Tracey Roberts was hailed by the community as a “heroic mother” after recounting the story of shooting an intruder to save her three small children. However, several years later, authorities discovered a completely different story.
The Horrific Incident
A shocking event occurred on a cold night on December 13, 2001, in the quiet rural town of Early, Sac County, Iowa, USA.
At that time, Kenlee Schomaker and his wife Jane, both emergency medical personnel with the fire department, were chatting inside their home when the phone rang, alerting them to a shooting in their neighborhood.
The couple hurried to the two-story blue house where Tracey Roberts and Michael Roberts, along with their children, lived. It was one of the nicest houses in town.
Upon arrival, they found a group of police already present. After a thorough search of the house, the police signaled for them to enter.
In the master bedroom on the second floor, the group found a man lying under the bed in a pool of blood. Bullets were scattered throughout the room. They noticed a bullet lodged in the back of the man’s head. He was pronounced dead, having been shot nine times with two different guns.
The police discovered the homeowner to be Tracey Roberts, 35 years old, along with her three small children, screaming in the kitchen. She claimed another intruder had fled, prompting the police to immediately search the house and the surrounding area.
Fear quickly enveloped the town, where people rarely locked their doors.
Unexpected Identity
According to Tracey’s testimony, while bathing her 1-year-old daughter upstairs, she heard two men at the bottom of the stairs. Terrified, Tracey quickly ran to her son Bert’s room, almost throwing her daughter to him and trying to enter the room but was pulled back by someone pulling her hair, causing her to fall backward.
While Bert was in the bedroom, protecting his siblings with a baseball bat in hand, Tracey said a stranger grabbed the stockings hanging on the railing and began to strangle her. Tracey said she was struggling to breathe and couldn’t break free.
The woman said she lost consciousness and woke up on the floor. In a desperate attempt to protect her family, Tracey tried to run into the bedroom of the couple, grabbed a handgun from the bedside safe, and shot at the intruders chasing her. One fell to the ground, while the other fled.
Tracey then ran to the hallway to get the children out. Just as they were descending the stairs, she saw the intruder trying to stand up and grab a baseball bat, so she quickly grabbed another gun and shot him several times.
When the identity of the man shot dead was revealed, Tracey and those around her were shocked.
It was Dustin Wedhe, 20 years old, a neighbor of Tracey’s family. Dustin’s mother, Mona Wedhe, had a close relationship with Tracey and Michael. Mona had been a real estate agent who helped the couple find several houses after they moved from Chicago to Iowa in 1998. Meanwhile, Michael, Tracey’s husband, volunteered as a mentor for Dustin, Mona’s special needs son.
According to Mona, her son was not like other normal people. Since childhood, he had always been bullied and had no friends.
The Heroic Woman
The death of Dustin Wedhe after being shot by his neighbor Tracey Roberts on the night of December 13, 2001, forever changed the lives of the two families who were once close neighbors. Tracey said that upon learning that Dustin was the intruder, she felt deeply sorry for his mother for losing her son.
Tracey’s husband, Michael Roberts, was away on a business trip when the incident occurred. Upon hearing the news, Michael expressed surprise at his wife’s heroic actions. “I am very proud of her and our son Bert. They are my heroes,” Michael said. Not only Michael but Tracey was also praised by many as a heroic mother who fought to protect herself and her three young children.
The police immediately launched an investigation to try to find the second intruder according to Tracey’s account. They found nothing valuable missing except for an old computer, neatly tucked into the back seat of Dustin’s car, parked right in front of the house.
Tracey believed that the attack may have been orchestrated by John Pitman, her first husband and also Bert’s father. At that time, the two were engaged in a tense custody battle.
Battle with Men
According to Tracey’s description, her ex-husband was very controlling. Tracey believed their marriage fell apart due to his abuse and deception. When Bert was 3 years old, she accused John of abusing their son.
John vehemently denied the accusation. After child abuse investigators intervened, the court ruled that no abuse had occurred.
John, now living in Virginia, claimed that Tracey was the violent one in their marriage. John accused his ex-wife of pointing a gun at him. John also denied infidelity and said his private investigator found evidence that Tracey was the deceptive one. “It was truly shocking, her life had a second side that I never knew existed,” John said.
Meanwhile, Michael believed that the perpetrator might be a dentist in Illinois, whom Tracey had accused of sexual assault after she was given anesthesia during surgery.
Tracey had sent Michael a typed confession and a $150,000 settlement agreement from this dentist. Michael advised his wife to report to the police, but she chose to file a civil lawsuit instead.
The lawsuit began just days before the attack at Tracey’s home. Investigators could not find any connection between this dentist and the incident, nor any evidence that he was present in Iowa. The man later asserted that the “confession” was forged.
One by one, the suspects were ruled out, and now investigators turned to Michael. Although Michael was away on a business trip and not present in town on the night of the incident, he had a close relationship with Dustin.
The Stalemate Case
Tracey’s son Bert, from a previous relationship, testified that he had been physically abused by his stepfather to the point of breaking his nose for not cleaning horse manure by hand. Michael denied hitting his stepson.
Michael was previously arrested in December 2000 after an argument with Tracey. Tracey accused her husband of knocking her down and slamming her head into a plaster wall. However, Michael asserted that Tracey was the one who flew into a rage, and he was only trying to restrain her as she almost punched a hole in the plaster wall near the electrical system. Michael also claimed to have been drugged by his wife and attempted to suffocate him with a plastic bag.
Ultimately, the identity of the second intruder according to Tracey’s account remained a mystery. The case remained deadlocked for years due to lack of evidence.
In 2004, Tracey divorced Michael and moved with her children to Nebraska to start a new life. But for Mona Wehde, Dustin’s mother, this pain could never be healed. After Dustin’s death, the couple divorced. Overwhelmed by the family’s breakup, Dustin’s father went to his son’s grave and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Conflicting statements
Over time, Mona still couldn’t understand why Dustin would want to harm Tracey, whom he considered a friend. She believed her son only parked in front of Tracey’s house and had no gun or knife.
Upon learning that four shots were fired into Dustin’s head, Mona began to suspect foul play in Dustin’s death. She filed a lawsuit against Tracey Roberts for responsibility for Dustin’s death and to find out what really happened that night, the true reason behind Tracey’s gunfire.
Mona’s lawyer also found inconsistencies in Tracey’s account. In one version, Tracey said she knew it was Dustin who grabbed her leg; in another version, Tracey said she only knew the identity of the person she shot after the incident. She also provided different locations for the gunshots in multiple versions of her testimony.
However, Mona abandoned the lawsuit just days before the trial because the investigation didn’t go anywhere.
Thus, in 2008, Special Agent Trent Vileta of the Iowa Criminal Investigation Unit was tasked with reviewing the case.
Reviewing the evidence and Tracey’s statements, along with re-interviewing those involved, Trent quickly found many inconsistencies in Tracey’s statements to the police. Additionally, there were no signs of disturbance inside Tracey’s house, and nothing valuable missing, except for an old computer.
When Trent spoke to Tracey’s two ex-husbands, John and Michael, along with the dentist whom she accused of sexual assault, they all had similar unfavorable comments about this woman.
The Strange Story in the Diary
When Trent spoke with Tracey’s two ex-husbands, John Pitman and Michael Roberts, along with the dentist accused of sexual assault, they all had similar unfavorable comments about this woman. All of them said that Tracey was a manipulative woman and very aggressive.
Reviewing the evidence and Tracey’s statements, along with re-interviewing those involved, Trent quickly found many inconsistencies in Tracey’s statements to the police.
Trent also invited a forensic expert to examine the gunshot wounds. The expert concluded that the last three shots had penetrated Dustin’s head as he was facing downward.
In January 2011, Trent reported the new findings of the case. A few months after the case files were reopened, Tracey was charged with murder.
The criminal complaint also cited a crucial piece of evidence found in Dustin’s car by investigators. It was a pink spiral notebook believed to be Dustin’s diary.
In sloppy handwriting, Dustin wrote a strange story about being “manipulated” by a mysterious “ally” named John Pitman (Tracey’s first husband), whom Tracey accused of orchestrating the murder. At that time, the two were engaged in a custody battle.
The Death Trap
Although it was Dustin’s handwriting, the police believed this story was unreliable because Dustin had been a special education student since childhood, disliked writing, and had never met John.
Authorities decided to keep the existence of the notebook and its contents confidential.
The notebook described specific details about John that Dustin would likely never have known on his own. In emails sent to investigators, Tracey also used almost identical language to describe her ex-husband.
Investigators began to suspect that Tracey provided information to Dustin to write the diary on the night he was shot. Mona, Dustin’s mother, recalled that the night before the incident, Tracey asked Dustin to come over alone because she needed his help with some tasks.
Tracey was arrested and charged with Dustin’s murder. At the 2011 trial, authorities accused Tracey of luring Dustin to the house and killing him to frame her ex-husband in the custody battle over their son.
John Pitman claimed he knew nothing about the notebook and had never met Dustin. A medical examiner testified that the marks seen on Tracey’s neck that night were not consistent with strangulation but appeared self-inflicted.
A former friend of Tracey also testified that Tracey had mentioned the pink notebook a few days after the shooting, although it had never been mentioned in the media or disclosed by investigators.
Despite Tracey and her son continuously insisting that she was the victim of a heinous attack on the night of December 13, 2001, the mother of three was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2017, Tracey appealed but was denied.
