BOWLING GREEN, KY – A man who was an escaped fugitive has been charged with the 1996 kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Morgan Jade Violi after DNA evidence linked him to the 30-year-old cold case, federal prosecutors announced Friday.
Robert Scott Froberg, currently incarcerated in Alabama, was charged Thursday with kidnapping resulting in death in connection with Violi’s abduction and killing, according to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky Kyle G. Bumgarner.
Morgan Jade Violi was abducted while playing outside her apartment building on July 24, 1996, in Bowling Green. Eyewitnesses reported seeing her taken by a man in his 20s driving a burgundy van, which was discovered abandoned days later at a Tennessee truck stop. The van had been stolen in Ohio just days before the abduction.
According to Bumgarner, recent advancements in forensic science proved crucial to solving the case. The FBI sent a strand of hair for testing this year, and a DNA profile extracted from the hair was linked to Froberg. Additionally, a fiber found in Violi’s hair was tested by the FBI forensic laboratory shortly after she was found and determined to be consistent with the van.
Froberg had escaped from the Alabama prison system in April 1996, three months before Violi’s abduction. While a fugitive, he was reported to have approached a 7-year-old boy in Pennsylvania while hiding in a child’s tree house. The boy’s parents contacted police, leading to Froberg’s arrest. However, he escaped from a Pennsylvania jail one week before the van was stolen from Ohio, less than a mile from where his parents lived.
When confronted with the DNA evidence at his Alabama prison this week, Froberg allegedly confessed to taking Violi after stealing the van, prosecutors said. According to Bumgarner, Froberg admitted that he stopped in a wooded area of Tennessee, climbed into the back of the van where Violi was located, covered her mouth with his hand and “ultimately caused her death.” He then left the child’s body in the woods.
“All the while Morgan fought, she screamed, she resisted. Morgan was a fighter,” Bumgarner said during Friday’s press conference.
Froberg was arrested a month after Violi’s killing for fleeing the Alabama prison system, where he has remained incarcerated since. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty, according to prosecutors.
Bumgarner, who is from Bowling Green, said the case had a lasting impact on the community. “We remember when she was abducted, we remember the outpouring of support, but we also remember the fear,” he said. “We remember that we were concerned about our kids in the driveway innocently riding a bike or playing basketball.”
The prosecutor said the community had feared for years that Violi’s killer might be living “silently” among them and that “one of our kids might be next.” He expressed hope that the charges would provide comfort to both the community and Violi’s family, including her parents and two older sisters, who “have waited far too long for answers.”
