OLATHE, Kan. — An Olathe mom charged with attempting to kill her three children by poisoning them has been sentenced to over 28 years in prison.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe announced Tuesday that 39-year-old Therese Irine Roever received a combined sentence of 28 years and 11 months in prison. She will be subject to registration as a violent offender upon release.
Roever was sentenced in Johnson County District Court for three attempted first-degree murder charges and criminal threat. She was found guilty on March 3 and May 15 after entering a plea.
Court documents say that on February 19, 2018, police were dispatched after Roever’s ex-husband called, saying Roever and their three children were drugged and groggy.
The ex-husband said he could not get Roever to answer the phone or door for more than an hour. When she finally answered the door, court documents say Roever told him to call four ambulances.
When officers arrived, Roever was lying on a bed with her 7-year-old daughter who was not alert, according to police. The couple’s 5-year-old was also seen getting up from a bed and stumbling to the ground, and police found another 7-year-old child crying inside a bathroom.
Court documents say officers also found multiple pill bottles on the ledge of a bed.
Police called Johnson County Med-Act to the Olathe home, and Roever and all three children were taken to a nearby hospital. On the way to the hospital, Med-Act crews administered Narcan, a drug used to treat opioid overdoses, on two of the children.
According to court documents, doctors at the hospital told police two of the children would have died if police wouldn’t have arrived when they did.
In a police dispatch recording, the dispatcher fills in first-responders before they arrived at the scene: “The male is back on the phone and advising the kids were given something. I can hear one certain cry in the background. The other is sleeping,” the dispatcher said.
Later, dispatchers spoke with Roever.
“The wife is now on the phone,” the dispatcher said. “She says it was intentional. It was a drug overdose. There is no weapons.”
Roever lost custody of the children to her ex-husband shortly after the two were divorced in 2016, court documents say. In December 2017, the court granted her unsupervised visitation.
The case was investigated by the Olathe Police Department and Johnson County Crime Lab.
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