A man accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend before driving to a friend’s home for a Thanksgiving meal has been found dead in his cell after an apparent suicide.
Michael David Robles, from Fallbrook, California, was found hanged from a bedsheet at his cell at the San Diego County Jail on Saturday morning, officials said.
The 43-year-old had been accused of killing mother-of-one Kathleen Cary Scharbarth last Thanksgiving – her 35th birthday.
She was killed just minutes after she arrived at her home after seeing her new boyfriend. Her 13-year-old daughter was asleep at the home at the time.
Her body was found buried in a remote canyon. Prosecutors said that after burying his ex-girlfriend, Robles went to a friend’s home for Thanksgiving.
Scharbarth’s family held a news conference on Sunday afternoon to respond to news of Robles’s death.
‘We had prepared ourselves for a long and emotional trial,’ the victim’s mother Virginia Scharbarth said outside her Carlsbad home.
‘Now we are dealing with another series of emotions too difficult to describe at this time.’
Just a week before she disappeared, Ms Scharbarth had filed a complaint of domestic violence and had obtained a restraining order against Robles, whom she had dated on and off for around eight years.
Her cousin Robert has previously recalled her as kind, sincere, ‘always open-hearted to everyone’.
‘It’s unfortunate this whole thing happened, but deep down I know she’s going to a better place,’ he said. ‘Her number one priority was her daughter. She’s going to be missed.’
Ms Scharbarth had owned a furniture importing company called Ardanas. She lived with her daughter Madison on Via Puerta, a block east of Melrose Drive.
Her current boyfriend, Daniel Weber, was the last person to see her after she walked him to his car outside her home in southeast Carlsbad.
Mr Weber returned on Thanksgiving morning to have breakfast.
But when he found the door to her house open and her daughter asleep inside, he alerted police.
The following day, detectives seized property from her home and Robles’ home on Baja Vista Drive.
When they arrested him, police found Robles had purchased a plane ticket to Mexico, Deputy District Attorney Kelly Mok said.
Robles pleaded not guilty and could have faced the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
A deputy performing a security check at Vista Detention Facility found the 43-year-old in his single-occupancy cell, the Medical Examiner said in a statement on its website. He was found at 6.30 a.m. on Saturday.
Paramedics tried to revive him, but a doctor declared him dead.
