Perspective: The makings of a murder charge

Dec. 22

At 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 22, Penn Economics professor Rafael Robb had a phone call to make. Ten punches into his cell phone later, he had dialed the non-emergency number of the Upper Merion Police Department.

"I just came home and found my wife murdered on the kitchen floor," he told the police dispatcher.

Within minutes, authorities arrived at the Robb's home at 670 Forest Road in the Wayne section of Upper Merion Township - an affluent Philadelphia suburb 50 minutes away from campus - to discover Ellen Robb's dead body.

Ellen Robb, a 49-year-old homemaker and mother, lay on her back, surrounded by a pool of blood.

On the table near her sat two recently-wrapped Christmas gifts and a few completed "to/from" tags; authorities believe she had been preparing gifts when she was attacked.

Those tags had been filled in with pink ink. Investigators later found a pink pen lying in the blood - they believe the victim had been holding it as she attempted to fight off her attacker.

While Rafael Robb waited outside with one police officer, two others gave the rest of the house a once-over, noting the family dog, Copper, contained in the Robbs' daughter's bedroom. Meanwhile, Rafael Robb pointed out a broken window to the police officer he was standing with.

By 4 p.m., a coroner had pronounced Ellen Robb dead - her body was cold and rigid, and the coroner believed she had been dead since before noon.

Upper Merion police and the Montgomery County District Attorney's detective bureau began investigating the case as a homicide. Robb told authorities he had last seen his wife that morning before heading to Penn's campus, where he visited Wawa, received a parking ticket and handed in his fall semester grades.

He also said he had bought fruit at a Chinatown grocery store for 40 minutes, but an employee denies seeing him that day.

Dec. 23

Authorities brought in a forensics expert to perform an autopsy on Ellen Robb's body.

Her skull was crushed, her face fractured in multiple locations. She died due to multiple blunt-force trauma to the head, the expert concluded.

Detectives had originally guessed that the victim was shot at close range because of the severity of her injuries; only an autopsy revealed that the death was due to a brutal bludgeoning.

The murder weapon was determined to be long and cylindrical.

As investigators continued to search the house and surrounding area, they noticed a row of tools in the home's garage. One tool seemed to be missing from the line.

Dec. 24

Several newspapers began to report in their coverage of the murder that the Robbs' marriage was estranged, and had been so for many years. Authorities questioned neighbors and friends about the Robbs' marriage as they continued to search for clues.

Rafael Robb's office in the McNeil Building on Penn's campus was also searched.

Dec. 26

Authorities said in a press conference that they believed some evidence had been staged by the murderer to appear like a burglary attempt.

In particular, they suspected the broken window in the laundry room they had discovered earlier - and that Robb himself had mentioned - was a red herring.

Additionally, Ellen Robb's car had been parked in the driveway, making the home an unlikely target for burglary.

Because the glass from the broken window did not appear trampled on, authorities believed that no one entered the house at the time it was broken. Authorities also found it suspicious that Copper, the family dog who usually was free to roam about the house, had been enclosed in a bedroom.

They noted that the manner of Ellen Robb's murder was far more brutal than what the average burglar hoping to escape might commit.

Investigators continued to probe further into the Robbs' marriage and the possibility that Ellen Robb was seeking a divorce.

The District Attorney announced that Rafael Robb, though not officially a suspect, had also not been eliminated at this point.

Dec. 29

At Ellen Robb's funeral, Rafael Robb gave the eulogy as family, friends and media members looked on - some with scrutiny.

Dec. 31

The Robbs' real-estate agent reported to detectives that Ellen Robb was to leave their Upper Merion home and occupy a King of Prussia townhouse by New Year's Day, following her pending separation and divorce from Rafael Robb.

She would have received a divorce settlement of at least $4,000 per month from her husband, a sum confirmed by the victim's divorce attorney, who added that the arranged sum would have been paid for 10 to 15 years.

The Robbs' 12-year-old daughter reported that her mother had told her of the divorce within two weeks before her murder. The daughter added that her parents were long estranged.

Jan. 2

A high-school friend of Ellen Robb's told detectives that she had invited Ellen Robb to a birthday party on Oct. 27 - the friend said Ellen Robb could not attend because she had a black eye. According to the friend, Ellen Robb claimed that her husband hit her and generally treated her "terribly," the friend told detectives.

Ellen Robb allegedly told another friend that, if anything were to happen to her, her husband should be considered the prime suspect.

Jan. 3

Rafael Robb was named the prime suspect in the case by authorities.

A search warrant affidavit of probable cause - the compiled work of detectives and mental-health experts - noted that the severity of the attack was a "blitz" indicative of a need to dehumanize Ellen Robb.

The police's affidavit called for Robb to participate in a DNA test. Robb has complied with the DNA sampling, which is still undergoing analysis. Authorities do not expect the DNA results to be conclusive, since Rafael Robb lived in the home.

Police questioned Robb's story. After the murder occurred, he claimed not to have immediately called police. Instead, he said that he saw his wife and touched her face briefly. He immediately took his briefcase and laptop to his upstairs office, checked on the barking dog, and returned downstairs to use the cell phone that he had left in his car.

Authorities noted that Robb had phones available within the house, and, also, it was unusual to respond in such a way to the mutilated figure of his wife's dead body on the kitchen floor.

The dialing of the 10-digit local police number (instead of the 911 emergency number) was also suspect to authorities. Authorities noted that Robb had dialed 911 in June from his home to assist him during a nosebleed. The affidavit claimed that Robb was perhaps trying to unsuccessfully avoid police phone-line taping.

Most suspicious, the affidavit claimed, was Robb's initial assertion to the police dispatcher that his wife's head had been "cracked." Since even experts were initially convinced that Ellen Robb had been shot due to the trauma to both the front and back of her head, Robb's knowing this fact beforehand seemed unusual to police.

Robb was relieved of his teaching duties for the semester at Penn following the District Attorney's announcement, University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said on the next day.

Jan. 8

Rafael Robb was arrested by Upper Merion Police in connection with the murder of his wife. He was charged with first- and third-degree murders, possessing an instrument of crime and tampering with and falsifying evidence, including staging the break-in to mislead investigators.

Police authorities claimed that Robb murdered his wife to avoid financial loss associated with the divorce.

Robb is held without bail at the Montgomery County Prison; a preliminary hearing will be held later this month.

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