Federal complaint names Robert Froberg in 1996 killing of 7-year-old Morgan Violi

A federal criminal complaint filed in the Western District of Kentucky names Robert Scott Froberg, 61, as the suspect in the 1996 abduction and death of 7-year-old Morgan Jade Violi after FBI laboratory testing matched a hair recovered from an abandoned maroon van to Froberg in CODIS. U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner announced the complaint and an arrest warrant at a Bowling Green news conference on Feb. 27, 2026, saying investigators reexamined old evidence and applied new technology to reach the match.

Morgan Jade Violi was taken from the Colony Apartments in Bowling Green while playing in July 1996; WHAS and NBC reporting gives the abduction date as July 24, 1996 and notes she was playing with her sister and friends and with a 6-year-old friend when an adult witness saw a white man grab her and drive off in a maroon Chevrolet van. The van was recovered about two days later south of Nashville, Tennessee, and a hair later recovered from that abandoned vehicle is central to the new forensic link.

Federal and local investigators say Morgan’s body was found Oct. 20, 1996, in woods near a barn in White House, Tennessee, roughly three months after the abduction. The federal complaint and reporting assert Froberg admitted during interviews that he snatched Morgan, threw her into the van, drove her to Tennessee, strangled her causing her death, and discarded her naked body after exiting I-65; the complaint further alleges he discarded her clothes because he feared they contained DNA evidence.

Froberg’s criminal history and 1996 movements are detailed in the complaint and historical reporting: he was convicted of a 1988 robbery in Montgomery and was serving a lengthy sentence with the Alabama Department of Corrections. Reports cite an April 3, 1996 escape from a work detail, theft of a 1986 Oldsmobile from an elderly woman, travel to Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, and an apprehension in May 1996 after a mother reported a man hiding in a treehouse used by neighborhood children. Some reporting also describes additional escapes and an August 1996 arrest for an unrelated crime; at the time of the federal filing Froberg was an Alabama inmate in DOC custody.

Prosecutors say additional forensic work supported the case: NBC reported fiber evidence alongside the DNA match from the van hair, and U.S. Attorney Bumgarner credited advancements in forensic testing for the breakthrough. Bumgarner framed the announcement around community persistence, saying, “Morgan Violi’s family never gave up on her, and neither did the Bowling Green community or its law enforcement community. For years, this community has feared that Morgan’s abductor lived silently among us and that one of our kids could be next. Investigators in the FBI and the Bowling Green Police Department have worked tirelessly to bring justice for Morgan. They applied new technology, reexamined old evidence, and never stopped searching for the truth. Yesterday, we filed a criminal complaint charging Robert Scott Froberg with her kidnapping, resulting in her death.” He added, “I hope that this announcement today can give some level of comfort to this community, my hometown.”

The federal complaint charges kidnapping resulting in death and carries the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty. The filing on Feb. 27, 2026 marks a major legal step in a case that investigators and local residents said had “haunted” Bowling Green for nearly 30 years; prosecutors and law enforcement declined to release further custody or docket details at the press conference.