Roy Cooper Commuted a Death Row Killer While Asking North Carolina for a Promotion to Senator

Christopher Roseboro broke into 72 year old Gertie Edwards's home and never gave two juries a reason to spare him.

Both juries sentenced him to death but Roy Cooper erased their verdicts.

What Roseboro did to earn that sentence is worse than anything in Cooper's campaign ads.

Roseboro Was Sentenced to Death Twice by Two Separate Juries

Christopher Roseboro broke into Martha "Gertie" Edwards's home in Gastonia on March 13, 1992.

Edwards, 72, shared that one bedroom apartment with her husband.

Roseboro later admitted breaking in, and under oath he testified that Edwards had already been dead for at least an hour by the time he raped her.

Medical examiners documented bruising, a dislocated shoulder, and fluid in her lungs, findings consistent with death by smothering.

In 1994, a jury found Roseboro guilty on charges spanning first degree murder, burglary, rape, larceny, and possession of stolen property, then sentenced him to die for it.

A 1997 appeal put the case in front of a second jury, and that jury sentenced him to death as well.

Both juries looked at what Roseboro did to a 72 year old woman in her own home and decided he deserved to die for it.

Fifteen Commutations Came on Cooper's Last Day as Governor

On December 31, 2024, Roy Cooper commuted Roseboro's death sentence to life without parole.

It was one of 15 commutations Cooper granted that day, covering convictions dating back to 1993.

Cooper said the decisions followed "thorough review, reflection, and prayer."

The Death Penalty Information Center described it as the largest grant of capital clemency in North Carolina history.

Abolition groups praised the move and labeled North Carolina's death penalty racially biased.

None of them had to look Gertie Edwards's family in the eye and explain why the man who raped her corpse gets to keep breathing.

Prosecutors and Victims' Families Say Cooper Never Called Before Emptying Death Row

Cooper's office said he consulted victims' families before granting the 15 commutations.

Several of those families say that never happened.

Murray Miller, whose brother Michael was murdered in 1998 by one of the 15 inmates, said his family never heard from Cooper's office before the commutation and that the killer "is escaping what was handed down to him."

Ruby Shuford, whose brother in law was murdered in a 1991 double homicide by another of the 15, said flatly, "I feel like they should have kept him on death row."

Prosecutors were not spared either.

District Attorney Sarah Kirkman said she learned her case was one of the 15 on New Year's Eve, and called the commutation something that "goes to the very heart of our justice system."

Union County District Attorney Trey Robison said Cooper "showed no regard for the criminal justice process" behind the death sentence his office had fought to secure.

This was not Cooper's first brush with a mass release, and it was not his last brush with violent crime either.

A separate 2021 settlement tied to his administration released roughly 4,200 inmates from North Carolina prisons early.

A policy advisory body Cooper supported pushed to end cash bail for low level misdemeanors, the same kind of policy that put Decarlos Brown back on the street before he killed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train.

Cooper is now running for the United States Senate against Republican Michael Whatley, and early in person voting in that race began October 15.

President Trump compared Cooper to Michael Dukakis in a Truth Social post, writing that "there has never been a Governor with such a bad record on Crime, and there never will be."

A Governor Already Tried This Exact Move and Lost His Freedom for It

Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted all 167 death sentences in his state on his way out the door in January 2003, citing his fear that Illinois would execute an innocent person.

Death penalty opponents hailed Ryan as a hero for that decision.

A federal jury later convicted him on racketeering and fraud charges unrelated to the commutations, and he served more than five years in prison, a reminder that a governor's final act in office is not automatically a noble one just because advocacy groups applaud it.

Cooper is not accused of Ryan's crimes, and nothing here suggests he is.

What the two men share is a pattern: an outgoing governor using the one power nobody can take back to overrule the juries who looked at the worst people in their state and chose death anyway.

Roseboro's two juries did not make that call lightly, and they heard every ugly detail of what happened to Gertie Edwards before they voted for execution, twice.

Cooper looked at that same record on his way out the door and decided he knew better.

North Carolina voters now get to decide whether the man who made that call deserves a promotion to the United States Senate.

Sources:

• Breitbart, "Democrat Roy Cooper Took Man Who Raped, Killed Elderly Woman Off Death Row," Breitbart, October 14, 2026.
• ABC11, "Gov. Cooper Commutes Sentences of 15 on Death Row, Issues Other Pardons and Commutations," ABC11, December 31, 2024.
• Washington Free Beacon, "Roy Cooper Enraged Victims' Families When He Took 15 Convicted Killers Off Death Row on His Final Day as Governor. Now He's Pitching Himself as a Tough-on-Crime Senate Candidate," Washington Free Beacon, November 7, 2025.