Robin Brooks
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. As the sun set on a quiet Sacramento evening in 1980, Robin Brooks was hard at work at a local donut shop. At just 20 years old, she had moved to California to pursue her dreams.

She was determined to make ends meet, no matter the cost. One night, she volunteered to take an opening shift at 4 a.m., even though she was the one closing the shop at midnight. But in the window from 12 a.m. to 4 a.m., something terrible happened. What happened in that small window remains a mystery, but the result was clear. Robin Brooks never worked another day in her life.

Her dreams of a bright future in California were tragically cut short. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 173, The Murder of Robin Brooks. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

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On the night of April 23, 1980, 20-year-old Robin Brooks started her shift at a local donut shop on the corner of Kiefer Boulevard and Tallahoe Drive in the unincorporated Sacramento, California community of Rosemont. This part of Sacramento was generally considered a safe place to live. In fact, in the 1980s, Rosemont, California was considered in the top half of the safest places to live in the U.S.,

and most of the crime there was property crime. 20-year-old Robin arrived at the donut shop to start her shift. Although the shifts were long and could be super late at night or extremely early in the morning, she loved working there. She liked baking the donuts and preparing the shop for the busy early mornings. By April 1980, Robin had recently moved to Northern California from New York.

And she enjoyed all that comes with being a young adult living independently for the first time. She worked two jobs to be able to afford her rent and her apartment, which was only around the corner from the donut shop, a little donut place called Donut Time.

Robin clocked out from her shift around midnight on April 24th. She said goodbye to her coworkers like she did every shift, and she told them that she would see them in only a few hours because she had to be back to the shop around 4 a.m. This quick turnaround in between shifts was something that Robin regularly did. She always offered to pick up shifts, even if it meant that she only had a few hours in between the closing and opening shifts.

After Robin clocked out from her shift and said goodbye to her coworkers, she walked around the corner toward her apartment at Garden Club's apartment complex. It was only a few-minute walk from the front door of her apartment to the donut shop. A few hours later, around 4 o'clock a.m., Robin's coworkers arrived at the donut shop for the opening shift. They were all expecting a very busy morning as people headed to the shop for breakfast before work.

But when the workers unlocked the donut shop door and clocked in, they were surprised that Robin wasn't there yet. She was usually one of the first to clock in, so it was strange for her to be late that day. But some of them thought maybe she missed her alarm that morning. They knew that she had worked late the night before and only got a few hours of sleep. So maybe she was fast asleep and just didn't hear her alarm that morning.

But some of Robin's other co-workers didn't really think so. She never slept past her alarm in all the time that they had worked with her. She was always at work and she always showed up on time. It didn't matter if she worked late the night before. The Robin Brooks they knew always arrived on time ready to go. A little later in the morning, one of Robin's co-workers and personal friends decided to go to Robin's apartment to check on her.

She just wanted some reassurance that nothing was wrong with her friend and maybe she just simply slept in. Robin's apartment was around the corner from the donut shop, so she'd be only gone for a couple minutes. But when the coworker arrived, she had a terrible feeling that something was wrong. She tried knocking on the front door several times, but Robin never answered. After waiting outside of Robin's apartment for several minutes, the coworker decided to walk back to the donut shop.

She told the rest of the co-workers that Robin wasn't answering the door, and she thought that something might be really wrong. So another co-worker went with her back to the apartment to see if they could get inside. Two of Robin's co-workers were able to find a way inside the apartment, but they were not prepared for what they saw next. Robin Brooks didn't sleep through her alarm. She couldn't because Robin was murdered.

When they got inside Robin's bedroom at the back of the apartment, they saw their friend and coworker lying in bed, motionless, and covered from head to toe in blood. The scene was even more gruesome because Robin's waterbed broke, and the water was mixed with her blood. When Rosemont police officers got to the unit, Robin was exactly how her coworkers and friends described her. She was lying in bed with her body covered in stab wounds.

Her killer had attacked her with a knife so violently that he pierced through her waterbed. And when Robin's body was examined, they discovered that she also had been sexually assaulted. The autopsy also revealed that she had been stabbed five times. One of the stab wounds had pierced her heart and was likely the wound that killed her.

As soon as Robin's body was discovered stabbed to death inside her Sacramento apartment, investigators scrambled to find her killer. In the immediate hours after her discovery, an intense fear loomed in the community that a killer was on the loose.

Robin wasn't your typical murder victim. She didn't have any known enemies. She was a single girl, well-liked by her coworkers and friends. Robin didn't have a boyfriend, and she wasn't dating anyone. By all accounts, she was just your typical 20-year-old girl working two jobs to make ends meet so that she could pay rent at her very own apartment.

The only risk factor the police could identify was that she lived alone. Other than that, she wasn't what anyone would describe as your typical murder victim. So if Robin had no enemies, who had the motive to want to kill her? The investigation into her murder was stalled right from the very beginning. The Rosemont police had few tips and no leads were coming in.

All investigators knew was that she got off work at the donut shop around midnight and was supposed to be back at work around 4 a.m., but she didn't show up. She didn't own a car, so the only way to and from work was by foot. But the walk to the donut shop would only take a few minutes because her apartment was right down the street. So that meant she must have been killed and assaulted sometime during this small four-hour window.

The investigators canvassed Robbins' neighborhood and apartment complex, looking for any potential witnesses. They were all questioned about what they heard or saw around the apartment between 12 a.m. midnight and 4 a.m., but none of Robbins' neighbors reported hearing anything out of the ordinary that night. No one heard any screams or saw anyone suspicious in the area, but this was probably to be expected.

If Robin had been assaulted and murdered sometime between 12 and 4 in the morning, most people would have been asleep. And if Robin had been caught off guard by her attacker, she might not have had the opportunity to even scream for help. Investigators also sat down and interviewed Robin's co-workers at the donut shop. Her co-workers were likely some of the last people to see her alive when she left work around midnight.

So the police were hopeful these interviews could shed some light on who might have wanted her dead. According to the donut shop employees, Robin made a comment that seemed completely ordinary until they found out about her murder. The co-workers said that during her shift that night before, Robin had made a comment about having to wash her bedroom sheets before coming into work that night.

and she would have had to put them back on the bed when she got home before she could go to sleep. According to her coworkers, she seemed annoyed about doing her laundry because she knew that she only had a few hours in between her shifts. So instead of getting home and going straight to bed, she would have to spend an extra few minutes putting all of her sheets back on the bed. At the time, this comment seemed, well, trivial.

It would just an ordinary conversation between coworkers at work. But after Robin's murder, this comment seemed to hold much more information. When Robin's body was discovered, the investigators noticed her bed was unmade. The waterbed didn't have any sheets on it.

This was a really important tip because it suggested that whoever killed her attacked her before she could start putting her sheets back on the bed. This also meant that she was likely killed as soon as she returned to her apartment. So investigators wondered if her killer might have been watching her and knew exactly when she got off work that night.

Investigators learned from Robin's sister, Maria, that someone might have been stalking her in the weeks leading up to the murder. Maria told the police that some of Robin's friends had mentioned that Robin thought someone might have been following or stalking her. According to them, there was this strange guy that kept showing up at the donut shop when Robin was working.

The guy didn't seem to be there looking to buy donuts or anything when he came around. He would just simply come in when Robin was working. He didn't really do or say anything wrong. He kind of just annoyed Robin while she was working. Now, initially, the police thought this tip sounded promising. Maybe this weird customer had something to do with her murder.

But when the cops tried tracking down this customer, they could never find him, and he never showed up at the donut shop again. Robin's small one-bedroom apartment was filled with evidence. Anytime there's a stabbing death or a sexual assault, the chances of recovering forensic evidence are likely high.

Stabbing deaths are especially personable, which means the killer is extremely close to the victim, and there's a good chance the killer will transfer their DNA onto the victim's body or clothes. Sexual assaults are also good from an evidence collection standpoint because the attacker usually leaves behind their DNA through blood or semen. If that happens, their DNA can be uploaded into various databases to find a match.

When it came to Robin's apartment, the police recovered both blood and DNA evidence from several key spots throughout the place. First, they found blood smears across the wall near Robin's body, and when the blood was tested, it didn't belong to Robin. So the police wondered if the unknown blood could have come from her killer. Maybe he cut himself while attacking or assaulting her.

The police also found several fingerprints on one of the windows inside the apartment, which, when it was tested, also didn't match Robin. Investigators suspected the window was how the killer either got inside or fled the apartment that night. Maybe he was at the complex when Robin got home from the donut shop and was able to get inside the apartment through the open window.

Or perhaps he confronted her at the front door once she got home, but then fled the apartment through, again, the open window. Either way, the investigators were confident the killer had touched the windowsill that night and as a result left behind his fingerprints. So now they had both a sample of his blood as well as a fingerprint. All they need now is to know who the perpetrator is.

Despite the promising evidence in the case, the blood and the fingerprints, the case quickly turned cold. Within just a few weeks, the Rosemont police had zero investigative leads and no suspects.

The DNA was submitted to all available databases for comparison, but nothing turned up. It didn't match anyone in the system. The same with the fingerprints. All the prints recovered from the windowsill were tested and compared, but none matched any known offender. Whoever killed Robin Brooks never had any known contact with law enforcement, and his DNA wasn't submitted to CODIS, our national DNA database.

Robin's murder devastated her family and friends. She had only been living in her apartment at Garden Club apartment complex for a few weeks, and she had only been in California for about six months. She came to Sacramento to find herself and reinvent herself as an adult. She worked so hard to be able to afford her own one-bedroom apartment that she had to work two jobs just to do that.

but she was determined to live on her own. She was willing to do whatever it took, including closing and opening shifts at the Donut Time shop across the street from her apartment. Nothing about Robin's murder made any sense to her family or the cops. The few tips the police received were all investigated and proved to be a dead end, and the forensic evidence they collected didn't match anyone in the system.

DNA and fingerprints are only good if the detectives have someone to compare them against. But in Robin's case, they didn't have anyone. Her co-workers were all cleared. None of her friends had any reason or motive to commit the murder. And besides the annoying guy who would just hang around the Donut Time shop, the cops didn't find any credible suspects. So the DNA and fingerprints were essentially useless.

And Robin's case turned cold for the next 14 years. From 1980 through 2004, Robin's family and the cops could only wonder, was she killed by someone she knew? Was someone stalking her? Was this a crime of opportunity? Did they see Robin walking home that night alone and decide to attack her? Everyone had so many questions, but very few answers until 2004.

But in 2004, the police got a massive break in the investigation. By the early 2000s, DNA testing had come a long way since 1980. DNA testing and profiling was being used nationwide to solve criminal cases, including cold cases.

So investigators returned to the DNA evidence collected inside Robin's apartment and wondered if the DNA could be retested using new technology. When the DNA was retested in 2004, the crime lab was able to generate a full DNA profile of Robin's killer. This was huge because it meant they had a full and complete DNA profile of the person they were searching for.

But the hope quickly vanished as they ran it into the same problem they did back in 1980. When the DNA profile was submitted to CODIS again in 2004, they still didn't get a hit. Even with a full and complete DNA profile, they had no matches.

2004 was another enormous letdown for Robin's family and investigators. They finally felt like they had something after the lab was able to generate a full profile of the killer. But the profile really didn't mean anything or mean anything to the investigation because unfortunately it didn't belong to anyone, at least not anyone that they knew of.

And ultimately, for the detectives and the families, it was pretty much useless. And the case went cold for a second time. After the major disappointment in 2004, Robin's sister Maria and the rest of her family wondered if they would ever see justice. They wondered if they would ever really know what happened to her and who was responsible for her murder. Or if someone had gotten away with the perfect murder.

37 years passed with very little progress in the investigation, and by that point, the case seemed destined to remain cold. That is, until the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office decided to do what many police departments nationwide were doing to solve old cold cases, genetic genealogy.

By 2017, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department reached out to Parabon Nanolabs, a Virginia-based private lab specializing in genetic genealogy, to see if maybe they could help. Not only is Parabon Nanolabs famous for specializing in genetic genealogy or the process of using unknown DNA to create family profiles, but they've also created a product called Snapshot.

Using DNA from a crime scene, Parabon Nanolabs can predict the unknown person's ancestry and pigmentation. Then, they can take the DNA profile and perform genetic genealogy screening to see if they can identify the unknown person.

This lab is crucial for law enforcement agencies because with this information, they can create composite sketches based on an unknown individual's DNA.

So for instance, if a police department has unknown DNA collected from a crime scene, they can submit the DNA to Parabon Nanolabs to have them create a composite sketch of how someone might look like based on their genetic markers. They can determine things like gender, eye color, skin color, and even hair color based on the genetic information contained in the DNA.

So although the police and Parabon Nanolab might not know who the individual is, they can still create a sketch of how the person might look like. This could be really helpful in a case like Robin Brooks. The police had the suspect's DNA, but no one to compare it to. So not only can Parabon Nanolabs conduct genetic genealogy on the DNA, but they can also create a composite sketch of the killer.

At the same time, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department was working with Parabon Nanolabs to create the sketch of Robin's killer. There was a massive breakthrough in the use of genetic genealogy.

In 2018, while investigators were working on Robbins' case, genetic genealogy burst onto the scene as California authorities used this technique to identify Joseph James D'Angelo, also known as the Golden State Killer, a man responsible for a string of rapes and murders throughout California that started in the 1970s.

As soon as authorities identified GSK using genetic genealogy, police departments across the country started realizing how powerful this tool could be, especially for cold cases. So as soon as the investigators working on Robin's case heard about the Golden State Killer, they were determined as ever to use the same technology to identify her killer.

Based on the suspect's DNA, Parabon Nanolabs created a snapshot sketch of how Robin's killer might look. From the DNA, they believed he was an African-American male around 25 years old, although he could be slightly younger or older. His ancestry specifically came from the western region of Africa. There was a 99.4% chance he had brown to dark brown skin.

a 52% chance of having brown or black colored eyes, a 100% chance of having black hair, and 93% chance he had very few to zero freckles. Parabon Nano Lab created a possible sketch of his appearance based on these genetic markers.

And once the Sacramento Sheriff's Department got the image, they immediately circulated it through the media, asking anyone who might recognize him to come forward. Parabon also created an age-progressed photo to show how he might look all of these years later. So now the public had two images to look at, one from when the murder happened in 1980 and another of how her killer might look today.

As the sheriff's department waited for leads on the photos, Parabon Nanolabs continued their own search to help identify him through his DNA. Once they had the sketch, they began building his family tree based on available DNA profiles across several databases. And pretty quickly, they were able to identify several people who were related to Robin's killer.

including several people with the last name Wilson. Once Parabon Nanolab had a promising family name of Wilson, they could zero in on one particular name that might be their guy in 2020, and his name? Philip Lee Wilson.

As soon as Paraban came across the name Philip Lee Wilson, they turned it over to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and said, hey, this might be your suspect in the Robbins Brooks case. So investigators immediately started looking more into Philip Wilson's background. They discovered that at the time of Robbins' murder, he was 31 years old and lived in the same neighborhood of Sacramento.

In 1980, he lived in a rental property only about two miles away from Robin's apartment. He also regularly visited the donut shop where Robin worked before her murder. But before his name popped up on Parabon Nanolab's radar, he had never been interviewed or considered a suspect. He hadn't even had any run-ins with law enforcement, which explains why his DNA wasn't on file.

By this point, authorities knew Philip Lee Wilson was their suspect. He lived less than two miles away from the apartment at the time of the murder. He was 31 years old at the time, so the age made sense. He wasn't too old or too young to commit a sexual assault or murder. And he was a regular customer at the Donut Time donut shop where Robin worked.

So now all investigators needed to do was compare the DNA collected from the crime scene to Philip Lee Wilson. And when the results came back, they matched. It was Philip Wilson's DNA and fingerprints recovered from inside the apartment. On the 40th anniversary of Robin's murder, Philip Wilson was arrested in April 2020 on charges of murder and sexual assault.

But the now 73-year-old man wasn't going down without a fight. From the moment of his arrest, he denied having any involvement in the murder or sexual assault. According to Wilson, he was innocent despite what the forensic evidence suggested. And through his defense attorney, he said he looked forward to his day in court where he could prove his innocence.

Less than two years after genetic genealogy led authorities to Philip Wilson, his trial began in early 2022. Even after almost two years, he maintained his innocence and said that he had nothing to do with the murder. And according to Wilson and his public defender, they could prove it.

At trial, Deputy District Attorney Timothy Carr knew Philip Wilson and his attorney would argue he had never had any previous run-ins with law enforcement. And despite what the forensic evidence suggested, he had nothing to do with it. His lawyers would try to tell the jury, how does someone with no criminal record just decide to commit a brutal rape and murder out of the blue?

and then go on living a life as an upstanding citizen like he did. Even at 73 years old, Philip Wilson still had never been arrested for any other crime. But prosecutor Timothy Carr was prepared for that argument. Not only did he feel like the forensic evidence was on the prosecution's side, but he wanted the jury to know that Wilson wasn't quite the person that he portrayed himself as.

During opening statements, Prosecutor Carr told the jury this, quote, End quote.

The prosecution's most significant evidence against Philip Wilson was the DNA and fingerprint evidence. They claimed the DNA found during Robin's rape and the blood on the bedroom wall matched Philip's DNA, and the fingerprints found on the apartment window also matched. Besides Philip Wilson's DNA, no other foreign DNA or fingerprints were found at the scene.

So the only logical explanation, according to the prosecution, was Philip was the guy. He was the one who assaulted and murdered Robin because the forensic evidence placed him there. When it came time for Wilson's public defender to give his opening statements, he dropped a bombshell on the jury and prosecutors.

During their opening statements, they said they knew who raped and killed Robin, but it wasn't the person on trial for it, Philip Wilson. According to Wilson's defense team, they knew who the real killer was, and it was someone close to Robin and her family.

Wilson's lawyers pointed the finger at Robin's sister Maria's boyfriend at the time of the murder, Norbert Holston. They claimed that one week before Robin's murder, Norbert threatened to kill both sisters as well as Maria's dog.

They even said he confessed to breaking into Robin's apartment in the past and bragged about it, quote, that he cleaned up his fingerprints so that no one would find out that he broke in. So according to the defense lawyers, the more likely suspect was the sister's boyfriend. He and Maria had recently broken up. He had threatened to kill both sisters, quote,

And he had confessed to breaking inside Robin's apartment as well as cleaning up his fingerprints so that no one would find out that it was him. About the DNA and fingerprint evidence. How did Philip Wilson's public defender explain the forensic evidence against him? Well, according to his lawyers, there was a plausible explanation as to why his DNA was found at the crime scene.

According to his defense, Philip Wilson had consensual sex with Robin on the night of the murder, but he claimed he left the apartment before the murder took place. That explains why his DNA was found at the scene. Consensual sex. Wilson's lawyers also tried explaining the blood evidence in the bedroom.

Remember, when the cops first began their investigation, they found a small amount of blood on the bedroom walls that didn't belong to Robin. Initially, the authorities thought the killer might have accidentally cut himself, and that's how the blood smears got on the wall. Well, according to the defense lawyers, they had an explanation for the blood smears as well.

They claimed Philip Wilson had recently cut his hand at work a day or two before his consensual encounter with Robin, and his cut might have reopened sometime while inside of her apartment. And, well, that's how he accidentally left blood smears on the bedroom walls. His lawyers tried to argue that the DNA and blood evidence had nothing to do with the crime itself.

According to the defense, his interaction with Robin that night was mutual and that the murder must have happened sometime after he left the apartment. They also argued that the blood smears on the walls weren't consistent with someone cutting themselves as the prosecution claimed. Instead, they argued the marks looked like they were left by someone who simply brushed against the wall with an old injury.

When it came time for the prosecution to address these claims made by the defense, they started with Robin's sister Maria. When Maria took the stand, she testified that her ex-boyfriend, the man that Phillips' lawyers said committed the murder, was at her apartment that night.

She said she was an extremely light sleeper, and she would have known if he ever left the apartment to go out and commit a murder and rape. And according to her, he never left her apartment that night. And if he did, she would have heard him. The defense's claim was virtually impossible, according to her.

Unfortunately for both the prosecution as well as Philip Wilson's defense, Norbert Holston had already passed away before the start of the trial. So he was unable to take the stand and testify for himself. But no forensic evidence found at Robin's apartment belonged to him. The only evidence collected at the scene all belonged to Philip Wilson.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Timothy Carr had one last powerful discovery to tell the jury, pointing toward Philip Wilson's guilt. Following his 2020 arrest, they matched his DNA to another unsolved rape case. According to investigators, just three weeks before Robin's murder, another woman in Sacramento was sexually assaulted. Fortunately, she wasn't killed.

but the cops couldn't track down her attacker because his DNA wasn't in the database. Well, after the police identified him in the Robin Brooks case, they were able to link Philip Wilson's DNA to the unsolved rape case just three weeks before. So not only was Philip's DNA connected to the rape and murder of Robin Brooks, but it was also connected to another unsolved sexual assault.

But Sacramento prosecutors weren't allowed to bring any criminal charges against him in that case because the statute of limitations had already passed. Under California law, Philip couldn't be tried for that assault. After both sides presented their evidence and closing arguments, the case was turned over to the jury. They needed to come to an agreement about what story they believed.

The prosecution story that all the forensic evidence pointed toward Philip Wilson as Robin's killer or the defense's story that Robin and Philip had a consensual encounter on the night of her murder, but Philip left before the murder took place. And according to the defense, the most likely suspect was Robin's sister's ex-boyfriend, not him. After several hours of deliberation, the jury came back.

But they didn't come back with a unanimous decision. Instead, they told the judge they were deadlocked. They couldn't all come to the same conclusion about whether they thought Philip Wilson was guilty or not. Yes, the forensic evidence didn't look good, but they couldn't all agree on guilty or not guilty. But the judge in the case insisted that they go back and try again.

So at the judge's urging, they went back to the jury room to deliberate a little bit more and see if they could all make a unanimous decision. And they did. On March 9th, 2022, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all charges. Philip Wilson was found guilty of first degree murder and sexual assault for killing Robin Brooks over 40 years ago.

Philip Wilson was convicted on his birthday, March 9th, 2022, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Immediately following his conviction, Wilson vowed to file an appeal through his attorneys. Despite all the evidence against him and the guilty conviction, he still denies doing anything wrong.

He maintains his encounter with Robin Brooks that night was consensual, and the murder must have taken place sometime after he left her apartment. As of today, the status of Wilson's appeal is pending. He is currently serving his life sentence in a California prison. After Robin Brooks' killer was found guilty and sentenced to prison, her sister Maria made a statement, quote,

I feel like I can go on with my life now. I think this absorbed a piece of who I was, end quote. The Robin Brooks Foundation was established in May 2020 in her memory. According to the foundation's website, quote, the Robin Brooks Foundation will unite together our community through energized fundraising events, individual donations, and business sponsorships.

End quote.

The motive behind Robin's murder may never be uncovered, and it's still unclear whether he knew Robin or simply saw her at the donut shop where she worked. It's also unclear how he managed to attack and kill Robin that night. Did he watch her as she walked home? Had he stalked her before and knew where she lived, alone?

The forensic evidence only tells us that Philip Wilson was inside Robin's apartment that night. But sadly, the evidence can't tell us why. After four decades, genetic genealogy finally identified the person responsible for the brutal murder of 20-year-old Robin Brooks, a young woman who had recently moved to California to start a new life and work two jobs just to make ends meet.

All of that was taken away from her in one gruesome night. For decades, many feared her case might never be solved. But through genetic genealogy, her family has finally received a small amount of justice and a small amount of closure. To share your thoughts on this week's story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

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