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After Baltimore Woman Missed Her Own Baby Shower, Her Boyfriend Is Charged with Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we are immersing ourselves
0:03
in a really tough case from Baltimore. It's heartbreaking but
0:08
also kind of groundbreaking and how it was solved. It's
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a story about a future that was just violently erased
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and how justice, you know, eventually came through digital data,
0:17
not the physical evidence everyone expects.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're focusing on Akia Eggleston. Back in May twenty seventeen,
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she was just twenty two years old, eight months pregnant,
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and getting ready for her baby shower. A big moment,
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but what should have been, you know, a celebration, a
0:31
happy weekend. It turned instantly into this frantic, terrifying search.
0:35
Speaker 1: She just seemed to vanish, right, And our mission today
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for you listening isn't just to retell the sad story.
0:41
We want to go beyond the headlines. We're going to
0:44
unpack the really complex timeline here, the deception involved and
0:47
the digital clue. Some shocking details there that were almost missed.
0:51
Plus there are some deep systemic issues that really challenge
0:54
the investigation from the start. And crucially, we're going to
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dissect how the prosecution managed to get a murder conviction
0:59
in a nobody case. Which is incredibly difficult against the
1:03
man a Kia trusted, Michael Robertson.
1:06
Speaker 2: Exactly, and the sources we've looked at they give a
1:08
really comprehensive, though painful view. You see the police work,
1:13
or sometimes the lack of it initially, You see the
1:16
incredible advocacy from her family pushing things forward, and then
1:20
eventually the courtroom drama. It really shows how persistence, especially
1:23
when you pair it with modern forensic tech, can you know,
1:27
cut through even very calculated attempts to hide the truth.
1:30
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's set the scene a bit more Baltimore.
1:34
A Kia was from Cherry Hill, which is described as
1:36
a working class community, tight knit but also you know,
1:39
facing its share of economic struggles. This wasn't some high
1:42
profile missing person case getting immediate national news. This was
1:45
a young woman with like quiet, real dreams for her family.
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And that contrast, you know, between the sometimes tough streets
1:52
of Baltimore and Akia's own hope and determination, it just
1:55
makes her sudden disappearance feel even more jarring.
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Speaker 2: And that detail her roots in Cherry Hill. It's important context,
2:02
like you said, because it feeds into those systemic issues
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will get into later a Kia wasn't someone who would
2:08
just abandoned her life, especially not her two year old
2:10
daughter Aliyah. Anyone who knew her knew that. So her
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disappearance right from the get go, it screamed foul play
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to her family and friends.
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Speaker 1: So let's talk a bit more about Akia herself. Who
2:21
was She born November ninety four, grew up there on
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Baltimore South Side, a young mom, really devoted to her
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little girl, Aliyah, and at twenty two she was working
2:30
as a cashier at a dollar store, just trying to
2:33
build something stable for her kids.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, she really embodied that kind of tenacious spirit you see,
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juggling work, childcare, getting ready for a new baby, a
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boy she'd already named Anubis. Her family described her as
2:45
really warm hearted, but also fiercely independent. Her aunt Tanya
2:49
Brown said something like she lit up a room. You
2:51
get a sense of this hopeful energy.
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Speaker 1: And that independence. It seems like it was directly connected
2:56
to her main goal, stability, right. She wanted that cozy home,
3:02
a supportive partner, a solid family unit. She was eight
3:05
months pregnant, thirty four weeks along, so really close, and
3:08
everything she was doing seemed geared towards that future we know.
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For instance, on May second, just the day before she disappeared,
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she took a pretty significant step, a.
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Speaker 2: Very significant step. She bought two money orders totally nine
3:22
hundred dollars. And this wasn't just you know, random cash.
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This money was specifically for a down payment on a house,
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a house she planned to share with Michael Robertson. That
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transaction it's not just a financial detail, is it. It's
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like concrete proof of her commitment, her belief in that
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shared future. She was putting her money where her heart was.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So that brings us squarely to Michael Robertson. He
3:43
was older thirty seven to her twenty two, so a
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nineteen year age gap, and they had this history. Apparently
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his grandmother used to babysit a Kio when she was
3:51
the kid, So there's this long standing connection there and
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that kind of history it builds trust, right. It probably
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made her feel secure with.
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Speaker 2: Him, absolutely, But that history, it seems, was kind of
3:59
dangerous because the reality was very different. Robertson was already involved,
4:04
deeply involved with another woman, a partner he actually shared
4:08
two young children with. So while Key is planning this
4:11
committed future Robertson's facing well, the potential explosion of his double.
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Speaker 1: Life, and the sources suggest her friends, maybe her family too.
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They weren't totally unaware that something might be off. There
4:23
were whispers, warning signs, things like jealousy, control. Reportedly, Robertson
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monitored her calls, questioned her about where she was going.
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Maybe she downplayed it, you know, saw it as him
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being really invested or protective. But looking back, yeah, definite
4:38
red flags.
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Speaker 2: Possessiveness, That control aspect is really critical. I think it
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suggests a personality that's already under pressure, trying to juggle
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these two separate lives, these two families. Almost it wasn't
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just you know, dating two women casually. He was maintaining
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two completely separate domestic worlds. And the key is pregnancy
4:55
with Anubis. That was the ticking clock who was about
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to force everything out into the open. It threatened to
5:00
bring both of those worlds crashing down on him.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's really unpack this final timeline, because these what
5:06
seventy two hours or so, they tell the whole story.
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Akia's hope colliding with Robertson's motive. It seems like the
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fuse was really lit. On May first, twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, May first, Kia and Robertson they actually went together
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to a real estate office looking at apartments maybe houses,
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and the agent who met them, they described a Kia
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as just beaming, you know, totally excited about this next step. Robertson,
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on the other hand, reportedly distracted. Kurt tense, uneasy, not
5:31
exactly the picture of a happy couple starting.
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Speaker 1: Out, and his tension. Well we know why now, based
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on what the sources say. That same evening May first,
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his other partner, the mother of his other kids. She
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found Akia's pregnancy announcement on Facebook, and the sources confirm
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this led to a huge argument, a really heated confrontation
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between Robertson and his other partner.
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Speaker 2: This is it, This is the flashpoint. The prosecution years
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later in twenty twenty three, they pinpointed his exact event
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as the crystallizing motive. It wasn't just oh, a messy breakup.
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It was Robertson facing the total public collapse of this
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double life you built. The baby shower was just days away.
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They were looking at leases. Exposure was right there, imminent.
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Suddenly Akia and the baby Anubis. They weren't part of
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a future dream. They were a threat, a catastrophic threat
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to his existing life, and that, the prosecution argued, triggered
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a violent decision. So then we get to May third,
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twenty seventeen. This becomes the last day anyone has documented
6:26
proof of Akia being okay. Around four PM, their surveillance footage,
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she's at a PNC bank downtown. She deposits her paycheck
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and those two money orders, the nine hundred dollars, and
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she dedraws four hundred and fifty dollars in cash. And importantly,
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she looks happy on the footage, smiling, busy, you know,
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handling the logistics of building this future she wanted. Then
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she heads back to her apartment. It was in the
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twenty nine hundred block of Round Road in Cherry Hill,
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and Robertson arrives there shortly after she gets back, we
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know she was still active online on social media late
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that afternoon, finalizing plans.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that last digital trace, it's just incredibly sad when
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you think about it. At five poin twenty two PS,
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she sends a Facebook Messenger invite. It's to a friend
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for the baby shower. She includes blue balloon emojis and
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writes can't wait. I mean that message It just screams
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I'm planning for tomorrow right not I'm about to run
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away exactly?
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Speaker 2: And what happens right after five to two two pm? That's
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what the digital forensics team had to piece together later.
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Robertson's phone it pinged near a Kia's apartment until the
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early evening. Yeah, then something crucial happens. A digital forensics
7:27
expert later testified that the phone essentially went dead. A
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kill switch was activated at seven to fourteen pm on
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May third.
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Speaker 1: Okay, hang on Kilswick, that sounds dramatic for people listening.
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What does that actually mean in this kind of forensic context?
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What does it suggest about Robertson's phone?
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Speaker 2: Right When analysts use that term kill switch in this situation,
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they be a sudden, deliberate stop to all digital signals
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from the phone. No more pings, no calls, no data
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being sent or received. It strongly suggests the phone was
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either intentionally powered off, maybe the sim carters yanked at immediately,
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or perhaps even physically destroyed. It's not the kind of
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thing that happens if you're just having a normal argument
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and your phone battery dies. You know, it's abrupt. It's
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the behavior pattern of someone who might have just done
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something incriminating and needs to immediately sever that digital link
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connecting them to the location. And the fact that his
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phone went dark while it was located right there at
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her apartment. That's incredibly damning.
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Speaker 1: And this digital silence, it directly precedes what seems to
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be the concealment phase. The very next day, May fourth,
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Robertson doesn't go to work. It was apparently unusual for him,
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and he's seen driving erradically around Baltimore. But the evidence
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that really blew the case open years down the line
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was his Internet search history from that day.
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Speaker 2: This is where the deep dive really gets into the
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chilling details. On May fourth, Robertson performs eighteen very specific
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Google searches. And we're not talking about generic stuff like
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how to dispose of something? No, these were laser focused
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queries like Baltimore trash pickup schedule, landfills near me? And
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this one is key, where does Baltimore garbage go? The
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sheer number of these searches eighteen of them, all clustered together,
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all about waste disposal logistics and timed just hours after
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his phone went dark at her place. It screams intent planning.
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Speaker 1: It paints such a cold, calculated picture, doesn't it. He
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wasn't just panicking and driving around aimlessly. He was actively
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using digital tools to figure out the most efficient way
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to hide well presumably a Kia is body exactly.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. In this digital trail of intent. He was later
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backed up by physical witness accounts, which is, you know,
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the perfect storm for building a circumstantial case like this.
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A coworker of Robertson's remembered him borrowing a heavy duty
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Dolly on May fourth, said it was for moving boxes.
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It may be most critically, a Kia's own landlord saw
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roberts unloading something large, bulky and covered with a tarp
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into his white van that same night outside her apartment.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so let's recap that sequence because it's powerful.
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We have the motive, the confrontation on May first, threatening exposure.
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We have the likely time of the act indicated by
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the phone kill switch seven to fourteen pm on May third.
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We have the planning and intent documented those eighteen Google
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searches on May fourth about disposal, and we have the
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physical actions corroborated borrowing the dolly. The landlord's seeing the
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carp covered bundle being loaded into his van. The puzzle
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pieces were all there, scattered maybe, but there, even if
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the police didn't connect them all right away.
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Speaker 2: So then we arrived at Sunday, May seventh, twenty seventeen.
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This is the day, the day the community, her friends,
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her family, and eventually the police had to face the
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awful reality. Akia wasn't just late, she was gone. Guests
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started arriving for the baby shower at the community center
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around two pm.
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Speaker 1: You just have to imagine the scene. It's unbearable. The
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tables are set up, decorations, maybe, the food's laid out,
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fried chicken, mac and cheese, all the sides, and the cake,
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the cake iced with baby a Nubis waiting. This whole
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event was supposed to be this joyous public celebration of
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the new Lekakia was so excited about.
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Speaker 2: And instead it just dissolved into panic. Akia's best friend,
10:58
Jasmine Foster, she was texting right first reminder, hey where
11:01
are you? Then getting more frantic were you at girl?
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When nobody could reach her by phone when she didn't
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show up after hours, and that's when the family knew
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something was seriously wrong. It drove straight to her apartment.
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Speaker 1: And a key is Dad Shawn Wilkinson. He finds her
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car parked right outside her building on Round Road. But
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the keys, the keys are still dangling in the ignition.
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I mean that detail alone. It screams she didn't leave willingly.
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Why would you leave your car, your keys right there,
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abandon your two year old daughter if you were just
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taking off. It makes no sense, not at all.
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Speaker 2: And then inside the apartment when police eventually got there,
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the place was described as eerily tidy, almost too tidy,
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like someone had maybe rushed to clean up. But there
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was one really suspicious physical clue, that hole punched in
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the drywall near the bedroom door. Later forensic analysis suggested
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it was consistent with a significant impact, like a fist
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or maybe even a tool. It pointed towards the struggle,
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maybe a brief, violent one that happened right there, was
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quickly over and then maybe covered up.
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Speaker 1: And Robertson what was his reaction in those initial hours
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and days. He immediately seemed to step into the role
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of the worried partner, didn't he posting things on Facebook
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like prayers for Akia, even joining some of the early searches,
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but when the police actually tried to formally interview him,
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he started getting evasive, dodging them.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, his behavior set off alarm bells for experienced investigators
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pretty quickly. He gave conflicting stories, wildly different accounts. Sometimes
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he'd say Akia stormed out angry after they argued. Other
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Times he claimed she'd run off to Pennsylvania to stay
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with relatives, which turned out not to be true. But
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what really struck the police, according to the reports, was
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his emotional state, or rather the lack of it. Investigators
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noted he seemed weirdly calm. No tears, no frantic pacing,
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none of that desperate urgency you'd expect from someone who's
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heavily pregnant. Partners just vanished without a trace.
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Speaker 1: That lack of appropriate emotional response. It's often a big
12:57
red flag and domestic violent situations missing person's cases linked
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to them. It was noted a behavioral clue, but it
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wasn't hard evidence. Not enough to arrest him then.
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Speaker 2: No, definitely not enough at that point. And if we
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connect this back to the bigger picture, the initial official
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response it felt slow. Akia was reported missing on May seven,
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but her case didn't immediately get that high priority alert
13:20
status or the intense media blitz that frankly, some other
13:24
cases get, particularly involving white women. And this just reflects
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that persistent, painful reality that families of color, especially in
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urban areas, often face when a loved one goes missing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, a, Kia's story quickly became a kind of symbol
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for what her family started calling a neglected epidemic. The
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system seemed to be slow walking the investigation, so the
13:43
family realized they had to take charge. They started working
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with grassroots groups like the Black and Missing Foundation just
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to keep Akia's name out there, keep the pressure on
13:52
the police and the media.
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Speaker 2: And that necessity, the fact that the family has to
13:56
basically become detectives and activists themselves just to get the
14:00
system to pay adequate attention, it really highlights a fundamental flaw.
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They're battling systemic biases and bureaucratic inertia while also dealing
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with just unimaginable grief and fear. It's an impossible position
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to be in.
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Speaker 1: So for almost five years, the case just stalled. Imagine
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that for Echia's family, five years of not knowing it
14:19
must have been absolute agony. The FBI did get involved
14:23
join the investigation in November twenty seventeen. They offered a
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twenty five thousand dollars reward. They tried all the traditional methods,
14:30
right underwater, drones searching the Patapsco River, couldaver dogs, combing
14:34
through landfills, right.
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Speaker 2: And the fact that none of that yielded anything, no body,
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no physical trace at all, it really confirmed two things. First,
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whoever disposed of her body did a disturbingly effective job.
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And second, the breakthrough, if it was ever going to come,
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probably wouldn't be from finding physical remains. The case went
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cold precisely because those traditional investigative avenues hit a dead end.
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Speaker 1: But here's where that persistence we talked about really pays off.
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In late twenty twenty one, on a prosecutor Assistant State's
15:01
Attorney Kurt Buorklund, he takes a fresh look. He leads
15:05
a new cold case task force specifically to revisit the
15:08
digital evidence. And it all circled back to those eighteen
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Google searches Robertson made on May fourth, twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and what's fascinating is how they analyzed those searches.
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It wasn't just Oh, look, he searched for landfills. No,
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they did a deep dive. The analysts focused on the
15:24
geographic clustering of the searches, the timing relative to his
15:27
known movements based on phone pings before the kill switch.
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They essentially tracked his digital inquiry path as he seemed
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to be moving between a Kia's apartment location and points
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related to Baltimore's waste management infrastructure.
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Speaker 1: So they could almost reconstruct his physical movements in his
15:44
thought process that day, just using his search history as
15:47
a kind of map.
15:48
Speaker 2: Pretty much. Yeah, they crossed reference the times he searched
15:52
for Baltimore trash pickup schedule with the actual municipal routs
15:55
and pickup times for that specific day. They identified the
15:58
precise areas he was recent focusing on large industrial scale
16:02
disposal sites, not just the local dump. The analyst's testimony
16:06
a trial showed he was specifically looking into mechanisms for
16:08
getting rid of something substantial, something too large or too
16:12
incriminating for just regular residential trash bins. The data painted
16:16
a picture of intent to conceal within the city's large
16:18
volume waste stream.
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Speaker 1: And this detailed digital forensic work when you combine it
16:23
with the earlier evidence the phone kill switch, the landlord
16:26
seeing the tart bundle it, it finally created a cohesive,
16:30
powerful narrative, powerful enough to proceed even without finding akia exactly.
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Speaker 2: That whole wall was also revisited with fresh eyes. Forensic
16:39
experts gave stronger testimony about it. They determined the damage
16:43
to the drywall was characteristic of a focused, forceful blow,
16:47
likely happening quickly inside the apartment. It supported the theory
16:50
that the initial attack and likely death occurred right there
16:53
in her home.
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Speaker 1: So by early twenty twenty two, they finally felt they
16:56
had enough to make a move. Robertson, meanwhile, he hadn't
17:00
stuck around Baltimore. He'd moved with his other family to Inkster, Michigan,
17:04
trying to put distance, maybe start over, erase that part
17:07
of his life.
17:08
Speaker 2: But you can't really erase a digital footprint like that.
17:10
It's indelible. On February first, twenty twenty two, he gets
17:13
pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Michigan, and boom,
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He's arrested on Baltimore warrant and extradited back. The charges
17:20
filed were specific and significant.
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Speaker 1: He was charged with two counts of first degree murder,
17:25
one count for Akia and a second count for her
17:28
unborn son, a Nubis. That's second charge. That's a really
17:31
critical legal point in Maryland, right.
17:33
Speaker 2: It is, and it dramatically underscored the gravity of the crime.
17:36
Maryland has specific fetal homicide laws. If a fetus is
17:40
considered viable, and at thirty four weeks, Anubis certainly was.
17:44
The law recognized that unborn child as a separate victim
17:46
of homicide. So legally, Robertson was accused of ending two
17:49
lives with his actions. It allowed the prosecution to fully
17:52
articulate the devastating laws both the mother on the verge
17:55
of giving birth and her.
17:56
Speaker 1: Son, and the state's attorney at the time, Marilyn Moseby.
17:59
Her statement when he was arrested was very direct. She
18:02
explicitly laid out the motive we believe Michael Robertson killed
18:05
a Kia to conceal his double life. So the entire case,
18:09
the upcoming trial, it was going to hinge on proving
18:12
that specific calculated reason for murder. Okay, So the trial
18:16
finally gets underway in July twenty twenty three Baltimore Circuit Court.
18:20
This is the moment, right, Years of waiting, years of
18:24
painstaking forensic work, all leading to this. The tension in
18:28
that court room must have been immense, especially since the
18:31
prosecution was trying to do something very difficult prove murder.
18:34
Speaker 2: Without a body absolutely. Prosecutor Bjorklyn in his opening statement,
18:38
he didn't pretend they had the smoking gun of physical remains. Instead,
18:42
he framed the case around betrayal moral certainty. He told
18:45
the jury something like Akia trusted him, he repaid that
18:48
trust with violence. The whole strategy was about weaving together
18:50
all those circumstantial threads, the digital evidence, the witness accounts,
18:54
the motive into a story so compelling, so logical, that
18:57
murder was the only possible conclusion.
18:59
Speaker 1: And led by Steve Silverman, they went for the classic nobody,
19:03
no crime defense. Right. What was their main argument?
19:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Their strategy was built entirely on creating reasonable doubt.
19:11
Silverman argued essentially, look, this is a missing person's case,
19:14
maybe a tragic one, but not necessarily murder committed by Robertson.
19:18
He suggested, maybe Akia did just run away, overwhelmed by
19:22
the situation, the argument, finding out about the other woman,
19:25
or maybe tragically she met with foul play somewhere else,
19:28
completely unrelated to Robertson. They tried to pick apart each
19:31
piece of circumstantial evidence suggest alternative explanations, but.
19:35
Speaker 1: The prosecution countered that with the human element, Akia's father
19:39
Sean Wilkinson, her best friend Jasmine Foster. They testified heartbreaking
19:44
accounts I imagine, recounting that awful day of the baby shower,
19:47
the hope turning to dread. That emotional testimony is crucial,
19:51
isn't it to connect the cold, hard data back to
19:53
the real person who was lost?
19:55
Speaker 2: Definitely, But the lynchpin the evidence that really seemed to
19:58
sway things. It was the technical presentation. The digital analysis
20:03
forensic experts took the stand and meticulously laid it all out.
20:07
They mapped Robertson's phone pings before the kill switch. They
20:10
detailed those eighteen Google searches, showing the jury exactly when
20:14
they happened and what they were about. They highlighted the
20:17
geographic clustering around waste disposal sites, perfectly timed to the
20:20
hours immediately following a Kia's disappearance from her apartment. They
20:24
basically showed the jury is digital roadmap to concealment.
20:27
Speaker 1: The defense must have tried hard to cast doubt on
20:30
that digital evidence, the kill switch, the searches. How did
20:33
the prosecution make sure the jury saw the connection as solid.
20:36
Speaker 2: They focused on the pattern and the specificity. The expert
20:39
testimony wasn't just he searched for trash. It was he
20:43
conducted these eighteen highly specific searches about large scale waste
20:47
disposal logistics in these locations, at these times, immediately after
20:51
his phone went silent at her apartment, and just before
20:54
he borrowed a dolly and was seen loading a large
20:56
tarp covered object. They contrasted this folk methodical behavior with
21:01
how someone might act if they were innocent and panicked.
21:04
Robertson's digital actions weren't chaotic, they were disturbingly purposeful. The
21:09
prosecution argued this sequence wasn't coincidence, It was the documentation
21:13
of a crime unfolding.
21:14
Speaker 1: And then Robertson himself took the stand, which is always
21:16
a huge gamble in a murder trial. How did he
21:18
try to explain everything.
21:20
Speaker 2: He maintained this unsettling composure. Apparently during his direct testimony
21:24
he admitted they'd argued, yes, quite intensely, but his story was,
21:27
we fought, she left mad I figured she'd cool off
21:30
and come back. He tried to paint it as just
21:32
a bad fight, a breakup scenario, but.
21:34
Speaker 1: That composure reportedly fell apart during cross examination, especially when
21:38
they grilled him about those Google searches. What was his
21:41
explanation for those?
21:42
Speaker 2: That seems to be where his story really crumbled. The
21:45
prosecutor hammered him on this specificity in the timing, Why
21:48
if he was just idly curious about recycling in general,
21:51
did he make eighteen searches one after another about landfill
21:55
locations and trash pickup schedules. Specifically on May fourth, the
21:59
day right after a Kia vanished and his phone went
22:01
dead at her place. His reported response that he was
22:05
just curious about recycling it apparently came across as incredibly weak,
22:09
almost insulting, stammering, unconvincing. The prosecution basically showed the jury
22:14
here's his testimony, and here's the hard digital data that
22:17
proves his testimony is a lie. It directly contradicted his
22:21
claim of just being a worried partner waiting for her
22:23
to come home.
22:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, that moment where his flimsy explanation meets the undeniable
22:28
digital proof of disposal planning. That must have been huge
22:31
for the jury.
22:32
Speaker 2: I think it had to be. It just exposed the
22:33
calculation behind his actions. The jury composed of seven women
22:37
and five men. They deliberated for about eight hours spread
22:40
over two days, so it wasn't an instant decision. They
22:44
clearly weighed the evidence carefully, especially given the lack of
22:47
a body, but ultimately the circumstantial case, built piece by
22:51
digital piece, was just too strong.
22:53
Speaker 1: And the verdict came back on July twenty seven, twenty
22:56
twenty three, guilty guilty on both counts of first degree
22:59
murder for Akia and for Nubis, a major victory for
23:02
the prosecution, validating their reliance on digital forensics.
23:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Prosecutor Borklund's comment afterwards really captured it. He
23:09
said something like, puzzle pieces don't lie, they form a
23:12
picture of betrayal. Those pieces were the digital crumbs, the
23:15
witness statements, the hole in the wall, the motive, all
23:18
fitting together.
23:19
Speaker 1: Sentencing happened a few months later. October twenty twenty three.
23:22
Judge Melissa Finn handed down two consecutive life sentences plus
23:25
an additional sixty years. Reports say She acknowledged the family's
23:29
unending pain the fact that Akia is still missing, but
23:31
called the conviction a testament to persistence and the power
23:34
of truth revealed by the evidence.
23:36
Speaker 2: But even with that legal resolution, the grief for Akia's
23:39
family is ongoing, and it has this unique, terrible layer
23:43
because Akia's body has never been found. The family has
23:47
spoken about this repeatedly. They call it the final indignity.
23:50
It prevents them from having a proper burial, a place
23:52
to mourn. That sense of final closure, however painful.
23:56
Speaker 1: Her daughter, Aliyah, She's ten years old now being raised
24:00
by her grandparents. It's just heartbreaking to think about her
24:03
growing up without her mom and the community. They haven't forgotten.
24:07
They hold vigils every year on May seventh, the anniversary
24:10
of the baby shower that never happened, keeping her memory alive,
24:12
making sure her story isn't just filed.
24:15
Speaker 2: Away and a ki Is story. Tragically, it really did
24:18
become this emblem. It highlighted those systemic vulnerabilities that young
24:21
black women, particularly in urban areas, face when they go missing.
24:25
That initial lag immedia attention, and police urgency. It forced
24:28
her family into advocacy mode, and that advocacy actually ended
24:32
up driving real change.
24:34
Speaker 1: The impact on groups like the Black and Missing Foundation
24:36
was significant too.
24:37
Speaker 2: Right. Yes, they've credited Akia's case with significantly boosting national
24:41
awareness about the disparities in how missing person's cases are handled.
24:45
They reported something like a forty percent increase in their
24:48
database size since twenty seventeen. Her case helped put a
24:52
human face on that statistical disparity, and that advocacy reached
24:56
the highest levels. Akia's father, Sean Wilkinson, he actually testified
25:00
before Congress in twenty nineteen. He spoke powerfully about this
25:03
neglected epidemic of missing women of color, arguing that implicit
25:07
bias whenin law enforcement can lead to critical delays in
25:10
those first crucial hours and days in investigation.
25:13
Speaker 1: And his testimony, along with others, it actually led to
25:15
concrete policy changes, at least in Maryland. The state passed
25:19
a Missing Persons Act in twenty twenty one. It mandates
25:21
faster alerts a more focused response for cases involving specific
25:25
at risk groups, including pregnant women women of color. The
25:28
Baltimore Police Department also reportedly brought in new training programs
25:31
focused on combating bias and improving how they handle these
25:34
sensitive cases.
25:35
Speaker 2: It's a sad pattern, isn't it That Often it takes
25:37
a high profile tragedy like aki Is to force institutions
25:41
to really look inward and reform. Her case spurred a
25:44
level of self reflection that maybe wouldn't have happened otherwise.
25:47
Speaker 1: We also need to place a Kia's murder within the
25:49
broader context of Baltimore statistics on domestic violence. The sources
25:54
we reviewed are stark. They highlight that the city's intimate
25:57
partner violence rate is tragically high, something like one in
26:00
four women affected, and Black women are disproportionately the victims
26:05
of the most lethal outcomes. Akia's death wasn't some random
26:08
isolated event. It fits into this devastating pattern of control, jealousy,
26:13
and violence escalating often lethally.
26:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. The sources even mentioned other cases other names. Jamira
26:18
Burrell also shot right before her baby shower in twenty
26:20
twenty two. Sheianne Miller killed in twenty twenty along with
26:24
her toddler. It shows this horrific recurrence where the threat
26:27
of exposure, especially around pregnancy or existing choulder from another relationship,
26:31
becomes a trigger for deadly violence.
26:33
Speaker 1: But amidst all this darkness, there's a positive legacy too.
26:37
Akia's memory is also living on through action. Her family
26:40
established the Akia Eggleston Foundation, and it focuses on something
26:44
very specific, funding prenatal care for low income mothers in Baltimore.
26:49
It's like they're ensuring that the hope Akia had for
26:51
stability for good care for her children is now being
26:54
extended to help others in her community who might be vulnerable.
26:57
Speaker 2: Exactly as her father put it, working to make sure
27:01
her dream, even though it was cut short so brutally,
27:04
can still be realized in some way for other families.
27:07
It's a really powerful way to honor her memory, turning
27:10
tragedy into tangible help.
27:12
Speaker 1: Okay, let's try to wrap this up now, bring this
27:14
deep dive to a conclusion and pull out the main
27:16
takeaways for you listening. First, the conviction of Michael Robertson.
27:20
It really was a landmark moment in some ways. It
27:22
showed that even without a body, a murder conviction is possible.
27:25
It hinges on the meticulous use of digital forensics. Those
27:29
Google searches, the phone kill switch, the location pings, all
27:32
woven together with witness accounts to create an undeniable narrative.
27:36
Speaker 2: Right and the second big takeaway I think is the
27:38
critical role of family persistence when the system seems slow
27:42
or perhaps biased. Akia's family refused to let her case
27:45
go cold. Their relentless advocacy forced continued attention, pushed for
27:50
that deeper dive into the digital evidence, and ultimately ensured
27:53
that the truth, which was hidden in the data all along,
27:56
finally came out. It shows the power of not giving up.
28:00
Speaker 1: So thinking about the future, what does this case tell us?
28:03
We know Robertson appealed his conviction immediately, which is standard,
28:06
but legal experts seem to think it's unlikely to succeed.
28:09
Why because that digital evidence is so concrete, so hard
28:13
to refute. Unlike memory or even some physical evidence, the
28:16
digital trail is often immutable.
28:18
Speaker 2: And that really leads to the final provocative thought we
28:21
want to leave you with. As it becomes, sadly maybe
28:24
easier for perpetrators to conceal or destroy physical evidence like
28:28
a body. What role will our ever present digital footprint
28:31
play Everything from our Google searches, our phones, location data,
28:35
our social media activity, it's all being recorded. How central
28:39
will this indelible digital record become in solving violent crimes?
28:42
Especially when the traditional cornerstone physical evidence is missing. Akia's
28:47
life was tragically taken by betrayal, but in the end,
28:50
her story, her truth, it survived and delivered justice, almost
28:54
entirely through those digital breadcrumbs she and her killer left behind.
28:59
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for this very intense, but
29:01
very important deep dive into the case of Akia Eggleston.
29:04
We appreciate you listening. We'll see that's time.