A timeline of Milwaukee college student's murder; some remains washed up on Illinois beach

Yahoo

06-06-2025

Jurors on June 6 found Maxwell Anderson guilty of four charges in the death of 19-year-old Sade Robinson.
The verdict in Milwaukee County Circuit Court came more than a year after Milwaukee and the country discovered that the missing college student had been killed and her body dismembered and spread across the area.
Here's what to know about the case and what has happened the prior 14 months.
Robinson's final hours begin the afternoon of April 1, 2024, a day before she was reported missing in Milwaukee. The criminal justice student at Milwaukee Area Technical College told an employee who worked at her apartment building that she was excited for a date later that night.
According to prosecutors:
Robinson sent Anderson a text at 4:15 p.m. and the two arranged to go to a couple establishments in town at which Anderson previously worked. After dinner at Twisted Fisherman restaurant, 1200 W. Canal St., the two arrive in Robinson's car at Duke's on Water, 158 E. Juneau Ave.
At 6:30 p.m., while at Duke's, Robinson sends a SnapChat to a friend. Robinson and Anderson leave the bar shortly after 9 p.m.
Surveillance video shows two people arriving at Anderson's former home on the 3100 block of South 39th Street at 9:24 p.m. Robinson's phone is also located by GPS in the area of the home.
In the early morning hours of April 2, 2024, Robinson's phone is located leaving Anderson's home and traveling throughout Milwaukee County.
According to prosecutors:
First to Pleasant Valley Park, along the Milwaukee River in the city's Riverwest neighborhood and then to Warnimont Park in Cudahy, arriving at 2:45 a.m.
Surveillance cameras capture a car heading toward the pump house at Warnimont Park before also capturing a person descend the bluff to the beach level. The vehicle leaves the park at 4:31 a.m. and minutes later, Robinson's phone loses battery.
Later that morning, the 2020 Honda Civic belonging to Robinson is found on fire on the 1800 block of North 29th Street. A witness said he saw a male exit the vehicle and toss a lighter into it before walking away.
Video footage from a Milwaukee County Transit System bus shows Anderson, in the clothing description the witness provided (a gray hoodie and tan backpack), getting off the bus near his home. He arrives home at 8:43 a.m.
Shortly before 5:30 p.m. that evening, someone finds a human leg belonging to a Black woman (later confirmed to be Robinson's) at Warnimont Park. The leg was found about two-thirds of the way down a 100-foot bluff, toward the shoreline and near a pump house.
About 3½ hours later, a friend of Robinson reports her missing to Milwaukee police after she fails to return phone calls and show for her shift at Pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee's east side.
Law enforcement pull over Anderson the afternoon of April 4, 2024, in his car and arrest him just blocks from his home. A hoodie found in his car matches the hoodie of the suspect who torched Robinson's car, according to prosecutors.
Sometime that day, law enforcement officers execute a search warrant at Anderson's home. Officers find blood in one of the bedrooms and on the walls leading to the basement, prosecutors said. Several gasoline containers are also found.
Police find a human foot that appears to match the leg found in Cudahy in the area of North 31st and West Galena streets, near where Robinson's car was found. Other human flesh was also found in the area.
Authorities reportedly discover several more body parts the next day, including near 31st and Walnut streets. A person in a hoodie and backpack is captured on surveillance footage near 31st and Walnut.
One week after his arrest, Anderson was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and arson in the death of Robinson.
He has pleaded not guilty to all counts and remains in jail on $5 million bail.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office says it's conducting a "follow-up search" of Anderson's home, which became a place at which people left tributes for Robinson. The home has since been sold to new owners.
The sheriff's office says that a torso and an arm believed to belong to Robinson was discovered in a remote, tree-lined stretch of beach in South Milwaukee.
A memorial service was held for Anderson at the Baird Center in downtown Milwaukee.
Sade entering the world "gave my life purpose," said Carlos Robinson, Sade's father. "I watched her grow from a tiny little baby to a beautiful, intelligent young lady that would make any father proud."
The attendees, speakers and performers at the memorial displayed the gravity of Sade's reach on the Milwaukee community. Lifelong friends, classmates, professors, pastors, activists and her employers and coworkers were all in attendance. Mayor Cavalier Johnson had a brief conversation with Sheena Scarbrough, Sade's mother.
An arm believed to belong to Robinson washed up on the beach in Waukegan, Illinois, according to authorities.
Anderson's attorney, Anthony D. Cotton, sent a letter to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mark A. Sanders, asking that his client be furnished with a laptop that has discovery evidence in his case already saved on it.
Robinson's estate and her mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Anderson.
Robinson's family alleges Anderson's family later went to his home and threw away items inside the residence, then moved forward with selling it in an effort "to conceal and hide evidence."
Without providing evidence, the lawsuit alleges a finger was found outside the property shortly after Anderson's home was sold. But authorities say that was not the case. A sheriff's spokesman said the assertion about a finger discovered on the property wasn't true.
Judge Sanders rejected a request made by Anderson's attorney to grant Anderson access to a laptop. Cotton argued the device would have helped kept Anderson up to speed on developments in the case, and enabled him to aid in his own defense.
At a July 12, 2024, hearing at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Anderson's attorney requests the trial be moved to a different county and unsealed search warrants reveal some of what was found during the searches of Anderson's home.
Detectives found a knife in the kitchen sink, an ax hanging on the living room wall and women's clothing hidden under a bench in the basement. A woman's ID card also was found during the search. A detective found a possible blood stain in Anderson's car, on a door speaker.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello will now be presiding over the case as part of a judicial rotation schedule change ordered by Chief Judge Carl Ashley that affected many of the court's judges.
A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee grad, Crivello received her juris doctorate to practice law in 1993 from Marquette University Law School.
She worked as an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County from 1993 to 2018, when she was appointed to the court by then-Gov. Scott Walker. Crivello retained her seat in an uncontested 2019 judge race. A judge's term is six years.
Milwaukee muralist Ruben Alcantar completes his mural of Robinson outside her former employer, Pizza Shuttle, a staple on the city's east side.
She was remembered as a remarkable and caring person by her coworkers. Winston Milhans, her coworker, said Sade was that burst of energy that coworkers often give each other to help motivate them. Milhans said Sade was a "person that is a perfect example of who you want to be like. Her traits were remarkable."
Robinson's mother, Sheena Scarbrough, joined lawmakers at the State Capitol to call for more state resources to be funneled toward understanding and tracking cases that end in the disappearance or death of Black women and girls like her daughter.
Robinson's murder renewed a push by Democratic female lawmakers to create a state task force for missing and murdered Black women and girls. For the fourth time in a row, that effort failed.
Assistant District Attorney Ian Vance-Curzan, the lead prosecutor, said he plans to enter roughly 500 exhibits and pieces of evidence as part of his case against Anderson at trial. He said he made no offers to Anderson, and that he expects the trial to run one to two weeks.
Vance-Curzan signals a need for a bigger jury pool due to the media coverage of the case.
Vance-Curzan said he intends to call in several scientific experts to testify, including a medical examiner, an anthropologist, a fingerprint analyst and a DNA expert. A person with expertise in collecting and crunching cellphone tower data also may be brought in.
Cotton, Anderson's attorney, requests access to Robinson's encrypted data on her phone.
Trial is delayed until May 2025 from Dec. 9, 2024.
A memorial planned by Milwaukee County for Robinson has been canceled after County Board supervisors reported a flurry of racist, abusive emails over the proposal.
The Robinson family files a lawsuit against the two bars that Anderson and Robinson went to about a year prior, arguing staff at each establishment didn't ask for her ID before she was served multiple alcoholic beverages, but sold them to her anyway.
Robinson was later seen "visibly intoxicated" and "rendered defenseless," the lawsuit contends, leaving her "physically and mentally vulnerable."
A pool of 50 to 70 jurors is expected to be called to serve. Typically, jury pools of 30 to 40 people are called to serve in most cases before they are whittled down to a final panel of 14 jurors who will hear testimony. Once testimony wraps up, 12 jurors are asked to deliberate; the others are dismissed.
Jury selection got underway at 9 a.m. The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
Anderson, 34, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, hiding a corpse and arson.
Opening statements began at 8:45 a.m. and the jury was dismissed for the day at 4:48 p.m. after hearing from several witnesses and reviewing evidence, like video footage from a park where Robinson's severed leg was found.
The state rested its case after seven days of testimony from more than 65 witnesses and the admission of more than 300 pieces of evidence.
After the defense rested its case without calling any witnesses, the jury began deliberations for about 10 minutes until Judge Laura Crivello sent it home for the day.
After another approximately 30 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Anderson guilty of all charges.
Anderson's sentencing hearing was scheduled for 10 a.m. Aug. 15.
Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty, but Anderson faces a mandatory life sentence. There's a possibility he could serve part of the sentence in prison and later be eligible for extended supervision, but that will be decided by a judge.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Sade Robinson murder and dismemberment case: timeline of events