Rowbotham’s sister remembers seeing hatchet in yard

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This article was published 02/02/2012 (5291 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beverly Rowbotham’s sister remembers seeing an axe or hatchet in her sister’s backyard a few weeks before she was slain.

Betty Rowbotham said she saw the tool in the yard of the couple’s RM of St. Andrews home in Sept. 2000.

“I think it was in a tree stump,” she testified.

“I believe it was at the housewarming in September.”

When asked by Crown attorney Wendy Dawson whether the tool would be put away later, the woman said the couple was “really conscious of safety.”

Betty Rowbotham also testified that it wouldn’t have been usual for her sister to put her shoes and socks on the floor of the back seat behind the driver’s seat of the car.

Later, Betty Rowbotham said she had been asleep when suddenly she was awoken by her daughter at about 2:30 a.m.

“She asked me if we’d seen Auntie Bev. She said she got a call from Mark that Bev was missing.”

She told the court that she phoned Stobbe to offer to look after their two young sons and then drove over to their house.

“He said Bev said she would go into town to Safeway to finish up the shopping,” Betty said.

“He fell asleep and when he woke up… The lights were on and Bev was not home.”

She said Stobbe went outside to look for Bev in their backyard and didn’t come in for about half an hour.

A short time later a police officer came and said her sister was dead.

“I gasped. I hugged my husband and son. Stunned disbelief.

“I remember holding Mark’s hand and waiting for Bev to come home.”

Rowbotham is testifying in the trial of Mark Stobbe, who is charged with second-degree murder in his wife’s death north of Winnipeg in the fall of 2000.

The Crown alleges Stobbe killed her with a hatchet in the couple’s backyard, dragged her to the garage and drove her body 20 kilometres away.

Rowbotham was found barefoot, slumped dead in the back seat of the family sedan, the doors open and the keys still in the ignition. A pair of white socks and slip-ons were on the floor.

Stobbe, who once served as a senior adviser to former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, has pleaded not guilty.