A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, detective had an unconventional concept of learn how to assist resolve the homicide of 19-year-old school pupil Sade Robinson.
All of it started in April 2024, when the charred stays of Robinson’s automobile had been discovered behind an deserted constructing in Milwaukee. On the time, first responders weren’t instantly alarmed for her security.
Sheena Scarbrough
“An deserted automobile … on fireplace would not essentially imply that the driving force’s in peril?” requested correspondent Anne-Marie Inexperienced in “Sade Robinson and The Secret Seaside,” an all-new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.
“No, no,” replied lead Detective Jo Donner of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Workplace.
However then the hearth investigator observed that the passenger aspect of the automobile smelled closely of a petroleum distillate.
This was arson.
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Regulation enforcement realized that the evening earlier than the automobile fireplace, Robinson had gone on a primary date however had not been seen since.
Donner and her crew examined Robinson’s broken automobile for clues. Although the hearth had ruined any probability of acquiring DNA or fingerprints, investigators had been capable of get better essential proof.
“Beneath the driving force’s seat, Sade’s purse was tucked beneath there,” Donner identified. “To me it positively eliminates a theft, proper?”
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The place of the automobile’s driver’s seat caught Donner’s consideration.
“I observed that the extent of fireplace injury … that is gonna lock that seat in,” the detective stated. “That seat place is type of frozen in time.”
This led Donner and her crew to marvel if another person had pushed Robinson’s automobile to that deserted constructing. Donner determined to carry out an experiment.
“We pay attention to the seat positioning, trigger that’ll give peak indicators,” Donner defined. “I was capable of decide about how far again that seat was. I then went to a dealership and located an equivalent mannequin.”
With the driving force’s seat in the identical place because the one in Robinson’s automobile, Donner discovered a deputy who was about Robinson’s peak.
Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Workplace 
“And when she sat within the automobile, she could not contact the pedals. Her arms had been straight out and he or she’s like, ‘There isn’t any manner. I can not drive like this with out perching on the very fringe of the seat,'” Donner stated.
Donner additionally had a taller detective sit within the automobile.
Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Workplace 
“It was a really comfy seat place for him,” stated Donner.
Primarily based on her experiment, Donner says the final particular person to drive Robinson’s automobile needed to be no less than 6 ft tall.
“There isn’t any manner Sade was the final particular person in that driver’s seat,” stated Inexperienced.
“No manner. No, no,” Donner confirmed.
As investigators labored to search out Robinson, they rapidly tracked down the person she had gone on that date with: a 6-foot-1-inch bartender named Maxwell Anderson.
On April 12, 2024, legislation enforcement confirmed that Robinson had been killed. That very same day, Anderson was charged with Robinson’s homicide.
Anderson would later say he had nothing to do with Robinson’s dying.
