King County To Lose A Key Prosecutor - Rebecca Roe

Rebecca Roe, the chief of the nationally recognized special-assault unit of the King County prosecutor's office for 12 years, has resigned to enter private practice.

Roe's departure from the office after 17 years is a significant blow that stunned several deputies when Prosecutor Norm Maleng confirmed rumors yesterday.

Roe told Maleng Friday she is going to the Seattle law firm of Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender to pursue civil litigation in several areas, including a number of breast-implant lawsuits.

Roe, 42, said yesterday her last day with the prosecutor's office will be Nov. 18, but she will return as a special prosecutor for two murder cases.

"I really have mixed emotions," Roe said. "I will be very sorry to leave, but I don't have a question that this is the right move for me."

Roe, known as a no-nonsense litigator, manages more than a dozen deputies who prosecute sexual-assault cases, and is the only public lawyer ever to be named top trial attorney of the year by the Seattle-King County Bar Association.

Roe and the special-assault unit often have been criticized by defense attorneys as overzealous.

Defense attorney David Allen has been one of those critics but said yesterday Roe's absence will leave a large void in the office.

"Becky is an excellent trial attorney who led that unit by basically trying the harder cases and winning them," Allen said.

In a memo sent to deputies yesterday, Maleng said, "Becky has earned the right to bring her record of achievement and success to a new career in the private sector."

Roe won murder convictions in 1994 against Michael and Laurinda Jackson, a SeaTac couple who killed their 3-year-old foster child. She also won numerous child-rape and molestation convictions in 1992 against John Babcock, a one-time Girl Scout group leader.

Roe was involved in the George Russell serial-murder case on the Eastside in 1991 and successfully prosecuted Brett Allen Kendrick for the 1984 murders of a Windermere woman and her daughter.

Roe worked her way up from an intern in the office's juvenile-court unit and was one of three prosecutors assigned to the special-assault unit when it was created in 1981.