The hunt for who kidnapped and killed 7-year-old Morgan Violi was cold for decades. Then came a break

By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

(CNN) — Authorities say they now know who kidnapped and strangled 7-year-old Morgan Violi nearly 30 years ago.

Prosecutors say Robert Scott Froberg admitted to taking the girl in July 1996 during a prison escape. They say he snatched her near a Bowling Green, Kentucky, apartment building, drove her in a maroon van to a different town, strangled her with a handkerchief, and dumped her body — all before being recaptured.

Froberg had entirely evaded investigators’ suspicion until a recent re-test of hair collected from the van, prosecutors say. He now faces either life in prison or the death penalty.

“For years, this community has feared that Morgan’s abductor lived silently among us and that one of our kids could be next,” US Attorney Kyle Bumgarner said in a statement Friday. “Investigators in the FBI and the Bowling Green Police Department have worked tirelessly to bring justice for Morgan. They applied new technology, reexamined old evidence, and never stopped searching the truth.”

It was only recently that investigators had the ability to run a strand of hair they found at the scene through a national database — CODIS — that stores DNA from local, state and federal investigations, and match it to Froberg.

Using that match and piecing together Froberg’s associates — including a male nurse known to exchange money or assistance for sexual favors — the FBI and local police were able to identify him.

Froberg was already serving a lengthy prison sentence in Alabama for armed robbery the year that Violi went missing, but had escaped from a work detail and drove to Pennsylvania, prosecutors say. He was recaptured after a child discovered him on a playground and told their parent, but he quickly escaped custody once again.

In a Tuesday interview outlined in court documents, Froberg — now in his 60s — told investigators he then stole a car and started driving to Alabama to stay with a male nurse he met while incarcerated. Froberg stopped in Kentucky to buy marijuana, according to court documents, which is when he spotted Violi and another child playing in the parking lot.

Froberg allegedly told investigators that he grabbed Violi, who was “screaming” and “freaking out,” and that he told Violi they were going to see her father to calm her down. Investigators say he admitted to covering her mouth with his hand, strangling her in the maroon van he had stolen, and disposing of her body in the woods.

Froberg also cleaned and abandoned the van at a truck stop, where it was later found by authorities and swept for evidence. That is where investigators ultimately found a strand of his hair.

“Morgan fought,” Bumgarner said at news conference Friday, which Viori’s parents reportedly attended. “She screamed. She resisted. Morgan was a fighter.”

Froberg was captured and rearrested in August 1996 and has been in prison since.

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