Thirty years after 7 year-old Morgan Violi was abducted from outside her Bowling Green home, the man charged in her death has admitted responsibility.
Robert Scott Froberg pleaded guilty on July 22 in federal court to a kidnapping resulting in a death charge, two days before the anniversary of Morgan’s disappearance. Under his plea agreement, Froberg faces life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for November.
Morgan was seven when she was abducted on July 24, 1996. She had been playing with her sisters and friends outside Colony Apartments when witnesses saw a man grab her, place her inside a maroon van and drive away.
Two days after the abduction, investigators found the suspected vehicle abandoned just south of Nashville. Morgan remained missing for nearly three months. Her remains were eventually discovered in a wooded area near White House, Tennessee, but the case went unsolved for decades.
Investigators preserved evidence recovered from the van, a fiber found with Morgan’s remains that matched the van’s cushions, and a hair discovered inside the van. Decades of improved forensic testing allowed the FBI to eventually obtain a DNA profile linking the stolen vehicle to Froberg, an Alabama prisoner who had escaped custody twice in 1996.
Federal prosecutors charged Froberg in February 2026 with kidnapping resulting in death. According to the original criminal complaint, Froberg confessed during an interview with investigators that he abducted Morgan, drove her into Tennessee and strangled her.
Kyle Bumgarner, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, credited advances in forensic science for bringing the case to resolution.
Source: WBKO
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