Details of Jackson Twp. burn barrel murder revealed at trial
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George Newhart knew something was wrong on the morning of July 12, 2002, when he arrived at the Jackson Township property where his business stores sewage from on-lot septic tanks prior to dumping that sewage at a Lehigh Valley treatment plant.
Newhart had just driven his 10-wheel tanker onto the wooded North Road property and was on his way to transfer the sewage from the tanker to the storage tank at that location, as he does every day.
Newhart noticed two of the 55-gallon barrels he used for burning had been moved out of place from where he normally left them. Some smoke was still rising out of one of the barrels, which was odd since he had neither burned anything nor moved those barrels.
The smell was the first thing to hit Newhart as he parked and climbed down from his 10-wheeler. The smell was worse than that of any septic tank he had ever cleaned out.
Newhart approached and looked into the barrels.
In both were burnt plastic trash bags with bones and the remains of clothes inside. Maggots, some of which were burnt to crisps, clung to the remains as flies buzzed about.
"At first, I thought they were animal remains," Newhart testified in court Wednesday, the first day in the murder trial of Stacy Britton, now 48, of Twentynine Palms, Ca.
Newhart left the property and returned with a friend later that day to spray the barrels with Pine Sol, admitting in court that he should have called police much sooner than he did. He eventually called 911 that night after realizing the remains were in fact human.
State police and the Monroe County Coroner's Office arrived, having to wear haz-mat suits and respirators borrowed from local volunteer firefighters due to the smell.
"I had never smelled anything like it," testified retired state police investigator Philip Barletto. "It was absolutely disgusting. It was very hard to stand there and deal with."
In one of the barrels were what turned out to be a human skull, arms, hands, lower legs and feet.
In the other was a torso with the upper legs still attached. A paper towel was stuffed inside the groin area of the remains of the underwear, a common way to hide drugs.
An autopsy later revealed multiple blunt force trauma to the skull and multiple stab wounds to the chest cavity, indicating the victim had been beaten and stabbed. The presence of maggots and flies indicated the body had been left rotting for days prior to being dismembered and then burned.
Jurors strove to suppress their horror in efforts to dispassionately view these images presented in court.
A chemical test revealed traces of alcohol, cocaine and heroin-related morphine in the victim's system at the time of death. Police were able to salvage prints from the remaining fingers, but it was more than a year before the victim was identified in November 2003 as Robert Roudebush, 46, of Edwardsville.
Just days following news media publicity of the remains being identified as Roudebush's, Monroe County authorities received a letter from the Columbia County Probation Department. The letter had been written by James Britton, Stacy Britton's now-36-year-old ex-husband, who at the time had a criminal record in Columbia County.
At the time of Roudebush's death, the Brittons were living in Wilkes-Barre and had been selling drugs to support their own habits, according to James Britton's letter. Not long after Roudebush's death, the Brittons had an argument with Wilkes-Barre drug dealer Larry Tooley over money Tooley said the couple owed him.
Tooley pistol-whipped James Britton and threatened to rape Stacy Britton, according to James' letter. Tooley then admitted having killed Roudebush, over a supposed affair with Tooley's girlfriend, and threatened to do the same to the Brittons if they didn't pay up.
At the time Monroe County authorities received James Britton's letter, Tooley, now 59, had recently begun serving life without parole after being convicted of killing a 16-year-old boy when burglarizing a Wilkes-Barre home in November 2002, several months after allegedly telling the Brittons he had murdered Roudebush.
"My wife Stacy can tell you all about (Tooley's alleged admission)," James Britton wrote in his letter.
When contacted by police, Stacy Britton, living in California at the time, quoted Tooley as having told the Brittons, "I'm gonna cave your skull in like I did Bob and have a (expletive) barbecue." She said the Brittons last had contact with Roudebush, one of their customers, on July 3, 2002, when he left to get drugs in New Jersey.
This left police believing Tooley was the killer.
However, after talking to Stacy Britton, police became suspicious when learning she grew up in Jackson Township and that her brother once lived in a shack on the property where Roudebush's burnt remains were found. When police again contacted her, she no longer wanted to talk, which roadblocked the investigation and caused the case to grow cold.
Five years later, in 2008, police revisited the case and got the Monroe County district attorney's permission to convene a grand jury proceeding, which is done when investigations hit roadblocks, and subpoena testimony from several witnesses including the Brittons, who at the time were going through a divorce. But, with the Brittons sticking to their story before the grand jury, the case grew cold again.
Seven years later, in August 2015, an unidentified California woman contacted Monroe County authorities with information about Roudebush's murder.
At that time, Stacy Britton, having no money and nowhere else to go, had moved herself and the Brittons' 12-year-old son in with James Britton, his second wife and the second wife's 16-year-old son from a prior relationship. This tense, awkward living arrangement was in San Bernadino County, Ca.
James Britton at the time was back in Pennsylvania, helping relatives and trying to detox. Police learned an incident had led to a cellphone text-message argument between the Brittons and that James had threatened to tell police the truth about Roudebush's murder and how Stacy had really gotten a cut on her leg.
Armed with this new information, Monroe County authorities reached out to the San Bernadino County Sheriff's Department and asked them to contact and interview Stacy Britton for them.
Agreeing to talk when contacted, Stacy Britton said she hadn't been truthful when previously telling authorities about Roudebush's murder.
Agreeing to be honest this time, she said she had nothing to do with the murder and that James Britton killed Roudebush during an argument at the couple's Wilkes-Barre home while she was out getting drugs and then getting high. When she returned to find Roudebush dead, she argued with James and wanted to leave, at which point he cut her on the leg.
She said James then made her help him get rid of the body.
San Bernadino authorities then told Stacy they wanted her to call James and get him to admit to the murder while investigators taped the conversation. When she hesitated, investigators asked if there was anything she still wasn't telling them, at which point she gave what she said was a more truthful version of the story.
In this version, she and James worked out a plan to distract and kill Roudebush when he visited them.
She would bring Roudebush a plate of food in one hand while hiding a sledgehammer behind her back, with James waiting nearby with a knife in each hand. They would then attack as Roudebush was about to start eating.
However, she couldn't bring herself to do it when Roudebush was there in front of her. Instead, she ran to go upstairs.
She was on the steps when she heard a tussle, turned and saw Roudebush, with a knife in his chest, running to get to the front door past the foot of the steps. Realizing they couldn't let him escape, she jumped off the steps and hit him.
James then threw the other knife at Roudebush, who caught it and cut her on the leg. James then grabbed Roudebush by the back of the hair, yanked back and slit his throat.
Stacy said the couple then dragged the body into the basement, got high and had sex. They then went on a two-day drug binge and got stranded in New Jersey.
They returned days later to find the rotting body stinking up their home. James was too small and weak to drag and dismember the hulking Roudebush's body by himself, so Stacy bought tools from a local store and then spent hours into the next day dismembering the body herself.
The couple then drove to Jackson Township and burned the body parts in the barrels, sitting and having a smoke as they watched the flames. They then returned to Wilkes-Barre, set their own home ablaze to destroy any evidence and left the state, eventually settling in California.
Police eventually charged Stacy Britton with an "open count" of murder. An open count includes first-degree murder (a premeditated killing), third-degree murder (a killing that's non-premeditated but done with a willful disregard for human life), voluntary manslaughter (a heat-of-the-moment killing) and involuntary manslaughter (an accidental killing).
James Britton was charged with third-degree murder. Both were charged also with conspiracy to murder, tampering with evidence, abusing a corpse, perjury in the 2008 grand jury proceeding, false swearing and hindering apprehension.
James Britton pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced Oct. 13 to 15 to 30 years in state prison. It remains to be seen if he will be called to testify against his ex-wife after testimony in her trial resumes Thursday.
It also remains to be seen if the jury in the end will find reasonable doubt of Stacy Britton being involved in the murder to the extent of which she's accused.
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