Roger Crews murder trial reaches Day 4
(ABC 6 News) — A jury trial is underway in a Hancock County district court for a man accused of first-degree murder in the death of his estranged wife.
On October 28, 2023, Roger Laverne Crews Jr. walked into the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office and allegedly said he had a fight with and assaulted his wife, 56-year-old Karen Abby Crews.
Roger Crews allegedly said Hancock County responders should conduct a welfare check at their home on Way Avenue, Woden.
Roger Crews was taken into custody in Freeborn County a few hours after Hancock County law enforcement confirmed Karen Crews was dead.
The Iowa Dept. of Criminal Investigation stated that the pair were separated and living apart.
Crews pleaded not guilty to one charge of 1st-degree murder committed “willfully, deliberately, with premeditation, and with malice aforethought” on Nov. 17.
Crews’ defense filed a motion to suppress evidence from two interviews with an Iowa investigator over the summer.
The motion claimed that after Crews told law enforcement he was “done talking” on October 28 and wanted a lawyer, the investigator kept questioning him and recording resultant statements for about an hour.
In November, the motion continued, Crews requested to speak to law enforcement about “criminal activity” that was not his own case, was again questioned about his own murder case, and his answers were entered into court proceedings.
The motion was denied in early September, and the videos were entered into evidence.
In the taped interview, Crews admits he hit Karen across the face, saying he has no memory of what happened afterwards.
“I just see a f—ing picture in my f—ing head,” said Roger Crews, in the nearly two-hour long interview, “I hit her right in the f—ing eye with my fist.”
When the detective informs Crews that he knows Karen is deceased, he mutters, “in the hallway?”
Witnesses for the defense characterized Crews at times as “paranoid,” likely abusing methamphetamine and that he “was a completely different person when Karen was brought up.”
The couple filed for divorce in April, and texts between them show Roger Crews leveling accusations against Karen and their adult children of conspiring to kidnap and murder him, as well as other crimes that investigators said they found little to no evidence of.
The jury is scheduled to begin deliberations on Friday afternoon.