Thomas J. Platt, a 45-year-old White/Caucasian male from Parkersburg, was found dead on the evening of December 1, 2023, inside a residence on 38th Street in Vienna, West Virginia. What began as an emergency call after a family member discovered two people unresponsive quickly became a double-homicide investigation. When officers arrived around 4:40 p.m., they found Platt and 43-year-old Christy L. Roseberry of Vienna suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead, and their bodies were sent to the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies.
Investigators soon determined that the killings were not random. As officers processed the scene and spoke with witnesses, they identified Stevie W. Roseberry, 46, of Belpre, Ohio, as the suspect. He was Christy Roseberry’s estranged husband. Police later said they had obtained an arrest warrant charging him with first-degree murder in connection with the shootings.
The investigation expanded beyond Vienna as nearby agencies were alerted and U.S. Marshals joined the effort to locate him.
The search led authorities across state lines to a Comfort Inn in Bellefontaine, Ohio, roughly 170 miles from Vienna. In the early morning hours of December 2, law enforcement officers moved in to serve the arrest warrant. As U.S. Marshals and local authorities attempted to make contact with Roseberry in his hotel room, they heard what was believed to be a single gunshot. When officers entered, they found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Because Roseberry died before he could be taken into custody, there was no trial, conviction, or courtroom resolution in the case. Police indicated they did not have reason to believe anyone else was involved. The case was left as a devastating sequence of violence that began inside a Vienna home, took the lives of Thomas J. Platt and Christy Roseberry, and ended hours later in an Ohio hotel room with the death of the man authorities had identified as the suspect.
