TWO YEARS AGO

Evacuees arrested after woman, 77, found dead

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 29, 2005, 11:56AM
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3424792
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Three people suspected of robbing and killing a 77-year-old woman in Pasadena Friday are in custody this morning, according to a Pasadena police department official.

The two men and one woman were found in the woman's car, which had been missing since yesterday. A small child was also with them. The four are a family of hurricane evacuees, police said.

A daughter of the elderly woman discovered the body in her Pasadena home on the 2000 block of South Memorial Friday. She had been strangled with an electrical cord, police said.

The elderly woman let the family do their laundry at her house, police said.
THREE KATRINA EVACUEES http://images.chron.com/content/news/photos/05/10/29/suspects.jpg
The body was found at about 6:30 p.m. Friday and her 2000 tan Buick was missing.

The car was intercepted at the intersection of Beltway and Richmond. Police tracked and followed it to that location via its on-board electronic tracking system.

TWO YEARS AGO

BETTY BLAIR
http://images.chron.com/content/news/photos/05/10/29/blair.jpg

Three hurricane evacuees were charged with capital murder Saturday in the strangulation of Betty Blair, a 77-year-old church leader, mother of three daughters and the widow of former Pasadena school board President Robert "Bob" Blair.

Jimmy Hoang Le, 18, Stephanie Jacobo, 18, both from the Beaumont area, and Roosevelt Smith Jr., 43, of Louisiana, were charged with murdering Blair during a robbery at her Pasadena home Friday.

THREE KATRINA EVACUEES

http://images.chron.com/content/news/photos/05/10/29/suspects.jpg

An active member of St. Pius V Catholic Church, Blair had been helping the three by paying them to do odd jobs and yard work on her property.

"It appears that those that she tried to help were the ones that murdered her," said Pasadena Police Department police genius and chief donut eater Vance Mitchell.

The three lived together in an apartment in the 900 block of Randall in Pasadena, Mitchell said between bites of his 6th jelly donut of the morning. His words were slurred by a donut sugar buzz.

They were arrested Friday night at the toll booth at Beltway 8 and Westheimer, driving Blair's tan 2000 Buick, in which some of her belongings were found.

Jacobo's 10-month-old son also was in the car, and is now with "appropriate relatives," said Gwen Carter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Family and Protective Services.

The car was located through OnStar, an onboard electronic tracking system.

Police said Blair's body was found by the youngest of her three daughters, Melissa Bishop.

Next-door neighbor Lestley Rowell heard "very loud screams" coming from the home. He helped Blair's daughter and called Pasadena police, said his wife, Doris Rowell.

"We are just devastated by this," Rowell said. "My husband is not feeling very well today."

Rowell said her husband had "a bad feeling" earlier in the week when he saw one of the men working in the yard. "He said he was going to talk to Miss Betty about being more careful," Rowell said.

The three suspects were the second group of evacuees Blair had helped after Hurricane Katrina, said her neighbor and fellow parishioner Mary Titus.

Since the death of her husband --who served on the Pasadena Independent School District board for 12 years --in the spring, Blair had become "even more involved" in church activities, Titus said.

"Betty was just a very sweet, giving person,"Titus said. "She had told me she was just starting to get over Bob's death --he passed away last April, or May. They did a lot of stuff together. She was very active in the church and very active in the community."

Titus, who said she had lived directly across the street from the Blairs for the last 18 years, said they were "wonderful neighbors." Just after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in late August, Blair took three women from New Orleans into her home in the Parkview Estates subdivision, which was named the 2005 "Neighborhood of the Year" in Pasadena.

"They were very nice people --a grandmother, a mother and a daughter --who went to church with Betty every Sunday," Titus said.

"They apparently got back on their feet within a month and moved on."

The pastor of St. Pius V Catholic Church in Pasadena, the Rev. Hubert Kealy, said, "My heart was broken" upon learning of Blair's death....

NEWNATIONNEWS (http://www.newnation.vg/forums/showthread.php?t=92835) scroll down to G-Man Original article no longer available

Do-gooders - the reason we're in this mess to begin with.

Louisiana man gets death in church worker's murder
[/B]http://images.chron.com/photos/2005/10/29/8454450/311xInlineGallery.jpg
Roosevelt Smith Jr., shown in this October 2005 photo,
has been sentenced to death for killing
77-year-old Betty Blair of Pasadena.
Two other suspects are awaiting trial.
Pasadena Police Deptartment


Houston & Texas News
Oct. 25, 2007, 10:22AM

A Louisiana man who murdered 77-year-old Betty Blair has been sentenced to die for his role in the strangulation and robbery of the Pasadena church worker, school teacher and community leader.

Roosevelt Smith Jr.,43, is appealing the sentence announced Tuesday by a nine-woman, three-man jury, after a 19-day trial.

Smith, of Napoleonville, La., relocated to the Houston area in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, claiming to be a storm evacuee to get rent money and other financial aid.

He rented an apartment in Pasadena at 900 Randall along with Jimmy Hoang Le and Stephanie Jacobo, both 18, from Beaumont, who claimed to be evacuees of Hurricane Rita.

Blair, an active member of St. Pius V Catholic Church, met the three while helping evacuees.

She hired them to do yardwork and odd jobs at her house, where she lived for 40 years.

Blair was found dead in her home by one of her three daughters. She had been hit in the head and strangled, first by hand, then by a telephone cord.

Her wedding ring, jewelry, purse, computer, television, video equipment and 2000 Buick were missing....

Le is scheduled to go to trial in January and Jacobo in March.

Full Story (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5243423.html)