The Murder of John Evers Robinson (Connecticut)

Nearly 35 years have passed since John Evers Robinson was found dead in his New Haven, Connecticut music studio. The original investigation generated several leads and theories of the killing, but the case remains unsolved. Now, John’s sister is doing everything she can to get her brother’s story out there. Someone knows something. It’s time to speak up.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables. It's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  If you're listening to this, there's a good chance you're a small business owner. And like every small business owner, you started with a dream to do what you love and watch it grow. What you probably didn't dream about: keeping up with cyber threats. That's where Mastercard can help, with access to tools that help identify cyber threats to better protect your business. Building your dream business: priceless. For cybersecurity in a changing world, there's Mastercard.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Learn more at mastercard.com/smallbusiness.

• 1:05Kylie Low?

  Nearly 35 years have passed since John Evers Robinson was found dead in his New Haven, Connecticut, music studio. The original investigation generated several leads and theories of the killing, but the case remains unsolved. Now, John's sister is doing everything she can to get her brother's story out there. Someone knows something, and it's time to speak up. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of John Evers Robinson, on Dark Down East.

• 1:43Kylie Low?

  It was just before 8:30 in the morning on Wednesday, March 14, 1990, when firefighters responded to 178 Temple Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Visitors and tenants in the building had noticed a strong, foul odor emanating from the direction of room number 208. When they peered into the mail slot on the door, they could make out the shape of a person lying on the floor, and they swiftly called 911.

• 2:12Kylie Low?

  First responders arriving at Room 208 found one of the door's two deadbolt locks engaged, and so they gained entry by removing the door from its hinges. A paramedic then crossed the dark room to hoist open a window, allowing fresh air and light to flood the small space and revealing the full scope of the devastating scene. The body of a man was lying face down on the floor, the victim of apparent severe head trauma. Whatever happened here was brutal and violent. Seeing the condition of the person, the paramedics and other first responders vacated the room and waited for police to arrive. A detective spoke with the property manager of the building

• 2:56Kylie Low?

  to figure out who the victim might be. The property manager explained that the space was known to be used as a music studio, and a check of lease documents showed that the deceased was likely the tenant, a local musician. Proceeds found in the pocket of a coat at the scene were more confirmation. This was 24-year-old John Evers Robinson.

• 3:21Kylie Low?

  John's sister, Jocelyn Jackson, has become the voice of his story. She was just 15 years old when he was killed, but she remembers him through a vibrant patchwork of firsthand experiences with her caring, silly older brother, stitched together with the stories she's heard from other family members and John's friends.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Those memories are, almost always, there's laughter in them. Because, you know, the hijinks of older brother is just what it is. It's the, like, the tickle fights in the family room. It's the playing with the dog in the front yard. It's the, you know, helping my mom run for Board of Education and, like, painting signs together.

• 4:04Kylie Low?

  Jocelyn remembers her brother as a caretaker, a protector. He looked out for her and those he cared about. He was also someone who got an idea and went for it, full steam ahead by any means necessary, whether it was learning how to make a souffle, eggs upon eggs sacrificed in the process, or as a teenager, leaving the life he knew in Kansas with his mother and Jocelyn to move in with his father in Connecticut.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  He made the choice that he needed to go live with his father in New Haven, and that happened very quickly. It's like the decision made, get on the plane.

• 4:43Kylie Low?

  John moved into Yale University Housing with his father, where he was in a graduate program at the time. John himself was accepted to a private high school. He explored science and art and sports, but the passion that really took hold and continued well past high school was music. John played bass and his genre of choice was punk, though Phil Gallo described John's music in the New Haven Register as more hardcore. He and a rotating lineup of musicians formed a band in 1986, most commonly known as Sold on Murder,

• 5:20Kylie Low?

  or just SOM. John's nickname on the scene was Rockhead, spelled R-O-K-K-E-D. Jocelyn remembers listening to her brother's music on cassette tape as a kid.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Having that cassette tape was sort of a really sweet way to be a part of John's life. I admit that the punk is hard. It took more of my adult ears to go into a place of appreciation for the musicality.

• 5:52Kylie Low?

  You can hear John's music for yourself. A posthumous album released by his friends and family is available to stream for free. I'll link it for you at darkdowneast.com.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Through his music, you found his stories and experience of politics and of social justice and of the messages in music often tell so much about someone's life and their commitments. And so I think that was the other way that he was able to share his vision for the world, for his own place in it, is that he wanted to have a liberatory sort of approach to the world.

• 6:31Kylie Low?

  The punk scene in New Haven, Connecticut in the 1980s was a vibrant, gritty subculture shaped by the era's anti-establishment sentiment and a rebellious spirit that mirrored the broader punk movements across the United States.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  And it was powerful to see how my brother lifted himself up in an environment that often was not populated by black folks. It's so profoundly clear that he had an unassailable commitment to music and to being a musician and that playing out gig work, you know, finding the way to bring the songs that he wrote into the world was such a clear focus for him.

• 7:24Kylie Low?

  Nearly all of John's energy and resources were poured into his band and their efforts to record and release an album. John rented room number 208 at 178 Temple Street in downtown New Haven, which he commonly referred to as "The Loft," for a recording and practice space for the band. He also sublet the studio by the hour, collecting a small fee from other musicians. Though it was not intended for residential use, John may have been staying at The Loft on and off, too. He had fallen behind on rent at the apartment he shared with a few roommates and had been asked to move out.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  He was often houseless. He was finding a way to make money, live his life, and also make music. And sometimes that was staying on people's couches. Sometimes he had his own apartment. And he was always just trying to figure out how they say, you know, make ends meet in order to keep making music.

• 8:23Kylie Low?

  For work outside of playing shows with his band, John was a manager at Ashley's Ice Cream in New Haven. The job came with a paycheck and access to the ice cream delivery truck for logging the band's gear around to venues for gigs. It was just another way John used what he had to support his dreams. But as Jocelyn learned, her brother also took some risks.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  As I've heard from friends, one of the ways he entered into drug culture was trying to find money through that as a way to fund his music. That's heartbreaking to me that that was, you know, his choice. And I know the realities of the eighties as well. And I know that that time was sort of rampant with drug culture.

• 9:09Kylie Low?

  Sources indicate that John was known to buy and sell small quantities of pot to friends and Yale students. However, as the investigation would reveal, John was making plans for a bigger buy, and other individuals had put money on the line with him, too. The details of this deal and other potentially volatile situations John was involved in came to light as police began to interview John's friends and acquaintances.

• 9:39Kylie Low?

  John's sister Jocelyn has obtained over 100 pages of the original 1990 NHPD case file for John's case via FOIA request. She questions why it was released. If the case had always been considered open and active, there would have been qualified exemptions to reject her request. But nonetheless, she has the documents, and she shared them with me. Everything from incident reports, witness statements, and interview transcripts, and the autopsy findings. According to incident reports contained in the case file, John's body was found lying on his stomach on the carpeted floor of Room 208, with his right forearm underneath his lower abdomen area and his left arm above his head. His head was slightly sideways,

• 10:24Kylie Low?

  with extensive visible trauma to the left of his forehead, eye, and nose.

• 10:30Kylie Low?

  The mostly unfurnished space had only a wooden chair and a step ladder off to one's side. There were sections of blood-spattered cardboard on the carpeted floor, a pile of clothing, a pair of sneakers, and a backpack, the contents of which appeared to be dumped onto the floor around it. Among the items, investigators found a key ring with two small keys, a separate, single key in the pile near the backpack, and another key ring with seventeen keys on it. An officer observed that Room 208 was adjoining by a smaller room which had shelving, some large speakers, and crates with music stands inside, among some other items. The exterior windows in this smaller room couldn't be secured because the locks appeared

• 11:14Kylie Low?

  to be broken, and an officer writes in one incident report that "it was easy to climb in and out of the windows onto the roof, which led to a fire escape and down into an alley." About five feet from John's head was a piece of cardboard with what appeared to be partial footprints from the sole of a shoe, maybe even three different shoes. A music stand in the adjoining room had partial latent fingerprints on it. A check for prints on the windows into the adjoining room also revealed more latent prints. Based on the location of blood spatters, spots, swipes, prints, and apparent transferred blood stains, an officer theorized that most, if not all, of the trauma occurred in the

• 11:59Kylie Low?

  main room where John's body was found, but there was also reason to believe that John's body had been moved within the space after his death. There's no mention in the incident reports of any drugs found at the scene, although an officer describes "an empty, small, plastic narcotics vial found near John's body with blood on it, but not in blood." There were several additional items photographed as potential evidence that also had blood on them, but they were not necessarily resting in blood.

• 12:32Kylie Low?

  After the local medical examiner and an associate state medical examiner arrived, they discovered that John also had trauma to the back of his skull. In his left back pocket, they found $200 in cash, $10, $20 bills, along with his driver's license, a piece of paper with a handwritten name and phone number, and a guitar pick. John's body was transported from the scene for an official autopsy that same day. Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Malka Shaw determined that John died as the result of cranio-cerebral injuries. He had multiple skull fractures, likely caused by blows to the head with a blunt object.

• 13:13Kylie Low?

  The ME theorized that the murder weapon was an object shaped like a baseball bat, but investigators did not find anything resembling a potential murder weapon at the scene. The state of decomposition indicated that John was likely killed sometime on Monday, March 12. Back at the loft with the investigation well underway, a detective intercepted a man who had shown up at the scene looking for John. The man, who I'll call by the fake name Patrick, said that he was trying to find John because he was supposed to be renting room 208 from him, and he had paid hundreds of dollars in back rent for the studio on John's behalf.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables, it's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  Looking for big flavor and even bigger savings? You gotta head to Royal Farms. Right now, get an eight-piece mixed chicken meal or a 10-piece dark chicken meal for just 15 bucks, including a 2-liter Coke. It's an easy, delicious meal the whole family can enjoy. Or grab a deli or chicken salad sub with Rofu chips and a 20-ounce Canada Dry soda for only 6 bucks. Fresh food, great deals, and world-famous flavor in every bite. Stop by Royal Farms today. Royal Farms: Real Fresh, Real Fast.

• 15:07Kylie Low?

  After showing up to the scene of the murder looking for the man who had just been found dead, Patrick was escorted to the detective division to give a statement. He told a New Haven detective that the last time he saw John was the past Friday, March 9th, at a restaurant where they met up to chat about the loft. John had been locked out by the management company for non-payment, so Patrick had agreed to pay the $330 of back rent, and in return, Patrick said John promised to turn the loft over to him to use for his computer business. But that hadn't happened yet. He received the new keys to the loft from the management company, but Patrick says he immediately gave them to John.

• 15:52Kylie Low?

  Patrick said they talked about something else that day, too. John needed a check in the amount of $660, which seems like it was separate from the back rent payment. As Patrick explained it, John said he needed to prove to somebody that he had money coming in soon. Patrick told John he didn't have that much in his account, and the check would likely bounce if he tried to cash it, but John said it didn't matter, it was basically just for show. Patrick told the detective he agreed to this, and later wrote a check payable to cash and left it under his apartment door for John to pick up. When Patrick left his apartment on Saturday morning, March 10th, around 8:00 a.m., the

• 16:33Kylie Low?

  check was there, and it was gone by the time he came back around 11:00. Patrick claimed he never saw or heard from John again after that, but not for lack of trying. Over the next few days, Patrick called the number he had for John's previous apartment, but John's old roommate said he wasn't there. Patrick tried to find John at the studio on the 13th, but there was no answer when he knocked on the door to room 208, so he left. Patrick said he didn't have anything else to say that might be helpful to the investigation, but agreed to take a polygraph test. A little over a week later, as Patrick answered the polygraph examiner's questions, he appeared more and more nervous, until finally,

• 17:16Kylie Low?

  Patrick said he did have more information about John's murder than he shared in his first statement. He agreed to tell investigators what he knew. In his second statement, taken on March 23, 1990, Patrick said he'd actually seen John as recently as Monday the 12th. According to Patrick, John had been working on getting money together to buy several pounds of pot. The plan was to buy it from two guys, who all called by the fake names Cody and Hank. Patrick himself had contributed $400 cash to the buy, which John picked up from Patrick's apartment around 12:30 PM on the 12th.

• 17:57Kylie Low?

  Patrick said that, to his knowledge, John was supposed to close the deal around 1:30 the same afternoon. Patrick said that when he hadn't heard from John hours later, possibly between 6:00 and 7:00 PM, he went to the loft where he believed the deal was happening between John and Cody and Hank. As far as he could tell, room 208 was empty, so he left and went back to his apartment. Patrick said that on his way out, he noticed a white car parked outside at the corner of Temple and Crown, and a man was standing next to it. He thought it looked like Cody, but wasn't 100% sure. A little later, maybe an hour or an hour and a half, Patrick says he went back to the loft.

• 18:41Kylie Low?

  This time, as Patrick was going up the stairs, he heard voices. He stopped a few feet shy of the door to the studio and listened. What he heard was bad. It sounded like John was in the studio with someone else. It sounded like Hank. He'd never been formally introduced to Hank, but he'd heard Hank's voice before and believed it was him. The voice was saying, "Where is it?" And John was saying, "No." Then, Patrick says he heard loud thumps and a crash of what he thought could be drums. Patrick told the detective he thought John was, quote, "about to be shot," end quote, and so he got out of there fast.

• 19:23Kylie Low?

  Patrick said he worried about John all night, but thought maybe he just got beat up and would be fine. The next day, he and a friend went over to the loft to see if they could find John. Patrick said they noticed an odor as they got closer to the door of room 208, and when they knocked, no one answered. Patrick said in his statement, quote, "At that point, I knew for sure John was dead," end quote. Patrick explained that he didn't call the police after what he heard because he was scared and he didn't want to get involved. And he didn't disclose this part of his story during his first statement because he was afraid he'd have to testify, and he didn't want his parents to know he was involved with drugs.

• 20:07Kylie Low?

  Patrick submitted two fingerprinting and photos, and he turned over either one or two pairs of his sneakers for analysis.

• 20:16Kylie Low?

  Investigators followed up with Patrick's friend, who he said went with him to look for John on the morning of the 13th. The friend told an NHPD detective that he was hanging out at Patrick's place with him on the night of March 12. According to a summary of the friend's statement contained in the case file, the friend says he got to Patrick's house around 6:00 or 7:00 that night, and Patrick had left the apartment twice, just as Patrick said he did. The friend said Patrick told him he was going to the loft to get some pot. The friend had been to the loft with Patrick before, half a dozen times, and had even entered through the window before, so when Patrick said "the loft," his friend knew the place he referenced.

• 20:58Kylie Low?

  When Patrick got back the second time, he seemed very upset. The friend could hear Patrick in the bathroom crying, and at one point, Patrick asked for the phone and a phone number for the police department, and then a number for the anonymous tip line, but Patrick didn't end up making any calls. At the end of the interview, the friend agreed to give his fingerprints and shoe prints. Now, Patrick wasn't the only witness who saw John on March 12, and he's not believed to be the last person with John before he was killed. One witness told police that around 1:25 PM on that Monday, John asked to borrow $200, and the witness agreed. He told John to meet him at an ATM on Broadway.

• 21:44Kylie Low?

  When John arrived, he was in the passenger seat of a tan-colored car. The witness couldn't be sure, but he thought the driver might be someone named Cody, who police knew to be one of the men Patrick told them John was supposedly planning to buy pot from that day. Detectives tracked Cody down to ask him a few questions, and he confirmed that around 1:30 PM on Monday, the 12th, he was driving down the street when he spotted John in a gas station parking lot flagging him down. John asked Cody for a ride, and Cody drove him to an ATM where he got cash from that other witness. Cody says he then dropped John off downtown on the corner of Temple Street and Crown Street, just down the street from the loft.

• 22:28Kylie Low?

  As far as the case file documents and interview statements from 1990 show at this point, Cody was the last person to have physical contact with John. And the person we're calling Cody appears again and again in witness statements within the 1990 case file documents, often paired with Hank, whose voice Patrick claimed he heard inside the studio at Room 208 on the last day John was known to be alive. Police learned through interviews with John's former roommate that these individuals, Hank and Cody, had called the apartment where John once lived several times since Sunday, looking for John and asking where he was. The roommate said the calls were "threatening" in tone.

• 23:14Kylie Low?

  They told the roommate that John owed them money. On March 25th, 1990, New Haven Police obtained search warrants for the apartments of Hank and Cody. At Hank's apartment, police seized several pairs of shoes and a set of keys. During a search of Cody's apartment, police collected several pairs of sneakers there, as well as a 12-inch pipe wrapped with black tape. It is clear from the incident reports and witness statements that NHPD detectives were investigating this alleged deal between John, Hank, and Cody as a potential motive for John's murder. But it wouldn't be the only thread that detectives had to follow.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  What we know about the punk scene in New Haven is that it was filled with a variety of different folks with a variety of different motivations for being there. Some people were punk because of the politic of it all. Some people were punk because of the anarchy of it all. Some people were punk because of the white supremacy of it all. And within the punk community, there were absolutely folks that represented the skinhead culture.

• 24:30Kylie Low?

  At the risk of oversimplifying, the term "skinhead" refers to a subculture that originated in the United Kingdom during the late 1960s. Its members are often characterized by their closely cropped or shaped heads, distinct style of dress, and association with specific music genres and cultural values. Over time, the movement splintered, with some factions embracing multiculturalism and others aligning with far-right extremism. For the purposes of this case, we're focusing on groups in New Haven and Greater New England associated with neo-Nazism and white supremacy, which are sometimes linked to hate crimes and extremist ideologies.

• 25:14Kylie Low?

  NHPD case file documents from 1990 indicate that in the months and weeks leading up to John's murder, he'd been in at least one physical altercation with people associated with the skinhead culture within the New Haven punk music scene.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  We know that over many months, there was the escalation of a conflict between him and other folks in the music community. And we know that blows were thrown, you know? People got hit, you know? There was, there was conflict that was leading to violence.

• 25:50Kylie Low?

  Howard Altman writes for the New Haven Advocate that a possible theory of John's murder was that he, quote, "was attacked by Nazi skinheads, possibly for racial motives, possibly to settle an old score involving a stolen symbol." End quote.

• 26:07Kylie Low?

  John's former roommate said in an interview with police that an acquaintance of John's had stolen an estimated $800 in musical equipment from another band. The witness said that the band members had beaten John up over it and at another time had showed up at John's house looking for him. The former roommate also claimed that members of this band had further harassed John at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, which took place in New Haven just the day before John's murder. Another witness told investigators that John and his band had been playing at a club on York Street about two months earlier when several subjects, known as quote unquote "skinheads," attacked John.

• 26:50Kylie Low?

  The witness identified one of the alleged attackers by name, but didn't think he or any of his associates would have killed John. One of these alleged attackers called NHPD the day after John's body was discovered. We'll call him by the fake name Henry. Henry had heard that the police were looking for him. An incident report contained in the case file summarizes Henry's conversation with a detective. He said that he belonged to a group known as the Skinheads, and there was in fact an ongoing conflict between them and John Robinson. Henry's explanation aligned with what witnesses had said. He and his group believed it was John who stole symbols from their group,

• 27:35Kylie Low?

  and sold them for $900 profit. Henry said that there had been several verbal confrontations, but no threats to kill him. Henry said that the last time he saw John was at the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Word on the street, according to Henry, was that John was hit and killed with either a microphone or an amplifier. Case file documents show that a few days after this phone call, two detectives tried to find Henry at his apartment, but he wasn't home. While the detectives were there though, three people walked out of Henry's apartment. They told detectives that they were off to continue a road trip out of state, and had spent the night at Henry's place the night before.

• 28:18Kylie Low?

  As the three individuals were loading up into their car, one detective spotted an aluminum baseball bat sitting on the backseat. The detective asked the three people whose bat it was, and they said it belonged to Henry, and they were bringing it with them. A baseball bat was interesting. The investigation hadn't uncovered a murder weapon, but the medical examiner suggested a baseball bat-type object was used to kill John. The detective asked if he could take the bat, and the three people turned it over to the police.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect...

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Looking for big flavor and even bigger savings? You gotta head to Royal Farms. Right now, get an eight-piece mixed chicken meal or a 10-piece dark chicken meal for just 15 bucks, including a 2-liter Coke. It's an easy, delicious meal the whole family can enjoy. Or grab a deli or chicken salad sub with Rofu chips and a 20-ounce Canada Dry soda for only 6 bucks. Fresh food, great deals, and world-famous flavor in every bite. Stop by Royal Farms today. Royal Farms: real fresh, real fast.

• 30:06Kylie Low?

  Several pieces of evidence have undergone forensic examination in this case, including items taken from the scene of John Robinson's murder, prints collected from Patrick and his friend, and other items seized at Cody and Hank's apartments. None of the four pairs of footwear collected from Cody's apartment matched bloody imprints found at the scene of the murder. The key ring seized from his apartment did not have any keys that matched the door to John's studio or the adjoining room. The pipe wrapped in electrical tape did not appear to have any connection to the crime. However, case file documents note that it was sent to the state police forensic lab for further analysis.

• 30:47Kylie Low?

  The footwear and keys seized from Hank's apartment were similarly inspected, but none of his shoes appeared to match the tread designs of the ones found in blood at the murder scene, and the keys also did not match the deadbolt or other locks at the scene. However, when investigators analyzed the pair of sneakers turned over by Patrick, those did appear to be the same design as a bloody print on a piece of cardboard found in the loft. The shoes were sent off for further testing and analysis for possible blood residue at the forensic lab. Now, that piece of cardboard with bloody footprints was believed to have up to three different shoe prints on it. Interestingly, one of the other tread patterns appeared to match the shoes of Patrick's

• 31:32Kylie Low?

  friend, who said he accompanied Patrick to the Temple Street building looking for John. But that tread pattern was also similar to shoes worn by a first responder at the scene. There's a note in the case file that police planned to track down Patrick's friend's shoes to test for blood residue, but it's unclear if that ever happened. When police compared the fingerprints found at the scene of the murder to those on file, they identified a few matches. Case file documents show that a latent print from a metal music stand at the scene was identified as Patrick's left ring finger. A latent print found on an interior window matched the left middle finger of Patrick's friend.

• 32:16Kylie Low?

  Now, these partial print matches could be innocuous. Both Patrick and his friend told police that they'd been in the loft space before, so it's not surprising that their prints were there. A few weeks later, police showed up at Patrick's home with a search warrant. Patrick told them they'd find drugs in his apartment, and he turned over a bag of cocaine. The one other item seized from the apartment that's specifically noted in an incident report was an aluminum baseball bat found in a closet. Patrick was later arrested for possession of narcotic and possession with intent to sell stemming from the cocaine he disclosed to police during the search. But if anything came from the evidence collected during multiple searches at the scene of

• 33:01Kylie Low?

  the murder, or from the homes of Hank and Cody and Patrick, that information isn't revealed in the 1990 case file documents I have access to. I don't know if any testing was completed on the iron pipe wrapped in electrical tape, or either of the baseball bats belonging to Henry and Patrick. We know for sure that if anything was found, it didn't lead to any charges relating to John's murder.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  But all of these things never led to substantive evidence. It never led to any confessions. It never led to anything that could concretely tie anyone to the murder. So it went inactive.

• 33:43Kylie Low?

  For years, Jocelyn and her family waited for updates, but John's case remained unsolved and stagnant, until almost 20 years later, when new evidence reignited the investigation.

• 33:58Kylie Low?

  Based on conversations Jocelyn has had with the detectives assigned to her brother's case, it was new evidence generated by the FBI that reactivated the investigation in 2009 and again in 2023.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  There is evidence that's still present from 1999 that can be tested with new technology. And we know that's something that's being pursued by investigators.

• 34:27Kylie Low?

  The reactivated case includes interviews with certain persons of interest, some of the people who were identified early on as having knowledge of or alleged connection to John's murder. We don't know who exactly detectives have interviewed or which suspects or persons of interest have been approached in recent years. Neither myself or Jocelyn have been able to obtain any further files after the 1990 files were released to her. But there are some reasonable assumptions to be made from the case docs we do have.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Knowing that there was violence in his life that was happening, knowing that there was the presence of a drug culture, these are some of the things that rise to the top as far as motivations for someone killing John in the way that they killed him.

• 35:17Kylie Low?

  There's the person we're calling Patrick. Patrick had given John money and was also supposed to be taking over the lease or at least sharing space at the loft with John. But that whole situation seemed to be in flux, or maybe John hadn't kept up his end of the deal. Patrick admitted to going to the building where the murder happened more than once on the day of and after John was killed. There are the individuals we're calling Hank and Cody, who were alleged to be involved in selling John a large quantity of drugs on the day of his murder. Witnesses placed John with Cody on the day of the murder. Police have said from the beginning that they believe John knew his killer.

• 36:00Kylie Low?

  It's possible John let them into the loft that night, not expecting what was to come. And yet, the door to the loft was locked when first responders arrived. So what's the scenario here? Did someone have a key to lock up on their way out? Patrick claims he was set to take over the lease from John, and that the management company had given him a set of keys to room 208, but that he turned them over immediately to John. And this could be true. Among the 20 different keys found at the scene and near John's body, an officer identified one key on a ring that went to the top deadbolt on the door to room 208.

• 36:42Kylie Low?

  So if that key ring was John's, then maybe he did obtain the key from Patrick prior to his death. And Patrick didn't have one and couldn't have locked up from the outside if he was somehow involved with John's murder. But then again, it's also possible whoever was involved with John's killing left through a window. A witness statement in the case file indicates John himself was known to climb through a window to room 208 on occasion, and an incident report states it would have been easy to access the roof and fire escape from the windows in the studio. There's also one other detail from Patrick's statement that feels worthy of addressing.

• 37:23Kylie Low?

  Patrick said that when he was standing outside of room 208 on the presumed night of the murder, and he heard that altercation inside, he also heard a crash that sounded like it could be drums. Some sources, including reporting by Michael Foley for the New Haven Register, state that there was a drum set reportedly in the loft space as of March 9, but the room was empty, and no drums were found there when John's body was discovered. So if what Patrick heard was in fact the crash of drums during a physical altercation, where did they go? Did John's killer or killers steal them? Did someone else who had access to the loft take them before John was murdered or after?

• 38:06Kylie Low?

  I don't see mention of police locating a drum set in the 1990 case file documents I have access to at this point. Several people, including names I haven't even mentioned, knew John was likely carrying a large sum of money on the day he was last seen alive. Was he robbed for that money? If so, why was $200 in cash left behind in his pocket? Is it more plausible that John was fatally beaten for another reason? Perhaps as an end to the ongoing conflict between him and members of another band? Or Henry and the so-called Skinheads, who had ongoing beef with John, responsible for

• 38:49Kylie Low?

  his brutal murder? It deserves note that Henry went on to become a very well-known public person. Without getting too specific so as to identify him directly, Henry entered the entertainment industry. As he gained more publicity for his work, he revealed things about himself and his past in public media outlets. He told stories of his days participating in Skinhead culture, as well as leading a gang. He publicly described specific violence that he and his associates have inflicted on people. By his own statements, his violent past has served as source material, an inspiration for some of his work.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  These folks can tell their story of being violent actors in society, and they can tell the story in public ways and be applauded for them. They can tell their stories of violence in terms that are not explicit but are definitely, in other ways overt, admitting to murder publicly. And that's not enough.

• 40:05Kylie Low?

  To this day, more than three decades later, no one has been arrested or charged with any crimes as it relates to the murder of John Evers Robinson.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  I think we're at the phase of really relying on perpetrators and witnesses to find it within themselves to tell the truth.

• 40:28Kylie Low?

  In the years since she lost her big brother, Jocelyn has experienced heavy grief and heartache, intertwined with powerful moments of connection and healing.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  At points in my life, I even tried to play bass because of many different reasons. But I did get to, my mom was given one of John's bass guitars at the memorial service, and I wanted to play that instrument. There's something, I think many people probably have this experience of, you know, like there's these objects that we have from people that have passed away. They have a different meaning, but how powerful it was to, you know, I was part of a band for a little bit when I was in law school, and I was playing John's bass guitar. And just that small embodiment of being in a circumstance

• 41:22Speaker 03

  that mirrored John's was so healing and so expressive and so just right on time for that phase of my life. And it was powerful to be on this instrument that he made some of these sounds on these songs that he recorded, to put my fingers on a fret where he also put that care and that attention. I was not good at it. Like I was not, you know, it didn't last in a substantial way. And it wasn't about that. It was about wanting to have another one of those experiences in life where I felt like I was close to my brother.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  And that instrument provided that. Making music provided that.

• 42:11Kylie Low?

  In early 2024, Jocelyn released a three-episode podcast under the same name as her late brother's band, Sold on Murder. She interviews John's parents, loved ones, and friends to learn more about him and the circumstances of his life at the time he was killed. I'll link it for you in the show notes. That podcast is just one way she is seeking answers for her brother, her family, and for herself. Jocelyn knows that by taking on this role as the face and the voice of her brother's case, there are potential safety implications. Individuals believed to have direct knowledge of or connection to John's murder are still alive. Yet, she remains unafraid

• 42:54Kylie Low?

  and committed to the pursuit of justice and restoration.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  The reason I am pursuing justice in this way, pursuing accountability in this way, pursuing restoration in this way is because for 35 years, I have not had peace. And I demand, in my lifetime, to have the resolution in my heart of what created these circumstances for my brother to be this brutally murdered and to have the release of that from what my entire family has carried all these years.

• 43:31Kylie Low?

  Jocelyn has a message for the people involved in her brother's murder.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  One of the abiding heartbreaks of this experience is that my brother was alone, that he died alone. And I don't want the person who killed him to get the impression that he was alone in life. I want everyone involved to know that my brother was surrounded by people that loved him. And you taking his life was taking a part of us. I understand that people who kill often don't feel remorse in ways that I can relate to. But I really need there to be a knowing that you took someone's son, you took someone's friend, you took someone's brother,

• 44:19Speaker 03

  you took someone's heart and were still alive.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Living with that, and there's no version of reality in which John is not taken care of by us for the rest of our lives. You killed him, but he's still alive with us. And I think that's mostly what I want them to know.

• 44:43Kylie Low?

  If you have information regarding the 1990 murder of John Evers Robinson in New Haven, Connecticut, please contact the Connecticut Cold Case Unit at 1-866-623-8058, or the New Haven Police Department at 1-866-888-8477.

• 45:12Kylie Low?

  Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at @darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Low, and this is Dark Down East.

• 45:43Kylie Low?

  Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

• 45:54Kylie Low?

  Big monthly car insurance bills are hard on your budget, but not with Hugo. Hugo breaks up your insurance bill into tiny pieces so you can pay a little bit at a time. Get a quote today and start driving insured with just seven days of coverage. After that, pay at your own pace, like every week or even a day at a time. Hugo is car insurance that fits your budget, stress-free. Get your car insured today at withhugocom. That's withhugocom.