A trial date has been established for Melissa Fox-Beacom, the New Florence-area woman accused of ordering two young men to kill her mother, who was shot to death in December of 2023 at her home along Furnace Lane in St. Clair Township.
The body of 71-year-old Alice Robson was found buried beneath her back porch. She’d been shot twice in the head. Investigators say Matthew Bates and Robert Jack, who were both 19 years old at the time, carried out the execution.
Fox-Beacom had been involved in prior assaults and threats against her mother as far back as 2017, and in May, Westmoreland County Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio ruled that those court cases and a threat to kill Robson that was overheard at a prior hearing would be admissible as evidence in the murder trial.
Bates and Jack both accuse the other of pulling the trigger. The judge ordered the trials of all three defendants to begin March 2nd of next year.
