Mom hid her son behind a fake wall in her house for years

A Mississippi woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars after killing her son and hiding his body in her house.

Jeri Roby, 69, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the death of her 42-year-old son, John Gaither. Roby learned her fate on Wednesday, two and a half years after police said she fatally shot her son at her Gulfport, Mississippi, home on or around Dec. 10, 2023, then kept his body hidden inside the house. According to court documents obtained by local ABC and CBS affiliate WLOX, several of Gaither's other family members called police after they said they had not heard from Gaither, who was living with his mother at the time.

Roby started telling a lot of stories about where Gaither was, but she knew he had not gone far.

As Roby's stories about Gaither's whereabouts piled up, his other family members, who lived in several other states, reported him as a missing person. Roby first told people that Gaither had taken an Uber to Louisiana to purchase a car, but there was no recent Uber activity on his account.

Then, Roby sent a letter to Gaither's father and stepmother asking if they had heard from him because his employer had not seen him. Roby also sent a letter to them, pretending to be her son, claiming he had gone to the Philippines to meet a woman.

When police asked to search Roby's house, she let them inside to have a look around. During their search, police found a receipt from a recent shopping trip to Home Depot. The receipt showed Roby purchased 15 bags of sand, patch and seal tape, straw, and a dumpster bag. Roby's trip to Home Depot happened about a week before Gaither's family members filed their missing persons report.

Police soon found out that Roby had a prior conviction and served time for killing her drug dealer in December 1993. After she shot the victim, she stuffed his body in the trunk of her car. She was pulled over by police after they discovered the body. After she threatened to shoot herself, she posted bail and left town.

Roby was tracked down in July 1995 and arrested again. This time, she tried to take her own life by swallowing scrubbing solution. She was convicted of second-degree murder.

Given Roby's criminal history and other evidence, police obtained a search warrant to search Roby's house and executed it in January 2024. This time, they found a fake wall constructed at the front of the house and a large, wooden box — one that could fit a human body inside — behind it. The box was covered with the materials listed on Roby's Home Depot receipt. 

Gaither's body was inside the box. An autopsy revealed that he died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

While authorities removed Gaither's body from Roby's house, she swallowed pills in an attempt to take her own life. She was treated at the hospital before being taken to the police station, where she admitted to killing her son and forging letters in his name.

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According to Assistant District Attorney Matthew D. Burrell, Roby admitted that she sent "text messages to family acting as if she was Gaither, convinced her boyfriend to call family members acting as if he was Gaither, and took Gaither's cell phone to Florida to call family members so the phone would utilize cellular phone towers there."

WLOX was in the courtroom for Roby's plea hearing, when she told the court that the decision to shoot her son came at the "spur of the moment." She said she put her son "out of his misery" because he suffered from depression.

Roby was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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