Bethany Decker: Military wife goes missing while husband deployed overseas
10/06/2015 9:20 am PDT
UPDATE Nov. 12, 2020:
Ronald Roldan has been arraigned on abduction charges in the disappearance of Bethany Decker, WTOP-TV reports. He was extradited to Loudoun County on Tuesday, Nov. 10, after he was released from a North Carolina prison for shooting a girlfriend there.
Roldan appeared by video from the county jail during the brief appearance before Loudoun County District Court Judge Thomas Gallahue. Gallahue told him the charge of abduction is a felony, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
MORE:
UPDATE Nov. 9, 2020:
WTOP-TV reports Bethany Decker's live-in boyfriend Ronald Roldan is being charged with her disappearance. Decker was five months pregnant at the time she disappeared.
Roldan was scheduled to be released from a North Carolina prison on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The Loudoun County's Sheriff's Office has reportedly “lodged a detainer on Mr. Roldan in North Carolina based upon our office's policy of extradition in surrounding states for felonies. I expect that they will pick him up upon his release or soon thereafter,” Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney Buta Biberaj told WTOP.
Decker's remains have never been found, and investigators have never said they recovered any forensic evidence of murder. It's unclear whether prosecutors intend to seek an indictment in a “no body” murder case.
MORE: Boyfriend to be charged in 2011 disappearance of Va. woman Bethany Decker - WTOP
UPDATE June 2, 2016:
A person of interest in Bethany Decker's disappearance has taken a plea deal.
Ronald Roldan, the last person to see pregnant Loudoun County mother Bethany Decker before she disappeared in 2011, has pleaded guilty in an attack on his girlfriend who was shot in the head, WTOP reports.
UPDATE Feb. 16, 2016: Person of interest in Decker disappearance could go free on technicality
Oct. 6, 2015:
Bethany Decker, a young military wife and mother, suddenly went missing in 2011 while her husband was deployed overseas.
Bethany Anne Decker was finally seeing the light at the end of a long road.
The 22-year-old was just a few credits shy of graduating from George Mason University with a degree in global environmental change. It seemed her studies by day and hard work as a waitress at night were about to pay off.
With Bethany away at college, at first it didn't worry her mother, Kim Nelson, that she hadn't communicated with her daughter in over three weeks.
But on February 19, 2011, Kim received a number of strange and foreboding phone calls. Some of Bethany's friends had noticed unusual posts on her Facebook page.
Kim's heart sank. She immediately called her own parents asking them to check on Bethany since they lived closer to her Ashburn, Virginia apartment.
"They drove there and they noticed that Bethany's car was parked crooked, had a flat tire, it was dusty, and they'd been by the week before and it wasn't like that, so they were really concerned," said Kim.
The unused car was a clue that something clearly wasn't right. A knock at her door soon proved that Bethany was nowhere to be found.
"That's when I said, 'Call the police,'" said Kim.
Investigators swarmed the complex, interviewing neighbors, friends and family. But three weeks had passed since Bethany had been seen. Only her car was left behind.
There were no signs of foul play or a physical altercation. Her bank cards had not been used and interviews with neighbors yielded nothing.
Bethany had literally disappeared -- without a trace.
For more information on the investigation,
Discussion: Websleuths - Bethany Anne Decker
