Despite the lack of the victim's body, jurors convicted a North Carolina man of killing his girlfriend in Homestead in 1993.
MARICE COHN BAND / MIAMI HERALD STAFF
BY DAVID OVALLE
DOVALLE@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A sassy bartender with a no-nonsense country drawl. A tattooed ex-con with disdain for authority. A scared ex-wife.
One by one, residents of the small town of Burlington, N.C., took the stand in Miami-Dade Circuit Court this week with similar stories: Defendant Christopher Phillips had admitted to killing his girlfriend Trinity Robinson, 18, who vanished in Homestead in May 1993.
And so Thursday, after little more than an hour of deliberation, jurors found Phillips guilty of second-degree murder -- even though Robinson's body has never been found. Prosecutors said it was only the second ``no body'' conviction in Miami-Dade in recent history.
``The witnesses were so credible. They were all so real,'' juror Kelley Rickard said afterward.
The conviction was a relief for Robinson's mother, Kathy Thompson, who long believed Phillips was a murderer. As the verdict was read, she squeezed the hand of Miami-Dade police Detective Ray Hoadley, who criss-crossed the country to unravel the crime.
``[Trinity] got her day in court,'' Thompson cried after tearfully embracing prosecutors Abbe Rifkin and Suzanne Von Paulus. ``And justice was served.''
Circuit Judge Bertila Soto will sentence Phillips on Oct. 13.
The trial rehashed a little-known missing person's case that went unsolved for 13 years.
CAME AFTER ANDREW
After Hurricane Andrew, Phillips -- a drug-dealing roofer -- and a band of youths traveled to South Miami-Dade from North Carolina, looking for work and living in a storm-gutted house.
With him was Robinson, a naive, diminutive teen who fell under Phillips' spell.
In May 1993, he reported to police that Robinson had gone missing just before her afternoon shift at Todd's Family Restaurant in Homestead.
Prosecutors painted Phillips, 37, as a jealous, manipulative boyfriend who consistently beat Robinson, leading to her decision to leave him. Rifkin, in closing arguments Thursday, placed a black-and-white photo of the young woman on the witness seat.
``Today, she would have been 35 years old, but because of the defendant and his greed and control, he took her away from us,'' she said. ``We tried to bring her alive to you and not have her be just a picture on a chair.''
Defense attorney Eric Matheny conceded that his client was no angel. But Matheny pointed to the case's glaring weaknesses: no body and no direct eyewitnesses.
``Maybe he is trailer trash. Maybe he is controlling and manipulative and mean,'' Matheny told jurors. ``That alone is not sufficient to convict him of murder.''
DENIALS
He cast blame on Phillips' then-roommates, Lon Martin and Keith Iaea, who were convicted of an unrelated 1997 murder in Washington state. They denied involvement in the Robinson case, though authorities suspect they helped dump her body.
Still, prosecutors had an overwhelming circumstantial case against Phillips, who told 13 conflicting versions of Robinson's disappearance and tried to claim her last paycheck.
Todd's Family Restaurant co-workers testified that Phillips jealously guarded Robinson, demanding her tips and hanging around the eatery. She grew thin and withdrawn, showing up to work with bruises and black eyes. Just before she vanished, they collected $284 so she could flee back to North Carolina by bus.
Most crucial: a circle of North Carolina relatives and associates to whom Phillips made damning admissions. Among them:
• Phillips' uncle, George Michael Smith, a tattooed felon with a professed disdain for the law, who told jurors he refused to lie for his nephew. His story: Phillips confessed several times to killing Robinson, even describing how he choked her.
• Tara Beane, a headstrong employee of a biker bar named ``He's Not Here.'' In court, she stared down Phillips, her arms crossed. She, too, overheard Phillips admit several times that he had caused his ex-girlfriend's disappearance.
Beane recalled asking Phillips, in the bar, whether he killed Robinson. ``He hung his head, his eyes welled up and he walked out the back door,'' Beane said.
• A former lover who testified that Phillips, while threatening her, admitted he was behind Robinson's disappearance. His ex-wife Peggy Wilson told jurors about similar episodes.
In a telling moment, defense lawyer Matheny pressed Wilson on whether she actually believed one of Phillips' threats. Wilson let spill a nugget that had been ruled off limits for jurors to hear. ``Yes,'' she said. ``He had a gun to my head.''
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