Maxwell Anderson Convicted of Killing and Dismembering Sade Robinson in Milwaukee – Jury’s Verdict after Trial

MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Milwaukee man guilty Friday of killing and dismembering a 19-year-old college student on the night of their first date.

Maxwell Anderson was charged by prosecutors in April 2024 for a series of serious offenses related to the death of Sade Robinson. These charges included first-degree intentional homicide, dismembering a corpse, arson, and hiding a corpse. In the end, the jury found Anderson guilty on all four counts.

According to investigators, Anderson allegedly committed the crime on the first date he had with Robinson, which took place on April 1, 2024. It is believed that he not only killed her but also dismembered her body and scattered her remains across Milwaukee County. Additionally, authorities suspect that he set fire to her car in an attempt to cover up evidence of the crime.

During the trial, Assistant District Attorney Ian Vance-Curzan presented compelling evidence to the jury. He mentioned that Anderson and Robinson had initially met at a bar a week before she went missing. Surveillance footage, as well as cellphone data including text messages and location tracking, indicated that they spent the evening of April 1 drinking at two different bars before heading back to Anderson’s apartment.

Vance-Curzan said photos on Anderson’s phone show Anderson groping Robinson as she lay face down on his couch. The prosecutor said Robinson was incapacitated at that point and could not have resisted.

Surveillance video shows her car leaving the apartment early on the morning of April 2 and arriving at a county park along the shores of Lake Michigan. There, under the cover of darkness, he cut her body into pieces, Vance-Curzan said. Later that morning, he burned her car behind an abandoned building before taking a bus back to his apartment, Vance-Curzan said.

One of Robinson’s arms was found on a Waukegan beach, as well.

Anderson’s attorney, Tony Cotton, said during his closing arguments that prosecutors failed to show Anderson ever intended to kill Robinson, a key element in the first-degree intentional homicide charge. Cotton also argued that nobody heard a struggle in his apartment. Anderson never tried to conceal his identity when he boarded the bus and his clothes and shoes were clean then even though he had been supposedly dismembering a body in a muddy park, Cotton added.

Asked to comment on the verdicts, Cotton said in an email to The Associated Press on Friday that he’s sure it was a difficult case for jurors and he respected their time and attention.

Anderson faces a mandatory life sentence in prison when he’s sentenced Aug. 15.