Inset, left: Jeri Roby (Harrison County Sheriff’s Office). Inset, right: John Gaither (Wilmington Funeral & Cremation). Background: News footage showing Roby’s home in Gulfport, Mississippi (WLOX).
A Mississippi mother has been sentenced to spend the remainder of her life in prison after admitting she killed her son and concealed his body inside her home.
Jeri Roby, 69, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the death of her 42-year-old son, John Gaither. Roby learned her fate on Wednesday, two and a half years after police said she fatally shot her son at her Gulfport, Mississippi, home on or around Dec. 10, 2023, then kept his body hidden inside the house. According to court documents obtained by local ABC and CBS affiliate WLOX, several of Gaither’s other family members called police after they said they had not heard from Gaither, who was living with his mother at the time.
Jeri Roby gave relatives multiple explanations about where John Gaither had gone, but prosecutors said she knew the truth: he had never left.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew D. Burrell said Roby acknowledged sending text messages to family members while pretending to be Gaither, persuading her boyfriend to call relatives while posing as him, and taking Gaither’s cellphone to Florida so calls would appear to connect through cell towers there.
WLOX reported from the courtroom during Roby’s plea hearing, where she told the judge the shooting happened on the “spur of the moment.” She claimed she put her son “out of his misery” because he had been suffering from depression.
Roby received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The post Mom hid her son behind a fake wall in her house for years first appeared on Law & Crime.
