Tracey Richter

This is one of those cases that before I went through all the effort of researching I had to double check that I had not already done so. That has happened from time to time here. I think the idea that I may have already blogged about this case may have stemmed from the fact that I have seen many television shows and read numerous articles about this case over the years. It is one that has fascinated me so the fact that I had not done this case already does surprise me a bit. That being said I am glad that I did wait. My research today revealed that after Tracey Richter's conviction in 2011 there seemed to be a conspiracy in which some of her friends and family, including her mother, worked with Tracey to spread false information across the Internet about people who had testified against her at her trial. It does not appear that any of the articles, many published by Ripoff Report, are still available. I did find articles that related to warrants being served and defamation suits filed pertaining to that issue. This is something I will address again later.

On the night of December 13, 2001 Tracey Richter-Roberts called the police from her home in Early Iowa. She reported that she had just finished giving her youngest child a bath when she heard a noise downstairs where her other two children were watching television. She claimed that at first she believed that her husband Michael may have returning home from a business trip but soon realized that it someone she did not know. She stated that the young man came up the stairs and started attacking her as she held her son. At some point Tracey claimed the attacker tried to strangle her with panty hose. According to Tracey there was a struggle but she was able to push the attacker off of her and made her way to her master bedroom. At this point Tracey claimed that someone came into the room and once again another struggled ensued. She made her way to a gun safe that sat between the bed and dresser. Within the struggle she would claim that her glasses had come off rendering her nearly blind and yet she was able to open the safe and retrieve a gun that she said she first shot over her shoulder. She said the gun jammed and while she attempted to fire again both bullets left the chamber. In the end Tracey had managed to shoot nine times at the person from two different weapons.

When the police arrived they found the body of twenty year old Dustin Wehde on the floor of Tracey's bedroom. She would claim the second attacker had left but that she had not gotten a good look at him. She did however know Dustin Wehde fairly well. Not only was he a neighbor of hers, but she and her husband had embraced Dustin and had him help doing things around their home. It is unclear exactly what Tracey's eleven year old son Bert Pittman would have to say about what had gone on. I can tell you that over the years he has defended his mother. Tracey did have some scratches and marks on her neck and at some point after the police arrived Tracey was taken to the hospital when she complained that she had trouble breathing.

The police, at least through the media, and the media itself portrayed Tracey Richter as a hero mother who did what she had to do to protect her children. And, as is often the case, Dustin was portrayed as the criminal that deserved what he got. The search for his accomplice was on and everyone was ready to hang him from the highest tree. In the beginning it seemed that only Dustin's mother, Mona was the only one fighting for justice for her son, at least publicly. I say publicly because there was something the police found the night Dustin died that they did not release to the public, but was something they needed to investigate. Dustin's car was parked in Tracey Richter's driveway. In the backseat investigators found a notebook. Inside was a letter, in Dustin's handwriting, that stated he had been hired by Tracey's ex-husband, John Pittman, who she was in a custody battle with, to kill both Tracey and her son, Bert. Once this was looked into further it seems that some people, privately began changing their minds, including some investigators. The problem was that there was not a lot of proof to back up their theories.

I suppose that Mona was responsible for the first shreds of doubt to be entered into the minds of some. By all indications Tracey had portrayed not knowing either of the alleged intruders. The one that she claimed ran off was also the first one to allegedly attack her and yet she could not describe him. Dustin was actually someone she knew very well. In fact, he had just been in her house a few hours earlier. Dustin knew the family well. He had been their quite often. Tracey and her husband, Michael had taken the young man, who was rumors to have some intellectual issues, under their wing teaching him things and mentoring him. So, Tracey's theory that she did not know the young men did not ring true. That being said, the fact that Tracey did know Dustin does not mean everyone jumped off the Tracey Bandwagon. Some felt the fact that Dustin knew Tracey made it worse that he had allegedly broken in her house and attacked her. Mona filed a wrongful death suit against Tracey but without proof of what had happened the case drug on and eventually Mona couldn't financially continue with the case. The one thing it did do was keep the story in the news even if some of the stories still praised Tracey and her actions.

Tracey's husband, Michael Roberts supported her, at least initially. The two even made an appearance on the Montel Williams show. Tracey was telling her story to anyone and everyone. There did seem to be inconsistencies here and there and she would add things from time to time, especially when a questioned would be asked. By most accounts it seems that over time that the investigators were convinced that all was not as it had seemed that night but the prosecutor at the time did not think there was enough and refused to prosecute. Over the years new things would be added or discovered but still the prosecutor seemed reluctant. Ultimately it would be Tracey and her inability to maintain personal relationships that did the most against her it seems.

Tracey and her first husband, John Pittman, had married while he was still in medical school studying to be a surgeon. According to Pittman not long after they married, and more so after their son Bert was born, Tracey started exhibiting a change in behavior. Suddenly she was seemingly overly manipulative and her temper seemed to get worse; credit cards were disappearing and he learned she was having affairs. Pittman claims that at one point she waved a gun in his face, threatened to kill him and told him he would never leave the house again. John decided to move out and file for divorce. He also hired a private investigator who after looking into and following Tracey allegedly told John that he should be extra careful because he believed Tracey had hired someone to kill him.

Tracey and John's divorce was final and she had primary custody of their son Bert. In that same month Tracey married Michael Roberts. They had met on the Internet and he was a wealthy business man who lived in Australia. When they married Michael moved to the U.S and the two settled down in Iowa where Tracey's mother lived. Together Michael and Tracey would have two more boys. In December of 2001 they were one and three. It is unclear exactly when Michael and Tracey's marriage began to crumble. If it was prior to the night Dustin was clear then things changed because Michael was completely supportive of her and her story of self defense. He was also supportive to her when John Pittman filed for sole custody of their son Bert and when Tracey claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by a dentist during surgery. It appears that Michael had no reason to doubt Tracey about anything. But, at some point that would change too.

It appears that Tracey and Michael would remain together until about 2004. According to Michael he too saw the things that John Pittman would claim, a fierce temper, financial issues, and more. He claims that she would often dress up and leave the house, returning at odd hours and was very secretive about where she was going or where she had been. He too it seems decided to file for divorce from Tracey.

Investigators stated that they had not made the notebook they found in Dustin's car public, or at least not before Tracey, now former friend, Mary Higgins spoke to investigators. Higgins told investigators that Tracey had told her the story of what happened but had also told her that the police would, or had, found the notebook and it showed that her ex-husband was responsible for what had occurred at her house. It appears that either Tracey knew investigators were on to her or she later regretted making that statement to Mary because Mary claims that later Higgins told her to forget what she had told her about the notebook. I believe it was not long after that the media had been made aware of the notebook. For investigators this was obviously interesting. How would Tracey know where the notebook was or what it contained? Surely a man hired to kill her would not have showed her the notebook and then still attempted to kill her. After Michael would file for divorce Tracey would begin making claims that he had worked with John Pittman also. Her claims were that her ex-husband's wanted custody of their children even though previously the claim was that Pittman wanted their son dead.

For his part Michael would claim that he felt Tracey had attempted to kill him on more than one occasion. He claimed that one time she had laced a cocktail she brought to him while he was in the garage. As he became less conscious, sitting in the front seat of the car she had started the car and closed the garage door. It was unclear how he had been “saved.” I did not find examples of other claims. I did however find where Michael sued Tracey, among other people, long after her trial when it was discovered they were defaming prosecution witnesses. I did not see what the eventual outcome of the case was. I also saw a statement made by Michael where he discussed Tracey's brother, John, a Chicago police detective. It was a rather defaming article but again, I do not think anything came of it.

In January of 2011 a new prosecutor was put into place and investigators went to him with the information they had obtained throughout the years and had showed the previous prosecutor. In July of 2011 Tracey Richter-Roberts was arrested on charges of first degree murder. I must be fair in saying that there did not seem to be a lot of information about the trial itself other than the outcome. Both of her ex-husband's testified about their relationships with Tracey both before and after December 13, 2001. Also, her former friend, Mary Higgins testified saying that Tracey apparently knew about the notebook in Dustin's vehicle before investigators had released the information. Their investigation showed no connection between Dustin and John Pittman. To add to this Dustin's circle of friends was very small and there was no indication that he had conspired with someone else to enter Tracey's home. In fact, other than Tracey's word there was never any indication that there had been a second person. While Tracey claimed that she was choked with a pair of pantyhose there were experts who testified that the few marks on her neck appeared to be nothing more than small friction burns that could be caused by simply rubbing something on her neck.

Defense attorney's had a psychologist prepared to diagnose her with acute stress syndrome. The psychologist, Dr. David Grove, wanted to tell the jury that her behavior was consistent with being a victim of a home invasion. The judge hearing the case prevented Grove from delving too far into this saying that it would have “crossed the line into the realm of bolstering Richter's credibility.”

I can sit here and tell you that while I do not know all of the information that was given to the jurors, I am unsure that we need to know everything in order to determine if Dustin Wehde's death was a legal homicide or not. Tracey, and through her attorney's, argued that she shot Dustin in self defense. To qualify as self defense Tracey had to be in immediate danger and had no other choice but to use lethal force. Although there seemed to be little information about the gun “safe” the fact that it was called a safe tells us that the gun, or guns, that she used were not simply accessible. She claimed that she got access to this while one of the intruders ran off and allegedly Dustin was coming into her room. Yet during all of this there's no word where she has placed her one year old that she claims she was holding when the first person attacked her. Nor is there any talk about what eleven year old Bert and three year old Noah was hearing or doing while the struggle was going on. She had stated that before she gave her son a bath the two older children were downstairs watching television. Bert was clearly old enough to be a witness who could have gone to the telephone or at the very least paying attention. There seemed to be no indication that there was a second intruder aside from Tracey's statement. To add to this we have to consider how much time would have taken her to open the safe. Did she have another option? Was there a phone nearby? Could she have gotten past Dustin? This is all in consideration to the fact that we take Tracey's story as the truth. Keeping that in mind it would be reasonable to believe that it would likely take Tracey longer to open the safe than it would in a normal situation when we take into consideration the alleged fear and speed in which she would be attempting to do so. Thus she would have likely required more time than average to open the safe.

Next we have to consider the issue of the guns, as well as not only where the bullets landed or any forensics evidence that would indicate in what position Dustin was in when the bullets penetrated him. In my research it was said that Tracey fired nine bullets out from two guns. What I did not find what how many times Dustin was hit other than it was indicated that the last three bullets that penetrated him was from the back. Questions of self defense once again come into play here. First, was there really a need to fire nine times between the two weapons? Secondly, at any point during that time was Tracey able to get away or had Dustin, who was allegedly come after her, had retreated. The fact that the last three bullets allegedly entered his body from the back indicates that he had in fact turned away from Tracey which means that he was no longer likely a threat to her.

When you add the above issues looking at self defense along with all the other little things in Tracey's story, in my opinion her guilt seems obvious. On December 6, 2011 the jury agreed that Tracey was guilty and she would later be sentenced to life. Of course her attorney's vowed to appeal. Since that time she has filed at least two appeals, both of which have been denied. In one the court ruled that the prosecutors “offered ample proof” that Tracey killed Dustin as part of a hoax to frame John Pittman. The latest appears to have occurred in 2017.

In 2014 authorities went to Tracey's mother, Anne's home. They seized several computers and flash drives in their search. The prosecutor would say that Anne, along with Tracey, her brother John, her fiance' Russell Scherz, among others had worked together to harass prosecution witnesses online by spreading defamatory information about them online. One particular person was given information and money from Anne and he posted on the website RipoffReport.com . It accused people of theft, perjury, fraud and hacking. Some of the allegations against John Pittman stated that he was a drug user and child molester. It was unclear what allegations were made against Michael Roberts but it seems clear that he was one of those who were targeted since he filed a lawsuit against several individuals and corporations including Fox News. I was never able to find out the eventual outcome of his lawsuit, nor was I able to determine if Anne Richter or any of the others involved were ever charged with a crime.