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Rohrbacker (Left), Michael (Right)
Coast grand jury indicts man on capital murder charge in Hancock deputy’s killing
BY MARGARET BAKER
A grand jury has indicted a Mississippi Coast man on charges of capital murder and other felony offenses in the Feb. 1 shooting death of Hancock County sheriff’s deputy Lt. Michael Boutte.
Joseph Michael Rohrbacker, 31, is set for a Sept. 13 arraignment on the capital offense along with one count each of aggravated assault on a police officer and aggravated assault.
Boutte was the first of two deputies to respond to a 911 call at Rohrbacker’s home on Earl C. Ladner Road shortly after 1 p.m. on Feb. 1. Rohrbacker fatally shot Boutte as he stepped out of his police car. A second deputy, Braxton Manuel, shot and injured Rohrbacker in an exchange of gunfire.
Rohrbacker is being held without bond at the Harrison County jail.
If convicted of capital murder, he faces a possible sentence of either death or life in prison without parole.
The capital murder charge accuses Rohrbacker in the shooting death of Boutte while he was acting in his official capacity as a law enforcement officer, responding to what an investigator has referred to as possible welfare concern or suicide threat.
Rohrbacker is charged with aggravated assault on a police officer for shooting at Manuel, who shot and injured Rohrbacker after Boutte had been fatally wounded.
The other aggravated assault charge alleges Rohrbacker fired his shotgun at a neighbor.
CHILD ABUSE ALLEGATIONS
The day of shooting, Rohrbacker’s wife, Shannon, told the Sun Herald her husband had gone into a rage after his brother told him he had been reported for allegedly molesting a teenager in the family.
The sexual abuse allegations had been turned over to the state Department of Child Protection Services for an investigation.
After he learned the news, Rohrbacker reportedly started cussing, kicking, screaming and punching the seats in a car he was in. At the time, he had accompanied his wife to take the teenager and other children to school.
Once he got back to the couple’s home, his wife said, no one could calm him. She attributed his condition to mental health issues, saying he suffers from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Rohrbacker’s wife said he grabbed their dog, Scrappy, and cut his throat. He then got a 12-gauge shotgun — gifted to him by a relative — and allegedly fired a shot at neighbor.
The 911 call came in at around 1 p.m., and initially Boutte and Manuel had responded to the home of Rohrbacker’s brother, who lives a few hundred yards away from the defendant.
The family and a neighbor told deputies that Rohrbacker had been making suicidal threats, sliced his dog’s throat, had walked back to his home and could possibly be armed. The deputies then drove to Rohrbacker’s home, initially passing it then turning around.
Rohrbacker later told authorities he just started firing random shots because he was trying to cause suicide by cop to end his life.
The buckshot, however, hit Boutte, resulting in his death.
CHILD SEX CRIME ALLEGATIONS
The child sex crime allegations first surfaced after a school employee reported their suspicions of child molestation to CPS.
In addition to capital murder and the aggravated assault charges, Rohrbacker was arrested on three counts of touching of a child for lustful purposes. But the sex crime charges were not included in the indictment, and they are being treated as a separate case.
In addition, Hancock County deputies arrested Rohrbacker on three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child and one count each of aggravated animal cruelty and intimidating a witness.
https://amp.sunherald.com/news/local...254047543.html
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