Suspect in 2002 Slaying of Ex-Husband Fights Return to N.C.

The home on Roseland Road where Scott Rovnak was shot to death in 2002

As of Saturday, June 23, 2012

The former wife of a Moore County man shot and killed in 2002 is fighting her return to North Carolina after her arrest in West Virginia earlier this week.

Melissa Lynn Rovnak, 44, of Bluewell, W. Va., was arrested Monday and detained in the Mercer County jail in Princeton W.Va. She will be charged in connection with the death of her husband, Scott Rovnak, said Neil Godfrey, chief deputy of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.

“She’s going to fight extradition,” Godfrey said Thursday. “That process could take several weeks.”

Rovnak’s refusal to waive extradition to North Carolina means the Moore County district attorney’s office will have to apply to obtain a governor’s warrant to bring her back to North Carolina.

Moore County Assistant District Attorney Warren McSweeney said it is “extremely difficult and rare” to fight extradition.

The DA’s office will gather the paperwork and present it to Gov. Bev Perdue, asking her to sign a governor’s warrant to help them bring Rovnak back to North Carolina.

Godfrey said investigators developed new information in the case in recent weeks which resulted in the Sheriff’s Office issuing an arrest warrant. He didn’t elaborate on what the evidence was, but said Melissa Rovnak has long been a “person of interest in the investigation,” because the department “didn’t have enough information to eliminate her as a suspect.”

Family members found Scott Rovnak’s body at his home at 2776 Roseland Road on Dec. 29, 2002. The death was originally reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Days later, sheriff’s investigators determined differently.

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office has several unsolved cold cases, but the Rovnak case is the only unsolved one during the tenure of Sheriff Lane Carter, Godfrey said.

According to a report filed by deputy Stephen Gore, who responded to the call, Rovnak suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head from a firearm of an unknown caliber. He had apparently been dead for some time.

The body was reportedly found by Rovnak’s then 15-year-old stepdaughter, Kristin Pruitt.

At the time, she told deputies that she had returned home with her brothers Joshua and Logan Pruitt and their mother, Melissa Rovnak.

Contact Tom Embrey at (910) 693-2484 or tembrey@thepilot.com.

More like this story

babiehop 11 months ago

If no weapon was recovered at the scene how in the world was this reported as self-inflicted ?? Was it by the deputy or by the family ? It may be “extremely difficult and rare” to fight extradition, but I think even more difficult and rare to dispose of a gun after you shot yourself in the back of the head. Sounds like someone made a bad call and let a murderer walk the streets for 10 years.

RmeMP 11 months ago

@babiehop:

In the previous stories, it said that family members reported that they found him with a self inflicted gunshot wound. No one let a murderer walk around for 10 years do to a mistake.

babiehop 11 months ago

RmeMP, okay, thanks. Am still curious, was a weapon ever recovered ? If the family found him there with a self-inflicted wound, didn't they find a gun also, did they turn that gun over to authorities ? Saying it was of unknown caliber makes me wonder.

RmeMP 11 months ago

Babiehop:

Everything that I have read about this case says that the murder weapon was never found. If you would like, I will give you my hypothetical assumption with this case:

I think, again hypothetical, that this was a murder for hire plot by the wife. I believe she hired someone to kill her husband and arranged it so that she and her children would find him and thereby could play innocent. I am also wondering if the triggerman has been arrested on an unrelated charge and for investigators about this case as pastry of a plea agreement, or maybe his guilt has been eating away at him so he voluntarily went to police.

babiehop 11 months ago

I agree. I read a little of the other articles, and only saw that it said that family members found him and that the death was originally reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but not who reported it as such, whether the family did or the deputy. Even if the family did, wouldn't the investigation at the scene have ruled that out ? It is baffling to me how such a report was made when no weapon was recovered. Your theory is likely spot on. Glad this is getting resolved, only sad it has taken this long.