A Mercer County woman is jailed on charges she murdered her husband 10 years ago in the state of North Carolina.
Investigators with the Moore County, North Carolina Sheriff’s Department this week charged Melissa Rovnak, of Bluewell, with the first degree murder of her husband Scott Rovnak. The murder happened in 2002.
"We had been working on it off and on for the last ten years," Moore County Sheriff’s Dept. Captain Rick Talbert told MetroNews Wednesday. "Past couple of weeks we really got active on it and we were able to get enough information to arrest Melissa."
According to the investigation Melissa and her children went back to West Virginia to visit her family and returned three days later to find Scott shot dead and slumped over the computer.
"Her contention was it happened while they were in West Virginia," said Talbert. "But evidence at the scene said it happened just prior to or at the time they left the residence going to West Virginia."
Talbert says that evidence came to light in recent days when they were interviewing a number of witnesses in the case a second time.
"With it being ten-years some of the witnesses were a little more honest with us than they were in the beginning," Talbert said.
Investigators and the Moore County prosecutor obtained an arrest warrant and a search warrant and traveled to West Virginia earlier this week. They searched Melissa Rovnak’s home and found evidence in the case and arrested her.
Talbert wouldn’t say what evidence they discovered, but says it’s has been sent off for testing. He says the evidence found was not the murder weapon and they are yet to locate it.
Melissa Rovnak remains in the Southern Regional Jail, Extradition proceedings to take her back to North Carolina are underway.