trial, almost a month before the murder on September 20, 2021, a search for "necro" turned up on Martin's phone at least 22 times on August 24. According to investigators, this entailed necrophilia.
How many years does Colby Martin face in jail?
Colby Martin has been given a life sentence for the 2021 killing and will serve the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. On June 14, Martin was convicted of first-degree murder, hiding a person's death, and failing to stop at the site of an incident while he was the one who caused the death. According to news sources, Martin declined to address the court after his sentencing.
While announcing Martin's sentence, Van Buren County Circuit Judge Judge Kathleen Brickley stated, "It’s never given me joy to impose the sentence of life in prison without even the possibility of parole, but in this case, it does give me an extraordinary sense of relief. Relief in knowing that you will never have the chance to crash both literally and figuratively into a family’s life again, drowning them in heartache and agony."
'Things will never be the same without her'
Richard Rohrer, Melody's husband, filed a missing person report after her disappearance. Investigators claimed that even though Martin disposed of the body parts in a different county, he left Rohrer's phone behind. He was taken into custody the next day after the missing person's report. Richard exclaimed in court on Monday, "Colby Martin, you are pure evil. You truly are the devil masquerading in human form."
According to WWMT, Melody's eldest daughter Brooke stated: "I watched for almost two years an individual who showed no emotion, compassion or remorse to taking someone’s life. September 20, 2021— the nightmare that exists today begins [with] 36 hours of extreme panic and confusion...and uncertainty that no one should ever have to face." "We never got to say goodbye. We never got to see her one last time. This makes it even harder for us. Some losses - they don’t hurt for a little, they hurt for a lifetime and this is our reality now," noted Melody's second daughter Jill.
Richard added, "All they have left now is memories of the past. Things will never be the same without her. The murder of my wife Melody has and will continue to have a profound effect on me and my family for the rest of our time on earth."