Romans not guilty on all 11 charges
‘God had this,’ sister says about verdicts
LONDON – Peter Romans dropped his chin to his chest and sobbed Thursday morning as a judge’s words echoed through the Madison County courtroom: Not guilty.
A three-judge panel had deliberated about four hours before rendering not guilty verdicts on each of 11 charges that Romans started the fatal fire that killed his wife and two children in 2008. The charges against him included aggravated murder that could have carried the death penalty.
Killed in the blaze that happened just after midnight on April 6, 2008, were Romans’ wife, Billi; son Caleb, 12; and daughter Ami, 16.
Romans’ current wife, two grown stepsons and the sisters of his late wife – who were there to support Romans – all wept uncontrollably in the courtroom as the verdicts were read.
“God had this,” one sister said as she embraced Romans’ wife, Robin Fritz Romans, who was so overcome with emotion that her cries were nearly wails.
Romans, 60, had been in jail since his arrest in July 2019, but he walked out of the courthouse a free and exonerated man Thursday.
After the verdicts were read, defense attorney Sam Shamansky said his client had trusted the judges to do what was right.
“He is so incredibly relieved and eager to get home to his family,” Shamansky said.
In a rare move, Romans elected to forgo a trial by jury and instead asked a panel of judges to hear his capital case.
Following 11 days of testimony from 50 witnesses in Madison County Common Pleas Court, those judges, appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court – retired Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Janet Burnside in charge, and retired Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Pokorny and retired Brown County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Alan Corbin – deliberated after dramatic closing arguments Wednesday before announcing their decision in open court Thursday.
Romans had been charged with aggravated murder, murder, and aggravated arson in the deaths of his family.
Romans has lived under a cloud of suspicion – at least in the eyes of investigators from several state and local agencies – since almost immediately after the fire. He was the sole survivor.
He was not charged or arrested until July 2019 as the case spent a decade being passed through a host of various investigators and prosecutors.
During the trial, Shamansky said, “Peter Romans lost everything that mattered to him. It was all taken from him in an instant.”
Yet investigators had never given up on their theory that Romans had killed his family, but whether it was done for his love of another woman or because he needed insurance money (or both) they could never decide. Prosecutors floated both theories in court.
During the trial, which was handled by prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the state made its case that Romans was in financial ruin in 2008 and was having an affair with the then-married Robin Fritz. (The two married each other in 2010.)
Robin Fritz Romans was barred from the court during most of the proceedings because she could have been called to testify. She sat faithfully each day in the hallway of the historic courthouse, passing the time by crossstitching and waving to her husband
through the doorway at each break. She alternately cried and shook her head in denial at accusations made during closing arguments Wednesday after she was allowed in.
She listened as prosecutors recapped how they believed Romans poured gasoline over the driver’s side floorboards of his family’s 2001 Ford Expedition SUV that was parked within 2 feet of their modular home (and next to a propane gas line) and set it ablaze as his family slept that night.
Then, as the fire roared and his wife and daughter both awoke and called 911, he left the house without them – to move his pickup truck that had a full tank of gas away, he said – and couldn’t get back in. He ran to his landlord’s house about two football fields away for help.
“Peter Romans made a number of decisions, and every one of them was to make sure that Ami, Billi and Caleb died,” state prosecutor Joel King told the judges.
But this case was always also about that Ford Expedition and whether it was to blame instead. The Dispatch featured it in 2011 as part of its “Killers Among Us” cold-case series.
After the fire, Romans told investigators he had been having trouble with the SUV. Ford for years had had a documented problem with the cruise-control deactivation switches failing and causing spontaneous vehicle fires. The Romanses’ SUV was under recall but had never been repaired.
Insurance companies as well as law enforcement launched investigations.
In February 2009, Romans sued Ford Motor Co. and the switch manufacturer, alleging the defect caused the fatal fire. In August of that year, however, the state fire marshal’s office ruled it an arson. And so began more a decade of legal back and forth.
At trial, both sides presented experts who used the same evidence – the very switch taken from the Romans’ SUV as evidence after the fire – but brought competing theories. State experts said the fire clearly was set in the passenger compartment and spread; defense experts said the fire clearly started in the switch.
State prosecutor Dan Kasaris summed it up for the judges: “What this case boils down to is really, who do you believe? Whose evidence do you give the greater weight to?”
And the judges made their decision. Romans still has a case against Ford pending in federal court, which had been placed on hold pending the outcome of his criminal trial. hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah