When a vicious custody battle ended in murder, the police initially suspected the angry

ex. But the clues began to point elsewhere at an overprotective family member. The investigators

sorted through the evidence to decide who they thought was to blame. But could the prosecution

prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? I'm Charlie and welcome to Crime Lines.

Welcome back to Crime Lines. This is part two of the Fred Jabblin paper round tree saga.

Join me on January 29th on my live stream to discuss this case. I have a special guest,

Leni Hobbs. She is the host of True Crime fan club and the podcast original crimes of passion.

I will leave a link to the live stream in the show notes.

I personally like back-to-back binging myself so I understand if you waited until this came out

to even listen to the first one. But let me give a very brief recap. In 2004,

52-year-old Fred Jabblin and 44-year-old Piper Roundtree had finally found some sort of routine

after a rocky 18-year marriage ended in one of the most contentious divorces you could imagine.

Fred was awarded full custody of their three children and he was living in Virginia with them

while Piper would fly back and forth from her home in Texas to see the children for her visitation.

On the morning of Saturday, October 30th, 2004, Fred Jabblin's neighbor Bob McCartle heard three

clear gunshots. He called 911 and the police responded quickly. Bob told them what he had heard

and also the fake directions the sound came from. He also told them about a shadowy figure who ran

by his house. He had no real description it could have been a man it could have been a woman

and honestly for all he knew it could have been a jogger but this figure ran across his lawn

right after the shots were fired. For over 30 minutes, the responding officer searched the dark

neighborhood with flashlights and spotlights but they didn't see anything. At 7am, they went back

to Bob's house to report that they couldn't find anything and Bob told them he'd call back if

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