The signs have always been ominous.
Taylor Robinson wasn’t there when her mother came to pick her up from a Kipling Street house where she had worked overnight as a private health-care aide.
Her coat and shoes were there.
The 19-year-old woman’s ever-present cellphone was gone, too. Records would show her cell was powered off that same May 4 morning, hours after an odd text message was sent and almost nine hours after she had a brief call with a former boyfriend.
Her family sounded the alarm to Akron police, insisting to detectives that Robinson would never go off without telling anyone. She was a homebody, a good kid, a young woman who’d stay in to watch movies with her little brother and go to church with her mother and grandmother the next day.
Over the next four months, they searched everywhere and called everyone. They passed out fliers and held rallies and vigils. Carmilla Robinson talked patiently and eloquently to every reporter, intent on keeping her daughter’s smiling face in the news.
“The anticipation of your child coming home, that’s what you hold onto. That’s all you have,” she said in one of her first interviews.
On Wednesday, Taylor Robinson’s missing person case took on new dimensions when her skeletal remains found 25 miles north of her home were identified. Anthropologists will try to determine a cause of death from the scant bones and clothing being collected from the remote section of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The process could take weeks.
On Thursday, the FBI’s Evidence Response Team returned to the Valley Picnic Area off Riverview Road in Boston Township to continue searching for additional clues. On Monday, two hikers broke Robinson’s disappearance case when they found a jawbone.
Rangers and the FBI undertook a search in the days that followed. More remains and clothing were found Wednesday. Authorities have not said if they have collected all of Robinson’s remains. The picnic area is still closed.
Akron police and park rangers are working the case with the FBI. Authorities offered no new details in their investigation on Thursday.
Speculation about killing
On Wednesday, two private investigators working for the Robinsons said they believe Taylor was killed by someone she knew during a sudden fit of rage in the midst of a confrontation of some sort.
“It’s definitely someone in the area who knew her quite well,” said Tim Dimoff, a former Akron police officer now working as a private eye. “It’s definitely somebody she felt quite comfortable with.”
Police and FBI agents have been investigating the Robinson disappearance since about the time Carmilla Robinson reported her daughter’s disappearance about midnight on May 4.
She told police she dropped off her daughter about 10 p.m. on May 3 at a Kipling Street house. Taylor worked there as a health-care provider to a 23-year-old severely handicapped woman whose own mother worked third shift.
When Carmilla Robinson returned at 7:15 the next morning, Taylor was gone. The patient’s mother told police that when she returned that morning, the doors to her house were locked, Taylor was gone, but her shoes and coat were in the kitchen.
A check of Robinson’s cellphone records, according to police, show she talked to a former boyfriend for about two minutes late on May 3. Later in the morning at about 5, a text was sent from her cell that contained a vague reference seeking a favor from a friend. It was not returned. Police have not released the text message.
Her cell was shut off for good at 7:30 a.m.
Focus on ex-boyfriend
Akron police are stepping up their investigation, which initially focused on a former boyfriend. Investigators familiar with the work say detectives searched the man’s car and used special chemicals to search for bodily fluids. Nothing was found.
The man’s attorney, Thomas Bauer of Akron, said Wednesday his client spoke initially to detectives and gave a statement in which he denied any involvement in Robinson’s disappearance. Police and family members said the man, who had dated Robinson until shortly before she went missing, has since asked to be left alone and told detectives to direct questions to his attorney.
About a month after Robinson’s disappearance, the former boyfriend contacted police and said a group of people riding in three cars stopped outside his aunt’s West Thornton Street house and threatened him. The June 15 police report indicates the group included Robinson’s family members. No arrests were made.
The discovery of Robinson’s remains and the challenge of learning how she died is reminiscent of the 2007 murder of Jessie Marie Davis, whose body also was found in the valley at the Hampton Hills Metro Park.
Davis, 26, had been missing for about a week before her body was found. However, because of the rate of decomposition, a specific cause and manner of death was never established. Instead, “unspecified homicidal violence” was listed as the cause of death. Prosecutors, however, still won a murder conviction against Davis’ boyfriend, Bobby Cutts Jr., who is serving a life sentence.
“Mark my words: We will solve this. We will find out what happened to Taylor,” Dimoff said.
There is a $4,000 reward for information that could lead to an arrest in Robinson’s disappearance. Anyone with information is asked to contact Akron police at 330-375-2490. Anonymous tips may be left at http://ci.akron.oh.us/ASP/tip.html.
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.