A serial murder suspect dubbed the “shopping cart killer” has been linked to the death of sixth woman by police.
Anthony Eugene Robinson, 35, is charged with the murder of two women who were found dead in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 2021, and has been named by police as a suspect in the homicides of three others.
In all the cases, Mr Robinson is suspected of luring women he met on dating apps to a hotel room before killing them and using shopping carts to dispose of their bodies in secluded areas, the Washington Post reported.
Mr Robinson is now being linked to the 2018 death of his girlfriend Skye Allen in Prince George’s County, NBC Washington reports.
The victim’s mother Stacey Allen told NBC that she discovered her daughter unconscious in the room she shared with Mr Robinson on Valentine’s Day that year. She died soon afterwards in hospital, and doctors told Ms Allen that cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia.
But she told NBC she had never believed that explanation, and had confronted Mr Robinson, who had also met her daughter on a dating app.
“I asked him, ‘Did you do something to my daughter?’ He said no,” she told NBC.
On Monday, a judge in Virginia ruled there was probable cause for a grand jury to consider first degree murder charges against the suspect over the deaths of Allene Elizabeth “Beth” Redmon, 54, and Tonita Laurice Smith, 39.
Their bodies were found in a commercial area of Harrisonburg, Virginia, on 23 November last year, and had been moved there in shopping carts, police said at the time.
Mr Robinson was arrested after surveillance footage and cellphone data allegedly placed him in the area at the time of their deaths, police said.
The bodies of Cheyenne Brown, 29, and Stephanie Harrison, 48, were found in a container near the Moon Inn hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, in December – about 155 miles northeast of Harrisonburg.
Authorities also linked Mr Robinson to the death of Sonya Champ, whose body was found near Union Station in Washington DC in September 2021.
Mr Robinson has not been charged in connection with the three women’s deaths.
Police in Prince George’s County have said they have opened an investigation into the death of Skye Allen in light of Mr Robinson’s other charges, the Post reported.
They said they did not investigate at the time, and her body was cremated.
“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,”
