WARREN Roberts: 'This is what I expected'

The defendant was not surprised that she was convicted of all the charges.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Moments after congratulating a prosecutor for a job well done, Donna Roberts, convicted of complicity to aggravated murder, told Trumbull County deputies that she wanted to die.
The 57-year-old Howland woman, who could soon be sentenced to death row, is under a suicide watch at the county jail. Jail officials declined to comment further on the matter.
Roberts was placed under the protective watch Wednesday shortly after a jury convicted her of complicity to aggravated murder, with death specifications that the crime took place with prior calculation and design and at the same time as an aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery.
She also was convicted of complicity to aggravated burglary and complicity to aggravated robbery.
The same jury will decide next week if Roberts should be sentenced to death, life in prison without parole or life in prison with parole eligibility after 20 or 30 years.
While the verdicts were being read, Roberts showed no reaction. She congratulated Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, smiled when jurors walked out of the courtroom and said she was doing OK.
"This is what I expected to happen," a handcuffed Roberts said as deputies escorted her into an elevator on the third floor of the county courthouse. "I expected this."
On her way back to jail, she told deputies that she wanted to miss the penalty phase of the trial and wanted to die, officials said.
Defense lawyers J. Gerald Ingram and John B. Juhasz, who represented Roberts, could not be reached to comment. Becker declined to comment on the matter, saying the case is still pending.
The penalty phase is expected to begin Wednesday in Judge John Stuard's courtroom. Defense attorneys will present evidence to the jury about Roberts and ask the jurors to spare her life.
How it went
Prosecutors said Roberts and her lover, Nathaniel Jackson, conspired to kill Robert Fingerhut, her former husband.
Prosecutors said Roberts' motive was greed. She wanted to cash in on two life insurance policies totaling $550,000, prosecutors said.
Roberts and Jackson, 29, wrote hundreds of letters to each other, some discussing their plans to kill Fingerhut when Jackson was released from prison, prosecutors said during the trial.
Roberts and Jackson were accused of killing Fingerhut on Dec. 11, 2001, in the Howland home Roberts and Fingerhut shared, just two days after Jackson was released from prison after serving one year on a Mahoning County conviction for receiving stolen property.
On much of the same evidence pending in this trial, Jackson was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in the Fingerhut case and has been sentenced to death. He is appealing his conviction.
"I feel she is as guilty as Nathaniel Jackson and she should suffer the same consequences," said Howland Police Chief Paul Monroe, a lead detective on the case.
sinkovich@vindy.com