A serial killer on the 2021 bingo card?

A lone red shopping cart in the woods isn’t suspicious or disturbing to anyone on a normal day. But images coming out of Virginia are making that sight one not to be forgotten any time soon.

Allene Elizabeth “Beth” Redmon, 54-years old. Tonita Lorice Smith, 39-years old. Cheyenne Brown, 29-years old.

These three women, and one so far unidentified victim, have been linked to a serial killer in Virginia. Police in Fairfax, VA, arrested 35-year old Anthony Robinson in connection with four murders that have happened since August. He’s come to be known as “the Shopping Cart Killer” for incredibly demented reasons.

He met his victims on dating sites, and at motels, before killing them and putting their bodies in containers. In a bizarre spin, he transported the bodies via shopping cart to dispose of the containers. Brown and the remains of the fourth unidentified victim were found in the same container, which was discovered by investigators who found a red shopping cart in a wooded area.

Fairfax County Police Department

Despite Robinson having a stunning lack of criminal history, investigators believe more victims are out there. He lived a transient life, which means he could have left a trail of victims anywhere. It could take a long time to comb through for similar cases. But the MO is so specific, those murders would stand out. Police are cross-referencing Robinson’s dating app history with those of missing persons cases.

This a bizarre case, and with it being so fresh in the news, I won’t speculate here about the “unspeakable” things police say he did to the remains, out of respect for the victims and their families. I think the fact the women were in containers says enough for the mind to fill in the details. We don’t know much about the women yet, but he clearly wasn’t picky on age when it comes to victimology. The only detail we can truly surmise upon is the probability of the unidentified victim also being a woman.

In a society where we’re all so connected online, it’s horrifying that something as ordinarily used as dating sites could become a serial killer’s hunting ground. The more humans become connected, the less safe women become, it seems.

It brings me back to that Margaret Atwood quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Links

People Magazine article

,New York Times article