At 2:23 a. m. on Tuesday, April 25, 2017 there was a 911 call received from a man, Tom Robbins, who claimed his wife, Suzy, had never come home from work, and he had not been able to find nor contact her in any way. They lived in a small town, Eureka Springs, with a population of only about 2,000 people. The town was generally calm, with a very small police department, so when a call like that was received very early on a Tuesday, it was extremely alarming to the police department. Tom and Suzy Robbins were your average couple. They had two small children, Michael and Samantha, and had been happily married for eight years.
They both lived in Eureka Springs all of their lives, and had grown up together. He was the high school football star, and she was the captain of the cheerleading team. They were highschool sweethearts, and the town’s dream couple. They were well known and loved by everyone, and not a single person could have imagined what had happened to Suzy Robbins on that night. The call was taken by police officer, Hank Davis. He knew Tom and Suzy and was shocked to hear that Tom believed Suzy had gone missing. What was most troubling to him though was that, when he went over to their home, Tom didn’t seem too worried.
It was almost as if he were too calm, like maybe this had happened before. He asked tom the usual questions, starting off with, “When was the last time you talked to your wife? ” Tom responded saying, “I have not talked to her sense she headed out of the house to go to work earlier that morning. We said our usual goodbyes, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. ” Officer Davis asked Tom if he received any phone calls from her throughout the day, and Tom said that she had tried to call him once around lunch, but he was in a meeting so unfortunately he missed it.
She had left no message, but she always called Tom on her lunch break, so that was really nothing out of the ordinary either. When Tom got home later that day, he said the kids were sitting on the couch watching cartoons, and when he asked them where their mom was, they said she wasn’t home so they had to get a ride home from school from one of Michael’s friend’s mom. Tom then tried to call Suzy, but it went straight to voicemail. After questioning Tom, Davis decided that he should go back to the station and get a team ready to investigate.
Officer Davis knew Suzy and her family very well, and he knew, from instinct, that she wouldn’t just run off like this. He didn’t want to assume the worst, but in his gut he felt that Suzy may be gone. Officer Davis and a few other investigators went to Tom’s later in the day on that Tuesday and asked them if they could search the house to find any clues to lead them to where Suzy may have gone. They did not have enough evidence that anything happened in the house to get a search warrant, so Tom’s permission was the only way.
To their surprise, he said yes and allowed the officers into the house with a much confidence. When they were searching nothing seemed out of place like anything had happened there, but they did smell something that smelled like bleach in the bathroom. Officer Davis used a chemical that would test for any residual blood, and sure enough it was positive. Now, they had reason to believe something tragic happened to Suzy, and Tom definitely had something to do with it. They took Tom down to the station for more questioning, and instead, this time Officer Paul Smith talked to Tom.
Paul asked, “Why did the bathroom tub and floor test positive for having blood on them? ” Tom responded, “Maybe Suzy cut herself shaving that morning or something, I’m not sure. ” Paul explained that it was a substantial amount of blood that could not have been from just a shave cut. Tom’s confidence still shined, exclaiming that he had nothing to do with Suzy’s disappearance, and they are wasting their time questioning him when they should be out there searching for her. He was too confident though, and Paul could tell something was very wrong.
It was almost as if Tom was not even concerned about her disappearance anymore, just confident and weirdly happy that he had definitely not done anything wrong Officer Davis got a warrant to obtain any and all weapons that Tom owns. He went to their home and found a few guns and also took some blunt tools and kitchen knives to test. On a handgun, Davis found gunpowder residue that indicated it had recently been fired. He brought this evidence to Officer Paul who was still trying to crack Tom, and they began to ask him questions about the gun.
Tom was sure they were lying, still confident he did nothing wrong. Calmly, he said, “It wasn’t me, I loved my wife. Why would I have killed her? ” He had a weird grin on his face that made everyone watching the interview extremely uneasy. Investigator Laura Martinez was searching the house all day for more evidence, and she found everything they needed to prove Tom was guilty in court. Not only did they have the blood in the bathroom and the gun, but they now had bloody sheets found in the trash and more blood splatter in the bedroom on the walls that someone had tried to clean.
They had enough evidence to arrest Tom even though they had not yet found a body. In court a week later on Wednesday, May 3, it was Tom and his lawyer, pleading not guilty, against prosecutor Shane Jones. Shane questioned Tom about all the evidence found in Tom’s home. Shane asked, “How do you explain all of the blood found in the bathroom, the blood splatter on the walls, the bloody sheets, and the recently used gun? ” Tom responded, “I went to the gun range earlier this week, that’s why the gun had been used, and I don’t know anything about the sheets because nothing happened.
I never hurt my wife. ” Tom never even flinched, always confident that he did nothing wrong, but that would soon change when the jury came back with their verdict. Only thirty minutes had passed before the jury was back from their chambers with the verdict. The Judge said, “In the case of Tom Robbins for third degree murder, how do you, the jury, find the defendant? ” They responded, “We find the defendant, Tom Robbins, Guilty. ” They whole courtroom gasped as Tom yelled out, “I admit it! It was me. I killed my wife.
I thought I did a good job covering it up but obviously not. We got in a fight one night and I just lost it. I couldn’t control myself. I killed her, the woman I loved. ” The judge called order to the court and sentenced Tom Robbins to life in prison. He confessed to where he hid the body. He buried her a few miles out of town, under a tree. It was a shock to the whole town. Such a well known couple that had been together practically all their lives ended so terribly. It was a tragedy, but Suzy Robbins would never be forgotten.