Linda Lou Charbonneau

Linda Lou Charbonneau

This one has been a bit harder than some for me to sit down and put together. First, there is the issue of not just the fact that there are several people involved but their relationship with each other. Secondly, there this is one of those cases that remained in the court system for a while considering that one of the defendants had their conviction overturned, thus granting them a new trial, despite the defendant later taking a plea deal. While obviously the courts found the reason to overturn the conviction significant, and from a legal sense I have to agree, I have also asked myself if it really would have made a difference, and even if it had, would it have been nothing more than a distraction. But, I'll get more into that later.

On September 23, 2001 John Charbonneau, a resident of Bridgeville Delaware, went missing. At the time of his death his ex wife, Linda Lou was living with him in his home. Linda and John had met after Linda's first husband had died in a car accident. She was a single mother with two young children. John and Linda would spend the next, nearly, twenty years together, have a child and apparently later divorce. Soon after it appears that Linda married John's nephew, William “Billy” Sproates III. After a few years though it appears Linda left Billy, although it does not seem that they divorced, and moved back in with John. By most accounts it appears that they had only been back living together possibly for a few months before John went missing.

It seems that just after John disappeared Linda proceeded to move back in with Billy Sproates. Billy was never a suspect in John's disappearance but Billy was suspicious. In fact, Billy was so suspicious of things he found and saw he took those suspicions to the police. Billy believed that not only Linda, but her daughter Mellisa Rucinski (yes, this is the correct spelling it seems) and Mellisa's boyfriend, Willie Brown, were involved in his uncle's disappearance. It also appears that he fully believed his uncle to be dead. Billy had seen blood on some items but he also saw as Linda was all but “gutting” John's house. It was said that she even so much as took the kitchen cabinets out of the home.

Then, on October 17^th, less than a month after John disappeared, so did Billy Sproates. Investigators were already obviously investigating John's disappearance and a few days after Billy disappeared they were out at John's home and found an area in the yard that looked as if it had been disturbed recently. They proceeded to dig at the area and recovered Billy's body. An autopsy would reveal that he had not only died of multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma to his head but also from asphyxiation as dirt was found in his lungs indicating that he had been alive and breathing when placed inside the make shift grave. Immediately Linda, Mellisa and Willie were now not only suspects in the disappearance of John but now in the confirmed death of Billy. Investigators had to basically solve John's disappearance before they could conclusively move on to Billy's death considering he had been found on John's property. They needed more than suspicion to arrest anyone until they could not only rule everyone out in Billy's death, but more specifically rule out that John was not alive and therefore unable to be involved in Billy's murder.

In the meantime it seems that Mellisa and Willie Brown would marry. Whether they remain married seems uncertain as Mellisa is still listed in the DOC under Rucinski. I suspect, although cannot verify that this may have been a tactic to prevent the two from having to testify against each other. By July of 2002, investigators only had a little more information than they had but they were keeping a close eye on the three suspects. Mellisa's ex-husband John Rucinski informed investigators that in the fall of 2000, prior to their divorce that both Linda and Mellisa had approached him about “getting rid” of John. Then investigators were able to pick up Willie Brown on unrelated charges and decided to drill him again about John's disappearance and Billy's death. It appears that he all but readily confessed saying that while he all but did the murders, Mellisa had helped and was involved also, as well as Linda who in essence “ran the show.” Willie led investigators to John Charbonneau's body. An autopsy showed he died of blunt force injury and a skull fracture. All three suspects were promptly arrested.

Willie took a plea deal that would require him to testify against the two women in exchange for two life sentences without parole. This was likely solely to avoid the death penalty. Mellisa too would get a deal. She had told her story also although it differed a bit from Willie's, and this is where there would be a problem later. Mellisa apparently admitted to help getting rid of the bodies but not to the murders themselves, nor did he admit to administering any blows. Her plea deal also required that she testify against her mother. She would plead guilty to second degree murder in the death of John and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Billy. She would receive a twenty-five year sentence.

In April of 2004 Linda Lou Charbonneau would go on trial for the deaths of her two husbands. While both Willie and Mellisa had agreed to testify against her per their plea deals the prosecution decided only to call Mellisa. They obviously knew that their stories differed and it was said that they believed Mellisa over Willie. The defense apparently attempted to call Willie to the stand but it is unclear if he took the stand, continually pleading the Fifth Amendment or if he refused to testify at all. Remember, his agreement was only with the prosecution.

According to prosecutors John Charbonneau was murdered basically for greed, for his money, specifically social security checks. When Billy became overly suspicious it was said he was murdered to keep him quiet. It was said that Billy was buried on John's land specifically hoping that investigators, who obviously could not find John, would possibly believe that John had been Billy's murderer. The defense would claim, and apparently Linda's family would also come to believe, that the murders were carried out solely by Mellisa and Willie and they believed that their changing stories would prove that. Although it does appear that most of the evidence against Linda came from Mellisa's testimony that was not the totality that they had nor did they feel a reasonable person would believe the defense theory. I believe that most of this idea came from several points. First, don't forget, there was John Rucinski's testimony that both Mellisa and Linda had approached him long before it is believed that Willie Brown was in the picture. Then there was the evidence that Billy had told police before his death, and they apparently collaborated, that Linda was involved in the cleaning out of John's home. It was also said that there was blood in a vehicle that Willie Brown had owned at the time of John's disappearance but then later sold to Linda and by the sounds of it the blood was rather visible. I was unable to determine if this blood remained long enough for investigators to test. The prosecution idea was that there was absolutely no way that Linda was not involved. The jury believed the prosecution and found Linda guilty in both murders, as well as two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and a charge of possessing a deadly weapon during a felony. On June 4, 2004 the judge in the case handed down two death sentences, plus another thirty years on the other charges to Linda. She became the only woman at that time on Delaware's death row.

In 2006 an appeals court overturned Linda's conviction. They did so on the basis that the prosecution had not called Willie Brown and he had not been compelled to testify for the defense. The appeals court felt that Willie Brown's testimony could have possibly showed reasonable doubt to the jury and could have affected the verdict or the sentence she received. The idea all came from what the courts determined were Willie and Mellisa's proffered testimony. Basically this is testimony that is technically under oath (whether in a court room or in a legal deposition in some way) but not in front of a jury. The defense had also argued that there were inconsistencies between Mellisa's proffered testimony and that in which she testified at trial.

The prosecution planned to take the case back to trial but their first and biggest roadblock came when Mellisa was now refusing to testify against her mother. Just as the trial was to begin in 2007 Linda was offered a plea deal herself. She pleaded guilty to second degree murder when it came to John and the charges in Billy's case were dropped. She was sentenced to twenty years in prison. For her refusal to testify in a second trial Mellisa received an additional five months on her sentence.

All three remain in Delaware's prison system today although it appears that in 2016 Melissa attempted to have her sentence commuted. It is unclear if that is still within the courts, and/or what the grounds for this action were. Currently Linda is scheduled to be released in July of 2022 while Mellisa is scheduled in September of 2023. Willie Brown has no release date due to his plea of life without parole.