KEOKUK – After hearing the defendant testify on his own behalf, the jury found Craig Rockenbach guilty of a lesser charge on Friday.
Friday was the third day of Rockenbach’s second-degree murder trial for the death of his 84-year-old father, Gary Rockenbach.
At 6:13 p.m., after press time for Saturday’s paper, the Lee County Attorney’s Office sent a press release saying the jury has found Rockenbach guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a class C felony. The charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Sentencing has been set for 3 p.m. on Monday, June 17.
On the evening of Jan. 22, Gary was assaulted by his 43-year-old son during a domestic dispute in the kitchen of Gary’s home in Keokuk.
On Feb. 1, Gary died at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City as the result of brain bleed and other health conditions.
After the Lee County Attorney Ross Braden went through several witnesses and rested the State’s case on Thursday, Rockenbach took the stand in his own defense Friday afternoon at the South Lee County Courthouse in Keokuk and answered questions from his attorney, Curtis Dial.
Noticeably absent from the court room was Linda Rockenbach and the roughly one dozen friends and family members that accompanied her.
The Accused Testifies
Rockenbach testified that he had returned to Keokuk from Florida for the holidays prior to Jan. 22.
Earlier that day, Rockenbach and his adult son drove Gary and Linda to the emergency room at the Fort Madison hospital to get checked for a medical issue that Linda was experiencing.
While his parents were inside the hospital, Craig testified that he asked his son to drive him to a gas station so he could buy a tall boy can of beer.
He said he drank the can as they waited, that his son wanted to visit a girlfriend who lived nearby for a bit, and that, as his son was visiting his friend, he went to a nearby gas station, bought 10 small bottles of Fireball whiskey, drank all of them, and was then intoxicated.
Rockenbach also testified that he had also taken hydroxyzine, a medication he takes for anxiety issues, and that he stated did not mix well with alcohol, which he had experienced in the past.
Rockenbach stated he does not remember the car ride home after his mother was released from the emergency room, nor can he remember wrestling with his son at his parents’ home afterwards and anything else that not up until the point that the threw a chair at Gary while he was sitting at the kitchen table.
He testified that he also didn’t remember anything else about the assault on his father after throwing the chair except for punching Gary twice, at which point he “woke” up, began apologizing to his father and checking to see if he was all right.
Without specifying, Rockenbach admitted that he had disagreements with his father in the past and stated that Gary had been unhappy and discouraging towards him in the past, but said he still loved his father.
“I loved him to death,” he testified, adding that he tried to be positive, helpful, and prayerful while he was with his parents.
Overall, Rockenbach reiterated that he did not remember most of the assault on his father and blamed the attack on him being intoxicated from the alcohol and medication he had consumed earlier that day.
Under cross examination from Braden, Rockenbach admitted that he had experienced negative reactions to hydroxyzine and alcohol that lead to a physical altercation in the past and that he had a disagreement with his family in 2015 when they asked him to commit himself to a mental hospital.
911 Calls Recorded
The night of the assault, Linda Rockenbach called 911 from two different phones inside the home and left the line open after dialing while she tried to stop Craig’s attack on Gary and waited for police to arrive.
Braden played the two calls for Rockenbach while he was on the stand.
During the calls, Linda and Rockenbach’s 11-year-old daughter, who lived with Gary and Linda, could be heard crying, screaming, and begging Craig to stop.
Craig could be heard yelling “You better let go of that!” (which presumably was his father holding onto the table during the attack); “No one wants to cook mac and cheese!;” “He’s the (expletive) one who started all this (expletive)!;” “You did this!;” “That’s it, you got what you deserved!”
Other yelling, cursing and commotion could be heard on the recordings until Craig says “I’m done. Dad, I’m sorry.”
Despite the recordings, Rockenbach maintained he had no anger or hostilities towards his father. He continued to state that he couldn’t remember most of the assault, that it was out of character for him to behave as he did, and that his intoxication was the reason for attacking his dad.
Towards the end of the 911 recording, Craig could be heard being reluctant to open the front door when police arrived, stating “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
After Braden played the audio clip, Craig replied on the stand: “I did something very wrong.”
Once Rockenbach finished testifying, one-by-one, his mother and her family and friends walked back into the court room.
During closing arguments, Braden argued that the State had met their burden of proof for the jury to find Rockenbach guilty of second-degree murder.
Braden argued that witnesses and evidence established that Craig Rockenbach had become angry with his father, attacked him with a chair and punched him approximately five times while he was still sitting in his chair, dragged his father to the middle of the kitchen, and punched him five more time while he was on the ground.
During the defense’s closing arguments, Dial stated that no one was disputing that Gary Rockenbach was assaulted but countered that Gary told first responders he was hit in the face not his head, that Craig’s mother and daughter both testified that he and his father had been getting along prior to the night of Jan. 22, that Craig simply “snapped” when the attack took place, and that the medical examiner could not definitely conclude Gary’s cause-of-death.
“The State has to prove (all the elements of second-degree murder),” Dial told the jury. “This is not a murder case, it’s a manslaughter case.”
Braden countered during his final remarks that the evidence overwhelmingly pointed toward the assault as being the likely cause of death and that Craig Rockenbach unquestionably displayed anger towards his father before the attack on him that likely caused his death days later.
“(He) was already agitated but didn’t get his way,” Braden said, referring to testimony on Thursday that Linda Rockenbach denied Craig’s request to take his daughter out for fast food before the attack.
“He was angry with his father for the way his life turned out,” Braden said. “He wasn’t sorry (when he stopped hitting his father). He was worried.
“(He told Gary) he got what he deserved. I’m not making that up. Those were his words.”
