It's been more than 25 years since 10-year-old Robert “Bobby” Jarrett III was told by his father that his mother had left the family's Elkridge home on Jan. 3, 1991, abandoning him and his 5-year-old brother, Michael.

Four years ago, that painful version of events — long met with bitterness and skepticism by other family members — was proved by cold-case investigators to be gruesomely false.

Robert Jarrett Jr. was arrested in April 2012 and charged with killing his wife, Christine, whose remains had been unearthed under the floorboards of a wooden shed he built in their backyard soon after she disappeared — a place his son often entered over the years to retrieve his bike.

He was convicted of second-degree murder four months later and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Bobby Jarrett and 20 relatives from both sides of his family will band together April 23 for the third consecutive year as Team Christine, taking part in the Run to Remember 7K and mile walk at Centennial Park, a fundraiser that also raises awareness about domestic violence and its victims.

“I'm happy that the walk is in Howard County and that it's out in the open for the public to see,” Bobby Jarrett said. “Domestic violence has a ripple effect on families and communities.”

Sponsored by the Maryland State's Attorneys' Association, the event coincides with National Victims' Rights Week.

Seventeen family members and friends of ReAnna Greene, a nurse who was killed in April 2015 in Canton in what police said was a murder-suicide, will also participate as a team at the event, which falls on the first anniversary of her death.

Proceeds from the race will benefit the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, a state coalition of service providers, professionals and concerned individuals based in Prince George's County. Organizers expect 200 participants.

Kim Oldham is the Howard County deputy state's attorney who, alongside Jim Dietrich, senior assistant state's attorney, prosecuted Robert Jarrett Jr. Oldham, a marathoner, came up with idea of holding a race and is serving as race director for the third time.

“We have a lot of runners and triathletes in our office, and Howard County is central to the other state's attorneys' offices, so it seemed like a neat way for all of us to do something” to honor victims and their loved ones, Oldham said.

The Jarrett case was especially baffling to her because the story unfolded after two decades of lies, she said. She has stayed in touch with the family since the trial ended.

“As a human being, how could you let your two kids believe that [their mother had left them], especially on their birthdays and at Christmas?”

A lie unraveled

Bobby Jarrett, now 36 and living in Baltimore, remembers getting a call from police in April 2012 informing him that his father had been arrested for murder. He said he could only utter, “Of whom?”

He said that although relatives were suspicious of his father's role in his mother's disappearance, he was just a kid and accepted what his dad said about his mother walking out on their family — at least initially.

“As a child, I never thought about the possibility of murder,” he said.

All his life, it had remained incomprehensible to him that his mother never even called or tried to visit them.

“She was a loving stay-at-home mom who was known for her funny antics,” he recalled.

He said his brother has “zero memories” of their mother, in part because their father removed all photos of her from the family home and generally wiped her memory from their lives.

“My dad was the monster — not my mom — and I look back now on my entire life and question how much of it was pure manipulation [by him] in order to maintain his freedom all those years,” Jarrett said.

Jarrett testified at his father's trial about incidents of domestic violence he witnessed growing up, which he viewed from a different perspective as he got older.

He later began working as a licensed clinical professional counselor for the Carroll County Youth Service Bureau.

“I approached the state about it after he was arrested,” he said. “Whatever they needed, I was at their disposal.”

Jarrett said he last visited his father in 2013 at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup to try once more to get him to bare his soul, but again got no satisfaction.

“He chose to just sit behind the glass and not say anything, to protect himself, and I decided I would never speak to him again,” he said.

Helping victims

Bobby Jarrett's cousin, David Mueller Jr. of Glen Burnie, testifies each year before the Senate Joint Committee of the General Assembly on efforts to increase the maximum penalty for second-degree murder to 40 years.

Mueller, 51, said that, for the physical abuse his aunt endured, a 30-year sentence for her murder “just isn't long enough.”

“If the perpetrator is young when he commits this type of crime, and he can be paroled after 15 years, he might only be 35 when he gets out and is allowed to walk among the victim's family,” he said. “That's just not fair.

“We will caravan [to Annapolis] every year and tell them why these perpetrators should not be paroled,” he said. “We live with this pain every day, and it will only stop when we get notice that [Robert Jarrett Jr.] has ceased to breathe.”

Mueller said family members participate in the Run to Remember so that Christine Jarrett is not forgotten, to tell her story and inspire bravery in other victims of domestic violence.

“We hope this event might encourage someone else to leave the abusive situation they're in by bringing greater awareness of what can happen to victims,” he said. “No one deserves to have their life snuffed out.”

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