‘We had a pretty good marriage’: Stobbe

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This article was published 17/02/2012 (5182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mark Stobbe’s first words to police following the death of his wife are being put under a legal microscope as justice officials try to build a case against him.

Stobbe, 54, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the Oct. 25, 2000 killing of Beverly Rowbotham. He is accused of hitting his wife in the head 16 times with either a hatchet or an axe and then moving her body from the backyard of their St. Andrews home to a vehicle that was parked in Selkirk.

The Crown admits its case is entirely circumstantial, meaning jurors will have to make certain findings that are not based on direct evidence. Police interviewed Stobbe only hours after the gruesome discovery. Jurors heard the entire 69-minute audiotaped statement Thursday.

RCMP Sgt. Sheldon Peddle said Stobbe’s behaviour during the conversation caught his attention.

“He wasn’t overly emotional or crying, but he seemed lost and out of sorts,” Peddle testified.

In the interview, Stobbe begins by giving a basic rundown of the hours preceding the discovery of Beverly Rowbotham’s body. He claims to have fallen asleep watching a baseball game on television after Rowbotham left the home the previous evening to complete a grocery shopping trip that had been cut short earlier in the day. He said he awoke around 2:30 a.m. to find only himself and their two children in the residence. That set off a series of frantic phone calls to police, the hospital and family and friends.

Police quickly began probing Stobbe about his marital status with Rowbotham, including whether she might have been having an affair.

“I would be the most surprised person in the world,” Stobbe replied. “We had a pretty good marriage.”

He admitted there were problems, especially after they moved from Regina to Winnipeg earlier that summer after Stobbe landed a communications job with the provincial NDP government. He said Rowbotham was “unhappy” for the first few weeks, largely due to the constant rainfall and mosquitoes she encountered in Manitoba.

“She found herself trapped here in a relatively isolated place. She had a fairly miserable July. But then as things dried out and fall activities started and then school, she was having a really good time here,” Stobbe said.

He later added that Rowbotham’s mental health was “pretty good,” but that she was “grouchy once a month.”

“She got grumpy around menstruation period and you learn to expect it,” he said, laughing.

Stobbe said they had gone to marriage counselling on three occasions in Regina, but they stopped because they were doing so well.

“We thought we weren’t getting along as well as we should be,” Stobbe said. “She basically kicked us out, said she wished everyone got along that well.”

Stobbe said he spent the day before Rowbotham’s death in a series of meetings, including one with the deputy minister of health. Rowbotham spent her day taking her oldest boy to kindergarten, then hanging out with their youngest son, including a stop at McDonald’s. That evening, they dined on tacos and watched Blue’s Clues on TV.

Police asked Stobbe several questions about the family’s finances, including whether he had a life insurance policy on Rowbotham.

“I guess there would be from my group thing at work. I think it’s $60,000,” he said.

Jurors heard this week RCMP began conducting surveillance of Stobbe in the days following the killing, even following him to Saskatchewan for her funeral.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me about what happened last night?” Peddle asked Stobbe near the end of the interview.

“I don’t,” Stobbe replied. He then added he wished he hadn’t turned on the baseball game because he might have gone and finished the shopping instead of Rowbotham.

“It was pretty spur-of-the-moment. She’d been complaining that she hadn’t got enough groceries. I guess she wanted to let me watch the ball game a bit,” he said.

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