The Devil's Dozen (23 page)

Despite Nicholls’s argument, Robinson was sentenced to forty to eighty years in state prison for the rape and assault of Denise Sam-Cali, and for burglarizing her home and shooting at a police officer. Nicholls then relinquished his duties, leaving it to a public defender to take on the murder cases. In the meantime, reporters were busy learning more about who this young offender was.

Robinson was biracial, although he normally passed for white, and his black-Hispanic father, who was dead, had been convicted of manslaughter. For that, he’d served a seven-year prison term. The man had frequently gotten drunk and quarreled with Barbara Brown, Robinson’s mother, sometimes hitting her.

(Robinson denied having been physically abused himself.) His parents divorced when he was three years old and he remained with his mother, although one source indicates that he idealized his father and occasionally saw him. Robinson’s older stepbrother had also spent time in prison.

Robinson had been an impulsive child with little ability to focus, a great deal of moodiness, and a hair-trigger temper. He was nine years old when he was first arrested, and over the next eight years, he piled up a dozen more arrests, mostly for theft and property crimes. He fought with authority figures, had a history of substance abuse, and had been diagnosed with conduct disorders that were precursors to an adult antisocial personality disorder.

The family frequently changed its residence, but Robinson spent many years on and off in different juvenile facilities. He once assaulted a male middle school teacher who was assigned to watch emotionally disturbed youths in the classroom, and female teachers reportedly felt threatened by him. He was fifteen when he committed his first known burglary, and two years later, he’d become a rapist and murderer.

Yet he did have his good points. At Dieruff High School, he wrestled, participated in cross-country sports, and played soccer and football, receiving trophies for his skill and ability. He was also a good student, excelling academically and earning awards for his essay writing. But awards and trophies, and even recommendations, are difficult to reconcile with a rash of rapes and brutally violent murders.

Robinson was assigned a public defender, Carmen Marinelli, who, on July 24, requested three separate trials and a change of venue, because of the amount of publicity the case had garnered in the Lehigh Valley. Yet Steinberg hoped for a single trial, and he demonstrated the strong similarities of the three cases, all containing DNA links to Robinson. He called FBI analyst Stephen Etter to explain the indicators known to experts that the murders were the work of a sexually motivated serial killer. The judge considered both arguments and decided to hold one trial, in Allentown. James Burke was appointed to join the defense.

The prosecution lined up fifty witnesses to prove Robinson’s participation in all three murders. Along with blood and semen evidence against him, there had also been a sneaker impression on the face of one victim that was similar to sneakers that he’d worn. In addition, the strands of pubic and head hair found on Charlotte Schmoyer had been linked, microscopically, to Robinson. Denise Sam-Cali testified again, letting the jury know in a determined voice that Robinson was the man who had raped and assaulted her. He did not speak on his own behalf, despite his attorneys’ request that he do so.

The proceeding lasted three weeks, and on November 8, 1994, Harvey Miguel Robinson was convicted of the rapes and murders of Burghardt, Schmoyer, and Fortney. The jury was then sequestered in order to avoid outside pressure as they listened to evidence about how the defendant should be sentenced. His life was on the line.

During this phase, Robinson once again rejected his attorneys’ plea to testify on his own behalf, so the jury heard from other witnesses about his difficult life and multiple juvenile arrests. One side used these incidents to demonstrate his incorrigibility, while the other said Robinson had not yet had the chance to do better.

“If there ever was a case where the death penalty was warranted,” Steinberg was quoted as saying, “this is such a case.” He offered four aggravating circumstances: multiple victims, murder committed during other felonies, torture of the victims, and a history of violent aggression and threats.

Dr. Robert Sadoff, a forensic psychiatrist, testified for the defense. He indicated that Robinson suffered from a dependency on drugs and alcohol and had an antisocial personality disorder. He had also experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. It was not unusual to find petty juvenile crimes and aggression among children who later developed such problems, Sadoff stated, and he then suggested that Robinson may have turned to rape and murder to relieve stress. However, the psychiatrist added, if young offenders like Robinson received help in a controlled setting at an early age, they could improve.

On November 10, the jury sentenced Robinson to die by lethal injection. He showed no reaction, retaining the same blank expression he had worn throughout the trial. Six months later, when he was convicted of rape and the attempted murder of a five-year-old girl, fifty-seven years were added to his sentences, and forty more for his July 31 shoot-out with the police.

Robinson decided that his trial attorneys had failed to tell him the importance of testifying on his own behalf, hurting his chance for a fair trial, so he wanted an opportunity to undo the error. He requested a hearing to challenge his convictions and sentences. However, Marinelli stated to reporters that during the trial, Robinson had refused to testify.

In November 1998, Robinson’s new attorney, Philip Lauer, challenged Robinson’s convictions at a postsentencing hearing, on the grounds that there were fundamental flaws in the trial procedures. Other issues involved racially biased jury selection, an error in allowing the three murders to be tried jointly, and an error in not changing the venue. On November 24, to the surprise of many, Robinson got his day in court.

Now twenty-three, Robinson testified in front of about thirty people, denying that he had committed the slayings and indicating that he regretted not proclaiming his innocence to the jury members who had convicted him. He testified for three hours, with five deputies in close proximity, casting blame on his former lawyers. At the time of his trial, he said, he’d given Marinelli and Burke the names of several people who could testify to his whereabouts when the three women were killed, as well as friends, coaches, teachers, and relatives who could attest to his character and accomplishments. Yet they called no alibi witnesses and presented few character witnesses. In addition, he continued, they did not inform him of the best strategy for defending himself and they did not use information about his childhood that might have helped him.

Robinson said he had declined to testify during his trial because he’d worried that prosecutors could have questioned him about his guilty plea to raping Denise Sam-Cali. “I was under the impression,” he stated, “that if I did testify then my past record was admissible.” He said he had not been informed otherwise.

Burke, one of Robinson’s former defense attorneys, also testified, disputing his claim about the defense strategy. He insisted that he and Marinelli had repeatedly encouraged Robinson to testify, both at his trial and at his sentencing. “I begged him,” Burke stated. While he could not dispute the fact that only a few witnesses from Robinson’s list had testified, he claimed that his and Marinelli’s choices at the time had been made in their client’s best interest. Many potential witnesses were contacted, he stated, but it was deemed that the testimony of some of them would be damaging to Robinson, while others refused to testify or could not be located because Robinson had given insufficient information about their whereabouts. Robinson mistrusted lawyers, even those working on his behalf, so he had been less than cooperative.

Robinson agreed, but said in his defense that he’d developed that mistrust during the Sam-Cali rape case, in which, he contended, his lawyer coerced him to plead guilty. He now regretted that decision.

The court deliberated over these revelations and decided that Robinson’s attorneys had acted in his best interests and had not been ineffective in their counsel, so he did not receive a new trial.

In June 2001, Judge Edward Reibman vacated Robinson’s death sentences in the murders of Burghardt and Schmoyer. In that trial, Reibman said, the instructions to the jury had not properly defined the aggravated circumstances of multiple murder. He allowed the defendant to have a new sentencing hearing.

More than four years later, in December 2005, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence in the Fortney case and the first-degree murder convictions in the other two cases. The high court stated that although Robinson believed that his attorney had not presented mitigating circumstances on his behalf, the trial jury had indeed considered reasons against imposing the death penalty and had given him death anyway. The court similarly rejected Robinson’s claims that the prosecutor had improperly labeled him a predator (as well as his claim that the jury-pool selection system had been racially biased). Steinberg’s remarks during Robinson’s murder trial were found to be consistent with claims that Robinson had targeted a certain type of victim within a specific geographical area. So Robinson’s situation remained the same as it had been four years earlier—that is, until a legal development occurred the following year.

On March 1, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles age seventeen and under were ineligible for the death penalty. This ruling affected Robinson’s conviction in the Burghardt murder, committed when he was seventeen. However, that death sentence had already been vacated. The Supreme Court’s decision simply meant that Lehigh County district attorney James Martin would not reopen that case, but he was nevertheless determined to seek a new hearing in the Schmoyer case.

Robinson’s death-penalty appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court had been denied in October 2005. In February 2006, Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell signed his death warrant, with an execution date set for April 4, 2006. This, too, was stayed by a federal appeal.

From prison in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, Robinson posted on prisoner Web sites, looking for correspondents. He indicated that he enjoyed exercise, writing, music, and reading self-help books. He particularly liked, he wrote, to help others. “Life is so truly precious,” he wrote, “so anything I can do for another is something I’m interested in and like.” In August 2007, he requested a brain scan to test for a possible impairment in cognitive function that might have influenced his actions during the murders. A judge allowed it, and as of this writing, the results are pending.

For Brian Lewis, now retired, this case was one of the significant experiences of his career. He believes that he and his fellow officer were chosen for the risky assignment because they had proven themselves up to the task. “We were hard workers,” he said. “We were young, we were go-getters, and we loved the job.” He received a well-earned commendation for valor. “Looking back, it turned out good for everybody. I didn’t have to kill anyone and wrestle with that the rest of my life. I didn’t get hurt, no one else was hurt, and we caught him.”

 

“Allentown Man Guilty of Homicides.”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
November 10, 1994.

“Allentown Murder Suspect Pleads Guilty in Separate Case.”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
March 2, 1994.

Alu, Mary Ellen. “A Survivor’s Story.”
Morning Call,
April 17, 1994.

Bucsko, Mike. “Juvenile Executions Ruling Affects Three.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
March 2, 2005.

Casler, Kristen. “Allentown Man Charged in Serial Murder, Rapes.”
Morning Call,
December 7, 1993.

_. “Experts Link Robinson to Crime Scene Evidence.”
Morning Call,
January 7, 1994.

_. “Allentown Crimes Fit Mold of Serial Killer.”
Morning Call,
December 8, 1993.

Devlin, Ron. “Killer Says Trial Flawed.”
Morning Call,
July 17, 1998.

Garlicki, Debbie. “Jurors’ Quest: What Makes Harvey Robinson Tick?”
Morning Call,
October 22, 1994.

_. “Jurors Choose Death for Robinson.”
Morning Call,
November 11, 1994.

_. “Trial Revealed Life of Robinson Victim.”
Morning Call,
November 11, 1994.

_. “Witnesses and Science Finger Robinson.”
Morning Call,
November 2, 1994.

_. “Robinson Gets 40 Years for Rape, Assault.”
Morning Call,
April 15, 1993.

_ . “Robinson’s Lawyers Seek Three Murder Trials.”
Morning Call,
July 26, 1993.

_. “Analyst Says Same Killer Took Three Lives.”
Morning Call,
July 27, 1993.

_. “Robinson Trial Clues Go Under Microscope.”
Morning Call,
October 29, 1994.

Grossman, Eliot. “Robinson Recalls Childhood, Insists He’s No Murderer.”
Morning Call,
November 25, 1998.

Rosen, Fred. “The Rapist Tried to Murder Her and She Knew He Would Try Again.”
Cosmopolitan,
March 1, 1996.

Petherick, Wayne.
Serial Crime: Theoretical and Practical Issues in Behavioral Profiling.
Oxford: Academic Press, 2006.

Todd, Susan. “Allentown Teenager Held in June Attack on Woman.”
Morning Call,
September 3, 1993.

Interview with Brian Lewis.

Peter Stickney Anderson walked into the Townhouse Bar at 206 Fifty-eighth Street, on Manhattan’s East Side. He looked around at the burning candles on each table, which enhanced the intimate atmosphere. It was early May 1991. Anderson had driven to the city that day from Philadelphia, where he once worked as a Center City investment broker, to attend a political fund-raising dinner for a friend, Tony Brooks. They had arrived together at a Central Park West apartment, but while Brooks returned home that evening, Anderson elected to stay.