Criminology student helps police make arrest in Texas cold case
Criminology students at the University of Texas at Arlington shed tears after discovering a clue that could lead to an arrest in a cold case murder.
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Authorities announced they have indicted two-time prison escapee Robert Scott Froberg on kidnapping charges in the 1996 kidnapping death of 7-year-old Morgan Jade Violi in Kentucky, solving a nearly 30-year cold case.
Kyle G. Bumgarner, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, announced on February 27 that Floberg had confessed to kidnapping and killing Morgan that summer, shortly after escaping from an Alabama prison and then a Pennsylvania prison. Bumgarner said he was arrested on suspicion of jailbreak in late 1996 and has been in custody ever since.
In a packed conference room at the Bowling Green Police Department, law enforcement, media and city officials from Kentucky and Tennessee watched as Morgan’s parents and other family members filed into the room. Family members sat in the first three rows of seats and listened intently to Bumgarner’s accusations.
When Morgan fought back, she screamed, Bumgarner said. Her mother gasped. Tears streamed down the faces of many family members as they wiped their cheeks with crumpled tissues.
Bumgarner called the news “one of the most significant announcements by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in at least a decade.”
“For years, the community has feared that Morgan’s abductor was living quietly among us. We feared that one of our children would be next. I hope that today’s announcement can provide some comfort to my home community,” Bumgarner said.
Bumgarner said if convicted, Froberg could spend the rest of his life in federal prison or face the death penalty.
On July 24, 1996, Morgan disappeared from the parking lot of the Bowling Green apartment complex where she lived while playing with another girl, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Bowling Green is a city approximately 105 miles outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with approximately 40,600 residents at the 1990 census and approximately 80,000 residents today.
Witnesses said the man driving an older maroon Chevrolet van grabbed the girl first, then grabbed Morgan, put her in the van and tried to speed away.
The FBI described the man as approximately 20 to 30 years old in 1996, with light brown hair, and of medium height and weight.
The FBI said the van used in the kidnapping was stolen from Dayton, Ohio. He was found two days later at a truck stop in Franklin, about 135 miles from Bowling Green, the FBI said.
It took three months before Morgan’s body was found. Her skeletal remains were discovered by a woman walking near her home in Whitehouse, Robertson County, the USA TODAY Network’s Nashville Tennessean reported. Witnesses told police that a van matching the one used in the kidnapping and found in Franklin was found in the area where Morgan’s body was found on July 25, 1996.
The search for Morgan’s killer remains unsolved for nearly 30 years, and the FBI in Louisville announced in 2022 that it would continue searching for clues. As recently as January 22, 2026, the Bowling Green Police Department was seeking new information. The FBI has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect.
New DNA technology helped solve the case
Officials said fibers recovered from Morgan’s hair in 1996 held the key to solving the case. Bumgarner said the fibers matched the seat cushions of the stolen van, but advances in DNA analysis at the FBI have only recently allowed authorities to pinpoint the connection to Froeberg.
“Due to recent advances in forensic testing of DNA evidence, the FBI sent the hair recovered from the van back to the laboratory for testing. The FBI discovered that the DNA profile extracted from the hair was associated with Robert Scott Froberg,” he said.
Bumgarner said Floberg did not come to the FBI’s attention as a suspect in Morgan’s murder until the new analysis was conducted.
Morgan Jade Violi murder suspect escapes custody twice
In 1996, Froberg was in an Alabama prison, serving a 40-year sentence for robbery starting in 1989, records show. Bumgarner said he escaped from prison on April 3, 1996.
He traveled to Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, where he was reported to have been seen “having contact with a 7-year-old boy” in a children’s treehouse on May 20th. Bumgarner said the boy ran home, told his parents and called police. He was arrested and taken to Northumberland County Jail.
On July 16, 1996, Froberg once again escaped from a Pennsylvania prison. The maroon van was reported stolen on July 23 in Dayton, Ohio, less than a half-mile from where Froberg’s parents lived. Bumgarner did not elaborate on how Floberg escaped from the Alabama and Pennsylvania prisons.
Froberg was finally arrested on August 21, 1996, and has been in custody ever since.
Earlier this week, investigators interviewed Mr. Froberg after linking him to Fiver and learned that he was on the run at the time of Mr. Morgan’s death. Froberg admitted to being in Bowling Green intending to buy drugs and also admitted to kidnapping Morgan and putting her in his van, Bumgarner said.
“Throughout it all, Morgan fought. She screamed, she fought back. Morgan was a warrior,” Bumgarner said.
Froberg admitted to putting his hand over Morgan’s mouth, “ultimately causing her death inside the van,” Bumgarner said. He also admitted to leaving her body in the woods.
The child’s death had a lasting impact on the community
Marika Brown, a retired major with the Bowling Green Police Department, was a young officer on patrol when Morgan was taken. The mother of two children, ages 2 and 4, was out taking an aerobics class when all police officers were called in. When she returned home, she noticed that her answering machine had calls to all the units.
She quickly got ready and came to work early, she told the Nashville Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, after the Feb. 27 press conference.
Neither Brown nor the community knew how much of an impact this incident would have on Bowling Green for the next 30 years. Random kidnappings are rare. It scared people.
In the mid-90s, it was not uncommon for children to play unsupervised, especially during summer vacation. However, things changed when Morgan was taken. Brown said the church began to fill up, both with people looking to God for answers and a safe place for children to play.
“It’s one of those cases where you work in a career that just gets engraved and burned into your memory forever,” she said. “I think that’s always the biggest fear for anyone who’s ever had children or grandchildren, but to see it actually happen and it take so long is both reassuring and heartbreaking.”
