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Sheena Scarbrough’s worst nightmare began on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 when investigators told her that her 19-year-old daughter, Sade Robinson, was missing. To add to the concern, her torched car had been found the previous morning & a man had come upon a body part along the Lake Michigan shoreline about twenty hours earlier.
A call came through the Milwaukee Police Department at 5:29 pm on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 after a man came across a shocking discovery while walking along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. He had been on the beach down a 100 foot bluff at the shoreline of Lake Michigan at Warnimont Park in Cudahy, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, when he came across a human leg.
The medical examiner determined that the leg, which had been cut just below the hip socket, likely with a saw, belonged to a Black woman who had been approximately five feet tall while the victim’s toenails had been painted in a pink polish.
Lead Detective Jo Donner believed that the victim was likely 19-year-old college student Sade Robinson as not only was she reported missing a few hours after the leg was found on Tuesday, but she fit the description of the victim as she was a Black female who stood five feet tall.
Ten hours before the leg was found, police responded to a car fire behind an abandoned building near North 29th Street & Lisbon Avenue, three miles from the studio apartment where Sade lived. The 2020 Honda Civic was registered to Sade, but because of the extensive damage, any potential DNA evidence or fingerprints had been destroyed.
The passenger side of the car smelled heavily of an accelerant which made investigators believe that they were dealing with an arson case. Although the interior of the car had basically been destroyed from the fire, Sade’s purse was found tucked beneath the driver’s seat, which eliminated the idea of a robbery. Her underwear, jeans, jacket & shoes were found mostly undamaged in the trunk of the car.
Based on surveillance video from Monday, April 1, 2024, the clothing matched what Sade had been wearing when she was last seen. The jeans were found inside out with the underwear still attached around the legs which suggested that someone else had pulled them off her body.
Detective Donner immediately noticed how far the driver’s seat had been pushed back. After she found an identical model at a dealership, she measured the driver’s seat position & when a deputy who was about the same height as Sade sat behind the wheel, she was unable to reach the pedals & was barely able to reach the steering wheel. Donner determined that the person who last drove Sade’s car had been at least six feet tall.
When investigators contacted Sheena Scarbrough at about 1 pm on Wednesday, April 3 to inform her that her daughter was missing & her car had been found burned, she was understandably terrified. She hoped & prayed that they had made some kind of terrible mistake & that her daughter would be found alive & well.
Sheena was horrified when she learned that the leg of a five foot tall African American female had been found at Warnimont Park. Sade’s younger sister, 16-year-old Adrianna Reams, had Sade’s Life360 location on her phone which confirmed that Sade’s phone had died at 4:35 am on Tuesday morning while it had been at Warnimont Park, the very location where the leg had been found.
The last time Sheena & Adrianna had seen Sade was one day before she went missing on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024 when Adrianna & Sade worked together as servers at a country club. Afterwards, they all gathered at their grandparent’s house for Easter dinner.
Although evidence was tragically lining up to suggest that the leg belonged to Sade, DNA testing had yet to come back to confirm this definitively.
Sade Robinson was born on May 10, 2004 in Vicksburg, Mississippi to parents Sheena Scarbrough & Carlos Robinson. When she was about 2-years-old, she & her family relocated to Milwaukee. Although her parents never married, they did a wonderful job of co-parenting.
On top of being a full-time criminal justice student at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) where she maintained a 3.5 GPA, Sade worked two jobs, one at a country club with her sister, as well as cashier position at Pizza Shuttle, a Milwaukee pizza restaurant. She was set to graduate with her associate’s degree in one short month.
Since she’d been working so hard in conjunction with going to school, although she was only 19-years-old, Sade was able to rent her own apartment & buy a car. After graduating the following month, she planned to enlist in the AirForce.
According to Justin Romano, her manager at Pizza Shuttle, Sade was a very outgoing girl who talked to everyone & always managed to lighten the mood. Since she was an incredibly reliable employee, when she didn’t show up for her shift on Tuesday morning, April 2, her co-workers were concerned. According to AJ, a woman who’d worked with Sade for about four years, even if Sade was running a few minutes late, she would call or text her.
The last time a coworker had heard from her was the night before on Monday, April 1 when she sent a video on Snapchat while she’d been on a first date at a local sports bar, Dukes on Water.
AJ called & texted Sade throughout Tuesday & when she went by her apartment, she saw that her car wasn’t there. At 9 pm, she drove down to the police station to report her friend missing, but she was told they would have to do a welfare check first. When officers went by Sade’s apartment the following day, she wasn’t there.
Shenna last spoke with Sade during a FaceTime call with her daughter on Monday, April 1. She said she was glowing & her mood was bubbly. During their conversation, she hadn’t mentioned anything about going on a date that night.
According to security footage from Sade’s apartment on the lower east side of Milwaukee, on Monday morning she left at 9 am & 15 minutes later, she arrived for her shift at Pizza Shuttle, working until 5 pm. She wore a black puffy coat, a white shirt, light colored jeans with multiple tears across the legs & white shoes. Footage from her apartment proved she never returned.
When investigators obtained records from Verizon Wireless to review calls, texts as well as the phone’s location, they were able to see that Sade had been texting 33-year-old Maxwell “Max” Anderson, a man she recently met, between 4:15 pm to 5:18 pm on Monday.
They were trying to figure out where to meet up for dinner before they settled on having seafood. Since he previously worked as a bartender at the Twisted Fisherman & needed to pick up his W-2 tax form, they decided to meet there.
Anderson arrived at 5:09 pm while Sade got there at 5:20 pm. According to surveillance, they were the only two patrons sitting at the bar. They each had a drink as well as a shot, but Sade declined a second shot. She was served alcohol despite the fact that she wasn’t yet 21. Her family later sued this establishment as well as Duke’s where they headed next, for not carding her.
Since Anderson had worked at the restaurant & knew the bartender, footage made it appear that he spoke more to the bartender than he did Sade. According to the bartender, their conversation seemed casual & they left together.
At 6:24 pm, Sade & Anderson left the bar & according to Life360, which played a pivotal role in this case, they headed to a nearby bar called Duke’s on Water. Footage from the area determined they arrived together at 6:33 pm & walked across the street after Sade parked her car.
According to surveillance from the bar, they played beer pong with another couple. Sade appeared to be having a good time, laughing & smiling while Anderson continued to drink & take extra shots. When they left the bar together at 9:03 pm, footage proved that Sade was walking in a controlled manner. As they crossed the street, Anderson placed an arm around her which was the first physical contact they shared in any of the footage, other than one other moment when they had been playing beer pong.
Sade climbed behind the wheel of her Civic while Anderson got into the passenger side. Based on Life360, they arrived at the home Anderson owned on the south side of Milwaukee at about 9:20 pm.
Three hours & 25 minutes later, Life360, as well as video surveillance, shows that her phone & her car left his house at 12:45 am. The car traveled in the direction of her apartment, but drove past her building & then for hours, it drove around town aimlessly. In all the footage it was seen, the windshield wipers were running while the windows were fogged over, concealing the face of the driver.
Moving forward about 2 ½ hours to 2:53 am, according to Life360, Sade’s phone arrived at Warnimont Park & about 1 ½ later, her phone’s battery died at 4:35 am. A detective located video from nearby Cudahy High School that depicted a vehicle driving near the pump house at the shoreline at 2:53 am. A gate near this area had been struck while investigators found broken pieces from a car that matched Sade’s Civic.
Based on grainy surveillance video, a person, possibly a man, could be seen at 3:02 am, dragging something down the bluff toward the beach of Lake Michigan where the bluff dropped off toward the water, the camera losing sight of the person at this point.
About 1 ½ after the person was out of the range of the camera, the figure walked away from the lake carrying something as well as wearing a large backpack on their back. At 4:31 am, the car that entered the closed gate left the park headed westbound.
Based on the fact that Sade was last seen with Max Anderson while her car & phone left his house hours earlier, lead detective Jo Donner could only deduce that the figure in the footage was him.
Donner came to learn that their date that night hadn’t been the first time Sade had met Anderson as three days earlier, she was seen on security footage walking into Victor’s Nightclub on Friday, March 29, 2024. According to the owner, when she came in looking for a job she met the bartender, Max Anderson, a man who was 14 years her senior & stood at 6’1”, at least 13 inches taller than her. After they exchanged numbers, he walked her to her car.
As investigator Donner began looking into his background, she learned that he’d been working as a bartender in various Milwaukee establishments over the years. He’d also been in the Navy for a brief period before he left under a general discharge. He had a criminal record that included driving while intoxicated, disorderly conduct as well as violence against his own family.
Five years earlier in 2019, Anderson was accused of violence toward a stranger when he began to beat a man who attempted to intervene during an argument Anderson was having with a girlfriend. He was arrested for battery, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
Donner had enough information to secure a search warrant for Anderson’s house at 3161 S. 39th Street on Thursday, April 4. While one team searched his house, another was sent out to follow him. Seeing that he was heading home, they pulled him over in his Hyundai Santa Fe. He was arrested, taken into custody & held on a $5 million bond, but during questioning, he asked for a lawyer.
Visible blood was seen on the front passenger door speaker of his car, but when tested, it did not belong to Sade.
As investigators entered his home, they found no overt evidence of a bloody crime scene nor were there signs of a cleanup which told them that Sade’s body had not been dismembered there.
They did find an extensive collection of knives, somewhere around 51 in the kitchen alone, while none had been utilized in the dismemberment. There was a large black axe hanging on his living room wall, several hidden USB drives as well as women’s clothing, including underwear that were found in his basement, hidden between support beams & in the foundation wall. There were also notebooks with women’s names listed inside as well as a woman’s Wisconsin ID card.
Sade’s family were convinced that Maxwell Anderson was responsible for her death even though DNA had yet to come to confirm that the leg belonged to her. They covered his yard & property with pink balloons, signs & streamers, her favorite color.
Meanwhile, more human remains were found throughout the county by investigators as well as volunteers, each appearing to belong to the same victim. They were spread out & recovered in phases, some found at a playground, train tracks as well as a beach. One month after the initial leg was recovered, another leg was found in Illinois.
While Sade’s family friends searched a nearby wooded area, they came across a blanket that belonged to her. The following day, they discovered a human bone lying next to the train tracks, both of which were in areas investigators had already searched, but had somehow missed.
A woman named Chloe Wright, who’d dated Anderson for over a year, but had broken up one year earlier, came forward to talk to investigators. She described their relationship as toxic & although he hadn’t been physically abusive, he was verbally abusive, often making disparaging comments about her weight or her looks. However, she couldn’t fathom that he was capable of murder.
Chloe described Anderson as a secretive person, but during the spring when they were dating he told her about a secret beach that he wanted to take her to. She said it was a place he was very protective of, Warnimont Park, where the female human leg had been found.
On April 12, 2024, eleven days after Sade was last seen, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball announced that the severed leg definitely belonged to 19-year-old Sade Robinsin. That same day, Maxwell Anderson was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse & arson. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
DNA testing eventually revealed that the other remains found also belonged to Sade.
On April 15, 13 days after Sade’s leg was found, a police informant, who was also a friend of Anderson’s, came forward to tell police that Anderson had told him that he intended to kill a woman & even showed him a room in his basement where he planned to do it.
On March 5, 2024, a little less than a month before Sade’s murder, he showed him this basement room that had been covered in plastic tarp, covering the floors, the walls & the ceiling. There was also a utility sink inside. He planned to pull a handgun on his victim, bring her down to the basement, kill her, dismember her body & scatter her remains around the city.
This informant also reported seeing three saws in the basement & believed he planned to utilize them in the dismemberment process.
With this information, officers went back to Anderson’s home to look for any tape residue they might find on the rafters, floors or walls. When the search warrant was returned on April 17, detectives took the P-trap from the basement’s utility tub as well as a pipe from the laundry area & debris collected from a sewer pipe under the basement concrete.
Sade’s DNA was not found in any of the blood or swabs tested. Blood that investigators located on a bed as well as the walls that led to the basement were not a match to Sade, but it’s unknown who the blood belongs to.
On May 10, 2024, on what should have been Sade’s 20th birthday as well as her graduation from MATC, her family held a memorial for her. Adrianna, wearing a pink cap & gown, accepted her big sister’s diploma.
The trial began one year later on May 27, 2025 & lasted nearly two weeks. Jurors heard from more than 65 witnesses while phone data & surveillance video was reviewed which walked them through the timeline of Sade’s murder.
Detective Donner knew they were relying on circumstantial evidence since they hadn’t found a murder weapon or a crime scene that directly tied Anderson to Sade’s murder. Because her head & neck were never recovered while her recovered remains were found in pieces & partially decomposed, the medical examiner could not definitively determine her exact cause of death.
As Prosecutor Ian Vance-Curzan walked the jury through Sade’s last moments of life, jurors were shown footage from a neighbor’s security camera across the street from Anderson’s home. The grainy footage showed what appeared to be Anderson & Sade arriving at his home & turning the light on in his second-floor living room. Moving shadows could then be seen in the upstairs window & hours later at 12:45 am, only one person could be seen leaving the home.
The person in the footage was the same height as the fence as well as the gate that stood 6 feet tall. Investigators suspected that Anderson had already killed Sade by this time. Eight hours later at 8:42 am Anderson could be seen coming back home.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Anthony Cotton argued that his client had nothing to do with these crimes & cited a lack of motive, saying that although he may have been the last known person to have seen Sade, it proved nothing.
Since Sade’s car windows had been fogged over as the car drove around town for hours, he argued there was no proof that Anderson had been the person driving it. However, since investigators recovered Sade’s charred car with the driver’s seat pushed back, the driver had been at least six feet tall & Anderson was 6’1”.
Footage from a bus security camera captured a man leaving the scene of Sade’s burning car on Tuesday morning while a bystander on the street could be heard yelling, He did that! Since the man in question wore a large backpack on his back, it appeared to match the silhouette of the person seen at Warnimont Park.
The man in question boarded a city bus while footage from the bus very clearly depicted Max Anderson, still wearing the large backpack. The backpack, pants & shoes he wore on the bus have never been recovered while the gray jacket he wore was eventually found in his neighbor’s garbage can two houses down. When tested, Sade’s DNA was found inside the hood as well as on the zipper pull. This could be explained away since they’d been together the night before, but paired with the circumstances, it was highly suspicious.
When investigators tracked the man down who was seen in the surveillance on the street yelling, he did that, before Anderson boarded the bus, he told investigators that he & his friend saw a white male exit the driver’s door of Sade’s Civic. He lit a lighter & tossed it into the driver’s side window & began walking in their direction before he boarded the bus.
Anderson texted Sade’s phone that morning in an attempt to cover up his crime, writing, Mornin’! How’s work going?
Anderson’s ex-girlfriend Chole Wright testified off-camera about their relationship as well as his secret beach. Jurors couldn’t help but notice the cold, chilling look in his eyes as he watched her testify.
Jurors also heard about what investigators found during a search of Sade’s studio apartment two days after she went missing on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Inside a pink safe, they found marijuana as well as what appeared to be 47 pills of meth. Sade’s drug screen came back negative & the pills were never sent to the state crime lab to confirm their contents. The defense argued that more should have been done to explore if Sade’s murder had been possibly connected to those drugs.
There was no evidence presented that Sade had been a substance abuser. Since no drugs were found in her system or in her car, it seemed that drugs had no relevance to her case.
During the final day of testimony, jurors were shown photos found on Anderson’s phone that he had taken & later deleted that depicted Sade at his house. According to a digital forensic investigator, Anderson’s camera was active on five occasions during the 10 pm hour of Monday, April 1.
In the photos, Sade was wearing a cream-colored sweater similar to what she wore that night while she lay facedown on a red couch that matched the one in Anderson’s living room. Her arm was over her face while the hand of a white man grasped her exposed right breast.
It’s impossible to tell in the photos if she was alive, dead or sleeping at the time, but based on the circumstances of the case, many would deduce that she was deceased. One image was of her bare backside with her underwear & jeans pulled down that matched the light-colored jeans & underwear that was recovered from her trunk as well as what she was seen wearing in various surveillance footage.
The photos were deleted at 12:05 am on Tuesday, April 2 before his phone remained inactive from 12:08 am until 8:59 am. This same expert also testified that Anderson’s computer hard drive revealed that at about 12:05 am, as the images were being deleted, Netflix was activated, playing shows such as Love, Death and Robots & Three-Body Problem. Human interaction on the hard drive stopped just before 12:30 am, which was fifteen minutes before Sade’s phone & car left Anderson’s home.
According to Pete Worbington, who rented the lower unit of Anderson’s duplex, living beneath him was insufferable as he was often very noisy at odd hours two or three nights a month. However, on the night of April 1, 2024, he heard nothing unusual, but sometime before April 4, when the SWAT team raided the home, he did hear Anderson moving something heavy, maybe a suitcase, between 5-6 am.
Assistant medical examiner Dr. Lauren Decker testified about the harrowing details of the autopsies performed on Sade’s dismembered remains that they received over a period of 2.5 months. The absence of blood in severed limbs suggested dismemberment post-mortem. Toxicology results from the muscle showed no drugs or alcohol in Sade’s system & only detected caffeine.
On April 18, 2024, Sade’s torso had been recovered with only her left arm attached. Dr. Decker could see that it had been exposed to water for a prolonged period of time while the right breast had been removed. She identified seven stab wounds near Sade’s left breast as well as an injury to her right lung, but she wasn’t able to determine if these injuries occurred before or after death.
The defense rested its case without calling a single witness while the jurors headed off to deliberate. On June 6, 2025, after only 36 minutes, they found Maxwell Anderson guilty of all charges; first-degree murder, mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse & arson.
During his sentencing two months later on August 1, 2025, it was Sade’s family’s goal that he receive the harshest punishment possible, receiving life in prison. Sade’s sister, 17-year-old Adrianna bravely spoke, telling the courtroom how her life had changed since the death of her beloved big sister, leaving her to fear the intentions of anyone she met. Her sister had simply gone on a first date with a man she’d only just met & in the end, she was murdered.
Sade’s father, Carlos Robinson, said that he wanted everything that had been done to his daughter to be done to Anderson, saying, No man should be able to live after what he did.
It was Sheena’s wish that Anderson confess where her daughter’s crown, or head could be found. However, Maxwell Anderson refused to confess, maintaining his innocence. Judge Laura Crivello read a statement Anderson made to an investigator after his conviction that claimed he regretted not walking Sade to her car as he believes it was at this point, she was abducted by an unknown assailant that had been in his backyard or back alley.
When referencing why he was seen in the area of where’s Sade’s burning car was found, he claimed to have been set up
Detective Jo Donner believes that after they went back to his house, he wanted to do something sexually that Sade hadn’t been comfortable with. When she rejected him, his temper came out & he murdered her. She also believes that this was his first murder, however, had he not been caught, it likely wouldn’t have been his last.
One year after they broke up, Anderson sent Chloe a message on March 29, 2024 saying, Ignore time is over. Only five hours later, he met Sade in the bar where she came to apply for a job & only three days later, Sade was dead.
Judge Crivello sentenced Anderson to life in prison without the possibility for parole.
Shenna Scarbrough has since created a Wisconsin-based non-profit program, Sade’s Voice Foundation, in her daughter’s honor. They’re dedicated to violence prevention as well as survivor support & youth education. Shenna also partnered with a Wisconsin State representative to create a task force to examine & prevent the disproportionately high levels of violence against black women & girls.
A mural of Sade is painted on an area under Pizza Shuttle where she worked while a memorial bench was placed in Warnimont Park where searches have continued in hopes that her family will be able to one day lay all of Sade’s remains to rest.
Even in death, her big sister continued to inspire Adrianna since Sade had never let anything stop her determination in life. She wanted to honor her sister’s spirit in everything she did although she acknowledged that she’d never be able to fill Sade’s shoes.
Adrianna, who just valedictorian from a Milwaukee high school this spring, will be going to Harvard in the fall where she plans to study history so she can come back to Milwaukee to serve her community as a teacher. She is an exceptional young woman who has no doubt made her big sister very proud. During the harrowing times of her sister’s memorial service as well as the trial, Adrianna was tasked with taking various AP exams, but she feels her sister’s spirit has helped shape her resilience & determination.
On top of graduating at the top of her class, she also played varsity soccer & golf, started a social justice club, led an environmental advocacy club & also mentored grade schoolers. On top of it all, she helps run her sister’s non-profit organization.
Maxwell Anderson stole Sade Robinson’s life, removing her beautiful presence from this world & from the lives of those who loved her dearly. He scattered her remains around town & across state lines, throwing her away as if she were nothing more than a piece of trash. He took away all of her future plans, her ability to graduate with her associate’s degree, to join the military, maybe one day get married & start a family.
Through it all, he refuses to say where the rest of her remains can be found or to acknowledge what he’s done so her family hasn’t been able to properly grieve her death & bury her body in its entirety.
References:
- ABC WISN: Maxwell Anderson trial: Jury views disturbing images from defendant’s phone
- ABC WISN: Jurors get inside look at Sade Robinson’s apartment
- ABC WISN: Sade Robinson’s younger sister is accepted to Harvard
- ABC WISN: First date plot: Informant reveals Anderson planned to kill & dismember woman he met
- ABC WISN: Maxwell Anderson trial: Day 5 testimony, new video in Sade Robinson murder case
- Find a Grave: Sade Carleen Robinson
- YouTube: 48 Hours: Sade Robinson & The Secret Beach
- CourtTV: WI v. Maxwell Anderson: Deadly date murder trial
- Court TV: Coworker recalls making urgent wellness check request for Sade Robinson
- Estate of Sade Robinson vs. Maxwell Anderson
- 7 News: Blood found in mutilation suspect’s home doesn’t match victim, report says
- CBS 58: Investigators discover women’s clothing, weapons inside Maxwell Anderson’s Milwaukee home, search warrant says
- Medium: First date ends in dismemberment & arson – The murder of Sade Robinson
- Sade’s Voice Foundation
- YouTube: Law & Crime: Medical examiner reveals horrifying details about Sade Robinson’s remains
