|
#1
●
11-01-2026, 02:14 PM
|
|
Dineane Rochelle Ducharme Questioned in Roberto Caraballo Killing
Dineane Rochelle Ducharme was sentenced to life without parole for the May 7, 2002, killing of Roberto Caraballo in the basement of her family's Charlotte, Michigan, home. An Eaton County jury convicted her in December 2021 of first-degree premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and disinterment and mutilation of a dead body. Judge Janice Cunningham imposed the life sentence on February 7, 2022, plus 23 months to 10 years on the mutilation count. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed on February 10, 2025. Ducharme was 21 in May 2002 and lived on and off with her family in Charlotte, Eaton County. Her mother, Beverly McCallum, was married to Caraballo, 37, who lived in the house. Christopher McMillan, a friend of Ducharme's, sometimes stayed there. At McCallum's 2024 trial, the prosecutor said she wanted Caraballo gone after his release from federal prison because having him around "was cramping her lifestyle." Testifying under a plea agreement, McMillan said the two women planned for him to knock Caraballo out with a bat so they could suffocate him. He testified that McCallum pushed Caraballo down the basement stairs and that his own swing hit a post and broke the bat. Ducharme swung a hammer at Caraballo a couple of times, he said, before McCallum took it and struck him in the head. He said the women tied a bag over Caraballo's head with a rope while Ducharme held his head. A pathologist testified that Caraballo died within minutes of head injuries consistent with hammer blows and was dead before the fire. McMillan said the body was put in a metal trunk and driven that night in the family van, with Ducharme at the wheel, to Ottawa County, where he and McCallum set it on fire with gasoline. On May 8, 2002, a landowner found the burned trunk with the body on his Grand Haven Township property, which included a blueberry farm. The remains went unidentified for years in the "Jack in the Box" case. On April 23, 2015, Ducharme emailed an Ottawa County Sheriff's Office detective and later told him she believed the victim was Caraballo. Dental and federal prison records confirmed it. Detectives from Ottawa and Eaton counties interviewed her in Texas, where she lived, in October 2015. She said McCallum and Caraballo argued that night, that McCallum said she was "gonna kill him," went to the basement and came back saying she had, and that McMillan had been there. In a second interview, on October 22, 2015, in Galveston, she said she might have driven that night and had seen some of the body and blood from the basement stairs. According to hearing testimony, she told police her mother killed Caraballo, denied having anything to do with his death, and admitted helping dispose of the body. A report admitted at trial found Caraballo more likely than not a contributor to DNA from beneath a newer concrete patch in the basement. Investigators found McMillan in Grand Rapids, and he admitted his part. All three were charged in 2018 with murder, conspiracy, and mutilation of a dead body. The charges were made public in April 2019, when Ducharme was in Texas awaiting extradition. The recorded interview, dated November 16, 2018, by the camera's own clock, shows detectives questioning Ducharme in a Texas jail and asking about her mother. Ducharme says she is being held on warrants after a traffic stop. McMillan pleaded guilty in October 2019 to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. He testified for the prosecution and was sentenced to 15 to 40 years. McCallum, who had left the country, was arrested in Rome in February 2020 and returned to Michigan in July 2022. A jury convicted her in April 2024 of second-degree murder and disinterment and mutilation of a dead body. On May 23, 2024, she was sentenced to 40 to 60 years.
__________________ Support the site and our continued existence by upgrading to a Green Name |
|
#2
●
11-01-2026, 02:14 PM
|
|
Re: Dineane Rochelle Ducharme Questioned in Roberto Caraballo Killing
Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.
__________________ Support the site and our continued existence by upgrading to a Green Name |