A 59-year-old Port Edwards man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for the death of a 73-year-old Saratoga woman more than 38 years ago.
In November, following almost seven days of testimony, a jury found John A. Sarver guilty of first-degree murder for the 1984 death of Eleanore Roberts.
On Friday, the judge in the case did not want to make a decision on whether Sarver would be eligible for early release. Instead, it will be up to a parole board to make that decision when Sarver becomes eligible for parole after serving 20 years of his sentence.
Sarver and his attorney, Jeremiah Meyer-O’Day, continued to argue that Sarver is innocent in Roberts’ death. Meyer-O’Day said during Friday’s sentencing that appealing the verdict has become personal for him.
Assistant Attorney General Adrienne Blais described the brutality of Roberts’ murder on Friday and what the family has been through the past 38 years as they waited for answers.
According to the criminal complaint, on Nov. 27, 1984, Roberts’ son reported finding her body in the bathroom of her Saratoga home, near Wisconsin Rapids. Authorities said someone stabbed and beat her to death. She suffered broken ribs and a punctured heart and lungs, consistent with being stabbed with a scissors.
Authorities learned a pair of scissors, a knife and a telephone were missing from the home, according to court records. Investigators found the knife the same day on Hillcrest Avenue in Saratoga, not far from Roberts’ South Hollywood Road home. They found the scissors the next day, about 1/4 mile away, and the telephone four months later in the Wisconsin River, about 2 1/2 miles away.
On the day of Roberts’ death, an officer found a ski mask on the branch of a tree across from Roberts’ home, according to the criminal complaint. It appeared to have been thrown there. The mask, along with the knife, the scissors and the phone, were found in places along the route between Roberts’ home and Sarver’s, according to the complaint.
Nearly three decades later in May 2013, investigators said they got a search warrant to obtain DNA from Sarver, whom they considered a prime suspect in the case since Roberts’ death.
Sarver was 21 when Roberts died, worked at a business that sold her a lawnmower and had gone to service it at her home, according to court documents. At first, he told authorities he was never inside Roberts’ home, but investigators later found his palm print on the bathroom counter.
In 2005, a witness told investigators that 17 years earlier, Sarver admitted to killing a woman with a “karate chop to her neck,” which matched Roberts’ injuries, according to the complaint. In April 2020, the same witness told investigators another witness said Sarver admitted to going into Roberts’ home to rob her. He said he was surprised she was home and beat her to death “by accident,” according to the complaint.
During Sarver’s trial, a witness testified that he had gotten a ride from Sarver the night Roberts was killed. The man said they went to Roberts’ home and he waited in the pickup while Sarver and another man went inside. The man eventually went into the house. He testified he saw Roberts dead on the kitchen floor when the two men let him in. He said he helped the two men carry Roberts into the bathroom.