Beverly McCallum was found guilty of murdering her husband Roberto Caraballo in the basement of a Michigan home in 2002. It took 13 years to identify his body and five more to apprehend her. (McCallum, Carabello: Eaton County Sheriff’s Office; Screenshot: WOOD/YouTube)
A jury in Michigan A woman has been convicted of hitting her husband with a hammer, suffocating him to death, and then with the help of two others, putting him in a footlocker, burning his body, and leaving it near a blueberry field.
Beverly McCallum, 63, was found guilty of second-degree murder and disinterment and mutilation of a body in the 2002 death of 37-year-old Roberto Caraballo near Lansing.
Known as the “Jack in the Box case,” the murder puzzled law enforcement for years as they could not identify the body. It wasn’t until 2015 when one of McCallum’s children alerted authorities to the true identity of the remains.
The next challenge was locating McCallum, who authorities later discovered was traveling to countries like Jamaica, Pakistan, and Italy.
McCallum’s escape ended in 2020 when police arrested her at a hotel outside Rome. She was extradited back to Michigan in 2022 to face charges.
According to the Lansing State Journal, prosecutors stated that McCallum wanted Caraballo dead because they were in an unhappy marriage. She, her daughter Dineane Ducharme, now 43, and Ducharme’s friend Christopher McMillan, now 45, allegedly planned the murder. McMillan testified during the trial that McCallum pushed Caraballo down the stairs and Ducharme struck him in the back of the head with a hammer. The plan, McMillan testified, was for him to finish the deed with a baseball bat, but when he swung, he instead hit a pole, shattering it.
That’s when McCallum took the hammer from her daughter and struck Caraballo to death, as per McMillan's testimony.
The trio then placed a plastic bag over his head and wrapped a rope around his neck until he stopped breathing, according to McMillan. They then put the body in a footlocker, drove to a remote blueberry field, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire, the LSJ reported. McCallum testified on her own behalf at the trial and shifted blame to her daughter and McMillan. She tried to claim she didn’t hear Ducharme and McMillan kill her husband.
McCallum admitted to getting rid of the body.
“It’s like a made-for-TV movie, is what it seemed like, especially as she took the stand and tried to give an explanation that didn’t make any sense at all,” Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd told the LSJ after the verdict.
Jurors only needed two hours to convict McCallum after a six-day trial, the outlet reported.
Ducharme and McMillan already were convicted. Ducharme was sentenced to life in prison while McMillan was sentenced to 15 to 40 years. A judge will sentence McCallum, who faces life in prison, on May 23.