Wife charged in plot to kill husband
GROVE CITY — One thousand dollars.
That’s what a 55-year-old wife is accused of offering another woman to help kill her husband with a deadly dose of drugs.
But state police picked up on the alleged plot and Wednesday arrested Robin Lee Uber, 54, of Grove City before she could put it to the test.
Uber, who is being held in Mercer County Jail on $250,000 bail, is charged with solicitation and conspiracy to commit the crimes of first-degree murder and aggravated assault, and criminal use of a communication facility.
Police said their investigation began Sept. 4 when they obtained information that the defendant was stating “plans and intentions to kill her husband,” 55-year-old Jeffrey C. Uber.
Two days later, according to court documents, investigators learned details of Uber’s plot during a telephone call she made to a cooperating police witness.
“The defendant consistently expressed hate towards her husband,” a police affidavit said, “and related that if she were to poison her husband she would need something that wouldn’t show up in his blood.”
She told the witness that she had been using rubber gloves so as not to leave fingerprints on her husband’s pill bottles.
Police said Uber also disclosed that she had traveled to New Castle where she tried to pay two individuals to kill her spouse. But the pair rejected her offer.
At one point during the phone conversation, according to the affidavit, she became angry and said, “I could off this whole (expletive) Uber family and it wouldn’t (expletive) bother me.”
She eventually offered to pay the witness $1,000, documents said, “in exchange for her willingness to schedule a doctor’s appointment in which she would obtain the necessary medication needed to kill (Uber’s) husband.”
She wanted the killing to happen between Oct. 10 and 12.
Police said Uber also discussed with the witness the need for an alibi.
“She stated that once she gives her husband the medication,” the affidavit said, “she will have to be elsewhere so she can verify that she wasn’t at her residence.”
Additionally, she allegedly talked about needing to destroy her phone and getting a new one and a new number.
The witness in another phone call Sept. 25 told Uber that she had received the supposed medication, which police did not identify.
“The defendant asked if it would be enough to kill the victim,” documents said. She also questioned “how long she should wait between giving the victim the medication and calling 911.”
Uber on Sept. 26 agreed to pick up what she believed to be the drugs at an unspecified location in Grove City. But when she did, investigators said, police were waiting.
Her preliminary hearing is set Oct. 10 at District Judge Neil McEwen’s office in Pine Township. Online court records did not indicate if she has an attorney.
