35-year-old Anthony Robinson was arrested in Virginia by the Harrisonburg Police Department on November 23, 2021, and charged with two counts of first-degree murder as well as with two felony counts of concealing, transporting, or altering a dead body. He has also been connected with three other slayings. Now, police are looking into whether 30-year-old Skye Allen, who was first believed to have died of natural causes, might have been Robinson’s sixth victim.
After Robinson’s case was moved from Harrisonburg/Rockingham General District Court to the circuit court, Judge John Hart Jr. ruled on Monday that a grand jury can consider first-degree murder charges in the deaths of 54-year-old Allene Elizabeth Redmon, a mother of two, and 39-year-old Tonita Smith, a mother of six.
Robinson is believed to have murdered Redmon and Smith at different times in the same hotel and then to have used a shopping cart to move their naked bodies to a nearby field, where he dumped them. Police found the bodies when conducting two separate missing persons investigations.
Authorities indicated that Robinson selected his victims on dating sites and apps, arranged to meet with them at nearby motels, and then killed them.
Surveillance footage of Robinson with the shopping carts as well as cellphone records reportedly linked him to the crimes for which he presently stands trial.
On September 12, Harrisonburg Detective Brooke Wetherell described in court video from a Virginia Howard Johnson hotel wherein Robinson can be seen wheeling a shopping cart to Room 336 and then leaving again with what is suspected to be a lifeless body and bedsheets, before throwing out Redmon’s tennis shoes.
Wetherell told the court that Robinson’s hotel room was a “house of horror” and explained that Redmon’s body was found, hands bound, with a cord around her neck, while Smith was found with an abrasion on her head.
Robinson is suspected to have been behind at least three more murders.
In addition to Smith and Redmon, two women were found dead in Fairfax County: 29-year-old Cheyenne Brown, mother of a 7-year-old, and 48-year-old Stephanie Harrison. The body of another victim, 40-year-old Sonya Champ, was found in a shopping cart near Union Station in Washington, D.C..
Given the pattern, police in Maryland suspect there may be more to the 2018 Valentine’s Day death of 30-year-old Skye Allen.
The Washington Post reported that the family of Allen in Prince George’s County revealed she had been engaged to the suspected serial killer.
Like his other alleged victims, Allen met Robinson on a dating app. Robinson moved in with her and her mother and is said to have taken part in wedding planning. However, on the morning of February 14, Allen’s mother found her daughter barely breathing. Allen later died in the hospital.
At the time, Allen’s death was attributed to “fatal cardiac arrhythmia” and didn’t raise suspicion. Her body was cremated, and no investigation was carried out.
According to Prince George’s County police, “In January of 2022, a PGPD Homicide supervisor did speak to Ms. Allen’s relatives. Based on those conversations, the PGPD’s Cold Case Unit is reviewing the facts surrounding her death.”
Allen is not the only person to have suffered difficulty breathing while in Robinson’s company.
One woman who had met Robinson on a matchmaking site and ended up dating the suspected serial killer alleged he would choke her on occasion, leaving her fighting for air. Monica White told the Washington Post that despite not talking about murdering women, Robinson, who had spoken of being stabbed, exhibited a “darker” side.
Robinson’s case goes before a grand jury on September 19.
‘Shopping cart killer’: Police say Anthony Robinson is a serial killer | NewsNation Prime youtu.be