A pizza delivery driver arrived just in time to save the life of a pregnant wife whose estranged husband allegedly broke into her Key West home Monday night armed with a knife, terrorizing her and her two children.
Taurean Roberts, 30, of 800 Terry Lane faces 13 charges, 12 of them felonies. Some of those charges stem from warrants relating to previous drug-dealing arrests.
Monday's trouble started around 8:30 p.m. at a home on Stock Island when Roberts entered the house through a laundry room that has an entrance from the back of the house, Deputy Jorge Prince from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office wrote in his report.
Roberts' wife told Prince she was on the couch while a child in the house was doing laundry. The child heard the laundry room door open. Roberts was there holding a "large" knife. He walked into the house and started yelling "for his stuff," Prince wrote.
The two minors in the house tried calling 911, but Roberts reportedly grabbed both their cellphones and threw them against a wall. He then started choking one of the children and pushed his wife against a television, during which she knocked her head, Prince wrote.
At one point, one of the children told Roberts' wife that her husband "needed to go back to jail."
Roberts has an extensive criminal history in Monroe going back to at least 2003, including felony charges of dealing drugs, obstructing with violence, tampering with evidence and failure to obey a police officer, and multiple misdemeanors for violating probation.
He's also done two stints in state prison, from March 2008 to July 2012 for six felony drug convictions, and June 2004 to July 2006 for five felony drug counts.
At some point during the tense situation Monday night, the pizza driver arrived and Roberts' wife whispered to him to call 911. Taurean Roberts was still in the house. The delivery man phoned the Monroe Sheriff's Office and left the home.
After the police were called, Roberts hopped into a white Mercedes C230 and left. Police found the car at 5513 Fifth Ave. on Stock Island. One of two people at that address, Corianne Depoo, said she "never heard of a Taurean Roberts" and that she loaned the car to the other person, Urick Grant. Grant told police he "dropped [Roberts] off somewhere."
It wasn't true: Roberts was found in a bedroom in the house, according to Prince's report. On his way to jail, he reportedly said "they better give me 50 years because I am going to make sure they get theirs."
Roberts faces felony charges of child abuse, aggravated battery by strangulation, aggravated battery of a pregnant woman and obstruction of justice. He faces a slew of other charges stemming from existing warrants.
Roberts is in the Stock Island jail with no bond allowed.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article58156128.html#storylink=cpy
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