Inset (left): Jeri Roby (Harrison County Sheriff’s Office). Inset (right): John Gaither (Wilmington Funeral & Cremation). Background: News footage of Jeri Roby’s home in Gulfport, Mississippi (WLOX).
In a tragic and unsettling case out of Mississippi, a mother faces a lifetime in prison after being convicted of murdering her son and concealing his remains within her residence.
Jeri Roby, 69, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the death of her 42-year-old son, John Gaither. Roby learned her fate on Wednesday, two and a half years after police said she fatally shot her son at her Gulfport, Mississippi, home on or around Dec. 10, 2023, then kept his body hidden inside the house. According to court documents obtained by local ABC and CBS affiliate WLOX, several of Gaither’s other family members called police after they said they had not heard from Gaither, who was living with his mother at the time.
Jeri Roby wove an intricate web of deception regarding her son, John Gaither’s whereabouts, all while fully aware that he had never left her side.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew D. Burrell revealed that Roby engaged in elaborate deceit by sending text messages impersonating Gaither, persuading her boyfriend to impersonate him over the phone to family members, and even traveling to Florida with his cellphone to manipulate the geographic data from the cell towers.
The chilling accounts unfolded during Roby’s plea hearing, as reported by WLOX from within the courtroom. There, a visibly emotional Roby confessed that the fatal shooting of her son was a hasty decision made impulsively. She claimed that she ended her son’s life to relieve him from the suffering caused by his depression.
Roby was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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