Investigators say new DNA testing and a confession led to an arrest warrant nearly 30 years later.
BOWLING GREEN, KY — Federal authorities have filed a criminal complaint charging an Alabama inmate with kidnapping a 7-year-old Kentucky girl in 1996 and causing her death, saying new DNA testing tied him to a stolen van used in the abduction.
The charge, kidnapping resulting in death, was announced this week after investigators reexamined evidence from the day Morgan Violi disappeared and compared a DNA profile to a national database. Officials said the suspect was interviewed in Alabama and admitted details of the abduction and killing. The case has long haunted Bowling Green and nearby communities in Kentucky and Tennessee, where the child’s body was later found.
U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner said the complaint and arrest warrant were filed in federal court on Feb. 26. At a news conference the next day at the Bowling Green Police Department, Bumgarner was joined by FBI Special Supervisory Agent William Kurtz, Bowling Green Police Chief Michael Delaney and Commonwealth’s Attorney for Kentucky’s 8th Judicial Circuit Kori Beck Bumgarner. Officials said the defendant, Robert Scott Froberg, was already serving a lengthy sentence in the Alabama Department of Corrections when new forensic testing linked him to the case. “Morgan Violi’s family never gave up on her,” Bumgarner said, adding that investigators “never stopped searching for the truth.”
According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, the abduction happened July 24, 1996, at the Colony Apartments in Bowling Green. Morgan was playing near a wooded area with a 6-year-old friend when a man driving a maroon Chevrolet van entered the parking lot, got out and tried to grab the younger child, the affidavit said. The 6-year-old pulled away, but the man took Morgan and drove off, it said. An adult witness saw the kidnapping and described the van and the suspect to police, and an artist produced a sketch based on that description. Two days later, the affidavit said, law enforcement located the same van at a truck stop in Tennessee and processed it for forensic evidence.
Morgan’s body was found Oct. 20, 1996, in a wooded area in White House, Tennessee, the affidavit said. Early in the investigation, forensic work focused on what could be linked to the van and to Morgan’s remains. In 1997, the FBI laboratory determined that a fiber found in the remains of Morgan’s hair was consistent with the seat cushion fiber in the maroon van, the affidavit said. At the time, the case still lacked a clear suspect who could be tied to the evidence in a way that would hold up in court. Over the years, the case remained unsolved, even as investigators held onto items collected in 1996 and 1997 that might yield answers later.
Those answers, officials said, began to come from changes in DNA testing and the growth of national databases used by law enforcement. The affidavit said hairs collected from vacuum sweepings in the van had been preserved on glass microscope slides. With later advances in testing, the FBI extracted a DNA profile from one hair and searched it through the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, which returned an association with Froberg, the affidavit said. Investigators then worked to understand where Froberg had been in the days surrounding Morgan’s disappearance and how he could have traveled through Kentucky and Tennessee. The affidavit said Bowling Green sits on Interstate 65, a main route south into Alabama.
The affidavit outlines a series of escapes and travels that investigators say match the timeline. It says Froberg escaped from a Pennsylvania jail on July 16, 1996, and that a maroon Chevrolet van was stolen July 23, 1996, in Dayton, Ohio, about a half mile from his parents’ home. On July 26, 1996, law enforcement found the stolen van at a truck stop in Williamson County, Tennessee, according to the affidavit. The affidavit also describes how investigators learned Froberg had ties to a now-deceased Alabama Department of Corrections nurse in Huntsville, Alabama, and believed he was heading that way after escaping. That information, it says, helped investigators explain why a suspect traveling south might have passed through Bowling Green.
Officials said a key step came during an interview this week in Montgomery, Alabama. The affidavit says a Bowling Green police detective and an FBI agent traveled there and, with help from the Alabama Department of Corrections, Froberg was brought to an FBI office on Feb. 24. After being advised of his rights, Froberg agreed to speak, the affidavit said. He admitted exiting I-65 in Bowling Green to obtain marijuana and going to the Colony Apartments, where he saw Morgan and took her, the affidavit said. He then drove into Tennessee, pulled over near a barn in White House and strangled the child, the affidavit said, adding that he later abandoned and cleaned the van before going to Huntsville and then returning to Pennsylvania, where he was arrested on Aug. 21, 1996.
The federal charge carries the most severe penalties in the criminal system, officials said. The U.S. attorney’s office said that if Froberg is convicted, he faces only two possible sentences: life in prison or the death penalty, with the sentence determined by a federal judge. The complaint is a first step in the case and is an allegation, not proof, and Froberg is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. Prosecutors said an arrest warrant has been issued, and officials are expected to seek Froberg’s appearance in federal court in Kentucky as the case moves forward through initial hearings and later court dates.
For investigators and residents, the announcement reopened memories from the summer of 1996, when police searched for Morgan and tracked the van across state lines. Authorities said the case drew help from local officers and federal agents, and that evidence from the van was kept even after early leads ran out. Bowling Green police and the FBI said the renewed work relied on careful preservation of evidence and follow-up interviews decades later. Officials did not answer every question about why it took so long to identify a suspect, but they said the breakthrough depended on newer testing methods and the ability to compare DNA to a large database that did not exist when Morgan was taken.
As of Saturday, the charge remains pending in federal court, and officials have said the next major step will be Froberg’s transfer for an initial appearance and further proceedings in the Western District of Kentucky. Investigators said they will continue reviewing records and evidence as prosecutors prepare for the next hearings.
Author note: Last updated 2026-02-28.