*Sade Carlee Robinson, a 19-year-old college student, went missing after a first date in April 2024. Her dismembered body was later found across Milwaukee, leading to homicide and arson charges against 33-year-old Maxwell Anderson.
Days after Robinson was reported missing, investigators found her car on fire and her body parts scattered around the city. According to PEOPLE, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office alleged in a statement that Anderson “intentionally killed Sade C. Robinson, mutilated her remains, and set fire to her car in an attempt to obscure potential evidence of the killing.” Anderson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Robinson’s mother requested a public memorial since the family couldn’t hold a traditional funeral due to the absence of an intact body. However, Milwaukee officials halted plans for the $7,000 memorial after receiving numerous racist messages opposing the use of taxpayer funds for the tribute, FOX6 reported.
“We don’t have all of my baby’s remains, we don’t still have all of my baby’s remains,” Sade’s mother Sheena Scarbrough said, per the outlet. “We don’t have a gravesite to go to. This is still the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
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County Board Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez withdrew the proposal after receiving a “flurry of racist emails,” he said, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“It is most unfortunate that we’re at this moment in our country’s history where, once again, we feel very comfortable being overt with our prejudices, with our racism and with just plain evil, hateful thoughts,” County Supervisor Felesia Martin told the paper.”
Several people emailed city officials to oppose taxpayer money being allocated to the memorial.
“People should be thoroughly ashamed of the way that Ms. [Scarbrough] has been treated for wanting this,” Martinez said at a meeting of the committee, per PEOPLE.
“I just want to say shame on people for treating a grieving mother this way and making it a race thing, and treating her as subhuman when it’s absolutely unnecessary and absolutely unethical and it shows the most disgusting and detestable parts of our society,” he said.
“I thought it was cool at first because obviously it was a memorial for Sade,” Robinson’s cousin, Keke, said of the proposal. “But then things instantly changed for the family. We started getting negative feedback from the community and people and we just didn’t want that.”
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