Crime Watch Daily Update: Person of interest in Decker disappearance could be freed on technicality
02/16/2016 12:54 pm PST
Bethany Decker, a young mother, vanished in Virginia in February 2011.
Her family has long suspected Ronald Roldan had something to do with her disappearance.
Ronald Roldan is currently in jail, charged with the attempted murder of his girlfriend. However, there has just been a huge development in that case.
Bethany Decker was a busy student living in Virginia, working nights at a restaurant, spending her days in class to complete her college degree, all while her husband Emile, a member of the National Guard, had been serving in Afghanistan 7,000 miles away.
Bethany's mom, Kim Nelson, was looking after the couple's toddler son, and Bethany was pregnant with a second child. But calls to Bethany's phone went unanswered in January 2011, and then fake messages started arriving from her Facebook account, believed to have been written by someone other than her.
Five years later, there is still no sign of Bethany Decker. The only clue to Bethany's disappearance was that she was having an affair with Ronald Roldan, a man who as it turns out, is now facing charges for trying to kill another girlfriend.
"There had been an altercation and Ronald had shot his girlfriend," said Nelson, Bethany's mother. "She was in the hospital in critical condition."
Roldan had hooked up with a new woman, Vickey Willoughby, in North Carolina a few years after Bethany disappeared.
"He used to have what I called 'outbursts,' out of nowhere, rages of anger," said Willoughby. "And they would literally come out of nowhere."
When she finally tried to leave him, that really set him off.
"He grabbed me at the top of my hair and just started plummeting [sic] me with his right fist, he immediately snapped my neck 'cause that's the first thing I felt go, I felt it and I heard it," said Willoughby.
She managed to grab a gun she had hidden under a nearby chair and shot Roldan twice. But that only fueled his adrenaline, and he wrestled the gun away from her and shot her in the head.
"After he shot me I laid down for a moment," said Willoughby. "I stayed where I was because I thought I was going to die."
Severely injured, Willoughby willed herself to crawl to a neighbor's house for help. To this day a bullet is lodged in her head and she lost her right eye from the injuries Roldan inflicted.
"It's the only thing that saved me, was me shooting him, because it shocked him, or I honestly from the bottom of my heart, I don't think he would've stopped," said Willoughby. "I don't even know if he's capable of stopping once he starts."
Ronald Roldan was arrested in North Carolina for assault and attempted murder. He's pleaded not guilty to the charges and is now in jail, but Willoughby fears he could get out and come after her again.
In fact he may now be released on a technicality.
"The search warrant was ruled to be too broad," said Candace Trunzo, senior news editor, DailyMail.com. "Evidence such as a gun, shells from the gun, his bloody clothing, samples taken from his room and his body, all of those things cannot be entered into evidence now."
Roldan's defense attorneys are now trying to reduce his charges to assault with a deadly weapon, meaning even if he's convicted, he might only get time served or at most, six years in prison.
"What you have now is a woman who is really in fear of her life," said Trunzo. "He said to Vickey, 'I can make people disappear.'"
Willoughby is now begging the district attorney not to reduce the charges. She hand-delivered a written request to the court, demanding her tormentor be held accountable for his violence.
The letter describes what she calls Ronald Roldan's "murderous intent," detailing beatings that left her with a "broken neck" and the shooting that left her with a "bullet that is still lodged in my head and took out my right eye."
Vickey Willoughby is pleading not only for justice in her case, but for answers in the case involving Bethany Decker.
Roldan was the last person to see Decker, and authorities have questioned him a number of times.
"They know that, or they believe at least, that he has the answers to what's happened to her, he is not saying a word," said Trunzo.
There are no other suspects in her case. Roldan is still considered a person of interest, although he's never been charged in connection with her disappearance.
Crime Watch Daily tried to speak with Roldan. "Look -- please don't contact me again," he replied from prison.
Roldan's trial for the assault on Vickey Willoughby begins in May, the day before he turns 36 years old.
But as far as anyone knows, Bethany Decker will never celebrate another birthday, and until her mother learns what happened to her, Kim Nelson fears her trials will never end.
"I don't want this to happen to anyone else," said Nelson.
"If he is freed, if he gets off on this, they are going to be in fear for their lives," said Trunzo.
