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Alleged 'Shopping Cart Killer' to be given sanity evaluation

Fairfax Co. Police

A judge has ordered that the man charged with the murder of two women in Harrisonburg last year be given a psychological evaluation. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.

Anthony Eugene Robinson, whom law enforcement have dubbed the Shopping Cart Killer, appeared in the Rockingham Circuit Court by video conference Friday morning. His attorney, Louis Nagy, had filed a motion that Robinson be evaluated for his sanity at the time of the alleged murders of Allene "Beth" Redmon and Tonita Lorice Smith.

Judge Bruce D. Albertson granted that motion. Nagy said in court that Robinson's family had led him to medical documentation of a mental illness, and his sanity at the time of the murders may be an issue in the case.

Trials for the two women's murders, and charges of concealing their bodies, have been set for August and September of 2023. Among the subpoenaed witnesses are an agent with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and a detective from Fairfax County, where Robinson has been named as the primary suspect in two other women's deaths.

Stephanie Harrison, of Redding, California, last spoke with her family while in the D.C. area in August of last year. Cheyenne Brown, of Washington, D.C., was last seen exactly six weeks after Harrison was last heard from. Allene "Beth" Redmon was last seen in Harrisonburg three weeks and three days later; and Tonita Lorece Smith was last seen exactly three weeks after that.

Robinson has also been linked to a woman who was murdered in D.C. last year.

Editor's note, Sept. 3 — a previous version of this story misspelled Tonita Lorice Smith's name. It has been corrected.

Randi B. Hagi first joined the WMRA team in 2019 as a freelance reporter. Her writing and photography have been featured in The Harrisonburg Citizen, where she previously served as the assistant editor; as well as The Mennonite; Mennonite World Review; and Eastern Mennonite University's Crossroads magazine.
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