Robert Sylvester Alston

Last updated
Robert Sylvester Alston
Born (1969-05-19) May 19, 1969 (age 54)
Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S.
Conviction(s) Murder x4
Criminal penalty Life imprisonment without parole x4
Details
Victims4–6
Span of crimes
1991–1993
CountryUnited States
State(s) North Carolina
Date apprehended
January 28, 1994
Imprisoned at Columbus Correctional Institution, Brunswick, North Carolina

Robert Sylvester Alston (born May 19, 1969) is an American serial killer who raped and murdered at least four women in Greensboro, North Carolina from 1991 to 1993, whose bodies he then dismembered and buried in various locations. He made anonymous phone calls to investigators about the crimes in an attempt to confuse them and gain media attention. He pleaded guilty to all charges in 1998 and received multiple life terms.

Contents

Biography

Robert Sylvester Alston was born on May 19, 1969, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The son of school custodian Jack and factory worker Dorothy Alston, he was one of two children born to a poor, but otherwise stable and respected family. [1]

Alston attended the local Grimsley High School, where he developed a reputation as a social outcast due to his introverted nature, having trouble interacting with his peers and having no close friends. [1] Although he was tall and reasonably athletic, he did not participate in any extracurricular or social activities aside from the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which he barely paid attention to. After his graduation in 1987, Alston went to a junior college in Georgia, but quickly lost interest in the educational process and dropped out after the first semester. During this period, he developed an intimate relationship with a woman, and in 1989, she gave birth to a son. [1]

Alston and his girlfriend then moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where they had a second child born in 1991. Shortly after the birth of his second son, Alston got into a conflict with his partner and abandoned his family, returning to his parents' home in Greensboro, where he stuck with doing low-skilled labor over the next several years. [1] He changed a number of professions and, at the time of his arrest in 1994, worked as a dishwasher at the Rock-Ola Cafe on Battleground Avenue. [2] He refused deep emotional connections to everyone, including his own parents, and spent most of his time in his room or walking around the neighborhood. After his arrest, his father told reporters that there was little to no emotional intimacy or trust between them. [1]

Murders

As victims, Alston chose young black women who were either prostitutes or drug addicts, all of whom he picked up in his dark blue Pontiac. [1] His first confirmed murder occurred in April 1991, when he strangled 23-year-old JoAnne Robinson, a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine. Her naked body was found several blocks from his home. [3]

Alston committed his second murder in October of that year, strangling 26-year-old Sharon Martin. [3] According to investigators, he dismembered her corpse post-mortem and then scattered the remains in various areas of Greensboro. By late November, utility workers found her severed head and one of her hands in a wooded area on a street near the Jackson Middle School. [4]

The third murder occurred sometime during the spring of 1992, when the naked and decapitated body of 19-year-old Shameca Warren was discovered by police officers at a vacant lot near Alston's home. [3] [5] Warren, a prostitute suffering from drug addiction, had been reported missing by her relatives in May. [6]

Alston's last confirmed murder took place sometime in early-to-mid December 1993, when he raped and strangled 41-year-old Lois Elizabeth Williams. [2] After killing her, Alston dumped her body in the city's Piedmont National Cemetery, where it was found on December 14. Like all the previous victims, Williams began to use crack cocaine and engage in prostitution after losing her job as a manager for the News & Record . [7] While interviewing witnesses, investigators learned that she had last been seen in the company of a black male who appeared to be approximately 6 feet tall and about 185 pounds. Both Williams' and Warren's bodies were later recovered after an anonymous caller submitted tips to the police. [4]

Arrest, confessions, and recovery of remains

In early January 1994, Alston met a 29-year-old woman in Guilford County, who was trying to hitchhike home to Greensboro. [4] He offered her a ride, but when she got in the car, he drove to a forested area near the James B. Dudley High School where he proceeded to assault, beat, rape and attempt to strangle her. After the victim lost consciousness, Alston threw her off a bridge into the waters of a nearby river, but the victim miraculously survived despite her injuries. She was quickly found and driven to a hospital, where she managed to recover. She later told police officers what had happened and offered a description, on the basis of which a facial composite was devised. [4]

At the police station, the victim was presented with photographs of previously convicted black men, choosing one that she thought resembled her attacker – that of Robert Alston. [2] Although he had never been arrested up until that point, he was questioned on multiple occasions and considered a suspect due to the fact that most of the victims were found near his house. Alston was finally arrested on January 28, 1994, and was thereafter positively identified as the assailant of the hitchhiker. Shortly after this, he unexpectedly confessed to investigators that he had murdered Lois Williams. [2]

On April 18, based on his confession, Alston was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the Williams murder. He remained a suspect in the other crimes, but denied any involvement until 1996, when he contacted the Guilford County Prosecutor's Office and confessed to killing JoAnne Robinson. Alston was then charged, convicted and given another life term for her murder on August 19, 1996.

In late 1997, Alston contacted the Prosecutor's Office yet again, this time claiming responsibility for the murders of Sharon Martin and Shameca Warren. [8] Although investigators were unable to uncover any evidence directly linking him to these two cases, he was nonetheless indicted for both in January 1998. [9] During interrogations, Alston refused to reveal his true motives or point out where he had buried the women's remains, which were eventually recovered thanks to tips submitted by an anonymous caller. Investigators believed that Alston himself was the caller, but he claimed that it was not him. [9]

Trial and sentence

On September 3, 1998, Alston pleaded guilty to all charges, after which he received two life sentences without parole. [8] During the sentencing phase, he smiled while describing his crimes in sarcastic detail and showed no signs of remorse. At one point, he was asked by the judge and Warren's mother to reveal the location of her remains, but he turned this request down, stating the following: "I have had time to search my soul. What I did was wrong and I’ve made peace with God. Only me and God will have those answers." [10]

After his conviction, Alston was identified as the prime suspect in the murders of two other women who had been murdered and raped in Greensboro between 1991 and 1993 – namely Bernice Denise Robinson and Cheryl Lynn Mason, but was never charged in either killing, both of which remain unsolved. [11]

Status

Since his conviction, Alston has remained behind bars, being frequently transferred around various penitentiaries across the state. In the mid-2010s, he was visited twice by different journalists – in one interview, he stated that he was responsible for more than four murders, but was unwilling to cooperate with the Guilford County prosecutors. In 2016, he was interviewed by Nancy McLaughlin, a journalist for the News & Record. In that interview, he said the following: "I won't feed anyone's fascination with my crimes. That trigger, that one thing that pushed me over the edge, I'll die with that. [...] I don't see myself as a serial killer, but people do. Society is so quick to put monikers on people, name tags. Robert Alston. That's who I am." [12]

In 2002, the Greensboro Medical Examiner's Office was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines to the family of Sharon Martin after her remains were lost. [13] The chief examiner, John Butts, later released a statement apologizing for the mix-up. [13]

As of January 2023, Alston is still alive and is currently serving his sentence at the Columbus Correctional Institution in Brunswick.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles, California, between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Bianchi</span> American serial killer, kidnapper and rapist

Kenneth Alessio Bianchi is an American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist. He is known for the Hillside Strangler murders committed with his cousin Angelo Buono Jr. in Los Angeles, California, as well as for murdering two more women in Washington by himself. Bianchi is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Washington State Penitentiary for these crimes. Bianchi was also at one time a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester, New York, from 1971 to 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Turner</span> American serial killer (born 1966)

Chester Dewayne Turner is an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women and an unborn baby in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altemio Sanchez</span> Serial killer and rapist

Altemio C. Sanchez, also known as the Bike Path Rapist, was a Puerto Rican serial killer who is known to have raped and murdered at least three women, and raped at least 9 to 15 girls and women in and around Buffalo, New York, during a 31-year span from 1975, though perhaps earlier, to 2006. He was apprehended in 2007 through DNA evidence and sentenced to 75 years-to-life, serving 16 years before dying from apparent suicide in 2023.

Henry Louis Wallace, also known as the “Taco Bell Strangler”, is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alphabet murders</span> Unsolved serial murders

The Alphabet murders are an unsolved series of child murders which occurred between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freeway Phantom</span> Unidentified serial killer in the US

The Freeway Phantom is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five girls and a woman in Washington, D.C., between April 1971 and September 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Alcala</span> American serial killer (1943–2021)

Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, receiving an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two further homicides committed in New York State in 1971 and 1977. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – authorities believe the actual number is as high as 130.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Tobin</span> Scottish serial killer (1946–2022)

Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucious Boyd</span> American murderer on death row

Lucious Boyd is an American convicted murderer, rapist, and suspected serial killer who is currently on death row in Florida. Boyd was sentenced to death for the 1998 rape and murder of 21-year-old Dawnia Dacosta and is a suspect in at least ten other homicides and disappearances. He was acquitted of the 1993 murder of a man whom he claimed he stabbed in self-defense. He was profiled on Forensic Files.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Joanna Parrish</span> British murder case

Joanna Marie Parrish was a British tutor and language student from Newnham on Severn, Gloucestershire, England, who was murdered in the Burgundy region of France while working at a local school as part of her degree course in 1990. Parrish, a University of Leeds undergraduate who was studying French, disappeared on the night of 16–17 May after placing an advertisement in a local Burgundy newspaper offering private English lessons, and arranging to meet a man who it is believed contacted her with details of a potential student. Her naked body was found in the Yonne River in Monéteau a small town next to Auxerre the following day. She had been raped, beaten and strangled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Kibbe</span> American serial killer (1939–2021)

Roger Reece Kibbe was an American serial killer and rapist known as the "I-5 Strangler". Kibbe found all but one of his victims on freeways around Sacramento, California. In 1991 he was sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment for the death of Darcie Frackenpohl.

Satish Kumar, better known simply as Satish, is a convicted Indian paedophile and serial killer who was active in Bahadurgarh in Haryana from 1995 to 1998. He admitted kidnapping and attempting to rape fourteen girls, murdering ten. Police confirmed Satish's involvement in twelve cases, including the ten murders. Since his victims were all five to nine years of age, he is also known as the Bahadurgarh baby killer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Little</span> American serial killer (1940–2020)

Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.

Donald Murphy is an American suspected serial killer, sex offender and bank robber, convicted of murdering two prostitutes in Detroit in 1980. During this time, several similar murders occurred in the city, presumably committed by two or more killers operating in the area, with Murphy himself confessing to committing at least six of them. However, he was convicted of only two with the available evidence, and sentenced to 15–30 years imprisonment for each murder.

The Denver Prostitute Killer was an unidentified American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995. In 2005, based upon results from DNA profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders. The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes was considered to have been committed by different people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerome Dennis (serial killer)</span> American serial killer

Jerome Dennis is an American serial killer and kidnapper who committed five murders and several sexual assaults in Essex County, New Jersey, from 1991 to 1992. At the time of the murders, he was on parole for a prior rape conviction. After his arrest, Dennis pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Kappen</span> Welsh serial killer (1941–1990)

Joseph William Kappen, also known as the Saturday Night Strangler, was a Welsh serial killer who committed the rape and murder of three teenage girls in Llandarcy and Tonmawr, near his home town of Port Talbot, in 1973. Kappen is also suspected of committing a fourth murder in February 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1996 Raleigh murders</span> Serial murders in Raleigh, North Carolina

The 1996 Raleigh murders were a series of six murders and several rapes targeted towards female residents of the Raleigh, North Carolina area occurring from January to December 1996. Authorities, at the time, believed the killings to be the work of a serial killer, and the cases were investigated under that belief. During the investigation a homeless drifter named John Williams Jr. was arrested for two of the murders, for which he was later tried and convicted, and authorities declared him the prime suspect in the other cases. As other evidence emerged, it was revealed that multiple people perpetrated the murders as Leaman Evans was convicted for the sole murder of Dewanna Burt. The other three murders of Dawn Grandy, Cynthia Brown and Patricia Woods are still unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Maury</span> American serial killer on death row

Robert Edward Maury, known as The Tipster Killer, is an American serial killer who sexually assaulted and strangled at least three women to death in Shasta County, California, from 1985 to 1987. After each murder, Maury called into a tip line to tell detectives where the bodies were located, contributing to his nickname.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bernie Woodall (April 28, 1994). "SUSPECT IN SLAYINGS KEPT TO SELF". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bernie Woodall (April 18, 1994). "MAN INDICTED IN STRANGULATION". News & Record . Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 Tatiana M. and Lorraine Ahearn (September 22, 1992). "FIFTH SLAYING VICTIM FOUND". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Millicent Rothrock (January 2, 1998). "INMATE CHARGED IN PAIR OF SLAYINGS IN GREENSBORO\". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  5. ↑ Kelly Simmons (July 27, 1992). "BODY FOUND IN LOT HAD BEEN DECAPITATED". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Fourth woman's body found in Greensboro". Asheville Citizen-Times . July 26, 1992 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Bernie Woodall (December 15, 1993). "CONTROLLED BY ADDICTION / CRACK PLAYS ROLE IN WOMAN'S DEATH". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Killer admits to more murders". Rocky Mount Telegram . September 4, 1998 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. 1 2 "Jailed killer is charged with two more murders". Rocky Mount Telegram. January 4, 1998 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Admitted serial killer will never be eligible for parole". The Charlotte Observer . September 5, 1998 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ Tatiana M. and Lorraine Ahearn (September 23, 1992). "FEARFULLY, SHE WALKED THE STREETS". News & Record. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023.
  12. ↑ Steve Doyle (May 4, 2022). "Greensboro may have a serial killer, but he wouldn't be the city's first". WGHP . Archived from the original on May 5, 2022.
  13. 1 2 "Settlement ends case of lost body parts". The News & Observer . March 22, 2002 – via Newspapers.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.