Some who are aware of the case of Raven Abaroa’s wife’s 2005 stabbing death may be perplexed by the fact that he has released from prison a little over a year ago. The murderer of Janet Christianson Abaroa only spent a little under eight years behind bars, despite the brutality of the murder. Due to his acceptance of an Alford plea in exchange for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, his sentence is relatively short.
The assassination of Janet Abaroa
Upon returning home at 10 p.m. on April 26, 2005, Raven Abaroa reportedly discovered his wife dead. Something has been fired at her. He called 911 and stated, “There’s blood everywhere.” A postmortem examination revealed that Janet had been stabbed numerous times rather than shot and that she was carrying the couple’s second child. Kaiden, their 6-month-old baby, was in the next room, where he was completely secure. Abaroa’s arrest for embezzling from the sports equipment company where he and his wife worked was only one of the many red flags that led investigators to assume he had killed his wife. Other factors included a missing knife collection and a half-million-dollar life insurance policy. But he also appeared to have a rock-solid alibi. The alleged murder occurred while he was out with his pals playing soccer in the evening. According to what Abaroa told the police, his wife was in bed watching television when he departed.
Raven Abaroa was arrested as a result of Janet’s contacts.
He could avoid arrest for a full five years because of his alibi. They divorced in 2008, and he took his son Kaiden and traveled to Salt Lake City to start a new life with his second wife, Vanessa Pond. Despite Janet’s sisters’ warnings that Pond was hazardous, Abaroa’s second wife still found the single parent trustworthy despite knowing that he was a widower and that the murder of his first wife had not been investigated. She claims her spouse started being aggressive soon after they wed, although he disputes this. After only four months of marriage, the couple decided to separate and have their marriage annulled. And then, in 2009, she spoke out, saying she was convinced he had murdered his first wife, Janet.
Durham police officers shared her opinion and had spent years gathering evidence to support it. The fact that Janet wasn’t wearing her contact lenses at the time of her death raised some red flags; she was supposed to have been in bed watching TV before going to sleep when Abaroa left the house, but they weren’t in their case. The fact that Janet’s missing lenses cast doubt on Abaroa’s account, as their absence contradicted what their sister had told them. In addition to the missing lenses, there were other odd occurrences. Also, the police said no traces of disruption were consistent with a house invasion where a knife was used.
Authorities retrieved Janet’s remains in July 2010, five months after Abaroa was arrested for first-degree murder, and discovered she had been buried in her contacts. The police claimed this was just one of several gaps in Abaroa’s statement. He mentioned that she was blue and awake when he found her in his 911 call. But when he arrived home, he told a church buddy that she was still alive and wondered, “Why do I feel so bad?”
Raven Abaroa’s initial trial was declared a mistrial.
In 2013, after a five-week trial, an 11-1 guilty verdict was reached in the case of Raven Albaroa. The judge called a mistrial. Albaroa made an Alford plea agreement for voluntary manslaughter one week before the second trial began.
A defendant can enter what is known as an “Alford plea,” in which they plead guilty while maintaining their innocence but admitting that the state has enough evidence to win a conviction at trial.
Four years of his sentence of 95-123 months were credited to his time already served in prison. Abaroa stated, “I want to state that I didn’t receive a fair trial the first time. I’ll not get a fair hearing if I go to trial again.
‘I don’t think it’s worth risking the potential of spending the rest of my life in prison for something I didn’t do,’ he went on. To prevent such from occurring, I am taking this appeal seriously. There’s no way that I could have murdered my wife. They (Janet’s family) also made a statement. After almost nine years, with today’s plea agreement, Raven has accepted that he killed our dear Janet, the document stated. It’s not just that he murdered Janet; he also deliberately ended his pregnancy. Janet and her unborn child will never receive justice through a prison sentence.
What has become of Raven Abaroa?
On Christmas Day of 2017, after serving about seven years and 11 months, Raven Abaroa was freed from prison. It has been stated that he has returned to the state of Utah. Kaiden, his son with Janet, is 14 years old and lives in Utah with Raven’s mom, Karyn Abaroa-Bolton, and dad, Jim Bolton.
