VIRGINIA — A psychiatric evaluation of the man dubbed the “Shopping Cart Killer” revealed he wasn’t criminally insane when police said he killed and dumped the bodies of two women in Harrisonburg, Virginia, according to a report.
Anthony Eugene Robinson is set to stand trial next month after he was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Tonita Smith of Charlottesville, WTOP reported. Next year, he will face a similar trial in the death of 54-year-old Beth Redmon of Harrisonburg.
Robinson is also under investigation after authorities linked him to the deaths of two other women in Fairfax County and one in Washington, D.C. He has not been charged in those cases.
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According to WTOP, defense attorney Louis Nagy said the psychiatric evaluation ordered by a Rockingham County Circuit Court judge in 2022 “was not helpful” as he considered an insanity defense.
Defense attorneys also filed motions this week to bar prosecutors from referring to Robinson as the “Shopping Cart Killer” during the trial, claiming the term was prejudicial, according to WTOP.
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Fairfax County Police in Virginia said they believe Robinson is linked to two badly decomposed bodies that were found on Dec. 15, 2021, in a large plastic container near a shopping cart in the Alexandria area. Police identified the victims as Cheyenne Brown, 29, of D.C., and Stephanie Harrison, 48, of Redding, California.
Police said they believe the women were victims of the “Shopping Cart Killer” because the person used shopping carts to move and dump murder victims’ bodies in remote areas.
A spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department previously told WTOP that Robinson was also a person of interest in the death of Sonya Champ, 40, of Northwest D.C. Champ was found by police around 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 7, 2021, unconscious and unresponsive inside a shopping cart in the 200 block of F Street Northeast.
The Washington Post also reported that police are re-examining the 2018 death of a Maryland woman who Robinson was engaged to marry. The woman could be Robinson’s sixth victim, according to reports.
Skye Allen, 30, died on Valentine’s Day in 2018 when she and Robinson, who she planned to marry, were living with Allen’s mother in Glenarden, The Washington Post reported.
Stacey Allen told Prince George’s County Police she found her daughter barely breathing in the bedroom the younger Allen shared with Robinson. Skye Allen died a short time later at an area hospital.
Her death was found to be caused by “fatal cardiac arrhythmia,” according to a copy of her death certificate obtained by The Post.
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