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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Murder trial told of husband's laugh after slaying

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 02/7/2012 1:00 AM

Mark Stobbe: happy marriage depicted (JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

A Winnipeg jury heard Monday how a man accused of killing his wife laughed as he agreed it was strange she was brutally slain while heading to do grocery shopping in Selkirk.

But relatives of both Beverly Rowbotham and Mark Stobbe said they appeared to have a happy marriage.

Barbara Kilpatrick told a Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench jury on Monday that while attending a conference in New Orleans, she was informed her younger sister had been slain.

Kilpatrick said she phoned Stobbe to find out what happened.

"It was very emotional," Kilpatrick testified.

"I was saying it would make more sense for me to be killed in the city of New Orleans than to be killed getting groceries in Selkirk.

"He said, 'Yes, that's pretty strange.' He laughed."

Stobbe has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Court has been told Rowbotham, 42, was struck repeatedly with an axe or hatchet in the backyard of the couple's St. Andrews home before her body was put into the family car and driven 14 kilometres north to Selkirk, where it was abandoned in October 2000. Pieces of Rowbotham's bones and blood were later found in the yard.

Kilpatrick said in a later conversation with Stobbe he told her he fell asleep after Beverely said she was heading out to do grocery shopping.

Kilpatrick said Stobbe explained to her one of their sons had been misbehaving earlier in the day at the grocery store, so she cut the shopping trip short, expecting to go again that evening.

But Kilpatrick thought the language Stobbe used in his explanation was "odd."

"(Stobbe said) she wanted to go back to do a big shop. That's odd grammar because he is an articulate, educated man."

Earlier, Kilpatrick noted a few months before her death that her sister looked "extremely stressed.

"Beverly always seemed to be tired. She had arthritis. Her fingers were frequently swollen. She had scoliosis when she was a child."

But when asked how her sister and Stobbe were getting along she said "they seemed quite delighted with each other."

Other family members also had similar opinions.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 7, 2012 A5

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