Stories

The Times-Picayune
December 5, 2004

Keith O'Brien
Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS -- For the longest time, Tasha Smith didn’t listen to her family’s concerns about her boyfriend, Randolph Robinson. She was the responsible one. She knew what she was doing. And anyway, Smith told relatives, their relationship wasn’t that serious.

But in the final, frantic days of July, as fear overcame whatever feelings she once had for Robinson, Smith, 21, broke down and reached out for help from police, the court system and her loved ones.

It began with the purchase of a .25-caliber handgun. Travis Smith, her older brother, wanted her to have it just in case. He taught her how to use it and also how to fend off an attacker with her hands, how to gouge an eye, go for the nose, keep someone from choking her.

His sister listened, taking his advice and the gun home with her that day to Cambronne Street in the heart of Hollygrove. But knowing what she did about Robinson, Smith didn’t feel safe for long.

She once had ignored the story on the streets: that Robinson, a former cook at Jacques-Imo’s, had shot and killed his ex-girlfriend in 1999 and gotten away with it. And considering the events of recent weeks -- the harassing telephone calls, unwelcome visits and stalking -- she couldn’t ignore it any longer. It was time, she decided, to do something about it. And the gun was just the beginning.

Within hours of leaving her brother, she was calling 911. Smith wanted to report that she believed Robinson had rigged her back door in an apparent attempt to slip inside, said her mother, Shirley Gant-Smith. Smith’s report, along with her other complaints and Robinson’s violent criminal history, could have been enough to merit a police investigation, according to the New Orleans Police Department’s written policy for handling domestic cases.

At the very least, responding officers should have taken Smith’s statement, written a report of the incident, and forwarded the report to the domestic violence detective in the 2nd District for further review -- all requirements under the Police Department’s domestic violence policy.

But Smith, who was scared enough to buy a gun earlier that day, apparently was unable to convince police officers of the gravity of her situation. The reasons are not known. The department declined to comment on the investigation. What is known, and what a team of local domestic violence advocates will soon take up for review, is that a system set up to prevent domestic tragedies apparently broke down.

Smith’s 911 call was recorded simply as a "complaint." It was, in police language, an NAT: "necessary action taken." Robinson was not arrested, and Smith turned elsewhere for help.

The next day, she went to Orleans Parish Civil Court and got a judge to sign a temporary restraining order against Robinson. But it was just a piece of paper, one of many now charting Robinson’s path from prison to parole, back to prison and finally to Smith’s doorstep. A court hearing wasn’t scheduled until three weeks later, and sheriff’s deputies wouldn’t try to serve Robinson with the restraining order until the next day.

By then, it would be too late.

Tasha Smith was dead.

Grown-up role

They met in the neighborhood, a friend-of-a-friend sort of thing, and Robinson set his mind on dating Smith. She was a petite girl, beautiful, with eyes so big that as a baby she earned the nickname Tweety Bird. But as she grew up, it became clear to those who knew her that Smith’s tiny body belied her inner strength.

She had grown up hard and fast, a twin and the third of five children. Her father, a sanitation worker, was hit by a car on the job and killed in 1997. And with her two older siblings out of the house and her mother off working, Smith took on grown-up responsibilities as a teenager.

She paid bills, did laundry, cleaned house and bought groceries. She looked after the children of young mothers in her neighborhood, her cousin Shanya Russell said. She changed their diapers and bathed them while also caring for her own siblings, twin brother Toney and younger brother Bill.

But Smith, who had dropped out of Alcee Fortier Senior High School, also had dreams of her own. She wanted to get a job, move up in the world. And with her contagious smile and meticulous nature, those who knew her were sure she would succeed.

At the New Orleans Job Corps, where she enrolled for training on July 14, 2003, she was considered mature and polite, wise beyond her years. Employers took one look at her, counselor Leroy Crawford said, and hired her on the spot. She was just that sort of person.

So when Smith met Randolph Robinson a couple of years ago, everyone figured that she knew what she was doing. But that didn’t mean that they had to like it.

There was a silence about Robinson, they say now. A vibe that just didn’t sit right. Shirnell Carr, Smith’s older sister, said she thought Robinson, now 31, was too old for her sister. She also didn’t like the cross he had tattooed on his forehead. But most of all, she didn’t like the rumor that hung over him.

"You should listen to rumors," Carr said. Especially this one. It had to do with a murder, the murder of Atha Jackson.

Odd couple

Robinson was out on parole when he met Jackson in 1997. They made for an odd couple.

Robinson was 24 and a convicted felon. Jackson was 30 and a mother of two. Robinson had recently served four years of a eight-year sentence for attempted armed robbery and attempted second-degree murder. Jackson had a steady job as a clerk in the accounting department at the Housing Authority of New Orleans and a dream to open a dance studio.

It was well known that Robinson carried a gun, even though it violated the terms of his parole, Jackson’s brother, Dwayne Kelley, said. There was violence in his eyes, he said, and in his words too. "I don’t care about living," Kelley remembered Robinson saying once. This didn’t seem to be the answer to the wrecked marriage and flawed man his sister was trying to escape.

In court documents that fall, Jackson complained that her husband of five years, Gerard Jackson, beat her while she was sleeping, beat her until she lost consciousness, once tore a gash in her ear that required 12 stitches, and finally bloodied her face in an attack on Sept. 18, 1997, that appeared to be her breaking point.

She filed for a court injunction. She told the court that Gerard Jackson had threatened to kill her, and the court ruled in her favor. Gerard Jackson, who was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling crack cocaine, was ordered not to go near her unless it was to pick up the child they had together, Geranesha.

Atha Jackson moved out of the Magnolia housing development, where the couple had lived together, and into a place on Old Gentilly Road. She was trying to move on, family members said, just as Robinson was trying to move in.

The two had met in Hollygrove, they said, a casual friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. But by the fall of 1998, Robinson had won over the petite, beautiful dancer. He and Jackson were living together.

"He was cool then," said Jackson’s sister, Desiree Kelley, who moved in with her older sister at the time. But soon, she said, he turned jealous -- "so jealous." She recalled how he didn’t like it when Jackson went out with girlfriends or even when she took Geranesha to visit her father.

They argued. One night, Jackson’s mother, Lynn Williams, said she went over to find her daughter hysterical because Robinson was banging on the front door and trying to get inside. That night, Williams said, she heard Robinson tell Jackson, "If I can’t have you, no one will." Another night, after a similar quarrel, Dwayne Kelley said, he confronted his sister’s boyfriend but left because he feared for his own safety.

There was reason for concern. Police had picked up Robinson in May 1998 for carrying a gun, a violation of his parole. He could have gone back to prison. But the parole board let him off with a reprimand in July 1998, and Jackson herself was reluctant to report other problems to police, including an attack that occurred in the weeks leading up to her death.

"Oh, Jesus. She was messed up," said Williams, recalling how she found her daughter in the hospital that day. "Her face, . . . it looked like a balloon. It looked like a big balloon, and she was just crying when she saw me."

Williams remembers saying that it was time to tell police everything. "The policeman was there," she said. But worried that it would be her fault if Robinson’s parole was revoked, Jackson wouldn’t talk.

"This is your life," she told her daughter. But nothing she said could change Jackson’s mind.

"She just shook her head," Williams recalled. "She just shook her head and cried."

Most dangerous time

It ended for Atha Jackson outside her home, on the sidewalk, cut down in a hail of gunfire on April 22, 1999, at 7 a.m.

Jackson had been following her regular routine that morning: dropping off her daughter at a friend’s house to board the school bus and then returning home to get ready for work. It was a routine Robinson knew well, said Desiree Kelley, who had last seen her sister the previous night.

In prior weeks, the two had been arguing. Kelley, like her mother, wanted her older sister to report Robinson to police for the beating that left her eating through a straw. Unwilling to do so, Jackson instead decided to end her relationship with him.

That is the most dangerous time in any abusive relationship, domestic violence advocates say. When the abuser loses control, he lashes out, trying to get it back. And so, when police arrived at Jackson’s murder scene and questioned people about her enemies, it didn’t take long for Robinson to emerge as the main suspect.

It wasn’t just that he had "given her trouble in the past," as one officer said at the time. Police also had a description of a car driving away from the scene that morning and a witness, a 14-year-old boy. By the end of the day, Robinson was in custody, arrested at his Oak Street home, and booked with second-degree murder. The case, to Jackson’s family, appeared strong.

But four months later in August, it all fell apart. The teen refused to testify. According to notes in the case file, his mother said he didn’t see anything. Lacking the boy’s testimony, prosecutors dropped the charges against Robinson, who returned to the streets, only to have his parole revoked on Jan. 19, 2000, in the wake of Jackson’s murder.

He served the next 14 months in Orleans Parish Prison, but that did little to console Jackson’s family, which had smoldering regrets about what had happened and Jackson’s two young children to raise. The relatives had expected Robinson to receive a life sentence for Jackson’s death.

Instead, he walked free on April 5, 2001, back to Hollygrove and into the arms of Tasha Smith.

’Bumps’

Unaware of Robinson’s past, or even of Atha Jackson’s name, Travis Smith still was troubled enough by his sister’s new boyfriend to talk to her about him.

Travis Smith didn’t want to tell her not to see him. He worried she might date Robinson just to defy him. But he wanted to let her know that Robinson probably wasn’t her type, and he was relieved when she told him that their relationship wasn’t serious.

Time proved otherwise. They were always together and spent holidays at each other’s homes. They went out on regular dates -- to clubs, to movies -- and in time, the relationship began to appear as normal as any other, Gant-Smith said. Their arguments were considered "bumps." The rumor about Robinson’s past was considered just that, a rumor.

"She didn’t think it was true," said Carr, Tasha Smith’s sister. Others didn’t know about it at all. Smith kept quiet about it. Loved ones said she didn’t want others worrying about her. And for a while, there appeared to be little worth worrying about.

But this year, after Tasha Smith learned that Robinson was seeing another woman and decided to end the relationship, family members said, they noticed a change.

Smith, who had a sparkling attendance record at the Job Corps program, started missing class. Lakeisha Urquhart, a career preparation counselor, said she talked to her about it and Crawford, another counselor, visited her at home several times.

Crawford had noted signs of Robinson’s possessive behavior in the past. Specifically, he said, he had overheard Smith telling her girlfriends that she couldn’t go places with them because Robinson wouldn’t let her. Then, Urquhart said, Smith tried to shield them from what was happening, leaving them with only foggy details of a relationship unraveling.

"Whatever was going on in that house was just overwhelming for her," Crawford said. "She kept saying: ‘I need to find me a job. I need more hours.’ "

They said they suggested she seek help from the YWCA Battered Women’s Program; at the Job Corps they often work with women in abusive relationships. But Urquhart said Smith didn’t want to leave her family. Instead, she left the Job Corps, dropping from the rolls officially on May 5 after missing too many days of class.

She quit her job at a Carrollton Avenue clothing store as well. Robinson, she said, was following her there. Family members said he didn’t seem to understand that it was over, that Smith was moving on and even beginning to date someone else.

Robinson kept calling, they said, and there were other incidents as well. Smith told people that Robinson followed her on a date and tracked her down in July at her new job at a Picadilly Cafeteria in Gentilly. As always, she was well liked at work, considered a good employee.

But Smith was increasingly distracted. She appeared stressed, tired, and even more quiet than usual.

She was scared.

Hard to prove

Finally admitting her fears to loved ones, Smith agreed with her brother: She would get a gun. They bought it July 27 at The Shooter’s Club in Metairie, and Travis Smith taught her how to use it. But the gun itself didn’t change much.

The very day Smith went to the shooting range, Robinson stopped by the house on Cambronne Street, Gant-Smith said. Failing to find his ex-girlfriend there, he decided to wait, family members said, helping himself to a glass of water in the kitchen while no one else was in the room.

Later, after Smith returned home, she found a washcloth slipped between the frame of the back door in the kitchen and the door latch. Suspecting Robinson had rigged the door so he could slip back into the house later, Smith called 911.

By all accounts, Smith wasn’t bruised or battered, and she couldn’t prove that Robinson had rigged the door. At best, domestic violence advocates said later, she had a stalking complaint -- a difficult charge to make and prove.

Officers left without writing a report, and Smith went to civil court the next day. She wanted a temporary restraining order.

By then, she was so nervous that her hands trembled as she wrote, said Lorina Williams, a family friend who went with Smith to the courthouse. The first time she tried to fill out the six-page petition, she messed up. She got another one. Then, sitting on a bench in the hallway, she began again, pouring out her fears in print:

"Randolph Robinson came to my house. . . . He waited to talk to me. . . . Later that evening I discovered a face towel in the back door. . . . I heard someone in the yard, and the dog was barking. . . . Randolph said he will never leave me or let me leave him."

If she had requested extra help, or if her case had somehow appeared "urgent" or "dramatic," she may have been referred to Pat Glorioso, the court’s domestic violence coordinator. Glorioso said she may have then talked to Smith, determined the seriousness of her situation and helped put her in touch with a domestic violence detective.

Such detectives -- there is one in each district -- are specialized to deal with domestic violence cases and hailed as one of the biggest reasons why the Police Department’s handling of domestic crimes has improved in recent years.

Under department policy, the detectives are to be informed of all domestic violence calls so that they can follow up. It is not known if the 2nd District domestic violence detective was ever aware of Smith’s July 27 call or anything else about her case.

But with Smith’s 911 call classified as a general complaint and no written report from the responding officers, it is unlikely the call got that far. And after Smith got to civil court, Glorioso said, the chances were slim that her case would have received special attention.

That month alone, civil judges issued 90 temporary restraining orders. In the minds of the people requesting them, each one was urgent and dramatic. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be there, Glorioso said. In hindsight, Glorioso wishes she had talked to Smith, wishes she or someone else had seen Robinson’s criminal history, but at the time, her story appeared no more serious than the next.

A judge signed the order. The Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff’s Office processed it. Smith took a deep breath, went outside and lit a cigarette. She was scared, she told Williams on the drive home, more scared than ever.

But she also felt somewhat better, Williams said. After days of apologizing to family members for not listening to their concerns, she was finally doing something to end the relationship for good.

If it scared her, it didn’t show that evening. She went to work, saying nothing to her cousin Shanya Russell about the restraining order. She woke the next day and helped pay court fines for her new boyfriend. Then she rode the Tulane Avenue bus home to Hollygrove, walked down Cambronne Street, and up the steps of her house, where she was shot five times from behind.

She screamed as the bullets sliced through her, into her head, neck, back and shoulder. She collapsed in a tank top and blue jeans. And she died just before armed sheriff’s deputies arrived at Robinson’s house a mile away.

They were there to tell him not to abuse, harass, threaten, stalk or even contact Smith until an Aug. 18 court date. But Robinson was nowhere to be found -- not then or now, more than four months later.

Wanted in Smith’s murder, Robinson has done the one thing the families of his ex-girlfriends wished he had done a long time ago.

He has disappeared.