Sade Robinson’s family is going through hell.
“I’m still deeply grieving,” Sheena Scarbrough, Robinson’s mother, said at a vigil Friday evening at Kilbourn Reservoir Park in Milwaukee. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my entire life.”
Prosecutors say Scarbrough’s 19-year-old daughter had a first date on April 1 with Maxwell Anderson, a 33-year-old bartender at several Milwaukee bars. The next day she was reported missing and a dismembered body part of Robinson was found in a park in Cudahy. Since then, other body parts believed to be Robinson’s have been discovered in Milwaukee County. Anderson was charged last week and is due back in court on Monday.
Robinson’s death has shocked communities both inside and outside Milwaukee. Her sister, Adrianna Reams, spoke about Robinson at Friday’s vigil. “Anyone who knew Sade knew she was different from everyone else,” Reams said.
Her younger sister said she looked up to Robinson as an independent person. “Everything she had, she had herself,” Reams said, adding that her sister sometimes struggled to juggle work, studies, family and friends.
“She’s been through a lot, but she never let it break her. She was the strongest person I know,” Reams said. “She was the most beautiful person I know. She never deserved this.”
Despite what was happening in her life, Robinson “still gave to everyone,” her sister said. Reams said Robinson would often give leftover pizza to unhoused people hanging out outside Pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee’s east side, where Robinson worked before her death and was considered a favorite among co-workers and customers.
Friday’s vigil on a cold, windy evening was attended by dozens of Robinson’s family, friends and colleagues, as well as community members and activists. Also present was former Sheriff Earnell Lucas, who declined to comment, saying he was there as a “private individual.” The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office was the lead agency in the murder investigation.
“Thank you all for being here, present with us, myself and my family,” Scarbrough said. “This means so much to Sade Robinson, my daughter, and myself, my family… this means so much that the community showed up and was there with us.”
Erika Brown, a friend of Scarbrough, started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help the family cope with the tragedy, such as giving Robinson a proper funeral, which is tentatively scheduled for May 9, according to the page. “It’s hard for Sade to rest in peace as we literally search for her remains,” Brown said during Friday’s vigil. More remains believed to be Robinson’s were discovered Thursday by a person walking along a remote, tree-lined stretch of beach in south Milwaukee.
Brown said she is working on starting a nonprofit called “Sade’s Voice,” which would “(continue to) support families of missing Black women and children. …Black and brown girls can go missing and no one looks at it. We talk about it for a week or two, but many of us go missing and are never heard from again.”
About 36% of missing women and girls are Black, according to 2022 data from the National Crime Information Center. While black women and girls make up about 7% of the U.S. population, according to census data.
There was movement in the Wisconsin Legislature earlier this year on a bill that would require the attorney general to create a task force on missing and murdered Black women and girls. The bill stalled in the Senate and did not receive a hearing. In addition to lawmakers, others point to a historic lack of police and media attention. ‘Missing white women syndrome’, as it is also called: disproportionate media attention with more attention to white women.
Scarbrough believes that despite Robinson’s death, this must be her daughter’s calling from a higher spirit. “You remain a voice,” she said. “Not just you, but all the black and brown girls who remain missing. And for which there is no accountability. God had to take my angel to speak to the universe, to speak to the world.”
Those who knew Robinson best say she was above all a happy and friendly person. “Sade was such a beautiful young lady. … The sweetest person and always happy,” said Linda Scarbrough, Robinson’s grandmother, who said she and Sade were like best friends to each other. “We had so much happiness and fun together,” she said.
“Every time we think of her, just smile — that big, beautiful smile she had.”
Jessica Van Egeren of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Family of slain Sade Robinson holds vigil in Milwaukee
