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CENTRE — The Georgia doctor who took part in the 2006 conspiracy to murder a Cherokee County woman has apparently hanged himself at his mother’s home in Missouri, The Post has learned. 

Dr. Robert John Scheiss III committed suicide in his mother’s home late last month, according to a spokesman from office of  DeKalb-Cherokee County District Attorney Mike O’Dell. 

"We were shocked to learn of his apparent suicide," O'Dell said in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon. "It certainly must be tragic for his family."

A call placed to the Jackson County, Mo. medical examiner’s office confirmed Scheiss died Jan. 24. A spokesman said the county coroner is still awaiting results from a toxicology study before listing the official cause of death and issuing a death certificate. 

“That is standard procedure and usually takes six to eight weeks,” the spokesman said. “Though this case appears to be pretty cut-and-dried.” 

The former Conyers, Ga.-based neurosurgeon was convicted in June 2008 for his part in the murder of Darlene Roberts. She was the second wife of Vernon Roberts, who had previously been married to Barbara Ann Roberts. 

During her trial for capital murder in summer 2008 at the Cherokee County Courthouse, Barbara Ann Roberts and Scheiss were accused by prosecutors of devising an elaborate scheme to kidnap, rape and murder Darlene Roberts. 

After months of planning, prosecutors charged, on April 6, 2006, Barbara Ann Roberts and Scheiss bound and gagged Darlene Roberts after fooling her into stopping to help Scheiss, who had feigned car trouble along the dirt road near her home on County Road 941. 

After Darlene Roberts managed to untie herself and run across a nearby field, Scheiss gave chase in the victim’s car while Barbara Ann Roberts chased after her on foot while firing a 12-gauge shotgun. 

Darlene Roberts was finally cornered near a pond, where she was killed by three shotgun blasts to the upper body.  

Barbara Ann Roberts was convicted of firing the fatal shots on June 27, 2008. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

Before Scheiss’s trial began later that summer, O’Dell announced a plea agreement which spared the Roberts family another murder trial and set Scheiss free within months.

“We are satisfied that the person who planned and carried out the kidnapping and execution of Darlene Roberts has been convicted of capital murder,” O’Dell said in August 2008. “The family is satisfied and [is] ready to go on with their lives.”

As a result of having been in custody for over two years, Scheiss’s  three-year sentence for a lone charge of kidnapping made him a free man in early 2010.