00:00:03
[music] >> This is a once-in-a-lifetime case. All I did was I pieced things together.
00:00:30
I got the call from my inspector. He didn't have a lot of information. So, it was more or less like go down
00:00:38
there and figure out what we have. You don't often see body parts being discovered.
00:00:49
So, this is odd. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely odd. Do you have any idea what you're getting
00:00:55
yourself into? Not at that point. Like it could be a boating accident. I don't know. You know, I at that point
00:01:03
I did not know. When I get there, I make my way down to the beach and I stop cold.
00:01:12
It was probably about 30 ft up the bluff. There was just no way for that to get there
00:01:18
by accident. And that's when I knew we had a homicide. You don't know who this victim is. She
00:01:25
was definitely an African-American female. Don't know who she is. I don't know obviously who any suspect is.
00:01:32
I know nothing. I I had nothing. I needed to know what happened to her. What brought you here? We came just to
00:01:50
do a welfare check. My name is Nora Donigan and I was a patrol officer. Who lives here? Shaday Robinson.
00:02:01
Her friends hadn't heard from her. Ms. Robinson, Milwaukee police, please answer the door. We're going to come in
00:02:12
otherwise. Okay, I don't hear anything. So, they seen her on Monday morning at 9:00 and 10:00.
00:02:22
Shaday was very excited about a date that she was going to be having. Nobody's seen her since the date.
00:02:31
Right away, alarm bells were going off for me. We needed to figure out who this date
00:02:37
was. You can't stop thinking about this. No. There was just something odd about everything. Maybe the timing of them.
00:02:50
Missing person, body part found. I had a weird feeling. I reached out to the sheriff's
00:02:57
department. Detective Donner from the Milwaukee Sheriff's Department. I just said, you know, I've got this
00:03:05
girl who's missing, and I'm curious, do you think that this could be related? She said she thinks that that's going to
00:03:14
be her girl. I got chills. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Along the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake
00:04:12
Michigan, sits a rocky, wooded area called Warnimont Park. It's not somewhere that you find a lot
00:04:20
of people. On April 2nd, 2024, a young man, out for a walk with a friend, made that gruesome find.
00:04:33
As they're walking, that black See that light right there? >> Yeah. Lead Detective Joe Donner of the
00:04:39
Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office says she knew she had a homicide, but nothing else.
00:04:45
You have a leg. Where's the rest of her? At that point, I didn't know. So, you have human remains,
00:04:56
no weapon, no suspect. Where do we go from here? That That was the question I asked myself most of that
00:05:04
night. But, with the help of Milwaukee Police Detective Nora Donagan, Donner had a
00:05:10
suspicion who her victim might be. Shade Robinson, a 19-year-old college student. On the evening of April 1st,
00:05:19
2024, she had plans to go on a date, but had not been seen since. Donner soon learned that Shade's car had
00:05:29
been found behind an abandoned building 3 miles from Shade's apartment, set on fire. This is Shade's vehicle. This is
00:05:39
pretty much completely destroyed. It is. It definitely negated any type of DNA, fingerprints, anything like that.
00:05:46
Though the car was heavily damaged, it still revealed a great deal to the fire investigator. The passenger side smelled
00:05:54
heavily of a petroleum distillate. So, what did that tell them? That it was more than likely an arson.
00:06:00
And though the car's interior was destroyed, investigators were able to recover something crucial.
00:06:07
So, underneath the driver seat, Shade's purse was tucked under there. To me, it definitely eliminates a
00:06:15
robbery, right? And when investigators opened the trunk of Shade's car, they made a distressing
00:06:21
discovery. We found her pants, her underwear, her jacket, and her shoes. This is the clothes she was wearing that
00:06:32
night. And the jeans, it was apparent that somebody else had taken them off. They were turned inside out, and the
00:06:39
underwear were still attached to them. So, yeah, it was definitely a red flag. Another red flag was something Detective
00:06:46
Donner and her team noticed about the driver's seat. Something that suggested someone else had driven Shade's car. We
00:06:54
take note of the seat positioning cuz that'll give height indicators. I was able to determine about how far
00:07:01
back that seat was. I then went to a dealership and found an identical model. With the driver's seat in the same
00:07:09
position as the one in Shade's vehicle, Detective Donner grabbed a deputy who was about Shade's height. And when she
00:07:16
sat in the car, she couldn't touch the pedals. Um, so, her arms were straight out. And she's like, "There's no way I
00:07:22
can't drive like this without perching on the very edge of the seat." Donner also had a taller detective sit
00:07:29
in the vehicle. And based on her experiment, Donner says the last person to drive Shade's car had to be at least
00:07:38
6 ft tall. [music] There's no way Shade >> was the last person in that driver seat.
00:07:42
>> No. No. The day after finding the remains on the beach, investigators contacted Shanae's
00:07:49
mother, Sheena Scarborough. I I'll never forget that day. Like what's going on? Sheena immediately sent for Shanae's
00:07:59
16-year-old sister, Adriana, to come home early from school. We drove over to my mom's house and they
00:08:07
were all very obviously upset. But Shanae's family hoped that this was a mistake and [music] Shanae would be
00:08:16
found alive and well. The officer asked Adriana to share Shanae's cell phone location from her
00:08:23
Life360 app. What is Life360? Unlike Find My iPhone that gives you where your phone is right now, Life360 gives you
00:08:32
historical data. And it uses GPS, so it tends to be far more precise than the cell records. And
00:08:42
I pulled up the location. I saw that her phone had died at 4:35 a.m. at Memorial Park.
00:08:51
And when I saw that, it was like that was a very unusual place for her to be. And when I said that, the detective, his
00:09:01
face like dropped. And he was [music] like he just like yeah, he shut down kind of.
00:09:11
I I knew >> [laughter] >> something wasn't right. Somebody had hurt my baby. Is your video, Shanae?
00:09:43
>> DNA tests hadn't yet determined if Sade Robinson matched the remains found along
00:09:49
Lake Michigan. In the meantime, investigators began tracing the last known hours of her life. Younger sister
00:09:57
Adriana saw Sade on Easter Sunday, the day before her date. We had worked together that morning. She
00:10:04
picked me up. Sade and Adriana worked as servers at a country club. She was one of the best workers they had. It was one
00:10:13
of Sade's two jobs on top of being a full-time student at a local technical college.
00:10:20
She wanted better for herself. She wanted better for me. The hard work was paying off with the
00:10:25
19-year-old able to rent an apartment and buy a car all on her own. Sade was set to graduate with an associate's
00:10:33
degree in criminal justice the following month. Adriana says Sade hoped to then enlist in the military.
00:10:41
And she was looking to join the Air Force, so she had been meeting with recruiters. That's how much she wanted
00:10:46
to do everything that she dreamed of doing. After working at the country club on
00:10:55
Sunday, March 31st, 2024, Adriana and Sade headed to their grandparents' house for Easter dinner.
00:11:03
It was a really, really good night. And then she took me home. Whenever she dropped me off, it was
00:11:08
always like a hesitation. We always be like, "Love you." And that night, I still remember it was
00:11:16
like a different kind of hesitation. The next morning, Sade FaceTimed her mom, Sheena.
00:11:24
She was glowing through the FaceTime. She just looked so beautiful. She was in a bubbly mood. She didn't
00:11:30
mention anything to me about going on a date that evening. Security cameras in Shade's building
00:11:36
captured her leaving her apartment at 9:00 a.m. that morning. >> [music] >> 15 minutes later, Shade arrived for her
00:11:42
shift at the restaurant Pizza Shuttle. Former owner, Mark Gold. Everybody loved her immediately and
00:11:49
that's that's kind of rare, I think, in a restaurant or any business. And she's a great worker. She comes in
00:11:55
on time, she smiles. Every time she would work with me, I'd say, "What's up, Shade?" And she'd go,
00:12:00
"The sky, Mark." She always said it and now I miss it. Shade left Pizza Shuttle at 5:00 p.m.
00:12:08
>> [music] >> and texted a man she'd recently met, Maxwell Anderson. They are [music] discussing where
00:12:15
they're going to meet up for their date. Shade's text messages show they chose the Twisted Fisherman.
00:12:24
Armed with that information, investigators then headed to the restaurant and obtained security camera
00:12:30
footage of Shade and her date together. Detective Joe Donner examined the footage for clues.
00:12:38
What's sort of standing out to you as you watch this video? Why is it important?
00:12:42
You know, it's [music] the demeanor. He does a lot of talking to the bartender, doesn't do a whole lot of talking to her
00:12:49
um or even like turning and looking at her. It's just it's seems a little unusual for a date.
00:12:56
There's not a lot of interaction. Around 6:30 p.m., Shade and Maxwell Anderson left the restaurant together.
00:13:05
With the help of Shade's Life360 app, the detectives knew just where the pair were headed. I'm so glad that that she
00:13:14
had that app. So, when you found out Shade had it on her phone, you must have thought goldmine.
00:13:19
>> Yeah. Score. Big time. According to her Life360 app, Shade then went to a nearby bar called Dukes on
00:13:29
Water. When investigators headed there, they found this security camera footage of Shadae and her date arriving together
00:13:37
at the bar. Again, Detective Donner took note of the pair's dynamic. So, they are playing beer pong with this
00:13:46
couple. And honestly, this is the only time that it looks like she's having fun. I noticed that she seemed to
00:13:53
be smiling and enjoying herself. Shadae and Maxwell Anderson left the bar together around 9:00 p.m.
00:14:02
She's walking fine. Um doesn't seem to be >> [music] >> impaired. I think it's interesting that
00:14:08
they're walking together, but not until the very end. >> [music] >> He kind of reaches out for her.
00:14:12
>> Right. That's the only like real physical contact other than briefly while they
00:14:18
were playing beer pong that I see them have. From there, Shadae's date got in the car
00:14:24
with her. The Life360 app shows Shadae arrived at Maxwell Anderson's house around 9:30.
00:14:32
3 hours later, the app shows Shadae's phone left his house. Shadae's car began traveling toward her apartment. But
00:14:41
instead of going home, the car drove past the building. Multiple surveillance cameras would go
00:14:47
on to capture Shadae's car with fogged up windows driving around for hours. Did there seem to be any kind of like
00:14:57
rhyme or reason to where this vehicle was going that night? No. I don't It seemed to be going all
00:15:05
over the place. Then, at 2:53 a.m., the Life360 app shows Shadae's phone arriving at Warremont Park, where the
00:15:15
battery on her phone would later die. When the investigators checked for security camera footage from a nearby
00:15:21
building, they made a chilling discovery. The grainy footage shows someone, possibly a man,
00:15:30
dragging something to the lake. This is the path that he took. And then he would go down right around here.
00:15:39
>> Yeah. And this is where he disappears off of camera. It drops off right there.
00:15:43
That's where we lose sight of him. Roughly 90 minutes after first going out of view, the shadowy figure walks away
00:15:54
from the lake, but now carrying something. The final time that it comes out, you do
00:16:01
see a large backpack on their back. Who do you believe that figure is? Maxwell Anderson.
00:16:12
Who was the last person Shade Robinson was seen with? [music] Maxwell Anderson. Who is this person? How do you know my
00:16:20
daughter? Had you ever heard the name Maxwell [music] Anderson? No. There are so many
00:16:41
questions, like how they knew each other, what his motives were. The night Shade Robinson disappeared was not the
00:16:48
first time she had met Maxwell Anderson. Three days earlier, Shade, seen here on
00:16:55
security camera footage, walked into a bar. The owner told 48 Hours that Shade was looking for a job. While there, she
00:17:04
met the bartender, 6-foot-1, 33-year-old Maxwell Anderson. They exchanged numbers, and Maxwell walked Shade to her
00:17:14
car. It seemed like he was trying to be a gentleman to this girl he was trying to
00:17:20
impress. What did you learn about Maxwell Anderson, his background? I learned that he had been in the service
00:17:26
industry for a while. He owned a home down on the south side of Milwaukee, was in the Navy for a
00:17:34
brief amount of time. Why did he leave the military? I I believe it was a general discharge.
00:17:40
But the man Shaddai would go on a date with also had a criminal record that included operating a vehicle while
00:17:46
intoxicated, disorderly conduct, and more. It was a little disturbing. Like a history of violence towards his own
00:17:54
family. And in 2019, he'd also been accused of violence towards a total stranger.
00:18:02
According to this police report, Maxwell, seen in this video filmed by a bystander, beat a man who tried to
00:18:09
intervene during an argument Maxwell was having with a girlfriend. He was arrested for battery, but pleaded guilty
00:18:16
to a lesser charge. This guy's got a temper and he doesn't really seem to care who he takes that
00:18:22
temper out on. You're thinking about what could have happened with Shaddai. Yes.
00:18:27
But could he be responsible for Shaddai's disappearance? Detective Donner needed proof.
00:18:34
Just spending the evening with her Right. >> is not enough. >> Right. With the help of Shaddai's Life 360 app,
00:18:41
Donner knew Shaddai had driven to Maxwell's house on April [music] 1st. I wanted to I wanted to get into his
00:18:48
house. And we definitely had enough to do that. On April 4th, Donner got a search
00:18:54
warrant to enter Maxwell's home, and she sent another team to watch him. So, they begin [music] to follow him.
00:19:02
We prefer to not have the resident [music] in the house. It's just safer. Within minutes, the team realized
00:19:10
Maxwell was heading home, and they had to act fast. All right, let's take him into custody.
00:19:15
The deputy and the detective said that yeah, they definitely felt him shaking. Maxwell Anderson later asked for a
00:19:23
lawyer and was never interrogated. [music] But when investigators finally entered
00:19:28
the house, they were surprised. There was no big bloody crime scene. And no sign of a clean up either. It was
00:19:37
very apparent that >> [music] >> dismemberment didn't happen there. Investigators did find something of
00:19:44
interest. A lot of knives. A lot of knives. There were, I believe, like 51 found in the kitchen alone.
00:19:52
Anything that could have been used to dismember a body? I suppose uh none of those knives
00:19:58
[music] were were used. After searching the house, Detective Donner was still missing key elements,
00:20:05
like a weapon, crime scene, or even a single piece of direct evidence in Maxwell Anderson's home tying him to
00:20:13
Shade's disappearance. [music] It seemed like every hopeful you know, lead, I got disappointed each
00:20:22
time. Detective Donner started looking into other possible suspects. While Maxwell Anderson seemed like a
00:20:30
really good suspect, I wasn't going to focus on him. >> [music] >> And she even considered the possibility
00:20:35
that the remains on the beach belonged to someone else. What if this isn't her? So, I still
00:20:42
checked missing [music] databases. But Shade's loved ones were certain Donner was on the right track. They sent a
00:20:49
message covering Maxwell Anderson's yard with balloons and signs, all in Shade's
00:20:55
favorite color, pink. Increasing the pressure on the investigation was the shocking discovery
00:21:03
of more body parts across the county. More human remains believed to be those of the young woman. The remains seem to
00:21:11
be from the same victim. As law enforcement searched for more remains, so did volunteers, including Kiki and
00:21:18
Arlinda, family friends of Shade's. They were already searching. Why even get involved? I didn't see enough police out
00:21:27
here. We came by and the area was empty. But we were like, okay, let's go back and double check and see if we could
00:21:32
find anything else. While searching a wooded area, Kiki found a blanket that belonged to Shade. The next day, Arlinda
00:21:40
discovered a human bone next to train tracks. Both were found in areas investigators had already searched.
00:21:49
Could you understand why people might feel a little frustrated when they hear that? Absolutely.
00:21:54
Detective Donner was also frustrated. That's when this woman, Chloe Wright, stepped forward.
00:22:02
It was like heart-stopping. I mean, it's just like this can't be real. Chloe had dated Maxwell for more than a
00:22:10
year, and she was stunned to hear her ex-boyfriend was a suspect. This type of gruesome, graphic murder I
00:22:20
just didn't see from him. Chloe and Maxwell broke up a year earlier. She told us he was never
00:22:29
physically abusive, but he could be verbally abusive. And he made comments about like my body
00:22:35
weight often. Um me not being attractive. He wasn't a great boyfriend. This sounds toxic. It
00:22:42
was very toxic. Chloe describes Maxwell as a secretive person, but he did share one secret with her investigators were
00:22:51
very interested to learn. >> [laughter] >> I remember it was like winter when he
00:22:56
had brought it up, and he was like, "If we're still together come spring, I'm going to take you to this secret beach.
00:23:02
And then eventually he took me there. But Maxwell was so protective of his secret beach that when Chloe drove them
00:23:11
there, he would only give her step-by-step directions. He didn't want me to know the name in
00:23:17
case we broke up. He didn't want me bringing other people to his secret spot. But she remembered where it was.
00:23:24
The police were like, "Okay, you direct us." Repeating the directions Maxwell had always given her, Chloe led
00:23:31
investigators straight to his secret beach, Warnimont Park. Just having that [music] proof that he
00:23:40
knew about it and was familiar with it to a level that he referred to it as his secret beach. That that was pretty big.
00:23:48
What do we think happened here? This is where he dismembered her. When you think of that special place,
00:23:56
special to him, what comes to mind? Sade. Yeah. Think about Sade. On April 12th, 2024,
00:24:10
Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball made an announcement. The severed leg has been preliminarily identified as
00:24:20
belonging to Ms. Robinson. That same day, Maxwell Anderson was charged with first-degree intentional
00:24:28
homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson. He would plead not guilty to all charges.
00:24:37
DNA testing would later confirm the other remains were also Sade. On what should have been Sade's 20th
00:24:48
birthday, her family held a memorial for her. It would take a year before they would see the man accused of killing
00:24:57
Shade brought to trial. In May 2025, Maxwell Anderson's murder trial began. Detective Donner knew it
00:25:26
would be a tough fight with a circumstantial case. I really wanted that gotcha piece of direct evidence,
00:25:33
you know, and it never came. Use your common sense and search for the truth. Prosecutor Ian
00:25:41
Vance Curzan took the jury through the last minutes of Shade's life. She was murdered by Maxwell Anderson.
00:25:48
Her body was dismembered by Maxwell Anderson in a vicious and gruesome manner. And then Maxwell Anderson attempted to
00:25:58
make her disappear from this world. The prosecutor showed the jury this grainy footage of Anderson's home
00:26:05
[music] captured on his neighbor's security camera. It's hard to see, but investigators say it shows Maxwell and
00:26:12
Shade in silhouette arriving at his house and turning on the light of his second floor living room. Then through
00:26:20
the upstairs window, moving shadows can be seen. Investigators had poured over the footage hoping to find proof of
00:26:28
Anderson murdering Shade. Do we have any idea what's happening now? I don't. But Detective Donner did
00:26:37
notice something that happened hours later. I'm only seeing one person leaving. Um
00:26:43
and I know that that one person that is leaving is the same height as the fence and the
00:26:50
gate. Which is pretty tall. >> It's 6-ft. 6-ft. Investigators suspect Maxwell had already killed Shade by that
00:26:57
time. But Max had nothing to do with these crimes. Maxwell Anderson's defense attorney, Anthony Cotton, told the jury
00:27:05
that Anderson, being the last known person with Shade, proved nothing. We don't dispute any of that timeline that
00:27:12
they went out together and went back to Max's house, but that doesn't mean he killed her. And he dismissed the footage
00:27:18
collected by the prosecution. All of this video, all the hundreds of hours of video, you can see the car,
00:27:25
but you can't ever conclude that he is the one who is driving this vehicle. It's a pure speculation.
00:27:31
Cotton highlighted what he called the serious holes in the state's case, mainly the lack of motive and the
00:27:38
unknown cause of death. There is absolutely no reason for Max to commit a crime like this.
00:27:45
Why would he ever do something like that? Cotton pointed out that authorities can't even say how Shade died because
00:27:52
some of her remains have not been recovered. CBS 58 reporter Adam Rife says the defense's case seemed to be
00:28:00
effective with courtroom watchers. There was talk as this trial wore on that not all the evidence is there. If it was
00:28:09
Maxwell Anderson, how did he do it and where is that murder weapon? But what would the jury think?
00:28:17
Did any of you think, "Oh, this is a slam dunk"? We spoke to four of the jurors, Becca,
00:28:24
Marilyn, Nikki, and Mel, who says she was unimpressed with the footage of Shade's car that the
00:28:31
prosecution presented. I was like, "Where the hell is this going? Why are they showing us this?
00:28:37
Who's driving? We don't know." Like there's no definitive proof. But there was one video that did make an
00:28:43
impression. This footage of a man leaving the scene of Shade's burning vehicle. You can hear a bystander calling out.
00:29:00
Marilyn, the jury forewoman, says the footage reminded her of the mystery person on the beach.
00:29:07
You know, that is the same silhouette that we saw walking the streets of Milwaukee.
00:29:12
The man then gets on a city bus and you can see his face crystal clear. It was Maxwell Anderson.
00:29:22
What does he have with him? He has that large backpack still. The backpack, pants, and shoes Anderson
00:29:28
is wearing on the bus were never recovered. His gray jacket was eventually found in his neighbor's
00:29:35
garbage can. When the jacket was tested, it had Shade's DNA inside the hood and on the zipper pull.
00:29:44
Now, could it be maybe explained away? Sure. I mean, she did go to his house. Why would you throw it in a trash can
00:29:52
two houses away from your home? Exactly. State calls Chloe Wright. Chloe Wright, who chose to testify off
00:30:01
camera, spoke about her ex-boyfriend and his secret beach. He looked at her like
00:30:08
I'm going to kill you right now. Don't you say a word. You all noticed that. >> She knows that. She played a very vital
00:30:14
role, I think, in But jurors would soon learn about a safe found in Shade's apartment. Inside, marijuana and what
00:30:24
appeared to be methamphetamine pills. Although the pills were never sent to the state crime lab for conclusive
00:30:31
testing, the defense seemed to suggest more should have been done to see if Shade's murder was really connected to
00:30:38
those drugs. I felt that it was irrelevant to the case because there was never ever any
00:30:45
evidence that pointed to her as being a substance abuser. They're just trying to
00:30:50
distract us. So, it never crossed your mind once that maybe this was a drug deal gone wrong or whatever. Never. No.
00:30:58
>> Never. Investigators had tested Shade's remains. Did they find any drugs in her system?
00:31:04
No. Caffeine was the only thing found. Jurors say it was actually one of the last pieces of evidence that they saw
00:31:12
that made the biggest impact. Photos found on Maxwell Anderson's phone that he had taken and deleted.
00:31:21
The photos are of Shade at his home. She is face down. Her arm is over her face.
00:31:32
You see the hand of a white male grasping what would be her right breast. Do you believe Shade was deceased or
00:31:41
alive in those pictures? Do you know? I do not know. My my assumption is that she was
00:31:47
deceased. To see the way he treated her like like an object, it was really disturbing.
00:32:00
I mean, I personally felt like I had lived the last few hours of Shade's life with her
00:32:05
and you were walking kind of her footsteps throughout the night and to see her end up like that was
00:32:13
disgusting, humiliating, just horrible. We went all back into the jury room and there was a lot of quiet,
00:32:23
a lot of hugs, and just everybody was just kind of sick. That did it. That did it.
00:32:29
The state has no more witnesses. The state rests. Okay. And then Maxwell Anderson's defense
00:32:36
rested without calling a single witness. Is it still your decision not to testify?
00:32:42
Yes, that is my decision. The jurors headed to deliberate, but they didn't deliberate for long. After
00:32:49
breaking for the night, the jury had a verdict in less than an hour. We want to come in here and we want to
00:32:55
make a statement with how fast we make this decision. We the jury find the defendant Maxwell
00:33:03
Anderson guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, guilty of mutilating a corpse,
00:33:10
guilty of arson of property other than a building. Guilty [music] of Sade Robinson's murder.
00:33:15
As to count four, But two months later, Maxwell Anderson decided to tell his story.
00:33:23
Mr. Anderson, what would you like to say? Look at the birthday girl hooking on her
00:33:42
birthday. Look at her. Go ahead, baby girl. This is the most [music] heinous crime
00:33:53
this court will see. It doesn't get more serious than this. Sade Robinson's family was determined to
00:34:01
see that Maxwell [music] Anderson would never be free again. They spoke directly to the judge at his
00:34:07
sentencing. 17-year-old Adriana. When Maxwell Anderson murdered my sister, he redefined my definition of
00:34:15
misfortune. He made it so where I cannot meet any person without the fear that they're
00:34:19
going to harm or kill me. Because all my sister did was meet someone, and as a result he ended her
00:34:26
life. He tried to erase her existence and her value. Now I no longer have the opportunity to
00:34:33
try and give her everything she gave me. >> [laughter] >> Shade's father, Carlos Robinson, told
00:34:40
the court what justice would be for him. To lose your child in this manner is unthinkable.
00:34:49
What he has done is inconceivable. He deserves the punishment that he gave to my daughter.
00:35:02
Everything that he did should be done to him. To me, that's justice. >> [snorts]
00:35:11
>> Sheena, wearing [music] Shade's favorite color, pink on her eyelids, wanted answers from her daughter's killer. You
00:35:18
disrespectfully [music] spread my daughter across Milwaukee like a piece of trash. How dare you?
00:35:27
And she made a heartbreaking plea. I'm going to respectfully request that you confess
00:35:34
where my daughter's crown is. Shade's crown, her head, which has still never been found.
00:35:43
You've already done the worst. You can at least give us that much. But if Shade's family was hoping for
00:35:51
answers, they were disappointed. Mr. Anderson, what would you like to say? Maxwell Anderson finally chose to speak.
00:35:59
I would like to start by saying that from the bottom of my heart, my deepest and most sincere condolences go out to
00:36:08
Shade's family, as well as everyone else affected by this tragedy. That being said, your honor, I did not
00:36:17
commit these crimes. I hope and pray that further investigations not only prove my innocence,
00:36:26
but find and deliver true justice. So, you would think that he would tell us the things we wanted to know, and
00:36:33
[music] finally feel some remorse after sitting in jail for these months. And then he didn't. Anything else you
00:36:40
wish to say? No, ma'am. Judge Laura Crevello read a statement Anderson made to an investigator after
00:36:47
his conviction. He regretted he did not walk Ms. Robinson to her vehicle when she left
00:36:53
his apartment, and he believed it was at that point she was abducted by an unknown assailant. Quote, either from
00:37:00
the alley or from my backyard, unquote. When asked how he accounted for his presence in the area where Ms.
00:37:07
Robinson's vehicle was set on fire, Mr. Anderson said that he was set up. You're
00:37:12
hearing this stuff and you're like, no. Nope. What do you think happened that night?
00:37:19
I believe that they went back to his house. I think he may have wanted to take things further than she was comfortable
00:37:28
with, and that maybe she rejected him. And his rather well-documented temper came out.
00:37:37
And Donner suspects [music] Anderson would have killed again. I think this was his first time killing.
00:37:44
I could be wrong, but that's my opinion. I do firmly believe though that it probably wouldn't be his last if he
00:37:52
hadn't been caught. Given what he did to her body. >> [music] >> Chloe wonders if she could have been one
00:38:00
of his targets. A year after they broke up, she says, Maxwell sent her a message on Instagram.
00:38:09
And it was, ignore time is over. Five hours later, Maxwell Anderson met Sade Robinson when she applied for that
00:38:19
job. That's got to give you the chills. >> It's eerie. Before sentencing Anderson, Judge
00:38:26
Crivello took a moment to share her own thoughts about the loss of Sade Robinson.
00:38:32
She was a girl that I would hope all young ladies strive to be. Hey guys. She was loved in the community
00:38:40
by almost everyone that touched her. We love you, Sade, forever. You stole a truly shining light. It's
00:38:50
what it sounds like. And then she gave the man who stole that light the maximum.
00:38:57
You shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life. I am ordering that you will not be
00:39:03
eligible for extended supervision. Life without the possibility of parole. Thank you guys for supporting us.
00:39:12
Outside the courthouse, Sade's loved ones thanked the city of Milwaukee for keeping her memory alive. I do
00:39:19
appreciate the city of Milwaukee cuz they have shown my daughter a lot of love. A mural of Sade sits beneath her beloved
00:39:26
Pizza Shuttle. Sheena has launched a program in Sade's honor to help crime victims, and she has partnered with a
00:39:34
Wisconsin state representative to create a task force to examine and prevent the
00:39:39
disproportionately high levels of violence against black women and girls. In May of 2024,
00:39:47
Adriana, dressed in a pink cap and gown, accepted Sade's degree at what should have been her big sister's graduation.
00:39:57
Seeing her live her life as such a hard worker who never let anything stop her, I knew that she would want me to do that
00:40:04
after I lost her. That she would want me to keep living. And so I'm going to remember her by
00:40:11
following in her footsteps and fill the hole that she left, although I know I can never live up to near her shoes.
00:40:18
Mhm, don't know about that. I do. In Warnimont Park, the site where this tragic investigation began, Sade's
00:40:28
family and friends unveiled a memorial bench. It's in the area Detective Donner has
00:40:34
searched dozens of times in the hopes of fulfilling Sade's loved one's [music] deepest wish of laying all of Sade to
00:40:43
rest. Do you think we'll ever find Sade's crown? I think so, when the lake is ready to
00:40:50
give her back. >> [music] [music] >> Welcome to Post Mortem. I'm 48 Hours correspondent [music] Natalie Morales,
00:41:41
filling in for Anne Marie Green, who is on the other side of the mic to talk about her latest report on the murder of
00:41:48
19-year-old Sade Robinson. Thanks for joining me, Anne Marie. Thanks, Natalie. I'm looking forward to talking about
00:41:54
this. Now, this all started when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to a vehicle that was set on fire in April of
00:42:01
2024. Turns out that car belonged to Sade, but nobody could get a hold of her. Well,
00:42:08
that same day, a A part from an unidentified female washed up on a remote beach on the Wisconsin shoreline
00:42:16
of Lake Michigan. And Ann Marie Sha Day's friends also hadn't heard from her since she went on
00:42:22
a date the night before, right? Yeah, and in fact, it was one of her coworkers at Pizza Shuttle that really raised the
00:42:30
alarm. She was concerned that Sha Day hadn't showed up for work. She's such a good employee. She would never just not
00:42:35
show up. She just couldn't let it go and she was the one who contacted police. Well, good for her for for following
00:42:41
through with that. And you you also talk about in this hour as we see how much security footage played a part in in
00:42:50
helping, you know, police put the pieces of this puzzle together. Absolutely. I mean, I think we all know that there's a
00:42:58
lot of, you know, surveillance cameras that are around, the security cameras, ring cameras. We know that we're on
00:43:04
camera a lot. But in this case, it wasn't just sort of the places that you would expect, like the lobby of her
00:43:09
apartment building, but that remote area of the park, Warnimont Park, was just it
00:43:16
was remarkable that they even had video from there. And Sha Day in particular left kind of digital breadcrumbs pretty
00:43:23
much everywhere, and that is part of what led to police honing in on Maxwell Anderson so quickly.
00:43:32
There are eyes in the sky everywhere as we can see throughout this hour. We're going to talk about it all, but first I
00:43:37
want to remind our listeners and our viewers, if you haven't listened or watched this episode yet, please go
00:43:43
ahead and do that right now. Go check it out and come on back and join our conversation. So, Ann Marie, at first,
00:43:49
while watching the episode, I thought that this was going to be one of those dating app horror stories. Turns out
00:43:56
though that Sha Day actually met Maxwell Anderson in person before their date. Right. I mean, this is the old-fashioned
00:44:06
way, right? Um she was looking for yet another job. She already had two jobs and she was looking for a third one at
00:44:14
the bar. Uh she meets him there. He's working there and so yeah, why not think it's okay to go out on a date? This is a
00:44:22
young woman who has everything going for her. She's unbelievably driven. She wants to enter the Air Force. She's
00:44:27
finishing up uh her education. She's going places and this one person, you know, ruined everything. Such a tragic
00:44:36
turn. She had everything and was seemed to be doing everything right. The first person we meet in this episode, she's so
00:44:42
fascinating, is the detective, Joe Donner. And you know, I wasn't quite sure what to make of her fashion sense.
00:44:50
I mean, it she's incredible. It's she's like something out of another era almost. And and that is deliberate. That
00:44:56
is by design. Um she is just one of those people that's really into 1940s and 1950s
00:45:04
fashion and the aesthetic of the time. She actually owns a vintage clothing store and she does these like online
00:45:11
social media sales where she, you know, where she'll show like the latest haul that she's gotten and people all over
00:45:17
the world tune in to buy stuff from her. Um she does these, I guess, pin-up contests. We're not talking burlesque
00:45:25
stuff, right? We're talking about people who dress like in the era. Her pin-up name is Misdemeanor. How appropriate is
00:45:32
that, Natalie? Um and so yeah, she's got this whole fascinating other side to her, but boy, is she a damn good
00:45:41
investigator. >> She sure is and when she gets down to business, she really gets down to
00:45:45
business, as we see. Now, it was Detective Donner who took you to that remote beach, showed you around. Uh what
00:45:53
was it like? The beach is an interesting spot. It's quite desolate. Though there's a road leading down there,
00:46:00
there's a big fence. You can't drive down there. You have to know the pathway to take to get down there. And certainly
00:46:06
people come down there to walk their dogs or maybe just to get away, but you would have to really know that that spot
00:46:12
is there to venture down there. I wouldn't go down there and I wouldn't go down there alone. She also took you to
00:46:18
the place where they have Shaddai's burned vehicle. Yeah, so seeing the car, I mean it was almost a little emotional
00:46:25
because it is absolutely charred. But even though Maxwell Anderson tried to get rid of every stitch of evidence, he
00:46:35
fails to get rid of some really crucial evidence, three pieces of crucial evidence. Where the driver seat is
00:46:42
situated, that doesn't change. So they know that, you know, Shaddai probably wasn't driving that car. But then her
00:46:48
purse is found basically intact. I mean it's singed, but it's found underneath the car seat and the clothes she was
00:46:55
wearing that night, those are in the trunk of the car. And finding that car really helped to speed up this
00:47:00
investigation as well. Yeah, that was what was so fascinating. I never thought about that clue of measuring the seat
00:47:07
distance and that being a a big clue into the height of the individual who last drove the car, which would turn out
00:47:14
to be really important in helping solve this case. And I should say that the other officer, right, uh Donnigan, who
00:47:21
was the one who was called to do a check on her apartment, she was crucial. She said to us that that day she was getting
00:47:29
ready for work and like the news was on the background and she kind of heard about a body part being found, you know,
00:47:37
and then she gets this call to go to the apartment and like immediately she has this gut reaction. She went on a date.
00:47:44
She's not here now. I heard about this this news report about a body part and she was also really significant in
00:47:52
speeding up the investigation because if it had not moved forward as quickly as it did, Uh Donna really feels like
00:47:59
there's a good possibility that a lot of that really crucial video would have been lost. Let's also talk though about
00:48:06
Shade's younger sister Adriana. I mean, her ability to offer up data on Shade via Life360, the app. I mean, it proved
00:48:14
to be invaluable, right? Yeah, exactly. Um Detective Donahue calls Adriana the quiet backbone of the family.
00:48:24
And I don't know how Adriana was able to keep a level head in the middle of all of this chaos. I've never
00:48:32
ever ever met an adult, much less a teenager, with the type of presence that this young girl has. I'm glad it came
00:48:41
through in the hour. She's remarkable. And she was able to provide the information about the Life360 app. She
00:48:48
could show them um where Shade had gone. She could show them that she had been at
00:48:55
Maxwell Anderson's house at around 9:30. She could show, according to the Life360
00:49:00
app, that at 2:53 the phone arrived at Warner Manor Park. All of these things were crucial. That Life360 app, that was
00:49:08
something the minute my kids got their driver's license, I put it on their phones because it goes beyond the find
00:49:15
my feature. You can actually track if they're going and driving above the speed limit. It gives you an alert, so
00:49:21
it's an incredible tool. Yeah, I had never heard of the app before. I have since put it on my phone. Um because it
00:49:29
really is um remarkable the amount of detail. It helped investigators literally kind of
00:49:36
like walk the path that Shade did um to figure this whole thing out. Well, this brings us to the man who was then
00:49:44
charged with Shade Robinson's murder, Maxwell Anderson. Tell us about him. So, this guy is, you know, as you can
00:49:51
imagine, an interesting character. He's 33 years old. Shadi was a teenager. She's 19. We spoke to his ex-girlfriend
00:50:00
Chloe, and Chloe also was very young when they started dating. >> Perhaps praying on their vulnerability.
00:50:07
>> Exactly. Even before he met Shadi, he had a criminal record, operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly
00:50:14
conduct, and you saw in the hour that he was arrested for battery of against a bystander who tried to intervene. He was
00:50:22
apparently having an argument with one of his girlfriends, and he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge for
00:50:28
that. What was really fascinating, and and kind of alarming in my opinion, was when detectives did search his
00:50:36
apartment, they found he had a large collection of knives in his apartment, which, I mean, that really raised my
00:50:43
eyebrow. Yeah, 51 knives in the kitchen alone. Um, I like to cook. I have a lot of
00:50:50
knives, but I certainly don't have a collection like that. No, I know. And you know, I'm I'm pretty sure
00:50:57
investigators were hopeful that amongst those knives they would find something that maybe it played a role in this
00:51:02
case, and that that simply wasn't the case. Chloe says that he sort of fancied himself a handyman, but he was always
00:51:10
starting projects that he would never finish. But there were two projects she said that he did finish in the time that
00:51:16
she knew him, and they were both secret compartments. And she sort of described how you would like touch something, and
00:51:23
then a compartment would pop out. Um, we we didn't know what he was hiding in those
00:51:29
compartments. The other curious tidbit, investigators found tons of women's clothing
00:51:37
in his house. Random items, um, you know, shirts, pants, not necessarily like all intimate
00:51:44
items. Um, Chloe wonders if some of the clothes might be hers. They also found the ID of a woman.
00:51:51
They did track the woman down. She's alive and well. Um, a couple of other interesting things about that house. The
00:51:58
house is actually sort of split. He owns the house, but he lived on the second floor and then there was a tenant on the
00:52:05
first floor. Apparently, the tenant complained a lot about the noise. Uh, Anderson Maxwell
00:52:13
Anderson had um, dogs. He would complain about the dogs making too much noise upstairs. The tenant was home the night
00:52:19
Sade went over there and never heard a thing. Did investigators have a theory as to how Sade Robinson could have been
00:52:27
killed without making any sort of noise? Strangulation perhaps? It's a silent death. Yeah, I was going to say that
00:52:35
could have been, you know, a way someone could have been killed without making a
00:52:39
lot of noise and and certainly without a lot of blood, which is also something else that they didn't find. Um, you
00:52:46
know, he goes on the date with her April 1st. He's arrested by April 4th. On April 12th, 2024, the Sheriff's
00:52:55
Office announced that the remains found on that remote beach were identified as belonging to Sade Robinson. And on that
00:53:03
same day, Maxwell Anderson was formally charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and
00:53:12
arson. He would plead not guilty to all the charges. Now, one of the worries for
00:53:17
Detective Joe Donner was that there wasn't any direct evidence linking Maxwell Anderson to the case, but it
00:53:25
didn't seem, Anne Marie, that the jury really needed that so much, right? No, it was really the last piece of evidence
00:53:33
that sealed his fate. We spoke to a number of jurors, but one juror, Becca, talked about seeing those photos that
00:53:38
Maxwell Anderson had taken on his phone and then deleted. They are photos of Shade. You can see his hand on her. He's
00:53:45
touching, you know, intimate areas of her body. And that basically did it for these jurors. I want to read a little
00:53:54
bit of what Becca had to say about this. She said, "I mean, I personally felt like I had lived the last few hours of
00:53:59
Shade's life with her. And to see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible." Yeah, and
00:54:08
to think that to not know if she was dead or alive when those photos were taken. They seem staged, almost like a
00:54:15
trophy. But then he deletes them. I mean, that tells you a lot if you're a juror, right? It was perhaps the most
00:54:22
powerful piece of evidence that the jurors saw. Right? That along with, you know, we did see the footage of the man
00:54:30
on the beach >> Yeah. with the backpack. Yeah. >> Also, then you saw the surveillance
00:54:34
footage of the man leaving the burnt car, and then you see clearly Maxwell Anderson's face when he hops onto a city
00:54:44
bus. I mean, thank goodness that security footage was very crisp and clear. You could clearly see his face.
00:54:50
>> Oh, absolutely. Well, and then it turns out the defense didn't call any witnesses. So, the jury didn't take very
00:54:57
long to deliberate. Anderson was found guilty of intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson.
00:55:04
Although, he continues to maintain his innocence. At his sentencing, Shade's mother, father, and sister, they weren't
00:55:11
having any of that. Mhm. No, um they were very outspoken. Shade's mother is, you know,
00:55:18
really she's been dealing with a lot of stuff even before the disappearance and the murder of her daughter. Um she's
00:55:25
been dealing with sort of health stuff. And so, it it really took a lot out of her. And she has kept the fight going.
00:55:33
But it wasn't just the family members that spoke. Maxwell Anderson's father also spoke. Um he was crying.
00:55:41
He said Shade's family, he thought about them every single day. He said that he loved his son, and that he hoped for a
00:55:50
path for his son uh that would allow his son to become a positive influence in some way.
00:55:55
There was also members of the community that sent in letters because like the whole city was moved by this murder. And
00:56:03
there was one particular letter from an anonymous person that even the jurors said had a significant impact on them.
00:56:11
And I just got I'm going to read some portions of this cuz I think it really captures the way the entire city of
00:56:17
Milwaukee felt about Shade. Shade Robinson was not a torso. She was not evidence. She was a full living radiant
00:56:25
human being. She had dreams, plans, and a future she was building with pride. She had people who loved her and that
00:56:33
still love her more than words can hold. And she had a right to live, to breathe,
00:56:39
to laugh, to grow old. That right was stolen and it continues. But here's what you couldn't take. You
00:56:47
could not mutilate her soul. You could not silence the scream of justice. You could not prevent an entire
00:56:54
community from rising up in Shade's name. So beautiful and so moving. I love that the judge read that letter. It's
00:57:02
not surprising because I really felt like she became the daughter of the entire city.
00:57:11
People either saw something in her that they felt was also in them or in, you know, a young woman that they know,
00:57:20
whether it's a daughter or a friend. Um and they really rallied around this family, which I thought was significant,
00:57:27
Natalie, because the reality of it is is that there often are times when young black women are victims of crime and
00:57:35
they don't get the same level of attention, right? And I just want to read a statistic out. This is Columbia
00:57:41
University study. In Wisconsin, black women are 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women. It's the
00:57:47
worst statistic in the country. The other thing is that Milwaukee is home to Jeffrey Dahmer.
00:57:55
And when you think of of Dahmer's crimes, there's a sickening feeling that comes with it. And this reminded
00:58:03
Milwaukee of that sickening feeling. Um and just as a kind of a side note, when we um traveled there to do some of
00:58:12
our interviews, we stayed in this really nice old hotel. It was built sort of in
00:58:18
the I think it's in like 1920s, 1930s, but I kind of like cracked a little joke with the guy at the front desk and asked
00:58:24
him if there were any ghosts. And then I struck up a conversation with someone in
00:58:28
the elevator and I mentioned that I was inquiring about ghosts and he said, "Well, you know you know what happened
00:58:34
on the fifth floor?" And it turns out the hotel we stayed in was the hotel that Jeffrey Dahmer killed
00:58:41
one of his victims in. But I got to tell you, I slept with the lights on. I would have, too. Yeah, and that person
00:58:48
>> I'm surprised you slept at all. Yeah, I know. Back to Shade, as we know her remains,
00:58:55
they were spread all over the county. We learned from some friends that they even
00:59:00
found a blanket that had belonged to Shade, as well as they found what they believed was a a human bone in an area
00:59:09
that investigators had already searched. Um you talked to Shade's sister, Adriana, as well about the ongoing
00:59:16
search for Shade's remains. I wanted to play a little piece of that. Does it bother you that, you know, parts
00:59:22
of your sister are still missing? Yeah, it definitely does. I have this necklace and another one which is a star
00:59:30
that I wear every day that has some of her ashes in it. So, it's like a part of her is with me,
00:59:37
but knowing that a part of her isn't with anyone, that it's floating around somewhere decomposed
00:59:45
is like she hasn't been allowed to to to stop fighting. Like her battle's not over. Like she's never going to be able
00:59:57
to rest in some sense. Heartbreakingly, you know, as we saw in the sentencing, um, Sade's mother asked Maxwell Anderson
01:00:08
to confess where her daughter's crown was and we're talking about her head, of course.
01:00:14
Um, he though maintained his innocence, but we do hope that Sade's family will will get an answer someday and I know
01:00:21
that's that search is ongoing. Yeah, this is the kind of continued heartbreak for everyone who cares about Sade that
01:00:30
all of her has not been found. Before we go though, let's end on something that is so hopeful and positive and
01:00:37
uplifting, I think, and that is that Sade's legacy is her younger sister Adriana. Adriana, as we mentioned, such
01:00:45
a a bright light in this world. Well, she accepted Sade's graduation diploma, um, for her associate's degree, but she
01:00:55
also has some big news, right? >> Yeah, so Adriana is in the top 5% of high school kids in Wisconsin. She's
01:01:04
been accepted to Harvard. She has a 99% scholarship. She doesn't know what she's
01:01:10
going to do, where she's going to go, but when I say I've never met anyone like this, um, I wish her all the luck
01:01:17
in the world. I She I don't think she needs it. I expect great things from Adriana, and I cannot wait to watch her
01:01:26
continue to strive and rise and accomplish and be all the things that we all know she can be, but also that her
01:01:34
sister knew she could be. Well, that is a hopeful way to end this. And thank you
01:01:40
again for your incredible reporting, Anne Marie, on this one. Appreciate it. >> Always great talking to you, Natalie.
01:01:46
And if you liked this episode, please rate or review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.