Professor charged in wife’s slaying
By CHRISTINE OLLEY
olleyc@phillynews.com 215-854-5184
Note from ANCPR - She was to receive a very large settlement, as well as $4000 a month in child support. He, apparently, thought she was going to end his relationship with his twelve yer old daughter - many of you know the story well.Â
Led into Montgomery County District Court yesterday, Rafael Robb - dressed in a blue button-down shirt and jeans - shuffled along slowly, his hands and feet shackled to a brown leather belt around his waist.
Led into Montgomery County District Court yesterday, Rafael Robb - dressed in a blue button-down shirt and jeans - shuffled along slowly, his hands and feet shackled to a brown leather belt around his waist.
As he entered his arraignment to face charges in the December beating death of his wife, Ellen, Robb, 56, a University of Pennsylvania economics professor, remained stoic as reporters swarmed around him, bombarding him with questions he ignored.
Inside, District Justice William Maruszczak read the charges, which included first- and third-degree murder, possessing an instrument of crime, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and making false reports to the police. Robb sat in silence.
“I’ve been so heartsick the entire time,” said Susan Gay, whose daughter is a former schoolmate of Olivia Robb, the Robbs’ 12-year-old daughter who is now being cared for by other family members.
“While today’s news brings some measure of relief,” Gay said, “it doesn’t bring her back.”
Ellen Robb, 49, was wrapping Christmas gifts Dec. 22 when she was bludgeoned to death in her home on Forest Road, in Wayne.
“We believe that the motive for the killing was financially related,” said District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr.
Robb’s wife had filed for divorce and a pending agreement would have given her a large financial settlement, according to an affidavit of probable cause that was released yesterday.
Castor cited a supplementary report from two experts in forensic psychiatry and psychology.
“Their report highlighted their view that Rafael Robb was threatened by his wife insofar as she was going to hurt him financially in the divorce and hurt his relationship with his child,” Castor said.
The affidavit included an interview by detectives with a real-estate agent who told Upper Merion police that Ellen Robb had expected to receive $4,000 a month from her husband in a divorce settlement.
According to her divorce lawyer, also interviewed by police, the arrangement was expected to last 10-15 years and over that time, he told Robb she could expect to receive between $400,000 and $600,000.
Robb told investigators he believed that the killing had been committed by a burglar who had broken into the couple’s Main Line home.
But police said Robb became a suspect when crucial parts of his story didn’t add up, including that nothing was missing from the home.
At first Robb told police he had last seen his wife alive at 8:30 or 9 the morning she was slain, police said. But he later extended that time to between8:30 and 9:30 a.m.
He also told investigators that before going to his office at Penn, he stopped at a Chinatown grocery store and stayed for about 20 minutes. He later said he had stayed for about 40 minutes.
“The clerk at that grocery store is absolutely adamant that he wasn’t there,” Castor said.
According to the affidavit, Robb told police that he had not immediately called them when he found his wife’s body.
Instead, Castor said, Robb told police that he had touched his wife’s face, took his briefcase and computer upstairs and then went outside to call police on the cell phone in his car.
“He ignored all of the telephones in the house and then called the full 10-digit local number for the police, instead of 911,” Castor said.
“I think that’s very strange.”
Frank Genovese, Robb’s attorney, maintained yesterday that his client is innocent.
Robb has been relieved of his teaching duties at Penn. He will have a preliminary hearing later this month, Castor said.
He added that the case does not appear to be a death-penalty case right now.
Reporter Regina Medina contributed to this story
9 responses so far ↓
1 Kevin Merck // Jan 10, 2007 at 10:14 am
Tragedy?
If this were an isolated incident of someone who had “blown a gasket†then this is a “tragedyâ€.
If this is just the tip of an iceberg, that only gets reported when it’s a college professor or someone who takes a shot at a judge, then I think we need to find a more appropriate word to describe this phenomenon.
Most often an incident like this will go unreported by the media because it happens every single day in this country. More often than not the victims are trailer park residents, or housing project inhabitants, or just plain old working class people. Not much “glamour†in that to attract the stylish audience sought-after by the network moguls.
It’s priority-one to report on the war in Iraq, because that’s where the feminist controlled media can get the most bang for their buck, by reporting on the disaster in Iraq that they all voted for. Now that things are going very badly there, they want to forget that they all voted for the war, and capitalize on the growing public sentiment to get out. Does anyone really believe that these people would be knocking the war effort if things had gone well there? They would be ceremoniously (and transparently) on the bandwagon trying to take credit for the actions of our brave and victorious troops.
If George Bush and his people had an ounce of “common sense†they would do us all a favor by shifting the focus to domestic issues like “fatherless children†and leave the war effort to the Generals in the field. It will be hard to do because the media will resist their efforts “tooth and nail†but I think if anyone could pull it off, it would be the President.
Kevin Merck
2 MWSchooley // Jan 10, 2007 at 1:43 pm
“Does not apper to be a death penalty case right now” ? When was the last time it was even concievable that a case of an wife/ estranged wife/ girlfriend/jilted female suiter/ killing a man merited the death penalty?
3 Kevin Merck // Jan 10, 2007 at 4:38 pm
The media reports the death of every single soldier in the Middle East. The News hour on PBS shows a photograph of every single soldier who dies over there. We are constantly being reminded of the loss of life in this overseas war, but these same people reporting this news go to great length to conceal the devastating consequences of an “out of control†family court system.
If the News Hour showed the photographs of every murdered spouse, every father who has committed suicide over the loss of his children, or father who has died in some other way as a result of being persecuted by our courts, there would be little time for a news program. Why are these lives so unimportant? The loss of life in our own country as a result of our family courts makes the numbers being lost to the “war on terror†look pale and insignificant in comparison.
There is a “war†raging right here in our own country and people are not getting the facts. The news media has an obligation to report the news. Why isn’t it getting done? Who stands to gain by reporting the “bad news†about the war in Iraq? How did the Democrats regain the House and Senate? Who stands to lose “big time†if the facts are known about how corrupt our courts are?
Kevin Merck
“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper’s ally, it would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, and they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without itâ€.
Fisher Ames
4 Kevin Merck // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Good point MWSchooley:
At year end 2005, 36 States and the Federal prison system held 3,254 prisoners under sentence of death, 66 fewer than at yearend 2004.
Of persons under sentence of death in 2005:
— 1,805 were white
— 1,372 were black
— 31 were American Indian
— 34 were Asian
— 12 were of unknown race.
Fifty-two women were under a sentence of death at year end 2005.
That’s about 1% of total prisoners sentenced to death who are women in 2005.
Women account for 1 in 8 arrests for murder. (13%)
Of the more than 8000 people executed since 1900 only 50 were women. (.5%)
Of the more than 3000 soldiers killed in Iraq only 60 are women. (2%)
Women currently make up about 20% of the armed forces.
There are two million two hundred thousand people in prison in the United States. One hundred thousand are women. (
5 Kevin Merck // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Good point MWSchooley:
At year end 2005, 36 States and the Federal prison system held 3,254 prisoners under sentence of death, 66 fewer than at yearend 2004.
Of persons under sentence of death in 2005:
— 1,805 were white
— 1,372 were black
— 31 were American Indian
— 34 were Asian
— 12 were of unknown race.
Fifty-two women were under a sentence of death at year end 2005.
That’s about 1% of total prisoners sentenced to death who are women in 2005.
Women account for 1 in 8 arrests for murder. (13%)
Of the more than 8000 people executed since 1900 only 50 were women. (.5%)
Of the more than 3000 soldiers killed in Iraq only 60 are women. (2%)
Women currently make up about 20% of the armed forces.
There are two million two hundred thousand people in prison in the United States. One hundred thousand are women. (
6 Kevin Merck // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:22 pm
There are two million two hundred thousand people in prison in the United States. One hundred thousand are women. (
7 Kevin Merck // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Sorry, something’s wrong, it’s not posting properly.
Kevin Merck
8 Kevin Merck // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There are 2,200,000 people in prison, of which 100,000 are women. (5%)
25% of arrests are of women.
Now please tell me again, who is being discriminated against here?
Kevin Merck
9 Jim Deeny // Jan 18, 2007 at 8:20 am
Exactly Kevin-
This morning I was dabbling with the remote control, watching TV and in the new they were making a huge deal about a woman killed in Iraq on CNN and even on my home page of Comcast. I felt sick to my stomach because ONE woman gets 50 times more airtime about her death than probably 75% of the men that were killed over there. So in essence, it looks like the 3000+ men that have died in Iraq are deaths and 1 woman is a horrible tragedy?
You must log in to post a comment.