Roland Pitre Jr.

I do not know what to think about Roland Pitre Jr. It is pretty apparent that he is not a good guy by just his rap sheet but I am conflicted on just what kind of bad guy he is. He is either a horrible criminal, since he was caught often; a squealer who will rat on himself and anyone else he can in a second; or he is just a remorseless man who commits crimes and basically stands back and says, Yeah, I did it, just sentence me and let me be on my way. Ok, the last is just an assumption that I have made just by everything I read on him. It is likely that no one knows exactly when Roland began committing crimes or just how many he has committed in his lifetime. I would not be surprised to know that the only reason we know of the crimes in which he committed is simply because he was caught and there are others that he just was never caught for. Then again he seemed to be such a bungled criminal I am unsure that he could commit a crime without being caught.

The first crime that people can prove or know about was in July of 1980. Thirty-three year old Lt. Cmdr. Dennis Archer was shot three times in the chest at his Whidbey Island Washington home. Just exactly how Pitre was caught for this crime is not clear. But, it is likely that they found their way to Pitre when they discovered that Dennis' wife, Maria, was having an affair with Pitre. It was said that Pitre was a Judo instructor and Maria and her children were his students. Pitre would plead guilty to second degree murder and agree to testify against Maria, and a friend of his named Charles Guidry, who Pitre said he convinced to shoot Dennis, at Maria's urging. Both Maria and Charles would plead innocent and go to trial. Maria would admit to the affair but claimed she never asked Roland to kill her husband and if he was involved it was without her knowledge. It was not clear whether Maria and Charles Guidry were tried together or separately but regardless the outcome was the same. They were both acquitted. It seems the jury did not believe Pitre's story. Roland would serve about six years for that crime.

Prior to Dennis Archer's murder Roland had been married to a woman named Cheryl and they had a young daughter named Yvonne. Some reports say that the couple were simply separated at the time of Dennis' murder while others say they had officially divorced. I was unable to determine which was true. However, when he testified against Maria he would confess that he had obtained a $20,000 life insurance policy on his young daughter, who was two at the time, and had considered ways to kill her to obtain the money. He claimed he wanted the money to help buy things for Maria. He went as far as saying he had considered staging an overdose of sleeping pills or even pushing the toddler out of a vehicle and make it look like an accident. Regardless of this confession while he was in prison Cheryl decided to reconcile with Roland. One report says that they remarried in 1981 but again I am unsure that was accurate. At any rate in 1987 the couple would have another child, this time a boy.

By 1988 the relationship was over and this time it was clear that they officially divorced. Just a few months later, on Sunday October 16, 1988 would be the last day that Cheryl would be seen. Roland had the children for the weekend and he would be the one to report her missing on that day. There seemed to be no sign of her. It was said that Roland was very public (making it sound through possibly the media) vocal about the fact that he felt the police were not looking for Cheryl very well. Four days later her purse would be found in Lake Union, several miles from her home. The people who found her purse attempted to contact her but to no avail. It is not completely clear if the people who found the purse then called the police or it just so happened around the same time that Cheryl's car was found in the same area. The way I understood it the car was taken to a police evidence garage before it was ever searched. Whether that was protocol in every case or it simply was not searched until later is unknown. At any rate when the car was searched Cheryl's body would be found in the trunk. She had been severely beaten and strangled with some sort of ligature. Her wrists had been bound by duct tape.

Many who knew Cheryl believed that Roland was involved but there seemed to be nothing to prove this and the case went cold. In the meantime Roland would retain custody of his children with Cheryl and he would remarry within a year or two. Authorities apparently were aware that Cheryl had a $100,000 life insurance policy and that Roland was the beneficiary of both the policy and of her Will. One report stated that Roland's new wife would adopt his children but the marriage would not last long. Within a few years they were already separated, if not divorced. It is unclear whether she retained custody of the children along with her teenage son from a previous relationship.

By 1993 Roland was living with a new girlfriend. One night in 1993 the new couple donned masks and entered the home in which Roland, now ex-stepson, was sleeping. They approached the sixteen year old boy with the plan to kidnap him at gunpoint. Roland had even made a “holding cell” for him under the home the couple shared. Allegedly the plan was to force the boy to write letters to his grandparents in order to secure a ransom for him. The plan was foiled when the boy struggled and screamed. Just how the two were caught was not clear but of course they were and Roland once again went to prison. I cannot tell you the exact details of his sentence but let us just say that in 2003 he was still in prison and apparently had several years to go before there was even any consideration for a release. Whatever came of the girlfriend is unknown, at least to me.

But, sometime in 2003 police were notified that a former inmate “buddy” of Roland's and another man, Frederick McKee, wanted to talk to them. This man told the investigators that he had befriended the two men in prison and that both men had confided in him that they had been involved in the murder of Roland's ex-wife, Cheryl. After they got this information from the man the investigators then went and talked to Roland himself. This is the point in which I was given the impression that he is remorseless in his actions, will say or do whatever he can to save his own skin, but in the same respect basically admit everything and shrug it off. But of course he had a story to tell, another story that it is unlikely a jury would believe, just as he had not been believed in 1980.

Roland would tell investigators that he had struck a deal with Frederick McKee to have him “attack” Cheryl. Roland had duplicated a key his daughter had mistakenly left out at his home that went to Cheryl's home and he gave it to McKee. Roland would claim that the plan was that McKee would attack Cheryl but he would come in like the knight in shining armor and “rescue” her from the “big bad man.” This was his ploy to win Cheryl back, so he says. But, then he claimed that while he had planned to give his girlfriend an excuse to leave the house that he had “some sort of blackout” and woke up the following morning when he “suddenly realized” he “forgot to rescue her.” He also admitted to taking McKee to a local hardware store to buy duct tape and rope.

Just as Roland Pitre was not hard to find, neither was Frederick McKee. He too was back in prison. This time he was serving a twelve year sentence for the manufacturing of meth. And, just as the people Roland accused of being involved in the 1980 murder of Dennis Archer denied involvement, so did McKee. He seemed to stick with that, for a while.

In February of 2004 Roland would officially plead guilty in the murder of his ex-wife, Cheryl. The following month he would be given a sentence of forty years. At his sentencing both of his children spoke and asked the judge to ensure that he never be released from prison. Yvonne expressed guilt that she had accidentally left the key to her mother's house laying out, giving her father access. She also expressed regret when she mentioned he had often forced her to lie for him or used her as an alibi in many of his crimes and scheme (there were many more not mentioned here).

In October of 2004 it seems that Frederick McKee saw no other choice but to plead guilty. He received a deal for his plea of second degree murder and received a sentence of twenty years.

It seems that lately I have been picking cases in which involve states that do not have the best website when it comes to their Department of Corrections. All I could determine through their information is that Roland Pitre is still a guest in one of their prisons. I cannot tell you if or when he may be up for parole. When it comes to Frederick McKee, I did not find a record for him. This means he has either been released, which is entirely possible, or he died while in prison. It is my sincere hope that Roland Pitre never experiences again what it means to be free.