“I have recently said to people, ‘It took me 67 years, but I finally got it right, found the right person.’ … I was very much in love.”
These are the words that Jill Rohner shared with North Carolina newspaper The News & Observer about her late partner, John Rowe, who was shot and killed by her abusive ex-husband on Tuesday, Jan. 21. A police officer was also seriously injured in the shooting, which Rohner escaped with her life.
“I thought I was going to be dead,” she told the Raleigh outlet, noting that ex-husband Antonio Rodrigues certainly “could’ve killed me” but “opted not to.”
“We were face to face,” she recalled, “and I was pleading with him.”
Rohner divorced Rodrigues, 70, in 2014 after 20 years of marriage, and he has not left her alone since. Court records show that he had multiple convictions for stalking her, and she had a restraining order against him, local outlet WRAL reported. He also had a history of abuse, according to Rohner.
“He did not take me asking him for a divorce well at all,” she said, per WRAL. “So, 11 years ago, he actually had a gun to my temple at one point back then.”
On Jan. 21, Rodrigues showed up at his ex-wife’s Raleigh home holding a bouquet of flowers, with his face concealed by a mask and hood, so she “didn’t recognize it as him,” she told The News & Observer, adding that he “plowed through the front door.”
After entering the living room, Rodrigues hit Rowe, 73, with a taser, prompting the pair to fight, Rohner recalled to the newspaper. Shortly after, he fled.
Rohner called 911 to report the incident around 5:39 p.m. local time, per Raleigh Police, but during the call, Rodrigues returned with a shotgun. He then broke down the back door of the home and shot Rowe, The News & Observer reported.
Travis Long/The News & Observer,/Tribune News Service via Getty
After Rohner ran to the garage, Rodrigues found her and told her that she “took everything from” him, though he did not physically harm her, per the newspaper. She ran back into the home, where Rowe was still alive, and police had arrived and instructed her to leave the home.
Rohner obliged, but found it difficult to do so as her love of two years was injured inside. “I wanted everything in my power to just drag [John] with me out of there,” she told The News & Observer. “I didn’t want to leave John.”
Rodrigues then shot at police from inside the home, prompting them to return fire and kill him, police told The News & Observer. A Raleigh police officer, Max Gillick, was injured in the altercation and taken to the hospital, where he remains in critical condition, according to police.
Rowe was also taken to the hospital, where he later died, the newspaper reported.
A retired family doctor, father and grandfather, Rowe was “just kind and sweet and generous and warm,” Rohner told The News & Observer. After years of abuse, intimidation and stalking at Rodrigues’s hands, she said that when she met Rowe, she finally felt safe.
“He was just that man that gave to the community, and he just had a lovely family,” Rohner told the newspaper, “which is part of what drew me to him: how well he got along with his kids and grandkids.”
Raleigh Police did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Saturday, Jan. 25.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Speaking with The News & Observer, Rohner also expressed her frustration with the “system,” given Rodrigues’ long and recorded history of harassing her.
Court records show that in 2023, Rodrigues pleaded guilty to seven counts of stalking, stalking with a prior conviction and disclosing private images, but a judge suspended his prison sentence, instead ordering him to serve probation, the newspaper reported. He was also ordered to complete an abuser treatment program and a mental health assessment, plus discard any images of Rohner in his possession.
But he violated the rules and threatened Rohner, who told the newspaper that “eventually you just give up.” Since their 2014 split, she had pleaded to get him mental health assistance, fearing that “he could snap at any minute,” she said.
“I’m not blaming anybody. I’m not blaming the police, but the system fails,” she told The News & Observer. “I got a piece of paper to protect [me]. … He was on probation, he had an ankle bracelet and they took it off, and they shouldn’t have. They should have known where he was. Why did they take that off his ankle? Why?”
Despite the hole in her life left by Rowe’s tragic death, Rohner told The News & Observer that the only positive is that “that [Rodrigues] is dead” and can no longer cause her harm: “I am not sad about that.”
Read the full article here
