Violi suspect brought to Kentucky
Published 3:03 pm Friday, April 10, 2026
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Robert Scott Froberg
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Morgan Violi
The man accused in the 1996 kidnapping of Morgan Violi that resulted in her death has been brought to Kentucky and will make his first court appearance later this month.
Robert Scott Froberg, 61, was booked Wednesday into Grayson County Detention Center.
He is accused of kidnapping 7-year-old Morgan on July 23, 1996, abducting her from the parking lot of what was then The Colony apartment complex on Shive Lane.
Morgan’s body was found Oct. 20, 1996, in a wooded area in White House, Tennessee, and Froberg was announced as a suspect earlier this year after federal prosecutors said DNA analysis of evidence tied him to the crime.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Brent Brennenstuhl issued an order Wednesday setting Froberg’s initial appearance and arraignment for April 21 in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green.
Brennenstuhl signed a writ last month ordering that Froberg be transferred from a prison facility in Alabama to federal custody in Kentucky for court proceedings in the kidnapping case here.
The Bowling Green Police Department and the FBI spent nearly 30 years investigating the crime.
A person who witnessed the abduction gave police a description of the person who took Morgan and the Chevrolet van that he drove.
Police found the van three days later, abandoned in the parking lot of a truck stop in Williamson County, Tennessee.
In 1997, the FBI confirmed through forensic analysis that a fiber found in Morgan’s hair was consistent with fibers from the seat cushion of the van.
Additional DNA testing on hairs found in the van resulted in an extracted DNA profile that matched a DNA sample from Froberg on a nationwide database.
Authorities say that Froberg had been convicted in Alabama for a 1988 armed robbery and was incarcerated there, but managed to escape in 1996.
After an arrest in Pennsylvania that same year, Froberg escaped from custody again, stole a van in Ohio and made his way back to Alabama, stopping in Bowling Green to buy marijuana, according to court records.
Froberg reportedly confessed to police earlier this year that he abducted Morgan and traveled to Tennessee with her in the van.
According to federal court records, Froberg admitted to placing his hand over Froberg’s mouth, covering her mouth with a handkerchief and using it to strangle her, then discarding the body in the woods and disposing of her clothing.
A month after Morgan was taken, Froberg was arrested in connection with his escape from Pennsylvania and was returned to Alabama, where he remained in custody until Wednesday.
