Husband discovers wife's lover snoring in closet; husband is dead
MrPepper11
April 12, 2005
Man Living in Closet Charged With Murder
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A man was beaten to death after catching his
wife's lover living in a closet in their home, police said Tuesday.
Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, 35, was charged with homicide in the
slaying of 44-year-old Jeffrey A. Freeman over the weekend.
"From time to time, you come across a case with very unique -- even
bizarre -- circumstances," police spokesman Don Aaron said. "This one
probably rates right up there with them."
Freeman's wife had allowed Rocha-Perez to live in a closet of the
Freemans' four-bedroom home for about a month without her husband's
knowledge, police said. On Sunday, her husband heard Rocha-Perez
snoring and discovered him, authorities said.
Freeman ordered his wife to get the man out of the house while he went
for a walk, authorities said. Martha Freeman told authorities that when
her husband returned, Rocha-Perez confronted him with a shotgun, forced
him into a bathroom and bludgeoned him.
The Freemans were co-owners of a company that does background checks
for apartment rental and job applicants.
k.t.d.
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/05/03/68167551.shtml?Element_ID=68167551
Suspect in slaying lived in couple's closet
By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writer
Husband followed snoring to wife's lover, police say
Hazel Freeman received her weekly telephone call from her son's home
in Nashville around midnight Sunday, but instead of 35-year-old
Jeffrey, it was her daughter-in-law on the other end of the line.
Martha Freeman explained that she was calling because she knew that
Jeffrey always called his mother on Sunday night, and she didn't want
her to worry, Hazel said. On this night, the wife explained, Jeffrey
had gone to bed without calling.
''(Martha) said he was in the bed and she gave him Sudafed, gave him
Aleve or Advil, gave him something I had never heard of,'' Hazel
Freeman said in a telephone interview yesterday from her home in
Bristol, Tenn.
Yesterday morning, two days after that phone call, Hazel Freeman
learned that her son had been beaten to death inside his home by a man
police said had been in a romantic relationship with Martha Freeman.
In fact, Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez — who has been jailed on murder
charges — had been secretly living in the Freeman couple's closet for
a month, investigators have learned.
About 10 p.m. Sunday night, Jeffrey Freeman heard snoring coming from
a closet in the home and discovered Rocha-Perez sleeping inside.
Jeffrey Freeman confronted his wife, who was also in the home, and
demanded that she throw Rocha-Perez out.
Jeffrey Freeman then went for a walk, police said the wife told them.
When he returned, Rocha-Perez confronted the husband with a shotgun
and ordered him inside a bathroom, police said.
On Monday afternoon, Martha Freeman went to a neighbor's home and
asked them to call police. Officers found Jeffrey Freeman dead in the
bathroom about 3:30 p.m. He had suffered serious head injuries.
Rocha-Perez was arrested after a neighbor reported seeing him in a
home under construction nearby.
Martha Freeman, 40, has given statements to Metro police
investigators, but ''serious time line questions'' remain that the
wife has not answered, department officials said yesterday.
Police still don't know precisely when Jeffrey Freeman returned home
from his walk or when he was killed. Investigators also want to know
exactly what Martha Freeman did before and after her husband was
beaten to death and how long it took her to call for help.
Police also are scrutinizing details of Martha Freeman's phone calls
in the hours before he was found dead.
As of last night, police were referring to the wife as a witness and
not a suspect in the crime. A telephone message left for Martha
Freeman at her home was not returned yesterday.
''A couple of times a year, we get a case that is eyebrow-raising,''
said Don Aaron, Metro police spokesman. ''This one is the most
eyebrow-raising we've had here in a while. It is rather bizarre.''
The victim's mother said the Sunday night phone call she received from
her daughter-in-law offered no hint that anything was wrong.
''She sounded happy as a lark,'' Hazel Freeman said.
At the time of her interview with The Tennessean, the mother had yet
to be interviewed by police detectives. She learned of her son's death
only hours earlier, from Jeffrey's only brother.
''I just can't believe this happened,'' she said. ''I still can't
cry.''
Jeffrey and Martha Freeman worked as licensed private investigators
since 1998 and operated an office in Brentwood.
The Freemans' $300,000 home is in the upscale Mountain View
subdivision of south Nashville.
Hazel Freeman said she knew few details about her son's marriage with
his wife because he wouldn't discuss much about the relationship, even
though some relatives sensed the union was rocky, she said.
This past Christmas, Martha skipped a trip to Jeffrey's Bristol home
for a family gathering. Instead, Jeffrey showed up by himself, his
mother said.
''I don't know much about their home life,'' Freeman said. ''But she
pulled him around by the neck.''
Those who knew Jeffrey Freeman best were struggling yesterday to make
sense of the death of a man they described as ''passive,'' ''nice''
and ''helpful.''
''Jeff did not understand the principles of fighting,'' said Tom
Bianconi, a Nashville trucking company owner who considered Jeffrey
Freeman his best friend. ''He did not understand altercations.
''He would have done anything to avoid any kind of conflict. He was
very kind.''
Bianconi said Jeffrey Freeman, a graduate of the University of
Tennessee, formerly worked as a disc jockey in Knoxville, had a deep
knowledge of music and often would wax on about conservative politics.
He was known as someone who could quickly rattle off the names of
songs, songwriters, artists and music labels.
''He could think faster and better than any computer you have on your
desk,'' Bianconi said.
The couple's business, Resifax, 783 Old Hickory Blvd, provides
landlords with financial and criminal histories of potential tenants,
according to its Web site.
A statement released yesterday by employees of the firm said the
workers plan to continue operating the business.
''We are shocked and deeply saddened by the recent tragic events that
took place at the home of our company founders,'' the statement said.
''Jeff was a wonderful man who loved life and loved the company that
was so much a part of his life.''
Threnody
[...]
> Freeman ordered his wife to get the man out of the house while he went
> for a walk, authorities said. Martha Freeman told authorities that when
> her husband returned, Rocha-Perez confronted him with a shotgun, forced
> him into a bathroom and bludgeoned him.
Gosh. Freemen sounds like a good man, actually. Instead of trying to
beat the living daylights out of the lover, or his wife, or anything
else, he takes a walk. I'm going to project a little bit of my own
personality into the story here and assume Freeman was taking a walk to
cool down and remove himself from the situation while he marshalled his
thoughts and so forth.
Stupid woman, stupid lover. The lover should have left, thankful he
hadn't been beaten to death himself. From the brief story, it doesn't
appear Freeman was threatening him in any way, so why murder?
Unless, of course, the lover thought living in a prison cell instead of a
closet was a move up in the world.
--Threnody
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
>
>The Freemans were co-owners of a company that does background checks
>for apartment rental and job applicants.
So can we get a look at the rental application on Rocha - Perez? lol
--
Scorp
k.t.d.
illegal alien...
tennessean.com 04/14/05
Police scrutinize e-mails from wife of slain man
By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writer
Closet murder suspect jailed until hearing tomorrow
In the months before he was found beaten to death, Jeffrey Freeman and
his wife, Martha, were trying to piece their marriage back together
and working to overcome a half-year separation marked by the woman's
manic-depressive illness and reliance on drugs to treat the disorder,
according to neighbors and e-mails being reviewed by police
investigators.
Jeffrey Freeman's body was discovered Monday in a bathroom of his home
on Incline Drive in the Mountain View neighborhood of south Nashville,
killed, police allege, by a man who was romantically involved with
Martha and secretly living in a 2-foot by 8-foot bedroom closet for a
month.
Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, 35, is scheduled to appear in a Davidson
County courtroom tomorrow for a preliminary hearing on a charge of
criminal homicide. He remains jailed without bail till then.
Yesterday, Metro police investigators continued to sift through
details of the Freeman couple's lives, and the rocky relationship that
preceded this week's slaying.
Among the evidence were e-mails Martha Freeman sent to neighbors,
describing her fragile emotional state and the problems that had
plagued her marriage.
''I have been seeing a psychiatrist for the past year,'' according to
one e-mail dated Feb. 10. ''I've been on a dazzling array of meds that
have almost rendered me 'disabled.' In other words, I've had a hard
time holding a full-time job … because it is difficult to simply wake
up some days due to the strong bi-polar meds.''
Telephone calls to Martha Freeman seeking comment went unanswered
yesterday.
The Freemans were licensed private investigators who operated a
Brentwood business, Resifax, that provides landlords with financial
and criminal histories of potential tenants.
According to the messages, at least one of which bore her Resifax
e-mail address, Martha Freeman said that she and her husband had
recently moved in together after being separated. During the
separation, she lived in an extended-stay hotel.
''My 6 month separation did me some good but ruined me financially,''
the e-mail states.
Other passages discussed a variety of issues.
''I am hopeful about my marriage,'' one e-mail said. ''I went thru
tons o' turmoil when Jeff started working (full-time) for Resifax. ...
Then mom died. Lots of changes all at once kinda rocked me to my
knees. But I'm hanging in there like everyone else :)''
In the correspondence, Martha Freeman also likened life in her upscale
south Nashville neighborhood to living on ''Wisteria Lane,'' a
fictional street in the popular ABC television show Desperate
Housewives.
The show features the wildly intersecting and troubled lives of its
characters, whose lives are filled with marital cheating, murder and
turmoil.
Martha Freeman has spoken with officers, but investigators are still
struggling to reconcile key parts of the time line leading up to
Jeffrey Freeman's death.
According to police, Martha Freeman told them that her husband
followed the sounds of Rocha-Perez's snoring to the closet about 10
p.m. Sunday.
Jeffrey Freeman demanded that his wife make the man leave by the time
he returned from a walk. When Freeman returned, Rocha-Perez forced him
into a bathroom at gunpoint, the woman told police.
Martha Freeman ran to a neighbor's home Monday afternoon and asked
them to call for help. Police found the dead man about 3:30 p.m.
Investigators are trying to determine when he died and what his wife
was doing in the hours before police discovered his body.
Martha's e-mails, as well as telephone calls made to Jeffrey Freeman's
relatives, are being closely scrutinized by police.
''It is part of our very-much-ongoing investigation,'' police
spokesman Don Aaron said. ''We are not by any means through with this
case. That is important for everybody to understand.''
Police yesterday said the closet where Rocha-Perez lived was inside a
bedroom. A foam mat was found on the floor of the makeshift living
quarters. Aaron declined yesterday to provide other details about the
closet.
Aaron also would not disclose Martha Freeman's whereabouts but said
police were in contact with her.
As rain fell yesterday, a red umbrella was propped against the outside
entrance of the Freemans' home at 5424 Incline Drive. Through a window
next to the front door, a pair of ladies' sandals could be seen on a
rug.
Some neighbors yesterday said Martha Freeman had talked about how she
and Jeffrey lived in separate bedrooms. It was unclear which bedroom
contained the closet where Rocha-Perez had stayed.
But police said he had a permanent residence at the Tremont Drive
Apartments, a small, two-story coupling of apartment buildings tucked
into a south Murfreesboro neighborhood.
Several residents of the Tremont Drive Apartments, including Deloris
Cartwright, 51, said they recognized Rocha-Perez as having lived
there.
Cartwright remembered Rocha-Perez staying with people in two different
units — including an apartment right above hers for ''at least a year
and six or seven months,'' but not during the past several weeks.
She described Rocha-Perez as a timid and friendly man who spoke little
English and ''sort of kept to himself.'' She said he once offered her
cash to drive him to Nashville, but that she declined the offer.
''I always saw him up at the swimming pool. He was fidgety. He bit his
fingernails — they were all worn down.''
Cartwright said she was surprised to hear that Rocha-Perez had been
charged with murder.
''That guy was friendly. He'd come over here and offer to take out the
trash. He was a real nice guy.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
k.t.d.
Wife says she listened as husband beaten to death
Judge startled by testimony about man in closet, urges her to get
lawyer
By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF, Staff Writer
Martha Freeman described yesterday how she listened from the next
room, her hands covering her face, as her husband was beaten and
choked to death by her lover in the bathroom of their south Nashville
home last week.
She could hear the sounds of water trickling and thumping, then
silence. But the woman decided against calling police.
"I was absolutely terrified about what was going on," she said. "Also,
if he could have done this to my husband, I wasn't sure what he would
do to me."
Martha Freeman testified yesterday during a preliminary hearing in
Davidson County Criminal Court for Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, 35, who
faces a charge of criminal homicide in the death. The man, whom Martha
Freeman said she knew only as Christian, had secretly slept in a
closet in the Freemans' home for about a month, before the April 10
confrontation with her husband, the woman said.
Rocha-Perez has denied killing Freeman.
Yesterday's hearing - briefly recessed after the judge became
concerned that Martha Freeman might be incriminating herself - marked
the first time that she has spoken publicly about the case, which has
drawn nationwide media attention.
According to her, Jeffrey Freeman, 44, had followed the sound of
snoring to a closet, where he found Rocha-Perez sleeping.
"He ordered me to get up and to take this man home," Martha Freeman
testified. "I was getting up and getting ready to take him home. He
(Jeffrey Freeman) just told me he was going to go outside and walk the
dog and when he got back, the man had better be out of his house."
But instead of leaving, Rocha-Perez picked up a shotgun belonging to
Jeffrey Freeman and confronted him, the woman said.
She said Jeffrey Freeman began to pray.
"When my husband started to pray, it upset him - Christian - and when
Christian got upset is when he pulled (Jeffrey) into the bathroom and
shut the door," she testified.
At some point during the night, Martha Freeman called her husband's
mother to inform his parents that her son would not be making his
weekly telephone call to them because he had taken some medication and
gone to sleep early, the victim's relatives have said.
The next afternoon, Martha Freeman went to the home of neighbors and
asked them to call police. Officers found her husband's body about
3:30 p.m. April 11, lying inside a sleeping bag.
He had massive head injuries. A detective testified Jeffrey Freeman
also appeared to have been choked with a belt and telephone cord.
During yesterday's hearing, Rocha-Perez sat at the defense table,
leaning his head sideways to better hear the Spanish-language court
interpreter whispering in his ear. He has been jailed without bond
since his arrest last week.
After less than an hour of the court hearing, Davidson County Criminal
Court Judge Casey Moreland abruptly stopped Martha Freeman's testimony
during cross-examination by Rocha-Perez's lawyer, saying the woman
needed an attorney.
"It's so bizarre," Moreland said from the bench. "It's hard to believe
a lot of this... I have problems with allowing this to go any further
without her getting some representation.
"And I can see her being charged in this case. She probably should be
charged in this case. I hope the state does not believe everything
she's testifying to, because I sure don't."
Moreland asked prosecutors whether they planned to charge Martha
Freeman with a crime. Prosecutor Katy Miller answered: "She's not
charged right now."
Police have said they still have questions about what Martha Freeman
was doing in the hours before she called police. They are also
scrutinizing telephone calls she made before police were notified.
During questioning yesterday by Rocha-Perez's defense attorney, Metro
Homicide detective Brad Corcoran testified that Martha Freeman's
account did not seem credible.
After the break, Martha Freeman returned to the witness stand and
declined to answer further questions. She invoked her Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination, citing the advice of her lawyer.
Jeffrey and Martha Freeman worked as licensed private investigators,
operating a firm in Brentwood.
According to e-mails that Martha sent to friends in February, which
are being reviewed by police, the woman said she had manic depressive
disorder and was taking medications that often left her unable to work
or function.
She also said that she and her husband were trying to reconcile after
living apart for six months.
In one e-mail, she likened life in her upscale Mountain View home to
living on Wisteria Lane, the fictional setting for the popular ABC
television show Desperate Housewives.
Before the judge halted yesterday's hearing, Martha Freeman testified
that she met Rocha-Perez on July 4, when she and her husband were in
downtown Nashville to see the annual fireworks. Her husband, however,
decided to go home and left her to stay in the hotel room they had,
she said.
Martha Freeman said she met Rocha-Perez "randomly" and brought him and
two of his male friends back to her hotel room. She testified
yesterday that they "partied" and then she had sex with all three men.
During the months that followed, she said she maintained her
relationship with Rocha-Perez until he moved into her home during the
past month. When Jeffrey Freeman was at home, Rocha-Perez would sleep
on a foam mat on the floor of a 2-foot by 8-foot closet.
When the husband was away, Rocha-Perez had free rein in the home,
Martha Freeman said. She said he would spend his days playing video
games, watching television and eating.
To communicate, Martha Freeman said, she and Rocha-Perez would often
use a hand-held electronic device that translates English to Spanish.
After the hearing, Rocha-Perez's lawyer, Peter Strianse, described his
client as a bricklayer from Mexico who has no criminal record in the
U.S. or his native country.
"It is the insistence of Mr. Rocha-Perez that he had absolutely
nothing to do with this (the killing)," Strianse said.
Rocha-Perez also denies having lived inside the Freeman home "on a
continual basis," Strianse said. The lawyer said Martha Freeman would
bring Rocha-Perez to her home when she wanted to see him.
Rocha-Perez remained jailed yesterday with an immigration hold because
he is in the U.S. illegally, police said. His case will be submitted
to the grand jury.
Phoenix
says...
> http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/05/03/68405351.shtml?Element_ID=68405351
>
> Wife says she listened as husband beaten to death
> Judge startled by testimony about man in closet, urges her to get
> lawyer
> By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF, Staff Writer
>
> Martha Freeman described yesterday how she listened from the next
> room, her hands covering her face, as her husband was beaten and
> choked to death by her lover in the bathroom of their south Nashville
> home last week.
>
> She could hear the sounds of water trickling and thumping, then
> silence. But the woman decided against calling police.
>
> "I was absolutely terrified about what was going on," she said. "Also,
> if he could have done this to my husband, I wasn't sure what he would
> do to me."
>
> Martha Freeman testified yesterday during a preliminary hearing in
> Davidson County Criminal Court for Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, 35, who
> faces a charge of criminal homicide in the death. The man, whom Martha
> Freeman said she knew only as Christian, had secretly slept in a
> closet in the Freemans' home for about a month, before the April 10
> confrontation with her husband, the woman said.
>
> Rocha-Perez has denied killing Freeman.
I'm baffled. Why didn't Roche-Perez just leave? Why didn't the Wife
just get him in the car and take him somewhere?
Why didn't the husband call the cops?
How can a man stay in a closet for over 12 hours a day?
Something isn't right here, and I suspect it's the Wife's fiery
imagination that's spinning an unbelievable story. The only scenario
that makes any sense to me is if she told her lover that now they had to
kill her husband since he found out about them - all through an
electronic translator, of course.
bel
>
PattyC
"k.t.d." <k....@remo.biz> wrote in message
news:lm5k71lgc86d2efkn...@4ax.com...
Great story! Why isn't the national news covering this??? I can't tell
quite what it true, but.. I am thinking her bipolar disorder might answer
the question as to how'd she get herself into this (3 guys back to the
room??).
I wanna know more on this one.
PattyC
>
cro...@earthlink.net
"PattyC" <pattycno...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:5Bwee.10820$jU6.10694@trndny06...
k.t.d.
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/05/03/69178691.shtml?Element_ID=69178691
Closet-killing case yields estate fight
Judge makes slain man's family friend the executor
By SHEILA BURKE, Staff Writer
The parents of a Nashville private investigator, who police say was
killed by a man living in a closet of the home he shared with his
wife, asked a judge to keep control of the dead man's estate out of
his wife's hands.
Citing the ''uncertain circumstances of, and the (wife's) possible
involvement'' in the April 10 beating death of Jeffrey Freeman, a
Nashville judge sided with the parents.
Yesterday, Circuit Judge Randy Kennedy appointed a family friend as
administrator of Freeman's estate.
The parents, Blane and Hazel Freeman, who are in their 80s and live in
Bristol, Tenn., asked that the friend, Thomas Bianconi of Nashville,
serve in their place.
The value of Freeman's estate is not known. He and his wife, Martha,
owned their south Nashville home at 5424 Incline Drive. The couple
also had a business, Resifax, which provides landlords with the
financial and criminal histories of potential tenants.
Martha Freeman, 40, did not hire a lawyer to object. She could not be
reached for comment yesterday.
She has not been charged in the slaying. But family members argued in
court documents that she implicated herself in the death during last
month's preliminary hearing for the man accused of killing her
husband.
Tennessee law says people cannot inherit money from someone whose
death they contributed to.
At last month's hearing, Martha Freeman testified that she listened in
the next room as her lover beat and choked her husband to death. She
said she decided against calling police because she was afraid.
Her testimony was so explosive that it prompted Metro General Sessions
Judge Casey Moreland to stop the hearing briefly after he became
concerned that the wife might be incriminating herself.
In court papers, the parents noted that the testimony prompted the
judge to say, ''She probably should be charged.''
The family used Moreland's comments to bolster their argument and
suggested that Martha Freeman may be charged later.
Jeffrey Freeman's family declined to comment for this story.
Metro police said yesterday that there is no criminal charge pending
against Martha Freeman.
The woman told the court that she had been having an affair with
Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, 35, a man she only knew as Christian, and
allowed him to secretly sleep in a closet in her home for about a
month. She said she met Rocha-Perez on July 4 after going downtown to
see the annual fireworks display.
Jeffrey Freeman, according to police, found Rocha-Perez after
following the sound of snoring to the 2-by-8-foot closet in the
couple's Mountain View home.
The wife told the court that her husband went for a walk and wanted
the man out of the house before he came back. When Freeman returned,
Rocha-Perez confronted him with a shotgun and ordered him into a
bathroom, where he then beat him to death, the wife told police.
Rocha-Perez has been charged with criminal homicide and is being held
in the Metro Jail. Authorities have said he is in the country
illegally and cannot post bail because of an immigration hold.