Justice in the Shadows: The Murder of Christina Sanoubane

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The last years of Christina Sanoubane’s short life were filled with violence and ended in tragedy. She was brutally murdered just days after moving into a new apartment with her toddler-aged son, seeking a fresh start. In her final days, Christina encountered three men who shared a history of violence against women. One was convicted of her murder, but a hasty investigation has left his guilt up for debate. Is Christina’s killer in prison where he belongs, or did the real perpetrator get away with murder at the cost of another man’s freedom?

 

This case takes us back to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a place we last visited back in November when Trish covered the case of Michelle Martinko, an 18-year-old student who was murdered in the Westdale Mall parking lot in 1979. That happened barely 2.5 miles from Christina Sanoubane’s murder. Since Trish recently highlighted this location, I’ll just remind listeners that Cedar Rapids is the second most populated city in Iowa, with about 120,000 residents in 2000 when Christina’s case takes place. It’s located in the eastern portion of Iowa about 240 miles due west of Chicago.

Seeking refuge

Christina’s story begins with the thousands of refugees who fled Laos in 1975 when communism took control of their country. Iowa sponsored 1,500 refugees, including Christina’s parents, Prasith and Linda (Raddathay) Sanoubane. They settled in Des Moines and had their first child, a daughter named Catherine, in 1978. Christina was born a year later on November 21, 1979. Prasith died in February 1982, when the girls were still toddlers and Linda was just 20 years old. Linda moved to Cedar Rapids and eventually married a man named Ly Quang. Christina’s stepsister Angelena and stepbrother Frederick followed.

Toxic young love

Christina started dating her fellow classmate Jacob Crosson in 1996, when they were both 16. Christina’s intense feelings for Jacob might have contributed to why she started using drugs with him, including cocaine, weed, and meth. Jacob physically abused Christina, but she told her concerned family and friends that she couldn’t leave the man she loved.

By age 17, Christina moved into a friend’s home and away from her parents’ disapproval. Her friend’s mother, Norma Hoffpauir, remembered Jacob getting into a fight wither her daughter about drugs while Christina lived there. Norma banned Jacob from her home, but it didn’t stop the relationship. Christina dropped out of high school during her senior year after becoming pregnant and moved in with Jacob. Their son, Corbin, was born in October 1998.

Jacob was twice charged and convicted of assaulting Christina. The first time was around Christmas 1998, when Jacob shot at Christina’s face with a pellet gun. A year and a half later, Christina suffered an assault that left her with a four-inch cut on her forearm and small cuts to her throat. She told coworkers who noticed her injuries that “[Jacob] was trying to kill me.”

Christina worked as a waitress, and then at a convenience store and as a telemarketer after Corbin was born. One of her former supervisors, Sandy Smith, said Christina regularly came to work with visible injuries, such as bruises and scratch marks. Whenever Sandy inquired about the marks, Christina told her, “Jacob beat me up again.” Another coworker recalled seeing Christina with a “swollen eye,” “swollen, cut lip,” and “injured hand.”

Fiercely independent

In 2000, after Jacob had cut her throat, Christina broke up with him and moved out. She told a coworker that Jacob was extremely upset and told her, “You’re dead meat.” Christina’s family encouraged her to move back in with them, but she refused. They describe Christina as “hardworking and independent,” but still “young and innocent” at just 20 years old, a combination that they believe made her vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

They weren’t shocked that Christina wanted to strike out on her own because she always wanted to prove herself and go her own way. Her older sister, Catherine, described Christina as a fighter. “Her little apartment, car, and job meant her freedom, her individuality, and most of all, her independence. She wanted to show everyone she could take care of her responsibilities.”

New neighbors

Christina was determined to provide a safer home for her son and focus on her goals of becoming a television journalist or fashion designer. The first step she took was moving into the front apartment of a duplex at 818 10th Street SW, and it happened on Thursday, August 31, 2000, just before Labor Day weekend. Norma Hoffpauir’s boyfriend, Todd Hale, agreed to help move Christina in with his pickup truck. Christina offered him $25 for helping.

When Christina and Todd arrived at the duplex, they met neighbor Tameca Sanders, who lived in the rear apartment. She volunteered her partner, 29-year-old Carloss Robinson, to help Todd move the heavier furniture. They accepted the help, and Carloss made several trips in and out of Christina’s apartment that day.

Carloss and Tameca lived at the duplex with their four children – a boy and three girls, ages three to eight years old – for almost a year after moving from Waterloo, about an hour away. Carloss just started training for a steady telecom job after working two part-time jobs at a security firm and a nearby convenience store. Neighbors described him as a “sweet” “family man” who “never demonstrated anger.” During Christina’s first few days at the duplex, she relied on Carloss and Tameca for help getting settled, once using their phone to order pizza.

Although Christina had been looking for a fresh start, Jacob wasn’t ready to let go. A neighbor recalled seeing a red car similar to the one Jacob drove parked at the duplex “a time or two” after Christina moved in. Christina told Todd Hale that Jacob came to her apartment, fought with her, and punched a hole in the wall before leaving.

Horrific discovery

Todd returned to Christina’s around 11:30am on Monday, September 4 to collect the $25 she owed him. Christina never came to the door, but Todd could hear her TV “blaring” inside. He looked for Christina through a window, and the “crumpled blankets” on her bed made him think she was still asleep. Corbin was crying, but Todd assumed Christina would wake up and take care of him shortly. He left after several minutes with plans to return later.  

Carloss and Tameca were gone with their kids most of that Monday. When they returned that evening, they heard Corbin crying continuously next door. Carloss went over around 6:00pm to check on him and Christina. Carloss’s knocks also went unanswered, and he could see Corbin crying through a window.

Todd returned a few minutes later to find Carloss outside Christina’s apartment unable to get her to answer the door. Todd decided to gain entry through a front window and quickly came upon Christina’s semi-clothed body lying face down in her bathtub, appearing lifeless, surrounded by bloodstains. He grabbed Corbin and ran back outside, shouting for someone to call 911.

Carloss made the call, telling the dispatcher, “I’d like to report a death…I’d like to report a death…The guy said she was dead…I don’t know, I don’t know…My neighbor…She does drugs.” When police arrived, they determined that Christina was already deceased. They interviewed Todd, Carloss, and Tameca at the scene. Carloss told officers that he helped Christina move in, but he didn’t know what happened to her.

Early clues

Investigators quickly theorized that Christina knew her killer because there were no signs of forced entry. Christina’s sandals were found in the middle of her kitchen floor, along with two of her own teeth and a broken piece of a frying pan handle. The rest of the frying pan it belonged to was missing. Police believe Christina’s attacker used the frying pan to strike her with such force that it caused her teeth to fall out and the frying pan to break.

Trails of bare footprints, many of which were difficult to see with the naked eye, were found throughout Christina’s apartment. Some were “intermingled with drops of Christina’s…blood.” The ridge detail in these footprints was completely unique to the person who left them and as good as fingerprints for identification.

A rusty-colored ring in the bathtub Christina laid in indicated that it had been filled with water while she bled out but had drained by the time police discovered her. There was a bloody partial palm print on the bathroom sink, and, strangely, fresh hamburger buns were strewn all over the bathroom floor. It looked as though someone opened a bag of buns and shook them all out. One of the buns retained a partial bare footprint, including the big toe, with ridge detail. Police recovered the bag clip, but never found the bag.

An autopsy determined that:

  • Christina suffered a “brutal assault” with multiple “puncture wounds” to her neck and face resulting in massive blood loss. The mortal wound was “a deep cut to the right side of her throat…[that] cut across the carotid artery and her windpipe.”  There wasn’t enough blood left in her body to conduct a traditional toxicology exam, and investigators opted not to have drug testing done on her organ tissue.
  • Before stabbing her, Christina’s killer struck her “repeatedly” around her face and head “with a blunt object.” An x-ray revealed that a pellet from Jacob’s 1998 assault was still lodged in Christina’s face.
  • Christina’s time of death was estimated to be between 9:00pm Sunday and 3:00am Monday.

    Expert opinions differ when it comes to whether there was evidence of a sexual assault, but sperm was recovered from a vaginal swab. The sperm contained two male DNA profiles – a major contributor from the night Christina died, and a minor contributor from a few days prior.

    Motherless child

    Whatever happened that night, Christina’s son, Corbin, just a month shy of his second birthday, was there to witness it all, and he was alone with his mother’s body until the following evening. Christina’s mother, Linda, planned to visit her and see the apartment for the first time on Tuesday. Instead, she received the news that her daughter was murdered and took in her traumatized grandson Monday night. Considering how Christina’s killer left Corbin behind in that horrific scene, Linda said, “That’s a monster heart, an inhuman heart.”

    Even ten years later, the impact of Christina’s murder had a devastating impact on her mother. Linda said, “I believe that other…parents…their children got killed or murdered and they move on in their life, but me, I don’t know why, I can’t. I cannot go outside. It hurts me, and it hits me all the time that I miss Christina so bad.”

    One suspect from three

    Christina Sanoubane’s ex-boyfriend, Jacob Crosson, was the obvious prime suspect from the beginning. He had an alibi for most of Sunday night, but there are windows of time that aren’t accounted for within Christina’s estimated time of death. Still, several witnesses, including casual acquaintances, came forward to confirm that Jacob was with them that night, hopping between bars, restaurants, and residences until about 4:00am Monday.

    Police also wanted to investigate 35-year-old Todd Hale, who found Christina’s body. The nature of the attack seemed personal, and Todd considered Christina a “friend” from when she lived with his girlfriend, Norma Hoffpauir. Some of Todd’s actions were also suspicious, especially the skill with which he broke into Christna’s apartment. However, Norma said Todd was with her all night Sunday until he left for Christina’s late Monday morning.

    Investigators became more suspicious of Christina’s next door neighbor Carloss Robinson after theorizing that the bare footprints at the crime scene meant that Christina’s killer lived nearby. His partner, Tameca Sanders, visited her sister in Waterloo overnight on Sunday, leaving Carloss home alone with his children at the duplex and without a solid alibi.

    Police asked all three men to provide footprints, palm prints, and DNA samples for comparison to crime scene evidence. They also executed search warrants for Jacob’s and Carloss’s residences and vehicles.

    Although Jacob was the prime suspect, he wasn’t investigated to the extent one might expect. For example, Cedar Rapids police never checked Jacob’s cell phone records. When they found stained clothing in Jacob’s truck, they never collected the clothing or had it analyzed because a lighting test didn’t indicate that the stains were blood.

    Christina’s body was found on Monday evening, and by Tuesday morning, police had matched Carloss’s footprints to the ones found in her apartment, including the partial print in a hamburger bun found in Christina’s bathroom and other prints that were “intermingled with drops of Christina’s…blood.” Cedar Rapids police stopped investigating Jacob and Todd as suspects because they felt “there was no need to talk with other people once the footprint had been matched to Robinson.”

    Changing story

    Carloss was reinterviewed Tuesday morning. He again denied being in Christina’s apartment except to help her move in and confirmed that he was barefoot at the time, a detail Todd remembered too. Forensic experts agree that his “footprints could have remained on the uncarpeted surfaces of the floor for three days or more,” and that “blood could have fallen on the floor before or after the footprint was made.”

    The interviewing officer said Carloss changed his story when confronted with the fact that his footprints matched those found at the crime scene.

    Carloss explained that he became concerned after hearing “bumping noises” coming from Christina’s apartment Sunday night. He went next door to investigate and let himself in when Christina didn’t answer. Once again, Carloss was barefoot. He eventually found Christina laying on her bathroom floor with her back against the bathtub. She appeared unconscious, and a “dark, foamy substance” was slowly falling from her mouth.

    Carloss said he was so startled by the sight that he slipped and caught himself on her sink. There was liquid on the floor, possibly blood, but her apartment was completely dark so he couldn’t tell for sure. In a panic, Carloss ran back to his apartment and smoked weed to calm down. He didn’t call 911 then because he wanted to avoid involvement with the police.

    Questionable conduct

    This is the statement that a single police officer – the only one who interviewed Carloss that day – typed up, and Carloss refused to sign it. During the more than eight-hour interrogation that resulted in this statement, officers at the Cedar Rapids police station ignored multiple requests from two defense attorneys who attempted to contact Carloss and instructed police to stop questioning him.

    More than one judge would later defend the police department’s actions, noting that the attorneys were reaching out on behalf of Carloss’s family, and Carloss never asked for an attorney himself. They were not required to tell Carloss that attorneys were trying to reach him.

    There is also debate over whether police properly Mirandized Carloss during this time. The interviewing officer said he verbally read Carloss his Miranda Rights, but only after confronting him with the footprint evidence, and Carloss never signed the form acknowledging those rights.

    Disbelief

    Carloss Robinson was arrested at the conclusion of this interview, within 24 hours of calling 911 to report the discovery of Christina Sanoubane’s body. He was charged with first degree murder and held over for trial on $500,000 bond.

    Police theorize that Carloss used the opportunity of his partner being out of town to visit Christina and make a sexual advance toward her. When she rejected him and kicked him out, Carloss became enraged and hit Christina with one of her frying pans, knocking her unconscious. He dragged her to the bathroom, raped her, and then placed her in the tub, cut her throat, and filled the tub with water to hide physical evidence.

    Afterward, they think Carloss returned to the kitchen looking for something to carry the murder weapons out in to avoid leaving a blood trail. Carloss settled on the hamburger bun bag, leaving the buns scattered on Christina’s bathroom floor after he opened it. Police think Carloss disposed of the murder weapons immediately, and they have never been recovered. He could have been motivated to murder Christina out of fear that Tameca would find out about his infidelity, out of anger over Christina’s rejection, and because Christina could have identified him if she had survived the rape.  

    Carloss’s neighbors were shocked by the announcement, explaining that it was “so out of character for him” and not reflective of the quiet, helpful, and hard-working man they knew. When Carloss’s father, Timothy Robinson Sr, learned of his son’s arrest, he said, “It was like a death in the family.” His mother, Pam, insisted, “our son is not the monster…he is still walking around out there somewhere.”

    Mounting evidence

    This wasn’t Carloss’s first encounter with law enforcement. In 1993, Carloss plead guilty to assaulting Tameca, his partner and the mother of his children, and was placed on one year of self-probation. During an argument, Carloss pushed Tameca into a door, “causing her to hit her head.” In 1995, Carloss was sentenced to 90 days in prison after he choked Tameca – he attacked her when she tried to stop him from hitting their two-year-old with a belt.

    Carloss’s trial wouldn’t begin for more than a year. In the meantime, forensic analysis determined that Carloss was the major contributor of the sperm evidence, meaning he either had sex with Christina or raped her the night she died. The second sperm sample – the minor contributor from a few days prior – didn’t match Carloss, Jacob, or Todd, and it has never been identified or compared to anyone else.

    The bloody partial palm print on Christina’s bathroom sink also belonged to Carloss. During a search of his apartment, police recovered the clothing Carloss wore the night Christina died. Three spots of blood were found on his t-shirt: one had Christina’s and Carloss’s DNA, and two contained Carloss’s DNA only.

    Trial begins

    The murder trial against Carloss Robinson began the Monday after Thanksgiving, one week after Christina Sanoubane’s 22nd birthday. The local newspaper published a birthday message from Christina’s mother:

    “Happy birthday to you Christina! Why!? was your life so short like a song ended too quick. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve cried for you every day. No matter what, it will never be the same anymore. Christina, you’re always in my heart and nothing gets us apart. – Love you, Mom & your family”

    When Carloss took the stand, he refuted the forensic evidence against him as only proof of him being in the apartment, not that he assaulted or killed Christina. Carloss testified to another version of events, now claiming that he went to Christina’s apartment around 8:00pm because she asked him to share his weed with her. Carloss says they smoked together and then had consensual sex. During their second round of intercourse, Carloss heard a knock and a man’s voice at Christina’s door, so he left quickly, around 9:00pm.

    A little later, Carloss heard “thumping” from Christina’s apartment that he first thought was his kids roughhousing. Shortly after that, Carloss rode his bike to a nearby convenience store to purchase candy and beer. Around 10:00pm, he called Tameca, who was visiting her sister in Waterloo, and she told him to check on Christina because of the noises.

    When Carloss found Christina’s body, he said “I had no idea what was going on in there…I didn’t want to stick around and see.” He apologized to Christina’s family for not calling 911 right away, citing his fear of Tameca finding out that he cheated and being framed for whatever had happened. Carloss insisted that Christina was not in the tub and her throat wasn’t cut when he found her between 10:30 and 11:00pm Sunday night.

    Carloss admitted that he withheld information from police at first. He insisted that the typed statement being used against him wasn’t what he told the interrogating officer, and that’s why he refused to sign it. His attorney said that “he didn’t tell police the whole story, but everything he told them was true.”

    Other suspects

    Todd Hale was also grilled about “inconsistencies and omissions” in his statements to police. For example, in a deposition taken several months after Christina’s murder, Todd revealed that Carloss offered him and Christina weed when they moved in. Todd explained his changing statements as the result of “shock” after discovering Christina’s body.

    Like Carloss and Chrstina’s ex-boyfriend, Todd has a history of violence against women. In 1989, Todd knocked the mother of his four-month-old son to the floor, struck her repeatedly in the face, kneed her in the ribs, and choked her. He plead guilty to simple assault and paid a $100 fine. In 1991, he assaulted her again, but the charges were dismissed. In 1993, he faced more assault charges after he threw a glass of milk in his mother’s face, tossed her to the ground, and kicked her repeatedly. Those charges were also dismissed.

    Todd’s last assault charge was in 1995, when he threatened another man with a knife during a fight, one of several drunken brawls he ended up in. Todd’s most serious sentencing – probation and short prison stints – came from his numerous DUI offenses throughout the years.

    The most obvious suspect was Christina’s volatile ex-boyfriend, Jacob Crosson, and Carloss’s primary defense tactic was to implicate him in Chrstina’s murder.

    Christina moved to her apartment to escape Jacob’s violence. He threatened Christina when she moved out, and then he tracked her down and confronted her at her new residence. A coworker from the convenience store where she worked a shift on Sunday, just hours before her murder, testified that Jacob visited Christina at work that day.

    The defense called multiple witnesses to testify about Jacob’s severe and prolonged abuse of Christina over about four years, from age 16 right up until the days before her murder. One witness – Christina’s former supervisor, Sandy Smith – called Carloss’s defense attorney with information after reading early trial coverage. Police never interviewed her, and she was surprised that Jacob’s abuse wasn’t being mentioned. At least two witnesses testified that Jacob threatened Christina’s life.

    While Carloss admitted that he regretted some of his actions, his attorney emphasized that he “was the last in a long line of people to fail her.”

    Decision debated

    After two weeks of trial proceedings and six hours of jury deliberation, Carloss Robinson was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. He was also required to pay $150,000 to Christina Sanoubane’s estate and $2,000 to the Crime Victim’s Assistance Program.

    Carloss insisted that he “did not commit this crime. I know it. My family knows it. Part of me knows that the Sanoubane family knows I did not do it.” He added that “justice for me will be finding the real person who committed this ungodly crime.”

    Public reaction to the verdict included criticism of the Cedar Rapids police department. One resident wrote to the paper to say they were “appalled” and “frightened” by the brief investigation and lack of concrete evidence that resulted in a life sentence:

    “Shame on the Police Department to leave so many stones unturned. Whether Carloss Robinson is guilty or not, the investigation failed this community deeply. Has the jury never heard of the concept of reasonable doubt?”

    In his first appeal, Carloss argued that all evidence and statements obtained during his police interrogation shouldn’t be admissible, and that the trial judge erred by overruling his motion to suppress. By their own admission, officers were already convinced of Carloss’s guilt, and it seems like they used potentially unlawful tactics to secure his arrest.

    In denying Carloss’s appeal, the court had to weigh whether “police deception might [have risen] to the level of a due process violation.” Their opinion was that Carloss’s changing narrative to explain the “largely circumstantial” evidence against him as it emerged was a clear indicator of his guilt, regardless of the methods investigators used.

    In more recent years, Carloss has appealed for additional forensic testing on specific pieces of evidence because he believes that the results could identify Christina’s “real killer.” One of the prosecution’s key arguments to the jury was that there wasn’t evidence of anyone in the apartment other than Carloss and Christina. Carloss says there are items from Christina’s apartment in storage that were never tested for DNA because it would lead to a suspect other than him.

    The prosecutor was only partially correct – the only crime scene evidence that was matched to a suspect was matched to Carloss. Police collected dozens of personal items from Christina’s apartment, including knives, scissors, bedding, and drug paraphernalia, along with several pieces of forensic evidence from Christina’s autopsy and the crime scene that have yet to be identified. That includes hair and fibers from Christina’s calf and inner thigh – they were not a match to Carloss or his clothing.

    Cedar Rapids police defended their decision not to test certain pieces of evidence because “the footprints were more important.” The court agrees that not only would it be too costly to test each piece of evidence now, but Iowa state law won’t allow Carloss to request DNA analysis because DNA convicted him of a crime. Further, if any of the evidence was tested and matched to someone other than Carloss, they believe that’s not enough to overturn his guilty verdict.

    In a separate appeal, Carloss asked the state to compare the “minor contributor” of the second sperm sample recovered during Christina’s autopsy to someone he suspects is her killer. The state has only tested it against Todd Hale and Jacob Crosson, and neither were a match. Carloss’s request was denied with the court stating that Carloss is the only person who suspects anyone else of killing Christina.

    Aftermath

    Christina Sanoubane’s family believes the right man was convicted of her murder. Her older sister, Catherine, wants the public to know that Christina was an “intelligent, strong-minded and passionate” young woman, not “a misguided and naïve girl.” She felt that, based on trial coverage, many people believed Christina was a promiscuous drug-user, but “people failed to see she was a young, lonely woman. She craved acceptance, love, and companionship” and was “fooled by a monster with a friendly face.”

    Christina’s son, Corbin, moved in with his father, Jacob Crosson, after the trial, but he remained close with his maternal grandparents and spent “a lot” of time in their home too. Despite his past troubles, other than a DUI in 2002, Jacob has remained off law enforcement’s radar. The same goes for Todd Hale – his last charges stemmed from a 2011 DUI.

    Like most families in their position, the Sanoubanes recognize that justice will never replace the person they lost. On the third anniversary of her murder, Christina’s younger sister, Angelena, submitted a memorial to the local paper summing up the emotions her family continues to process:

    “It’s been year three and no one could see how much your death affected me and my family. We’ve been through so much pain, the happiness we could never regain as we sit here and ask God “Why?” We sit here and cry, letting time pass us by. So many memories to cherish and those will never perish. For all three years you’ve been my angel from above, the one that I’ll always love. For all my life you’ve been such a wonderful sister, mother and daughter, and for all of eternity you will always last in our hearts.”

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