HARRISONBURG, Va. (ROCKTOWN NOW) – The first of the two murder trials for Anthony Eugene Robinson will go on as scheduled later this month.

Robinson, who has been nicknamed the “Shopping Cart Killer,” appeared in Rockingham County Circuit Court Tuesday afternoon for a pre-trial motion hearing. He faces six felony charges, including two counts of first-degree murder.

During the hearing, Judge Bruce Albertson rejected a defense motion to combining the two trials, which means the first trial will begin as scheduled on Sept. 23 and the second will begin on Jan. 27, 2025.
By setting the first trial date, the defense team also forwent an insanity plea for Robinson.
Robinson’s attorney, Louis Nagy, argued that combining the trials would be in the court’s best interest due to the evidence being almost identical in both cases, and efficiently going through the jury selection process. Albertson denied the motion as the first trial is only weeks away, and joining the two would push it back even further.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst argued that any further delay in the case would be unfair to the families of Robinson’s alleged victims.
“The two people we never talk about are the victims,” Garst said. “What do all of these continuances do to the families?”

Robinson is accused of murdering Harrisonburg resident Beth Redmon and Tonita Smith of Charlottesville. Both of their bodies were discovered in an underdeveloped lot off Country Club Rd. in Harrisonburg near the Howard Johnson Hotel – where video evidence allegedly shows Robinson meeting with the victims – in November of 2021.

Although the remains of both Redmon and Smith were discovered in the same lot, investigators determined that they were murdered on separate occasions. Causes of death for both women have been disputed as well.

Police say Robinson would meet his victims on dating sites and would allegedly kill them and ditch the bodies in a shopping cart. He is believed to have murdered two other women in Washington, D.C. and Fairfax, respectively, and disposed of their bodies in a similar fashion.

Like Redmon and Smith, their causes of death remain undetermined.

Despite the shopping carts being a common factor in those deaths, Albertson granted a motion to prohibit the use of nicknames during the trial – including the “Shopping Cart Killer” moniker. Nagy told the judge that the nickname, which has been used widely by media outlets covering the case, could possibly influence jurors and result in a mistrial.

“When a jury hears that phrase, there’s no way that won’t conjure up images of the most heinous murderers in history,” Nagy said. “It’s one of those terms that inflames the heart of a juror.”

The motion would also prohibit the using the term “serial killer” at any point during the trials, as Nagy argued that the term is not present in Virginia state law. Garst countered that, while the definition is murky, Robinson’s alleged crimes constitute that of a serial killer.

Robinson’s defense team also submitted motions to exclude evidence from the other murder investigations, which Nagy argued would be prejudicial in Robinson’s trial for the Harrisonburg murders in light of the inadmissible evidence from the D.C. and Northern Virginia cases. Those were denied as well.