SHE’S NOT FORGOTTEN
School district honors the memory of road-rage victim with scholarship
WEST WHITELAND » The West Chester Area School District is establishing a scholarship fund to honor the memory of slain 2017 Rustin High School graduate Bianca Roberson.
Roberson, 18, was killed in June when a Delaware County man, allegedly in a fit of road rage, fired a single shot and murdered her on the Route 100 Bypass.
A moment of silence was held for what Schools Superintendent Dr. Jim Scanlon said was a “senseless act of violence,” at the start of Monday’s school board meeting.
School board President Chris McCune said that Roberson was “one of our own.”
“There is nothing we can do to bring her back, but to honor her memory,” McCune said.
A committee will solicit private donations and hold fundraisers, if needed, in the name of Roberson.
Scholarship recipients will be selected based on criteria agreed to by the Roberson family and a local school committee, including the Rustin principal and assistant principal, along with other staff members who may have known Roberson well, reads the district’s application to establish an account.
Roberson was headed to Jacksonville University. She had hoped to work with the FBI.
A scholarship fund at the Florida school is being established in Roberson’s, and her brother Mykel’s, names.
Those wishing to make a donation to the Roberson Scholarship Fund can do so by submitting checks made out to West Chester Area School District with Bianca Roberson Scholarship Fund in the memo section. Checks can be mailed to Dr. Mike Marano, Rustin High School, 1100 Shiloh Road, West Chester PA 19382.
A preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to hold her alleged killer for trial has been postponed.
The hearing, which was scheduled to be held in mid-July at the Chester County Government Services Center in West Goshen, has been continued until Aug. 17, according to a prosecution spokesman.
The continuance came at the request of defense attorney Daniel McGarrigle of Media, who is representing defendant David Andrew Desper of Trainer. The request was not unexpected, and was not opposed by the Chester County District Attorney’s office. McGarrigle declined to discuss why he requested the continuance.
Desper. 28, is charged with first- and third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and recklessly endangering another person in the death of Roberson. He is being held without bail in Chester County Prison.
West Goshen police, who investigated the case with Chester County Detectives, say that they began the investigation when a onecar accident was reported around 5:30 p.m. on June 28 on the Route 100 spur west of Route 202. Police found Roberson, the driver, dead at the scene in a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu that had veered off the highway into a ditch.
When an autopsy was conducted, however, the cause of death was discovered to be a single gunshot wound to the head.
Investigators then went back and examined surveillance camera footage from the scene, and saw Roberson’s car jockeying for position with a red pickup truck as the two lanes of the highway merged into one before entering Route 202. They announced the murder at a press conference on June 29, and released photo of the pickup as it sped from the scene in asking the pubic for assistance in locating the unidentified driver.
In the days that ensued, a nationwide manhunt got underway for the driver and the Chevrolet pickup truck. At 2 a.m. Sunday, July 2, Desper surrendered at McGarrigle’s office after leaving the pickup, with its keys in the door lock, in the driveway of a house in Glen Mills.
Police were able to use a fragment of the bullet that killed Roberson to identify the murder weapon as a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. After identifying Desper as the owner of the pickup, investigators went to his home in Trainer, where they found the alleged murder weapon in a bedroom, and unused ammunition if a trash can outside the home, according to an arrest affidavit filed by West Goshen Detective Jose Torres, a former state trooper, and Chester County Detective Ben Martin, who came to the D.A.’s office from East Pikeland police.
Desper had purchased the gun legally in 2015, and had a permit to carry it — which means he could legally have it in his vehicle while he drove.
The case has been preassigned to Common Pleas Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft. The prosecutors handling the case are Assistant District Attorneys Charles “Chad” Maloney and Christopher Miller.