Tarrant deputy arrested in murder told police girlfriend shot herself as they hugged
A Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy arrested on a murder charge misled and tried to hide evidence from detectives, according to recently released police documents.
The deputy, Jay Allen Rotter, reported on Aug. 26 that his girlfriend shot herself with his gun while they were hugging at her residence in Denton, police said.
Leslie Lynn Hartman, 46, who was paralyzed and used a wheelchair, was found dead at the scene.
According to audio of his 911 call, Rotter at times yelled, sobbed and cursed while on the phone, but he stopped crying when the dispatcher asked him questions. Rotter told the dispatcher he knows how this goes because he’s a cop, and Denton police later determined that he was a narcotics detective with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
Rotter claimed Hartman shot herself in the head with his service weapon while they were hugging, which is why he wasn’t able to stop her, according to an affidavit obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday.
Police requested his phone during an interview and Rotter refused, Denton Detective Rodney L. Mooneyham wrote in the affidavit in support of Rotter’s arrest. Police reported that they left the room and saw Rotter returning the phone back to its factory settings and then he surrendered the device, according to the affidavit.
Rotter also declined to provide Denton police with the passcode for his phone.
Police were able to recover messages from Rotter’s cellphone during their investigation, according to the affidavit.
Rotter sent a message in a chatroom about having killed someone around the time that Hartman was murdered, the affidavit says.
Police said Hartman’s text messages from that night talk about Rotter being on drugs, according to the affidavit.
About 11 p.m., Rotter sent a message saying he had shot a milk bottle in the back yard. The gunshot could be heard on a neighbor’s security footage, and a milk bottle with a bullet hole in it was found in the trash, police said.
About 11:15 p.m., the chat log showed that Rotter and Hartman had argued about his firing the gun in the yard, police wrote in the affidavit.
Detectives determined that Rotter and Hartman were the only two people who lived in the home in the 2400 block of Robinwood Lane.
Rotter, 36, was in the Denton City Jail on Tuesday in lieu of $1,150,000 bond.
The deputy has worked for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office since 2005, and was assigned to the narcotics division, according to an official with the sheriff’s office. He is on administrative leave following his arrest.
Christie Wood, a friend since 2001, told the Star-Telegram that the Denton arts community where Hartman was well known and beloved had received little information concerning her death.
Hartman told Wood she was involved in an automobile accident when she was younger and had since used a wheelchair. Hartman was an artist who created stained glass and jewelry.
“She didn’t let anything stop her from doing anything she wanted,” Wood said. “We were shocked to hear that she passed away and when we didn’t hear anything about how she passed away, we were confused.”
About a month before her death, Hartman said she had a new boyfriend, and she had been talking about getting a new puppy, but she did not say what her new love interest did for a living, Wood said.
“Suicide did not seem in any way remotely possible,” Wood said. “She had been bragging about getting a new puppy. People who commit suicide don’t usually do stuff like that.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 8:48 PM.
