By Bret H. McCormick
bmccormick@thetowntalk.com
Chiquina Robinson of Alexandria wasn't perfect, but in the eyes of her baby sister, she was close.
"No one's perfect, but she was almost perfect," said Necomie Johnson, Robinson's younger sister.
Robinson's body was found around midnight Sunday in a trash bin near the intersection of Lower Third Street and Green Oak Avenue in Alexandria.
Sgt. Donald Weatherford of the Alexandria Police Department said it appeared Robinson, 31, was killed in her apartment at Walden Point Apartments on Twin Bridges Road, and her body was dumped in a trash bin outside of Joe's Grocery on Third Street in South Alexandria.
The trash bin has been removed from the property, as it was collected for evidence.
Robinson's live-in boyfriend, 25-year-old Marcus McCray, was arrested as a suspect in the slaying. He is charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. Authorities said he has confessed to killing Robinson and provided officers with the location of her body.
Robinson leaves behind three children, a 10-year-old daughter and two boys, ages 6 and 5.
"She worked 12-hour shifts at the hospital (Rapides Regional Medical Center), and she also went to school in the mornings from 8 to 2 o'clock," Johnson said. "Every day it was her job, her kids and school. Every day. She didn't go out. She didn't do anything if it didn't involve her kids."
Johnson said she and other members of her family, including Robinson's mother, Edna Robinson, began to think something was wrong last Thursday.
"Wednesday was the last day we actually spoke with her," she said.
She saw her sister on Tuesday, when Robinson came by to wash clothes, and spoke to her again on Wednesday.
But on Thursday, despite repeated attempts to reach Robinson, family members couldn't get her on the phone. Instead, they said, McCray answered the phone and said Robinson wasn't feeling well. He also called her job on Thursday and said she was too sick to come to work.
At that point, Johnson believes, Robinson already was dead. She said her sister would have called in sick on her own.
Still, she said family members received texts from Robinson's phone all day Friday. On Saturday, Johnson went to the apartment to see her sister and confronted McCray, who said he didn't know where Robinson was.
Charles Smith, a neighbor who lived two doors down from Robinson and McCray, said the couple mostly kept to themselves. He said McCray didn't speak to neighbors, preferring instead to wave or use head gestures.
Smith said he knew the two had arguments because he would see McCray outside walking around visibly upset. However, the two never argued outside of their apartment.
He called the homicide "very sad" for Robinson's three children, adding he never thought McCray "would do that."
A native of New Orleans who came to Alexandria after Hurricane Katrina, Smith said having a homicide occur two doors down from his apartment bothered him because he has three small children and left New Orleans to escape the "murder capital."
"I came down here to get away from that, and it's right down the street from me," Smith said.
According to the police report, the sheets in Robinson's bedroom were missing, there were two wet spots on the floor with carpet cleaner on them, and a large stain where barbecue sauce had been spilled. The door to the apartment was taped shut Monday afternoon with two red pieces of tape that read "evidence."
Weatherford said the evidence at the apartment led Alexandria Police to obtain an obstruction of justice warrant for McCray's arrest, and he later confessed to killing Robinson, providing details where officers could find her body.
Because the body was found early Monday morning, Weatherford said, the investigation into the homicide was in its early stages. Robinson's body was sent to Lafayette for an autopsy, but he said it appeared the cause of death was blunt force trauma.
"There's a lot of work left to do on this case," Weatherford said.
There are also a lot of pieces to be picked up for Robinson's family. For now, Johnson said, the children are "OK" and the family is "all together." The fathers -- the 10-year-old girl's father is different from the two boys' father -- and their families also are in the picture, so the families must determine next what will happen with the children.
Then, they'll turn their eyes and hearts toward finding out exactly what happened to Robinson.
"(The police) let us know that he did confess and he did tell them everything he did, but that they can't release the information to us," Johnson said. "So we have no clue what actually happened to her."
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