Mistrial declared in Fisher retrial
Norristown man accused of 1980 fatal shooting of ex-girlfriend
NORRISTOWN » A Montgomery County judge declared a mistrial after a jury indicated it was “hopelessly deadlocked” and could not reach a verdict at the retrial of Robert Fisher, the Norristown man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend during an argument in a car in the borough in 1980.
“I believe that this jury is hopelessly deadlocked. Therefore, I’m going to declare a mistrial in this case,” Judge Todd D. Eisenberg said Friday after the jury foreman told the judge that jurors could not reach a unanimous decision after nearly 11 hours of deliberations over two days.
Earlier Friday, jurors sent several notes to the judge, including one requesting that he re-read the legal instruction for “reasonable doubt.” In another note, jurors wrote, “We have a juror who is unable to follow the instruction of the court. Please advise.”
After Eisenberg provided legal instructions the jury resumed deliberations several times but to no avail.
It was the third evidentiary 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.
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 exgirlfriend at the time.
“I’m obviously disappointed. We put a lot into the case. I think we got a fair trial. We got a fair opportunity to put our case before the jury and that’s all you can ask for,” First Assistant District Attorney Edward F. McCann Jr. reacted afterward. “Linda’s family is
still committed to the case They’re still committed to seeing this through as well.”
Rowden’s sister, Chris, and her husband, Louie, and a family friend attended each day of the retrial.
Fisher did not react in the courtroom as the mistrial was declared.
Defense lawyer Carrie L. Allman, the chief homicide lawyer for the public defender’s office, said Fisher is “holding up as best as he can.”
“It’s been 41 years that he’s been under this umbrella of suspicion. It’s a long time but he’s holding up and we understand that we’ll do this again,” Allman said.
“We appreciate the hard work that the jury clearly put into this over the last several days, particularly during their deliberations. Obviously, we would have liked a not guilty but we respect and appreciate the hard work that this jury put into their decision-making,” Allman added.
The judge set a Nov. 9 date for a status conference at which McCann and Allman will discuss setting a date for another retrial. It would mark the fourth evidentiary trial for Fisher in the 41-year-old case.
During the latest retrial, McCann and co-prosecutor Tanner Beck sought a firstdegree murder conviction, arguing Fisher acted with intent when he fatally shot Rowden with a handgun that once belonged to Rowden’s father.
Prosecutors 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.
Fisher immediately fled from Norristown to New York City after the killing, changed his name and took on a new identity, evidence of his “consciousness of guilt,” prosecutors alleged.
Fisher wasn’t apprehended until 1987 in New York.
Given that decades passed since Rowden’s death, several key witnesses and some of the original investigators have 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.
But Allman suggested Walker and Mayo lied or provided inconsistent statements on multiple occasions and that anything they said cannot be trusted.
During the retrial, Allman argued Fisher did not kill Rowden and suggested Mayo could have shot Rowden.
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.
Prosecutors alleged the gun that Fisher used to kill Rowden had once belonged to Rowden’s father and had been given to Fisher by Rowden. The alleged murder weapon was never recovered.
Fisher, who lashed out at McCann during crossexamination, claimed he fled from Norristown because he feared he would be “railroaded” by investigators. But McCann argued Fisher did not have reasonable answers for the .22-caliber ammunition that authorities found in his home or why he fled from Norristown.
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.
During the latest retrial, prosecutors were seeking a sentence of life imprisonment for a first-degree murder conviction.