‘All I wanted to do was… die’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2012 (5149 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mark Stobbe denies killing his wife and claims the discovery Beverly Rowbotham was dead left him wishing his own life would come to an abrupt end.

“All I wanted to do was to crawl into a hole and die, myself,” Stobbe told a Winnipeg jury on Thursday while choking back tears. “At the same time, I (knew) I couldn’t do that. There were things that had to be done. I had our children to raise.”

Stobbe has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder for the October 2000 slaying of Rowbotham. He is accused of hitting Rowbotham in the head 16 times with either a hatchet or an axe, transferring her body from their home to his car and then parking the vehicle in Selkirk. The Crown’s theory is Stobbe bicycled back to his house from Selkirk, attempting to make her death seem like a robbery gone bad.

The Crown spent more than five weeks presenting evidence from nearly 80 witnesses before closing its case on Wednesday. That prompted defence lawyer Tim Killeen to put his client on the stand Thursday to address the allegations.

Killeen wasted no time, throwing Stobbe a pointed first question. “Did you kill Bev?” asked Killeen.

“No I did not,” Stobbe replied immediately. Killeen followed up with similar queries about whether Stobbe cleaned the crime scene in his backyard or dumped his wife’s body in Selkirk.

Stobbe defiantly answered “No” to both. He spent nearly an hour describing the days preceding Rowbotham’s death, including what turned out to be their final dinner together in which they discussed “strategy” for a job interview Rowbotham had the next morning. They also spent part of the evening breaking up a dispute between their two boys about who had to have a bath first. They then separately read their children bedtime stories before parting ways just before 10 p.m., he said.

Stobbe’s voice cracked with emotion as he described watching her leave the house to go grocery shopping in Selkirk while he watched a World Series baseball game on TV.

“She left and I never saw her again,” he said.

Stobbe will continue giving direct evidence this morning before the Crown has an opportunity to cross-examine him. Killeen indicated he will call additional witnesses next week. The decision to present a case means the defence gives up its right to give closing arguments last. Now, the Crown will have that opportunity.

Stobbe told jurors he awoke around 2:30 a.m. to find only himself and their two children in the residence.

“I assumed Bev had just come home and let me sleep,” he said Thursday of his initial thought upon waking up. But a quick search of the home and surrounding yard revealed no sign of his wife.

“I paced for a while. I was pretty sure there was something wrong, but I was trying to convince myself there wasn’t,” said Stobbe.

Jurors heard this week how Stobbe turned white, appeared to feel faint and burst into tears upon learning his wife had been found dead, the police officer who informed him of the news testified.

Stobbe was asked Thursday about his physical fitness. Several witnesses have previously testified about seeing a “very large” man on a bike around the area of where Rowbotham’s body was found, yet have been unable to identify Stobbe as the man on the bike. An RCMP officer who was tasked with bicycling the route from Selkirk to the Stobbe residence told jurors it took him approximately 39 minutes to finish the 14-kilometre trek.

Stobbe described himself as “lazy” and a “slug” and told jurors the farthest he ever rode a bike while living in Manitoba “was to the mailbox… about 500 metres away.”

Killeen also asked questions about the state of his eight-year marriage. Jurors previously heard the couple briefly attended a counselling session while living in Saskatchewan. Stobbe admitted they began experiencing problems shortly after the birth of their first son in 1995.

“We were feeling we weren’t enjoying each other’s company as much as we had,” said Stobbe. But the counselling was short-lived, as Stobbe claims they were told things were fine following a few sessions.

Stobbe admitted there was tension shortly after he left his NDP government job in Saskatchewan for a similar communications position with the Doer government in Manitoba.

They arrived in the summer of 2000 to green and lush surroundings — but that changed as soon as the mosquitoes began to emerge. Life began looking up by the early fall of 2000 as the rains stopped, the mosquitoes vanished, house repairs were made and work became less hectic.

“She was back to the fundamentally cheerful, happy woman I’d known and loved for eight years,” said Stobbe.

www.mikeoncrime.com