Jury deliberating fate of Norristown man accused in 1980 murder of ex-girlfriend

NORRISTOWN » A Montgomery County jury, for the third time in 41 years, is weighing the fate of a Norristown man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend during an argument in a car in 1980.

A jury of six men and six women, during a retrial ordered by a federal judge, began deliberating the fate of Robert Fisher at 12:20 p.m. on Thursday. The jury returned several times with questions throughout the afternoon including asking Judge Todd D. Eisenberg to re-read the legal definition of “reasonable doubt.”

Fisher, now 75, and formerly of the 600 block of DeKalb Street, is charged with first- and third-degree murder in connection with the July 10, 1980, fatal shooting of 26-year-old Collegeville native Linda Rowden, who was his ex-girlfriend at the time.

First-degree murder, which is an intentional killing, is punishable of life imprisonment. Third-degree murder is a killing committed with malice and is punishable of a maximum of 20 to 40 years in prison.

During his closing statement to jurors on Thursday, county First Assistant District Attorney Edward F. McCann Jr. argued Fisher acted with intent when he fatally shot Rowden with a handgun that once belonged to Rowden’s father.

“That man, Bobby Fisher, took Linda Rowden’s life. He did it intentionally and he did it with malice,” McCann said as he pointed directly at Fisher.

“He killed Linda Rowden with her father’s gun. That’s how cold-blooded he is. The gun that Linda Rowden was killed with, she gave to him. It was from her father,” McCann said.

But defense lawyer Carrie L. Allman, the chief homicide lawyer for the public defender’s office, suggested

prosecution witnesses who claimed to witness the killing or claimed Fisher confessed to them provided inconsistent information and that anything they said cannot be trusted.

“Why is there no consistent story here? Everybody changes their stories consistently,” Allman argued to the jury during her closing statement. “Lies don’t last. Today, is the day that 41 years of lies ends.”

During the retrial, Allman argued Fisher did not kill Rowden and suggested it was another man in the car who could have shot Rowden.

It was the third trial for Fisher after his previous first-degree murder convictions, at trials in September 1988 and August 1991, were overturned by appellate courts.

Fisher also is the only person in Pennsylvania sentenced to death three times and each of those sentences also were overturned by higher courts.

During the retrial, prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for a first-degree murder conviction.

During the retrial, McCann and co-prosecutor Tanner Beck argued an angry Fisher killed Rowden to prevent her from giving information to police that could link Fisher to the 1980 murder of Nigel Anderson, a witness who had been scheduled to testify in a federal heroin case. Additionally, two days before she was murdered, Rowden reported to Norristown police that Fisher assaulted her.

“This is not a murder mystery. Clearly, there was conflict going on between them. The conflict was escalating. Things were deteriorating at the time he killed her,” McCann argued to the jury, adding Fisher immediately fled from Norristown to New York City after the killing, changed his name and took on a new identity. “This defendant didn’t just run - he left his life. There’s super consciousness of guilt in this case.”

Fisher wasn’t apprehended until 1987 in New York.

Given that decades passed since Rowden’s death, several witnesses and some of the original investigators have since died and prosecutors, during a painstaking procedure, had their testimony re-read to jurors during the retrial.

Prosecutors presented the 1991 court testimony of Denise Walker, Fisher’s girlfriend at the time of the fatal shooting, who claimed she saw Fisher when he returned to their DeKalb Street apartment on the evening of July 10. Walker claimed Fisher confessed that he shot and killed Rowden because she was “running her face to detectives” and she “said some things to him that he didn’t like” and that he had to get out of town.

The jury also heard the 1991 testimony of Richard Mayo, who claimed he was the front seat passenger in a vehicle operated by Rowden when Fisher, who was Rowden’s ex-boyfriend and was seated behind Rowden, brandished a revolver from his waistband and fatally shot Rowden during an argument as she drove her car along DeKalb Street near Basin Street.

According to Mayo’s 1991 testimony, he recalled Anderson’s name being mentioned during the argument between Fisher and Rowden during the car ride.

However, relying on other testimony and statements that key prosecution witnesses gave to authorities in the 1980s, Allman suggested Mayo and Walker lied or were inconsistent in multiple statements.

In one statement, Mayo provided a false name to police and claimed Fisher and Rowden argued about Fisher being accused of stealing a license plate. In other previous testimony, Mayo indicated he didn’t clearly see the gun that Fisher brandished.

In a July 11, 1980, statement to police, Walker claimed Fisher didn’t say anything to her when he returned to their apartment on July 10 and she didn’t mention he confessed.

When he stepped into the witness box on Wednesday, Fisher adamantly denied killing Rowden, refuting the testimony of Mayo and Walker.

Fisher admitted he had been in the vehicle with Rowden and Mayo but claimed that during the ride he became ill from using heroin and got out of the car and headed to a nearby alley to vomit. Fisher said he never returned to the vehicle and later learned that Rowden had been shot by someone after he had gotten out of the car.

Fisher claimed he fled from Norristown because he knew he would be “railroaded” by investigators, adding, “I’m still being railroaded today.”

Fisher was first convicted of Rowden’s murder in September 1988 and was sentenced to death. To win that conviction, prosecutors relied on Fisher’s previous conviction in federal court of violating Nigel Anderson’s civil rights.

In 1990, the state Supreme Court overturned the county murder conviction after a federal judge overturned Fisher’s federal civil rights conviction.

Fisher was then retried for Rowden’s murder in August 1991, convicted and sentenced to death a second time.

However, in June 1996, the state Supreme Court, while upholding the murder conviction, ruled Fisher should receive a new penalty hearing because jurors at his 1991 trial were improperly allowed to hear victim impact testimony from Rowden’s mother.

After a new penalty hearing in June 1997, Fisher was sentenced to death a third time.

But in late 2019, U.S. District Court Judge Gene E.K. Pratter overturned Fisher’s conviction, ruling a county judge’s instruction on “reasonable doubt” and an example of the concept the judge recited during the 1991 trial was “constitutionally deficient” and “fatally flawed” and that Fisher’s lawyer should have objected to the instruction. Pratter concluded Fisher’s constitutional rights were violated by the instruction.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Pratter’s decision on Jan. 17, 2020, sending Fisher’s case back to county court for the retrial.

Fisher’s 1997 death sentence also was overturned with Pratter ruling the aggravating factor relied on by prosecutors at the time was improperly applied.