Wisconsin resident Maxwell Anderson, 34, was handed a life sentence without parole on August 1 following his conviction for the brutal April 1, 2024, murder and dismemberment of 19-year-old criminal justice student Sade Robinson, whom he had reportedly met on a first date in Milwaukee.
Robinson’s disappearance sparked national horror when her severed leg washed ashore at a Lake Michigan beach park the next day. Her car was found torched nearby, and over the ensuing weeks, additional remains were recovered across Wisconsin and northern Illinois, including a foot, an arm, and part of her torso. Her head and other parts remain unfound.
From arrest through trial, Anderson stayed silent, until his sentencing hearing, where he addressed the court directly. “I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to Sade’s family and everyone else affected by this tragedy,” he said, before denying all charges and announcing plans to appeal. “I took this to trial without ever once trying to make a plea deal … because I did not commit these crimes.”
Judge Laura Crivello, who oversaw the case, dismissed Anderson’s claims. She described his actions as “unconscionable” and declared him ineligible for extended supervision — Wisconsin’s equivalent of parole. Anderson was also sentenced to an additional seven and a half years for mutilating a corpse and a year and a half for arson.
Victim impact statements punctuated the proceedings. Robinson’s mother, Sheena Scarbrough, addressed Anderson forcefully, referring to him as a “demon” and demanding he be “returned back to hell.” She alleged premeditation: “My daughter had to cross his demonic path. You plotted and planned to kill, dismember, then you disrespectfully spread my daughter across Milwaukee like a piece of trash.”
Carlos Robinson, Sade’s father, echoed his wife’s anguish: “She was amazing. She lit up every room she went in… But to lose your child in this manner…there’s no therapy, no kind of treatments for that.”
Prosecutors’ case hinged on compelling forensic and digital evidence. Surveillance footage mapped Anderson and Robinson’s movements from a bar and restaurant on April 1 through to Anderson’s apartment, where photos retrieved from his phone depicted Robinson incapacitated on his basement couch as Anderson groped her.
The following day after the murder, a video showed Robinson’s Honda Civic leaving Anderson’s apartment and arriving at Warnimont Park along Lake Michigan’s shore. Investigators believe Anderson dismembered her body there, then burned her vehicle behind an abandoned building and fled by bus. An informant also testified that he had planned the murder weeks in advance and walked detectives through a detailed scheme.
Robinson was a criminal justice student at Milwaukee Area Technical College, scheduled to graduate in May 2024. Her family received a posthumous degree on her behalf. Her classmates remembered her as kind, driven, and full of promise, a future cut short by violence.
As Anderson begins his life term, his public denial and plans to appeal continue to provoke outrage. For Robinson’s loved ones, nothing will bring her back, but justice was served with Anderson being handed a life sentence.
His chances of getting out on appeal are slim to none, so he will likely never taste freedom.
