On Monday April 1, 2024, 19-year-old Sade Robinson disappeared. By the afternoon of Friday, April 12, Milwaukee and the whole world would know what had happened to her. When Maxwell S. Anderson, 33, a man who Robinson had a date with the night she disappeared, was formally charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and arson. But while the gruesome details of what happened are still coming to light, many are overlooking who Sade Robinson was.
Born in Vicksburg, MS, Sade Carleena Robinson moved to Milwaukee with her mother, Sheena Scarbrough, before she turned 2. She then split her time between here and Florida, where her father Carlos Robinson lives. Though Scarbrough and Robinson’s father never married, they tried their best to co-parent.
After splitting her time between both parents, in 2019 Robinson decided to return to Milwaukee to live with her mother again.
Scarbrough was always impressed by her daughter’s determination, like when she graduated from high school a semester early after moving from Florida. She recalled her surprise when Robinson asked to be driven to a job interview, something Scarbrough didn’t know was even in the works.
Robinson worked at Pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee’s East Side as a cashier, where she was a favorite among coworkers and customers alike, a manager told the newspaper.
Robinson was only a month away from finishing her associate degree in criminal justice at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Scarbrough said her daughter was still figuring out her next steps, but was looking at joining the U.S. Air Force. The family has other veterans, with Robinson’s grandfather a retired U.S. Navy veteran and her uncle a U.S. Army veteran, she said.
Robinson recently had gotten a passport and planned well with her money, self-funding recent trips to Jamaica and Atlanta.
The family is tight-knit, Scarbrough said, texting frequently and having groups on the family tracking app Life360. Robinson’s last location on the app has been a source for searches, she said.
Scarbrough said she was a standout older sister, even getting her little sister Adrianna a job at the Wisconsin Club, where Robinson worked a second job, and often picked her sister up for work.
She lived in a small “bachelorette” apartment and her grandmother Linda would often visit her, where Robinson loved to cook seafood for her, Scarbrough said.
“Her whole life was so ahead of her, she was so, so amazing. So beautiful, such a beautiful angel. Everywhere she went, people just admired my baby,” Scarbrough said.
While the police and prosecution continue their investigation into her untimely death, family and friends have continued scouring Milwaukee’s parks to find the rest of Robinson’s remains, so that her entire family can have the farewell she so rightly deserves.
