News in Abaroa

We haven't forgotten this case, right?  Janet and Raven Abaroa had one child...Kaiden, and another on the way, and lived in Durham, North Carolina.  In 2005, he came home (ostensibly) from an indoor soccer game to find his wife in a heap on the floor.  He called 911 to report that he thought she had been shot.  Turned out she was stabbed, and Raven was the obvious suspect.

Well, nothing happened and nothing happened, and Raven took Kaiden back to Utah and remarried.  Of course, he didn't tell his new wife the story of Janet, and for some inexplicable reason, the girl didn't google him before she married him.  Who doesn't do that, these days?  Anyway, when she did find out (I think a family member did some searching), he had a story ready.  Red flags did not begin to go up until he got drunk on their wedding night and told her, "I would never hurt you!"  Less than a year after the wedding, she divorced him and traveled to Durham to share her story with police there.

Raven was arrested in 2010 and has been incarcerated ever since.  He had one trial which ended in a hung jury, rejected a plea deal (Second Degree Murder) and was set to be retried this month.

He has just accepted a second plea deal (Manslaughter).  The sentence he has been offered is less than half the one he rejected.  Reportedly, his sentence will be "from 95 to 123 months."  I hope they don't deduct the four years he has been incarcerated.

This sentence is better than nothing, but not nearly enough.  Maybe he won't survive prison.  One can hope.

www.wral.com/abaroa-pleads-guilty-to-manslaughter-charge-in-wife-s-2005-death-/13471779/

www.wral.com/plea-deal-offered-in-abaroa-case-sources-say/13468943/

Update:  Plea hearing:  http://www.wral.com/news/video/13471818/