Michael Roseboro was ordered this afternoon to stand trial on charges that he killed his wife, Jan E. Roseboro, at the couple's Reinholds home in July.

Magisterial District Judge Nancy Hamill ordered Roseboro to trial after a nearly four-hour hearing that included testimony from witnesses, including a Denver woman who identified herself as Michael Roseboro's mistress.

No date for the trial was set.

In testimony late this morning, Angela Funk said she had been having a secret, seven-week-long affair with Michael Roseboro — and that the two had sex and talked about divorcing their spouses just hours before he allegedly killed his wife.

Funk said she and Roseboro had sex the afternoon of July 22 at a Mount Joy apartment where her mother and stepfather live. Later that day, two hours before Jan Roseboro was found beaten and drowned beside a pool at her Reinholds home, Funk spoke to Michael Roseboro about their illicit meeting and their future together, she testified.

They talked "about the day, how it was a good day, and our future together ... like getting married and all that stuff," Funk testified late this morning. She said she and Michael Roseboro had planned to leave their spouses, and that she worried about his financial situation — specifically losing part of his family's longtime funeral business in Denver.

"One day she could probably take him for a lot if she ever found out about us," Funk recalled telling Michael Roseboro during the phone conversation, between 8:45 and 9 p.m. on July 22.

Roseboro responded that "he didn't want to lose it ... in the divorce if she wanted any part of it," Funk said. She said Michael Roseboro "talked about putting the home in his dad's name so she (Jan Roseboro) couldn't touch it."

The dramatic testimony came this morning at the start of a preliminary hearing for the 41-year-old Roseboro, who is charged with killing his 45-year-old wife. Roseboro, the director of the family's funeral home in Denver, was clean-shaven and dressed in a dark suit and glasses today.

He sat quietly and expressionless during the hearing, which took place in a packed room at the Lancaster County Courthouse. Funk and Roseboro exchanged glances several times during her testimony.

Funk, who is married, testified that she had been involved with Roseboro for seven weeks and that the two had sex at the Roseboro Funeral Home in addition to the home of her mother and step-father.

Funk said the two had planned to divorce their spouses and get married in three to five years, but that their relationship had grown very serious, very quickly. She said she and Michael had already been shopping for, but did not yet buy, a wedding dress and talked about how she would appear on the day of the nuptials.

"We looked at them but didn't buy. We talked about how I would do my hair," Funk said. "We talked about a couple of locations."

Asked by District Attorney Craig Stedman whether her relationship with Roseboro had been progressing faster, and that the two would get married within three to five years, she said: "He e-mailed me about our honeymoon location, so I guess he was moving it up."

On July 17, five days before Jan Roseboro's death, Michael Roseboro allegedly e-mailed Funk and wrote: "I love thinking about our future because I know it will be a reality soon."

"He wanted to throw me a 40th birthday party, and that's in a year and a half," Funk said.

Stedman asked Funk whether she knew Michael was planning a romantic getaway to the Outer Banks in North Carolina with his wife to renew their wedding vows. Funk said, "No."

"He never told you that?" Stedman asked.

"No," Funk reiterated.

Under cross examination from Allan Sodomsky, Roseboro's defense attorney, Funk said Michael Roseboro had never mentioned killing his wife nor shown her any type of weapon.

"Did he talk about taking out any big insurance policies?" Sodomsky asked.

"No," Funk said.

Sodomsky asked whether Roseboro told her during the evening phone conversation that he was planning to tell his wife about the affair. "No, I would remember that."

"If he were planning to leave his wife, he would tell you?" Sodomsky  asked later.

"Yes," Funk said.

Later in the morning, East Cocalico Township Police Detective Keith Neff testified that, during an interview with Roseboro, the alleged killer never mentioned his afternoon meeting with his lover. Roseboro told Neff that he had spent part of the afternoon at a doctor's appointment and had returned to the funeral home afterward, where he was from 3 to 5 p.m., the detective said.

Also during that interview, Roseboro told Neff that he and his wife's relationship was "good," and that he was planning to have their vows renewed the week of Aug. 10-17, the detective testified.

Neff also said that when he informed Roseboro that his wife had suffered a severe blow to her head, Roseboro's only comment was, "Oh."

"It surprised me," Neff recalled this morning.

Neff said he then asked Roseboro is he had any questions, and Roseboro said, "No."

In a later interview, Neff told Roseboro that he was a suspect.

"We told Michael it was just he and his wife (at home at the time of the homicide) and we needed an explanation," Neff said this morning.

"He said he didn't have one."

Also this morning, two women who happened to look at the pool area of Jan Roseboro's Reinholds home the night she was killed testified that the property was completely dark.

September Mahlman said her home at 10 Creek Road, Reinholds, faces the pool area of the Roseboro home, at 107 W. Main St.

Mahlman said she happened to look out her second-floor window between 10 and 10:15 p.m. that night and noticed the pool area was completely dark — an unusual occurrence, she explained, since the lights were typically on every night.

"There were no lights," Mahlman told Stedman.

No tiki torches, no interior pool lights, no garage lights, Mahlman said.

Defense attorney Sodomsky, in a somewhat contentious cross-examination, asked Mahlman about the "rather large" evergreen tree, more than 30 feet high, between the two properties.

You could see through the tree? Sodomsky asked. Under the tree, around the tree?

Mahlman said she could see through the tree that the pool area was dark. She also said she could not see anyone there.

A second woman, Jill Showalter, who had been visiting her parents that night in Reinholds, testified that she drove by Creek Road, which is at the rear of the Roseboro property, and also noticed there were no lights on in the area of the pool.

Another witness, Michael Texter, 18, identified himself as a friend of the Roseboros' oldest son, Samuel.

Texter said he went to the Roseboros' home around 9:30 p.m. that night to see Samuel. He and Samuel decided to go to a female friend's house, about five minutes down the road, to go swimming, Texter said.

As they left the Roseboro home around 9:45 p.m., Texter said, Samuel stopped to tell his parents where they were going.

In response to a question from Sodomsky, Texter said he did not hear the conversation between Samuel and his parents and could not say if there was any discussion about what time Samuel planned to come home.

The Roseboros were in the pool area, Texter said, when they left. The teenager said he believed Michael Roseboro was actually in the water and Mrs. Roseboro was "lying beside him" by the pool side.

"Were they arguing?" Sodomsky asked.

"No, never," Texter replied. "They were happy, cheery as always."

Texter said he had not seen the Roseboros' three younger children, Rachel, Noah and Stella, and did not know where they were that evening.

East Cocalico Township Police Officer Michael Firestone testified that he was the first policeman on the scene. He said he was dispatched shortly before 11 p.m. for a "drowning just occurred."

He arrived at the home in five minutes, Firestone said, pulling up the driveway and parking outside the gated backyard.

Firestone said he could see an emergency medical person performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Mrs. Roseboro, who was wet and lying next to the pool, while her husband stood nearby.

The policeman said he helped with the CPR until additional medical personnel arrived and took over. Eventually, Mrs. Roseboro was lifted into an ambulance and driven to Ephrata Community Hospital.

"The inside of the ambulance was very well lit," Firestone said, and he could see that medical personal "continued to work on her the whole time."

After the ambulance left, Firestone said, Roseboro stayed behind and appeared to be calling family members, who started arriving at the house.

The policeman said he walked around the pool area looking for signs of a disturbance, a struggle or even hair or blood.

Firestone said he found nothing.

Inside the pool, which was lit by interior lights, Firestone said he noticed a pair of glasses, a cell phone and two small rocks. The water was clear, he added.

Outside the screened-in porch adjacent to the Roseboro home, Firestone said, he noticed a bucket, "which smelled heavily of cleaning solution."

He looked inside and saw "white, opaque fluid," with a rag floating in it.

Upon cross-examination, Firestone said a dusk-to-dawn light on a garage at the pool area, plus the five or six tiki torches, were all lit when he was there.

Today's hearing was held in the Lancaster County Courthouse for security purposes as well as to accommodate the large public interest in the case. More than a dozen newspaper and television reporters, as well as a large number of family members, listened to the testimony.

At the time of Roseboro's arrest last month, Stedman said that Roseboro was having an extra-marital affair at the time his wife's death.

Court documents revealed a number of romantic, intimate e-mails shared between Roseboro and the other woman, identified as Angela Funk.

"I am so deeply, madly and completely in love with you baby. I have never experienced feelings like this in all of my 41 years," one of Roseboro's e-mails read,  "and I know the best is yet to come."

Funk cooperated with police, Stedman said, telling investigators that she and Roseboro had been together that afternoon from 2 to 5 p.m. and that he had called her several times that evening from his home, at approximately 7 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.

Police believe Roseboro was home "alone with the victim for a minimum of 30 minutes before he claims he went to bed" at around 10 p.m., according to the affidavit, "and was the last known person to see the victim alive."

Autopsy findings indicated that Mrs. Roseboro was struck on the left side of her head, directly behind her ear, possibly with a tool that made an "L"-shaped mark. The autopsy also found that she had been beaten and kicked — causing injuries that would have brought substantial bleeding.

According to court documents, Michael Roseboro told police that he had gone to bed at 10 p.m. that night while his wife remained outside at the pool. He told police that he awoke at 10:58 p.m. to go to the bathroom and noticed the pool lights still lit, and when he went outside to check on his wife, she was at the bottom of the deep end of the pool.

He said he then called 911.

Police noted that there appeared to be "multiple vertical scratches on Roseboro's face near his mouth," according to documents, and "what appeared to be a fresh cut on Roseboro's left hand."


Staff writer Janet Kelley can be reached at jkelley@LNPnews.com or 481-6026.