the trial began in 2007, 23 years after robin s murder. william marshall was now 46. he arrived in court each day carrying a bible. his troubled youth, early drug addiction, brief rap sheet were decades behind him. this is a man who looked incapable of cold-blooded murder. he said nothing. he just watched prosecutor john lewin make the case against him. william marshall knew before he walked in to the restaurant that night, he knew that robin knew him. so he knew that if he was going to do this crime, he was going to kill her, so this was just a, unconscionable crime. the motive? drug money, then eliminate the witness, said prosecutor john lewin. marshall had been arrested before robin hoynes murder for pcp, a man who needed cash, who thought he knew where to get it. and then yvonne hargrove told
Containing chlorine. the widespread smoke shut down a major highway and passaic s mayor told residents to close their windows. the government is offering to send four at-home covid-19 tests per residential address starting next week. it will take 7 to 12 days for the tests to arrive once ordered online. now back to dateline. now back to dateline. welcome back to dateline. i m natalie morales. investigators have a person of interest in the murder of 21-year-old robin hoynes, william marshall. but marshall has an alibi and there isn t enough evidence to bring charges against him. a break in the case would come, but not for another 20 years. here again, keith morrison with the night before halloween. october 1985, another halloween.
Well, none really. back in cleveland, it hadn t gone so well either, and the cops were wrapping up their meeting with marshall s former girlfriend yvonne hargrove. and then, just before they left, almost as an afterthought, she offered something, a strange story about william, about something he said when she picked him up from the police station when he was first a suspect in robin s murder. he s crying and he s saying how am i going to get to heaven? how am i going to get to heaven? how am i going to get to heaven? he kept saying this over and over and over. that s as far as she would offer. it sounds like this is a statement made by somebody who feared because he had done something. intriguing but not exactly incriminating. the cops needed more. so wallace returned to the fire captain s house, this time with a search warrant. when i came back the second time he got rid of the shoes. the closet was clean. all those shoes were missing. interestingly on the back porch,
Circumstantial case, but a good case. going in? going in. coming out? coming out i felt like i had been kicked. nobody showed any interest, a complete rejection on prosecution. too circumstantial, said the d.a., and no incriminating evidence even on those items seized from marshall s car. marshall was released from jail. his girlfriend, yvonne, picked him up. once again, detective lancaster had to deliver the news to the hoynes family. the only suspect he had was back on the streets. maddening. his life goes forward and, you know, robin s is snuffed out and she never gets to meet her potential because of what he did. they all suffered, all the hoynes. perhaps mr. hoynes most of all. our dad felt like he had not done what he was supposed to do
To the torrance police department concerning thefts of cash from the safe. two thefts from the very same safe where robin had left the money, and though they couldn t exactly prove he did it, marshall was a suspect. he had the opportunity. he failed the polygraph when questioned about those previous robberies. and at the time, he knew the combination to the safe. so the night robin was killed, did marshall intend to rob that safe again? he knew the previous combinations. i don t believe he was aware they had changed it because it had happened just recently, several days earlier. so now detectives brought marshall in for questioning, and he was friendly, cooperative, said he was home the entire evening. and he could prove it, he said. all police had to do was go ask his girlfriend, yvonne hargrove, so, of course, without telling her why they were talking to her, they did ask. i told them william was with me that night, because that s what they wanted to know, and what did we do.