Milwaukee Man, Maxwell Anderson, Found Guilty by Jury in Sade Robinson Murder and Dismemberment Case

MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Milwaukee man guilty Friday of killing and dismembering a 19-year-old college student on the night of their first date.

In April 2024, Maxwell Anderson was charged by prosecutors with several crimes, including first-degree intentional homicide, corpse dismemberment, arson, and concealing a body, all related to Sade Robinson’s death. The jury found Anderson guilty of all the charges.

Authorities suspect that Anderson killed Robinson during their first date on April 1, 2024, proceeding to dismember her body and scatter the remains throughout Milwaukee County. It is also believed that he set her car on fire to destroy evidence.

During the closing arguments on Thursday afternoon, Assistant District Attorney Ian Vance-Curzan informed jurors that Anderson and Robinson had initially met at a bar a week prior to her disappearance. Evidence such as surveillance footage and cell phone records, including texts and location data, indicate that the pair spent the late afternoon and early evening of April 1 drinking at two different bars before returning to Anderson’s apartment.

Vance-Curzan said photos on Anderson’s phone show Anderson groping Robinson as she lay face down on his couch. The prosecutor said Robinson was incapacitated at that point and could not have resisted.

Surveillance video shows her car leaving the apartment early on the morning of April 2 and arriving at a county park along the shores of Lake Michigan. There, under the cover of darkness, he cut her body into pieces, Vance-Curzan said. Later that morning, he burned her car behind an abandoned building before taking a bus back to his apartment, Vance-Curzan said.

One of Robinson’s arms was found on a Waukegan beach, as well.

Anderson’s attorney, Tony Cotton, said during his closing arguments that prosecutors failed to show Anderson ever intended to kill Robinson, a key element in the first-degree intentional homicide charge. Cotton also argued that nobody heard a struggle in his apartment. Anderson never tried to conceal his identity when he boarded the bus and his clothes and shoes were clean then even though he had been supposedly dismembering a body in a muddy park, Cotton added.

Asked to comment on the verdicts, Cotton said in an email to The Associated Press on Friday that he’s sure it was a difficult case for jurors and he respected their time and attention.

Anderson faces a mandatory life sentence in prison when he’s sentenced Aug. 15.