Episode 357

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
All right, and what then? What did you actually find?
It looks like it looks like the back in the
butt in an arm?
What is this?
What?
Where's the show? Where's the fucking show? Put out the
fucking show?
What is this?
Nightmare?
Shit? What is this? AI?
What is this garbage? Your shit sucks? Put out the show.
Put it out. Put it out. Now, you just put
out one, you fucking scammer. You're not even fucking put
it out the show every day, You fucking a piece
of shit. Welcome to episode three fifty seven sword Scale.
So if you go to our homepage swordscale dot com,
there's a brand new show called Tales. It's an animated
true crime podcast thing. I mean I call it a
thing because we invented it. There's nothing like it, at
least I don't think there is. Go check it out.
We would really like some feedback. And as an artist it,
you know, it's nice to hear what you think the audience.
Just try to be nice about it and don't tell me.
I just stick to what I'm good at because that
kills any kind of creativity. It's early April at Warnemont Park, Wisconsin.
It's around lunchtime and the wind is whipping off Lake Michigan,
as it usually does. The grass above the bluff is
still flattened from the winter. The golf course sign rattles
in the background. Below the hill. The waves of Lake
Michigan beat steadily against the rock and sand. Lake Michigan
stretches for more than three hundred miles from north to south.
It's early April and the water temperature is typically just
above freezing. Even on calmer days, the wind pushes surface
currents parallel to the shore. Two young men are walking
near the bluff. They aren't looking for anything. They're just
moving along the edge of the park, glancing down towards
the shoreline the way people do. The winter weather has
broken and they're enjoying the walk and conversation, even though
it's still brisk out below them. The land drops towards
the shoreline. It's a steep incline of dirt, grass and
scattered rock. They take the path down to the sandy
beach and start walking. Their footprints follow behind them. Then
one of them notices something on the slope. It isn't
at the bottom near the water. It's lodged part way
up the bluff, about two thirds of the way up
from the shoreline. Whatever it is is caught in the
grass and loose soil. At first, it just looks like debris,
but debris would be in pieces, and this is one
large mass. As they walk closer wondering what it is,
maybe a large fish of some sort, the shape resolves.
It's not debris, it's not aquatic. It's pretty horrifying. Actually
a foot with five toes. The toenails are painted neon pink.
Now it's clear the foot is attached to a human leg.
The lower portion is unshaven. The skin appears smooth. There
are no visible tattoos, no visible scars. The foot is
facing west, the top of the thigh facing east. The
upper portion of the leg has been severed just below
the ball of the thigh bone. Flesh and bone are exposed,
but there's no blood. The skin at the cut edge
forms a jagged, almost Z shaped pattern. The thigh bone
its self appears partially cut through. For a moment, neither
man speaks, but they exchange shocked expressions. The wind continues,
then one of them pulls out his phone.
Okay, where in.
One of my park are you by the time?
Where by the time by the golf course?
Okay, what's going on there?
Oh no, we just the lake the west, down by
the whole lake on the quay.
Follow what down there?
Wor a worse human worst?
Okay?
Then we found that leg.
Dude had team's his own hell phont Oh, well they.
Can't for everyone on one it's been.
Walking down, sir, hold on a second, Milwaukee County. If
you guys have an officer and an ambulance to meet
these two gentlemen at the.
Parking lot by the golf course.
Apparently they found the leg down by the down by
the water.
Yeah, are you guys any people?
Yeah, we're a couple of deputies.
Okay, all right, all right, you're welcome.
Deputies arrive. But by this time the leg is shifted location.
It's not part way up the bluff where the men
first saw it. Now it rests near the base, closer
to the water line, and the waves are closing in
on it. One of them is forced to move it
carefully away from the water.
Guys, I forgot to ask you who who was the
one who actually called nine one one.
Wasn't you okay?
And then uh, when you guys initially seen the leg,
where was it?
It was just like on the beach. It was on
the beach. It wasn't up on the hill.
No, no, no, are they have fallen there? Since we
were in the clay on the bike pointed.
No, it's all good.
It's all good.
Like I said, you're not in trouble, dude, like any
like a little detail could possibly help.
So it was on the cliff and then it slid
down or.
Yeah, okay because when they got down there, he had
moved it from by the rock because it was I
was trying to point it by the cliff.
Because it was by the cliff, It's like, where is it?
And then we were walking and I looked down.
I'm like, oh, it's right there. He goes, oh shit. Okay,
all right, cool, all right, I'll be right back with
you guys.
Okay, all right, that was weird, right, not agreeing on
where you spotted a human leg, because yeah, that wouldn't
be burned into your memory forever. On that very same morning,
April second, twenty twenty four, the Milwaukee Fire Department response
to a vehicle fire in an alley behind a vacant
building near twenty ninth Street. The call comes in just
after sunrise. It's rain, the pavement is wet, and humidity
is high in the alleys. It's a blue twenty twenty
Honda Civic. Flames have already broken out and the car
is engulfed. Firefighters extinguish the car quickly, and police have
it towed to a secure impound lot. Later, investigators realized
the fire did not start in the engine bay or
the trunk. The damaged patterns are consistent with the fire
that started inside the passenger compartment. In the burned vehicle,
they find remnants of a fleece blanket and a purse.
A handheld bicklighter is found in the back seat. On
the front passenger floorboard, investigators find what's left of a
green stuffed animal. When they take it from the car,
they notice a strong odour consistent with petroleum distillate. The
report notes the odor is overwhelming. Surveillance cameras in the
area capture it in real time at approximately seven thirty am.
Footage from a nearby building shows an unknown individual walking
southbound from the direction of the vehicle fire In that
same footage, two women can be heard shouting he did it,
it's him, It's gonna explode. The figure continues walking southbound
and disappears from the frame. Back at the lake, officers
are still investigating the leg and wondering if this was
a boating accident or something else.
It makes it hard till I see where it came
from because of the weather. Yeah, you know what I mean.
It feels dry and might be able to see like
a path where it like slid down from what do you.
Say, like right off your fight a stick and foot.
So I don't think the waves will call that high.
So I don't think it lost.
Oh, I don't think so either. I don't think so either.
I'm thinking I'm gonna take a wild guest say it
was a dump job. Yeah, like they got stuck into
the crack and now it's the radar takes the sif
slide down, That's why I want to here he's come
down and be like, hey, yeah, there's a feaver bug here.
There's may the rest of the body. Otherwise I'll go
over there see if there's anything else.
Even at first glance, officers determined this was probably no
boating accident. This was a dump job. This was someone
dumping body parts over the cliffs and alongside the shoreline,
and the police combed the beach for days. Nothing else
surface there. They were no longer talking about the lake.
They were talking about a person whose body parts might
be scattered everywhere, and they were right. Two days later,
another piece of human flesh would fit the puzzle, this
time in a whole other state.
Another gruesome discovery along the shores of Lake Michigan, this
time in Waukegan, Illinois. The Lake County Corner says someone
walking the beach Saturday night found a human right arm,
believed to be a woman's. The coroner describes the arm
as quote mostly intact.
And another part of Milwaukee, a mother has been waiting
for her nineteen year old daughter to call. They last
spoke on April first, over FaceTime, and nothing about that
conversation suggested it would be the last time they would talk.
By April third, she hasn't heard from her, but this
is only slightly unusual. Her daughter is extremely busy, working
two jobs, including shifts at pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee's East Side.
She's also a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College. And
she has her own apartment in the Lower East Side.
A routine is complex. Some mornings start early with work,
some evenings and late, and classes fill up most of
the gaps. When she's not working or studying, she spends
time with her friend friends and tries to have a
romantic life. She's been balancing adulthood in real time. Like
the rest of us, paychecks, homework, rent, friendships. It wouldn't
have been unusual for her to miss a call to
text back later. It wouldn't have been out of the
question for a day to pass quickly, but two days,
two days felt different. Her phone has not responded, she
hasn't returned messages, no one has heard her voice. For
someone juggling two jobs in college, disappearing without a word
just doesn't fit. Friends have also noticed, all right.
Josh, So, Yeah, the reason I'm calling you is I'm
calling in regards to uh Soda Robinson And could you
just kind of like inform me how you know her
and when the last time you talked to her.
Yeah, We've been talking for like, i'd say, about a
month since I moved to Rochester, Minnesota. But I mean
I'm from Milwaukee, so I had met her before last weekend.
It was my birthday, so I came home for like
four days or whatever, and we ended up hanging out
multiple times. Saturday, I ended up staying at her place,
stayed till Sunday morning, and then I left.
I did some other things during the day whatever, hung
out with my family or whatever.
And then Sunday night it was Easter like I met
her little like.
Easter basket or whatever.
I brought it to her at her grandparents place, so
I met her family and everything.
And then Sunday night, I mean something that I saw.
Or at her grandparents stayed there for about an hour
and then I left, and then that was the last time.
I physically saw her. We were texting everything.
The last text I got from her was three twelve
pm on Monday, literally right before work.
She said, have a good day at work.
After that night, no one hears from her, no texts,
no calls, no explanation, and by the time her mother
has realized something is truly wrong, it has already been
two days. What investigators are facing isn't just a disappearance.
It's a human puzzle, and they don't yet know how
many pieces there are where they are or what happened
to her, But their best guess is murder. On a
chilly afternoon in April of twenty twenty four, two young
men took a walk down to Warnemont Park near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
As they make their way down the bluffs to the shoreline,
one of them caught sight of a gruesome piece of landscape,
a human leg caught in the weeds. One of them
described it as looking like a Mannikin's leg, smooth dark skin,
no blood whatsoever, only jagged pieces of rubbery flesh surrounding
tissue muscle, and a femur bone with sharp spiky edges.
The medical examiner would later testify about the force required
to break the bone and remove the limb. Deputies responded
and secured the area the leg had been lodged part
way down the slope above the reach of the waves.
That same morning, miles away in Milwaukee, a twenty twenty
hontasivic was found in gulfed in flames. Surveillance cameras captured
a figure walking southbound from the direction of the fire
just after seven thirty am, while two women shouted from
nearby as smoke filled the air. Two days later, along
the shoreline in Waukegan, Illinois, a human r washed ashore.
By then, what had looked like a single horrific find
along a Milwaukee bluff had stretched across state lines, and
in Milwaukee, a nineteen year old college student named Shade
Carlina Robinson had stopped answering her phone. Concerned friends and
family checked in with Chade's Life three sixty app, including
a best friend she'd known since grade school.
When you found out that Shade was missing, did you
ever check Life three sixty?
Yes?
Did you also have Find My Phone app?
Yes?
Is that a similar kind of service?
Yes, just through iPhone?
So once through iPhone to find my app, and then
there's a whole separate app Life three sixty right.
Yes, you shared your location with her on both yes?
When you contacted law enforcement, what information did you want
to provide them?
My last.
With the apps, her last locations that I had on
my phone.
Shade's mother and friends contacted officers for a welfare check,
but before anything else unfolded, her friends had already been
checking her social media. This is Josh again, the friend
Shahda had been talking to.
What I saw on her story was that she went
on o to like dukes on water.
Okay. Was it on Sunday or Monday?
Or what? Monday?
Monday? Okay? Did you see anybody in the photo at all?
No?
I just saw some palm coups.
Okay.
So the reason I'm calling is nobody has heard from
her since Monday, and she she's missing. So today's Friday
and we're trying to put some pieces of this puzzle together.
So is there any information that you could provide?
You had seen her story. She went out and was
meeting someone pretty normal. This wasn't out of character, It
wasn't alarming.
Yeah.
No, The last thing I know is that she went
out Monday night. She went drinking and she said something
about like I shouldn't do this again or stuff. I
didn't see anyone in the photo.
When you say she shouldn't do it again? What what
does she mean by that?
Like?
Was that snapchat? Was that a something like that?
Ja Day wasn't known to be a partier. Her friends
and family knew her to be a responsible young adult
with military lineage. Her grandfather was a retired US Navy
veteran and her uncle was a US Army veteran. Jade
herself had been considering joining the US Air Force and
was studying criminal justice with plans that included military service.
At the same time, she was a normal young adult
who liked to socialize.
Okay, what time was that at?
I say she went there after work?
Okay, so she was was that? Was that a text
message here? Or was that on her Snapchat or Instagram?
Okay?
Yes?
And that was at Duke's or was that different? Barer?
It was at Dukes, but I think she went somewhere else.
His friend Josh wasn't the only one to report she
was meeting someone, so did her best friend?
Do you remember her talking to you about a person
she had met at the bar?
I can't remember the place, but I remember she met somebody.
Would that have been the weekend prior?
Like with the dates, I can't remember the exact dates.
I just remember before this incident she told me about
some person who was but she met at a bar.
The bar part I can't remember.
Investigators would later retrace Schade's movements that night using phone data.
Her phone first left Pizza Shuttle, where she worked earlier
that day. It then traveled to a restaurant along the
Milwaukee River, the Twisted Fisherman. Surveillance cameras outside the restaurant
also captured Shade entering wearing a white top, black puffy
jacket and jeans. Later that night, the phone moved moved again,
this time to Dukes on Water, a busy bar on
Water Street. After that, the signal went south across the
city to a residence. Then in the early morning hours,
the phone traveled one last time towards the Lake Michigan
shoreline warn Amont Park. But at that point, investigators still
didn't know whose house Shade went to that night, and
they didn't know who she was meeting. So detectives dug
deeper with their friend Josh, and it turned out they
may have been more than friends.
I say, we were really good friends, like starting to
perform like a relationship, kind of like boyf and girlfriends.
Kind of thing.
Did you like go in a pizza shuttle and just
start talking to her. Is at the work you're referencing
pizza shuttle.
Yeah, she was as a register or whatever, And then
you're just getting.
The kind of just shot the crap, like we're like, yeah,
we're from Hartford or whatever. She's like, oh, I got
to go to Hartford and then we just kind of
talked for a little.
Bit from there, and then you got her number?
Yep.
Okay, did you give her your number? Or is she
gets your number?
I asked for hers?
Okay, I have kind of a personal question to ask you.
And I'm only saying this because I've interviewed her co
workers and some of her friends.
Did they? So here's what I'm trying to get some
pieces of this puzzle together.
And they keep referencing a guy and I don't know
if the guy is you or some other guy, but
did they ever refer to you as the virgin?
They did?
Poor Josh. Obviously, he and Shote hadn't had sex, even
though they'd been hanging out together, and the nickname pretty
much said it all. But Josh wasn't the one she
was meeting that night.
The thing is on Monday, April.
First, she works nine to five and then she goes
to the Twisted Fisherman with some other unknown guy and
that's the last time we see her.
And now I understand that she goes to Dukes.
We're trying to get surrealans video from that, but we're
trying to determine who this unknown guy is.
So was there, go ahead.
I have a question for you.
Do you so you kind of know what the unknown
guy looks like?
Uh?
Yeah?
Did you have a little bit longer here?
Yeah?
Oh shit, okay, so she was telling me that.
So when we went out.
Saturday night or whatever, you know, and then her friends
and everything, ohly shit, that's crazy. There was this one
guy was long hair, kind of looked kind.
Of like a hick a little bit, not too much.
But a little bit.
Yeah, And when we got there to kind of like tapt.
Hers, He's like, hey, shata and then she's like and
then obviously you know I was with her.
This is on Saturday, he said, No, okay, where.
Was that celebrate friend's birthday?
Okay?
He you know, I said hey or whatever. And then
you know, I was hanging out with her, met her
friends or whatever. So you know, they were talking or whatever.
We were having a good time. You know, we were
drinking or whatever.
Not that I mean.
I wasn't drinking because the night before it was my
birthday and I drank way too much, so I felt
like shit.
So she was drinking, you know, like I was.
Made sure she got home okay or whatever.
She told me at the end, of the night.
She said, yeah, you know this one guy.
He was he told me that, you know, he liked
me or something like that. And I was like, well,
she's not even my type. And I said, oh, what's
your type? She said, oh, you're my type, and she's
like yeah.
He was really really mad.
According to what Shata told Josh, this guy was upset
because he was crushing on her. Earlier that day, Shade
went mini golfing with friends and ran into this guy.
He must have asked her out, and she turned him
down because of her plans with Josh. Josh remembered Shade
telling him that this guy just wasn't her type, but
then they ran into him that night.
If I had to put.
Money on it, if you saw a guy with long hair,
it was probably this dude, because he had I think
he had liked her and she wasn't into.
Him, and I think she got pissed off when.
He saw me.
He didn't say.
Anything, but that's what she told me. She you know,
as we're looking, she doesn't really notice him. She kind
of tested her and says, hey, Shaw, and she's like oh,
and because you know, they.
Had seen each other golfing and then the girls.
I mean.
Then I continued and the girls were talking and she said, yeah,
my friends really like you. There's this one dude though,
and he said he was like crushing on me or whatever.
And he said that he doesn't really open up to
girls about his feelings and.
Shit like this.
So that's why I think there could actually be a motive,
look like jealousy or some shit like that.
Josh the Virgin was easy to talk to. He was
providing a lot of insight into Shade's last movements, insight
that even her mother couldn't provide. So not only was
this long haired guy a possible person of interest, but
Josh remembered even more.
The only other guy that I know that could have
maybe done something that I highly doubt.
It was her neighbor.
Is that that real guy?
Okay, now, I.
Guess you keep doing good and you're poking my mind.
So I guess if there were three guys, I would
think of, be that guy from the bar if he
had long hair.
There was an old ex about a.
Month and a month and a half ago. She kind
of got over him.
I think he was still on her, like.
He called her and was still talking to the family
and stuff.
So that could be it.
He's a truck driver, white dude, black dude, his fan.
Dude, Shit, I think he was black.
I mean, I think you're the first white guy that
she stated, because I met her family, they weren't expecting.
A white guy.
But yeah, that's kind of like what her friends said
as well.
So it's that neighbor.
But all Josh could remember shot A saying about the
neighbor guy was that he convinced her to try some
of his gummies and she borrowed his phone charger.
So that's all I really know about that neighbor dude.
That other X It's something you probably should be aware of,
is that I'd say, two weeks before this, her car
was broken into.
Yep, and they didn't take any of her personal stuff.
It was more of like a statement they just broke
her windows.
They didn't, and they took her cover wheel of her driving.
Like the steering column. Yeah, so if you were to look.
Into it, I'd say it'd probably be one of those
three guys.
Josh had just given detectives three directions a possible break
in involving Shade's car, a neighbor who may have made
her uncomfortable and the man she had gone out with
that night. At that point, investigators couldn't rule any of
them out. Every lead had to be checked. But while
detectives were still sorting through those possibilities, more body parts
were surfacing. Some were found along Milwaukee's lakefront, others appeared
miles away, scattered across different parts of the city. One
discovery happened on the north side of Milwaukee. A passer
by strolling through the park notices something in the grass
in a playground area not far from where Shade's burned
car had been discovered. At first, it looks like debris,
some water it up, paper bag, or maybe a discarded
child's toy. Whatever it is, it shouldn't be there. The
person moves closer and figures they'll just throw it away
whatever it is, in a nearby garbage can. But now
they see what it is. A human foot. The skin
is dark and flaps of flesh poke up around where
the ankle would be. The toenails are neon pink. Investigators
are called and find additional pieces of human tissue nearby,
tissue that is much larger and looks like it was
carved from or fell away from someone's stomach or thigh.
Another grim discovery happened while a woman walked her dog
on the beach in South Milwaukee.
You can still see footprints all over this remote beach.
That's a long Lake Michigan here in South Milwaukee.
It's yards from my front door.
Someone walking the remote beach. Around seven thirty this mo
found a torso in an arm just yards away from
Angela Buchanan's home.
I'm definitely on edge now.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office believes the body parts belonged
to nineteen year old shad A Robinson.
This is not something that anybody should have to go through,
especially such a young girl. It just kind of makes
me like scared now to kind of want to come
down here with my dog, you know, and do what
we do every day, because now it's gonna am I
gonna come down here and be the next one that's
gonna find more body parts.
The worst fear in shot A Robinson's case was confirmed
the body parts belonged to her. What started as a
missing person's investigation was now officially a homicide. While detectives
chased leads across Milwaukee. Shade's family and friends, we're doing
something else entirely. They were searching for pieces of her.
They walked the lakefront, they checked parks, they scared the shoreline,
hoping to find anything that might help bring the rest
of Shade home. For Shade's mother, one thought repeated in
her mind that even after everything that was done to her,
Shade had still managed to leave behind the clues investigators needed.
Shade is forever. She will be forever remembered as an angel,
a light worker who's touched so many souls, so many
lives in the Milwaukee community.
She is our hero.
She is forever leaving an imprint.
She walked in her own paths her own light. She
saw her own case.
My baby saw of her own case.
That's how I raised my kids.
We don't give up.
We are fighters, Shade's mother was.
Right.
Before Shade disappeared, she left behind a trail of clues, texts, messages, pictures.
As intrusive as social media is, these small moments shared
with friends in real time would act as digital breadcrumbs.
But investigators weren't relying on digital evidence alone. There was
also the matter of Shade's car. Not long after she vanished,
her charred vehicle was found burned in an alley near
the playground where her foot was discovered. At first glance,
it was obvious someone had tried to destroy it, but
detectives noticed something about the inside of the car that
just didn't sit right the driver's seat. The seat in
Shade's car had been set for someone much taller. This
is when detectives started closing in on the man shaw
De went out with the night she disappeared, Maxwell Anderson.
Max lived on Milwaukee's South Side, and as detectives compared notes,
they realized he matched the description Josh had given in
his interview. Josh had mentioned a mand shot a ran
into days earlier, someone she turned down for a date
when she went mini golfing with friends, but the man
hadn't disappeared from her life. Just days later, she agreed
to go on a first date with him. Max was
twenty three years old. To most people who knew him,
he seemed quiet, soft spoken, the kind of person who
kept mostly to himself. He worked as a bartender and
owned a house where he subletted to a roommate.
And we're talking about Maxwell Anderson and yeah, okay, just
clarifying that, and.
Is he on this residence.
He says that he does, but I mean, and he
also suddenly he put like forty thousand dollars down on
this and bought the place. But I don't see how
if he only worked two days a week, how he
could afford this place to begin with. I don't know
if maybe his dad helped him out. I know his
dad will sometimes I'll get like Steven Anderson mail here,
So I don't know if he helped him out by
it or something like that. He was real flexible with rent,
which is why, which is one of the reasons why
I wanted to stay here.
To paint a picture for you. Max looked like an
urban lumberjack version of Brad Pitt, if that helps.
Did he have a girlfriend? Was he in a relationship
with anybody that you know?
I know that he texted me about on March eighth
and said that he had just broken up with this
girl named Maya and he was feeling really.
Bad about it.
Okay.
I don't know if you know that has anything to
do with anything, But he's always had girls, you know.
I wouldn't say a ladies man, but he's also always
had like girl companions.
Over and stuff like that.
Yeah, When detectives interviewed his most recent ex Maya, she
painted the picture of what seemed like a normal relationship.
We're probably going to ask you some personal questions. If
you choose to answer, cool, if you don't want, you
not totally get it. But there's a lot of pieces
to this puzzle that we're trying to put together, and
some of the things that you might know might really
really help us.
One of those personal questions was how many times Maya
had had sex with him in the span of about
two months they'd been seeing each other, And of course
what was the sex like, So would you say.
All times twenty fifty?
Probably like go with like twelve, Okay, maybe.
When you guys were hooking up, was there any like
kind of communication, whether through the phone or in person,
where he was like he expressed like any fantasy things
that he wanted to do.
No, No, you know, I didn't.
Really have any like weird.
He just like he didn't express like anything quote unquote
not the average and you would do.
No.
No, he was like very just.
Basic, like.
Like and very just gentle.
He never like screamed at me or like he never
put his hands on me.
Ever, this didn't seem like killer type behavior. Maya went
on to explain that early in their relationship, her dog
was sick and she needed to put him down. She
remembered Max asking to meet the dog and said he
was kind to him. In fact, he had two dogs
of his own that were well cared for. Although his
roommate portrayed him to be a big drinker, Maya said
she didn't go for that.
Did you think that alcohol and Max were an issue
or no?
So?
I I mean, obviously I didn't really know him for
that long, but I'm pretty sure he was a pretty
frequent drinker. And I kind of go through phases of
that too, depending on who I'm hanging out with. But
like I when we were seeing each other, like I
talked to him on multiple occasions like hey, like I
know I having fun, but like I really don't want
to be like drinking and going out this much like
I like to be in the gym every day. I
like to feel good and get my shit done.
And he was like on board with it.
He was like, yeah, I'll like, I'm down to not drink.
He started going to the gym, like he he was
trying to put his life together.
It seemed like once he met me, but once he
met her, his timetable didn't quite line up with hers.
He seemed all in I was talking to.
Him or dates with him, and then he was moving
things way too more quickly than I wanted him to matchis. Yeah,
he was like trying to move things very, very quickly.
I don't have a good experience with people moving quickly
in the past, so I kept telling him I wanted
to slow down. And you say he wanted to move
things quickly, Like, what do you mean?
Like was his.
Did he say anything?
I think?
Was he?
I mean, he introduced me to a lot of his
friends right away. He wanted me to go to South
Carolina and use mom AND's sister, and he booked flights
for us to do that. He would call me his
girlfriend even though I wasn't his girlfriend.
Just to be clear, you know that in twenty twenty six,
you can't be boyfriend girlfriend until the question is asked
and the words are spoken. I mean, you can have
sex twelve or twenty times and go on multiple dates,
but that's just talking. That's nothing serious, you know. Anyway,
the more questions detectives asked, the more sides of Max
came to the surface, and so I did go.
On a date with someone else and he did not
want to March. First, I was working on off early
and I went out to dug out another other bar
next door with the guy that I was at Luxulfage
with and I was hanging out with him and his friends,
and then my coworker called me. She's like, my Max
just showed up looking for you, and I was like, what,
because he normally works Friday nights. Where was he looking
for you at? He came into my bar looking for me,
thinking I was still at work first, but he didn't
text me or anything. He was like trying to surprise me.
I guess.
She was surprised, but not in a good way. She
says that Max then started hanging out with her and
the two guys she was with, but he was upset
when one of them flirted with her. Max stormed out
and she later told him she needed space. She should
be able to hang out with whoever she wants. Unfortunately,
they had planned to go to the Many golf course
in a few days, but now she wanted to blow
him off. She said she didn't want to go with him,
but she went anyway. That's when things escalated.
I told him I didn't want to go with him anymore,
and I told him that I wasn't going to go
in general.
But he must have.
I don't know if he just like sat there all
night in the parking lot, like looking for me to
show up there or what. But I went there at
like seven thirty eight pm.
Or his name is Chris.
When we went there with Chris, we played golf. I
was going to talk to a manager there because I
used to work at Looks Golf Base, and I was
about to swing and hit the golf ball and I
hear behind me he's like, you better not get too
close to the edge.
You might fall off.
I thought I was maybe like an old coworker like
messing with me. I turn around in Max's there and
like basically blew up that I was there with Chris
is a different guy.
And then he.
Stormed off, and we were on the third floor, so
we could like see the whole parking lot, so we
were watching to see if he was gonna leave.
He got in his car, he drove, but.
He reparked, so we're like, oh shit, what is he
gonna do? He circled Chris's car. He knew what Chris's
car looked like because of when we went out that
Friday before, So he circled Chris's car once, went back
to his car, start from it twice, went back to
his car, and he did it like four times, and
like what is he doing the fourth time? A waunch,
A police cars show up and he drives off immediately.
Once the police cars.
Show up, You're probably thinking that Maya and her friend
called the police on Max. Well, you'd be wrong. It
was the other way around. Not only did Max call
the car, but he also smashed out her friend's tail
light and gave the police his license plate, telling them
the guy was driving drunk. He was hoping the police
would follow the friend and pull him over for the
smashed tail light or even give him a dui. Maya
was Max's most recent girlfriend slash not girlfriend. Although he
was pretty devastated when she told him that he needed
space and didn't know if she could get over what
he did, he did not take his frustrations out on her.
This was March, just one month before Shade would disappear.
But Maya also remembered something else Max had said.
Once, I know it's an uncomfortable I know, having sex
is a weird thing to talk about, and I get it.
We're all adults in the room. It's just something that
we were kind of looking into, and that's.
All very gentle, more so than like some whole lot
of guys have been with And even like he made
a comment, He's like, I think it's weird how some
girls like want to be choked. I feel like he's like,
I really don't like doing that.
Max had brought up the subject of choking during sex,
not in a threatening way. If anything, he sounded almost
disgusted by it. He told her he couldn't understand why
some women liked that. Maya said Max had always been
gentle with her, and when their relationship fell apart, he
seemed genuinely hurt by it. At the time, it didn't
seem like an important detail, but detectives would remember it
later because Maya wasn't the only woman investigators spoke to.
Even before Shade and Maya, there was another young woman.
We're gonna call her Sherry for privacy, and what Sherry
would eventually say would send chills down the spines of
the most seasoned detectives.
I've talked to two of his ex girlfriends, and I
just keep saying the same thing. We're working a case
where there's a girl who disappeared, and it's pretty much
just a big puzzle piece right now. I'm trying to
put everything together so your answers might be able to
help us figure out what was going on. So when
did you guys start dating?
We started talking November twenty one, dating March ish twenty two.
It was like kind of on and off, and then
I completely.
Cut them off.
I would say March or April twenty three.
How did you guys meet?
Heartbreakers?
How works?
There?
Does a dnswer? Okay, what did he do there?
Marten?
Did you guys just start talking or what was the connection?
Yeah?
We would just talk and I was single, I mean single.
I was looking for somebody older, kind of at their
life or put together.
So I was like, oh, like this could work.
When detectives sat down with Sherry, the story she told
started in a way investigators had heard before. At first,
Max seemed quiet, reserved, almost shy, but that didn't last.
I mean we would just like constantly get in fights.
So he's either like really really mean and just like.
Using anything he could, like any insecurity I had.
He wasn't ever.
Like physical with me, though, Yeah, he'd always he'd either
be super super mean or like super loving. There wasn't
like that in between.
He would call me a slut. Before he had this
weird obsession with my ex boyfriend. They ended up getting
in like a bar fight on the same Pattie's.
Day two years ago, and then ever since then he
was just like obsessed with him. So he'd always like
whenever we got in fights, like oh, like why didn't
you go fuck Jack?
Or like so immature, like it's that's my name, that.
Funny, funny, creepy, not sure which, but go ahead, go ahead.
And then.
With all the drinking that I was doing when I
was with him, I obviously gained weight and like, no,
I wasn't a teenager anymore, and.
He told me he liked me like eighteen, okay, So
as I was like aging and then drinking, I was
gaining weight, and like at first single day it would.
Be like I don't want you to eat all of that,
just watching like how much.
I was eating, called me like a fat horror like
every day, told.
Me even if I did lose the weight, I'd never
be able to keep it off, so.
Sherry told detectives Max could swing between extremes affection at
one moment cruel the next. Arguments became more frequent, and sometimes,
Sherry said, Max would talk about revenge, not just arguments.
Plans weird plans.
My best friend ended up moving in with my ex boyfriend.
Ex boyfriend with Jack. Yes, okay, so.
My best friend Lexi ended up moving in with Jack.
Good and Max was like, Jack took your friend from you,
I'm going to take I took you his last girl,
Now I'm going to take his next girl. So he
reached out to Lexi.
Okay.
There was one instance where he knew Jack worked on
Brady Street, so he told me he was going to
Bertie Street to.
Find his car.
I don't know if this ever happened or not, because
at this point it was like I.
Was trying to leave him, so it was really distancing myself,
so I don't know exactly.
At one point he asked me to invite Jack over
to my place.
And to beat myself up in the bathroom and call
the police to get Jack arrested.
And he said either I do that.
Or he will do it himself.
This was becoming a theme similar to what Maya had
told detectives, jealousy, possessiveness, and weird revenge plots. And then
came the questions about their sex life. Sherry's version was
slightly different from Maya's, So this was.
For about a year?
Okay, in a year?
Did you guys have sex a lot in the beginning?
At the beginning? Yes?
How often do you remember, do you?
Yeah?
Two times a day when I say?
And then when did it start like dwindling down?
When I started getting made?
Okay? Did he ever make videos with you? Okay? How
many do you think? Okay? Does he have the videos?
Or do you have the videos? Did he ever send
them to you? Okay? By chance?
Do you?
By chance? Do you have a tattoo?
Right here.
Is a scorpion? Okay?
So just something to keep in mind. Sleep with a
criminal and the cops might see your tattoos no matter
where you hide them. And speaking of which, Max did
have a criminal history. Just a little a few years
are earlier, he was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal
damage to property after smashing the windows of a car
during a domestic dispute. Police had also been called the
incidents involving arguments with family members at his home. All
of this pointed to emotional or impulsive disorders, but not murder. Yet.
Their conversation with Sherry continued, giving detectives even more reason
to suspect him. Next, they pulled from Max's diary.
Says, bondage equals rape comma roleplay and I'm not judging,
not knocking it too bad.
I'm cool, it's fun.
I get it, I really get it, even if you
are willing to accept that about yourself. You like to
pretend you being raped because you otherwise can't feel anything.
And he likes to pretend to be the rapist because
that's how he'd imagine. I think he says, bed finally
get late, or he'd finally get laid. Does that make
any kind of sense.
To you at all?
Cherry said no, it didn't make sense to her, but
it's also possible she was embarrassed.
So one more time about the pretend rape comics.
When was that kind of like were you guys in
bed together, were you guys just like drinking or like
how was he just brought it up and just said,
I think that'd be hot.
No, I think it like might have been like it
might have come off in conversation like just like or
like a movie or something.
And he said, like rape can be hot.
Okay. So but just just saw get everything straight. He
didn't try to like set that up with you. He
just said that rape could be hot, okay.
Cherry denied participating in the rape fantasies Max mentioned, yet
she did participate in another fairly common sex practice.
I guess there were all adults. I believe I saw
the video that you guys made. Do you recall the video?
Yes?
Okay, are you tied up in the video?
I think so.
From your recollection? What was going on?
I think he was just fingering me?
And then was that with the belt you described like
you said, you're okay, yeah, okay. Do you know where
you were at at that time?
Say where's the female detective in this picture?
Just asking Sometimes it was like a.
Little more kinky.
Wouldn't say anything.
In the kinky times.
What were they like?
What was it like?
He had the.
Belt on his fat friend, so he used that time
me up. And then there were points, God, this is embarrassing.
No, it's totally trust me.
We've talked to everybody and this is just it's just
a dog's talk.
And there were points where he would try and put
his whole hand.
In me okay, but that like usually ended up stopped
because it was painful and I lead.
So okay, did he ever are you guys? Did he
ever choke you?
Well?
Yes, okay, and you were fine with that.
Yeah, he wasn't ever like like crazy, It was just
like normal, Like I wasn't.
I could not breathe or anything.
But everything he was doing you were cool with as well. Yes, okay.
Sherry was possibly so mortified at laying out all the
details of her sex life with a potential killer that
she almost forgot to mention something pivotal to the whole investigation.
Anything that we did, like daywise involved drinks, so like
going up to the bar concert.
When you guys went on dates, what kind of days
were they just mainly like going out getting food drinks?
Was it yeah? Pretty casual like that. Did you ever
fly anywhere with him? Yeah?
Good?
Oh he did take me to a park.
He wouldn't tell what it was called because it was
like his secret like private beach, so I would know
if I.
Like throve to it, because there's the next two restaurant
on the.
Way that we always stop at.
But that secret beach had a name, Warnemont Park, the
same shoreline where pieces of Shade Robinson had already turned up,
a place where Sherry had visited with the very man
detective now suspected was the killer. It was April of
twenty twenty four in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It started with a
severed leg on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, then an
arm all the way over in Illinois, and it didn't
stop there. By then, investigators knew the victim was nineteen
year old Shade Robinson, a college student working two jobs
and building a future that ended in peace. Scattered across
the city and state lines, detectives had already started reconstructing
the final hours of her life, which wasn't difficult in
some ways. Shade had left behind a digital trail, her
burned car abandoned in an alley not far from where
one of her severed feet would later be discovered, surveillance
cameras capturing her and her date moving between bars and restaurants,
and phone data tracing her movements across the city in
the hours before she disappeared. By the time investigators finished
mapping that trail, one name kept appearing at its center.
The man shot A Robinson had gone out with that night,
Max Anderson. He was also the last person known to
have seen her alive. It didn't take long before the
evidence started piling up. Detectives obtained search warrants and started
looking at Max's place, and before they even stepped inside,
the yard looked like something had been clawing its way
in and out of the ground. Max's tenant spoke with
detectives about it, and you.
Know how long he's on in this place.
I know there was one tenant before me who also
moved out because she hated it here, and I've never
talked to her, but that's just what Max was telling me.
He was like, oh, she was always calling the city
on me because of you know, the holes of ship
that he's got out in the yard. Like he said
that was going to be a shed, like the big
old hole he says that was going to he was
going to turn that into a shed with like a basement.
And they said, like when it gets cold in the winter,
that's where I was going to keep my dogs. And
I'm like, this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
Of my life.
Dumbest or maybe sickest who adds a basement to the
shed in their yard and for dogs that are indoor
dogs anyway, Well the answer is nobody.
And then at the top it was going to be
storage for like long stuff or whatever. That was his idea.
And then there's another hole going like back to the garage.
He said he was going to do an outdoor bar there.
Guy's just weird, man. He had all these weird ideas
that you just as a normal person, you look at
that and you're like, that's never gonna.
Work, you know what I mean.
The inside of the house was even weirder, as Max's
ex girlfriend remembered.
Well, he had like the hidden closet okay behind the
TV refer too.
Yes, he had that like marble piece that you could
remove from underneath his bathroom counter. And he told me
that he would store all this money there because he
was just paroid of somebody coming in it.
Yeah, he was just very paranoid.
He had his little mushroom mouth.
Man too.
Yeah.
When she was questioned earlier about the so called mushroom room, lab,
detectives assumed she meant psychedelic mushrooms. But actually Sherry didn't
know what the hell they were. Max never specified, He
only told her that they could eat them, which she declined.
Once inside Max's house, detectives found cutting tools, including a hacksaw,
consistent with the saw marks the medical examiner found on
Shade's bones. But the most disturbing discovery came from Max's phone.
Investigators found pictures taking the night shaw day disappeared. In one,
Shade is lying face down on a couch, looking unresponsive,
while Max is grabbing her breast. During the autopsy, the
medical examiner determined the same breast had been cut off,
it was never found. By that point, detectives had seen
and heard enough. On April fourth, twenty twenty four, Milwaukee
police arrested and charged Maxwell Anderson with first degree intentional homicide,
mutilating a corpse, arson and hiding a corpse. Prosecutors told
jurors he killed Shade Robinson after their first date, dismembering
her body inside his home and scattering her remains across
Milwaukee and along the Lake Michigan shoreline. They pointed to
surveillance footage of the pair together, the digital trail left
on Shade's phone. The pictures from Max's phone and the
cutting tools investigators found inside his house. Max's trial started
on May twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, and after roughly
two weeks of testimony, the jury returned verdicts of guilty
on all counts. Both Max and his father made statements
at his sentencing. Until this point, Max had said nothing,
but now he was claiming innocence.
I would like to start by saying that, from the
bottom of my heart, my deepest and most sincere condolences
go out to Shade's family, as well as everyone else
affected by this tragedy. That being said, your honor, I
took this to trial without everyone trying to make a
plea deal of any kind, because I did not commit
these crimes, and so I planned to appeal my convictions
while I hope and pray that further investigations not only
prove my innocence, but find and deliver true justice.
Max's defense team made a similar argument throughout the trial.
They told jurors the case against Max was built entirely
on circumstantial evidence that no one had witnessed a killing,
no clear crime scene had been established inside Max's home,
and no single piece of physical evidence directly proved he
had murdered Shade Robinson. They urged the jury not to
mistake suspicion for proof. When Max's father addressed the court,
he spoke about loss in an ironic twist. He referenced
another young man he had once cared for deeply. It
seemed like a tragedy had happened in that family, long
before his son was ever convicted of murder.
On behalf of myself and my family, I'd like to
say a few things first to Shaya's family. There are
no words.
That I can share that will reduce your pain.
You are all in my thoughts every single day, although
it is not the same. Having lost a boy that
was like a son to me ten years ago, I
have some sense of what you are feeling. It took
me a very long time to get the past past
the pain that I felt for the person that contributed
to his passing. I'm not asking you to forgive anybody
or anything that is between you and your God.
After making this mysterious comment, he turned his attention to
his murderous son.
We want you to know that we love you and
support your plan for self improvement.
In this we hope for a path for you to
become a positive influence for society, both while you are
incarcerated and hopefully after.
But there was no path forward for a cold blooded
killer like Max. We don't know much much about him,
even from his own father's words, but we know the facts,
and we know that the jury voted quickly and unanimously.
His father talked about hope, self improvement and the possibility
that someday Max could contribute something positive to society. The
judge and the jury didn't see it that way.
I've weighed your character, and as I've indicated, I find
it wanting. I've also reflected on the needs of society
and are you a good risk?
And sadly you're not.
So how do we protect society from a man who
clearly has had darkness in his past, who engaged in
behavior that is it's the facts that you see written
in horror novels. That's what we have to determine, and
you know it isn't easy. I can tell you that
when you think about is there ever something redeemable, I'm
in a person you'd like to say at some point
there is, And I can tell you that at the
points in life where I've come to the conclusion that
there isn't anything redeemable. You know, you do think about
I think it takes away a little piece of my soul.
How come I couldn't find anything good? How come I
can't find anything that I can say at some point
you'll be a better person.
Sometimes people are just not redeemable, no matter how hard
to try to see the good in them. They're just
isn't any Maybe they started as a good person and
life's events just eroded the goodness away until there was
nothing left but darkness. Or maybe they were just born
with a heart of darkness. If that's even possible. Who knows.
I'm no philosopher, I'm no theologian. That's what makes this
case so unsettling. Maxwell Anderson looked like every other guy.
He wore that mask perfectly. As for shot A, she
was trying to do everything right. She did everything everyone
expected her to do. She did the things people are
told to do to stay safe. She told friends where
she was going, she shared her location. Her movements at
night were captured again and again on security cameras across
Milwaukee restaurants, streets, parking lots. Almost every step of that
evening exists on video all except one. The minute she
walked into the House of Secret Compartments. There, Rumors have
it they watched a movie about a serial killer who
dismembers his victims. If true, was this a trigger or
was this just for play for Max, because after the
movie ended he killed her. Then he dismembered her body,
burned her car, and took her to his secluded beach
to leave parts of her body there.
All right, well, I'm gonna send them a deputy downer
to Saint Kite. It should be that too long.
Okay, thank you, all right? And what then?
What did you actually find?
It looks like the.
It looks like the back and the butt.
In the irons, back arm and okay, okay, all right,
expect to call from one of the deputies. I'm I'm
assuming you're probably going to give you a call so
they can uh exactly where you are. But we'll be
there soon.
As we can. Okay.
He then scattered the rest of her remains across the city.
To this day, she has not fully been recovered. No
one knows where shot A put her head to rest.
After the trial, allegations surface that Max told someone weeks
earlier he was going to kill and dismember a woman
he had recently met. That claim came from an informant
tied to search warrants in the case. It was never
fully tested a trial, but it raises the disturbing possibility
that shah Day may have been targeted from the very beginning.
Some people close to Shade also believe she initially rejected
Max at some point he seemed jealous of her friend Josh.
It's possible the date happened only after she tried to
smooth things over, something many women do when they feel
pressured or uncomfortable. If that's true, it adds another tragic
layer to the story, because what may have looked like
an ordinary first date may actually have been the final
step in a situation that had already turned extremely dangerous
or worse. If it can get any worse, Maybe, just maybe,
Shade would have been the first of many unbeknowing women
to follow in her path, all the way to Warnemont
Park and all the way to Max's private beach. Well,
we hope that'll keep you satisfied until next week. We
know it won't, but you know, boy can dream check
out tails and leave us some feedback we'll see you
next week. Stay safe,