Alleged reporter Amanda Hill (ahill@gannett.com; Twitter; and Facebook), employed by WCHS6 News, has almost completely misrepresented what happened. Hill took a savage, almost certainly racially motivated crime, and turned it into a ‘one-night-stand-gone-wrong.’ Hill had the unmitigated gall not only to assert that Adrianne Robert “met” her killer, Thomas Hampton Frederick, at a strip bar, but that she voluntarily went home with him (as if he’d picked her up, or she he), where she “had (consensual) sex” with him, before he plunged a steak knife 4.5” into her chest, killing her, but to claim that that was the version of events offered by Pinellas County prosecutors! A reader unfamiliar with the case, seeing Hill’s bald-faced lies would naturally assume that if the prosecutor, who has an interest in presenting things as badly as possible for the defendant, says the sex was consensual, then the latter couldn’t possibly have raped the victim.
The prosecutor(s?) said no such thing. Rather, the people argued that Adrianne Robert had gone to a strip club with her male roommate, but that she had left alone, inebriated, because he wanted to stay for a lap dance. [Here comes my speculation.] Her rapist-killer may have seen her there, or spoken to her, but did not pick her up. He saw her leave alone, and either followed her home and forced his way into her apartment, or sidled up to her on her way home and came onto her, and forced his way into her apartment. The DA argued that in the apartment, Frederick raped Adrianne Robert on her bed, while holding a steak knife to her eye, and then plunged said knife 4 ½ inches into her chest, killing her, in the bathroom, before stealing numerous items, including the murder weapon, and seeking to destroy DNA evidence.
I have to again speculate, for lack of better trial reports, that Frederick wounded his victim in or near her eye with the ultimate murder weapon.
And Hill’s description of the circumstances under which the victim supposedly met her rapist-killer, were to lead her audience to imagine that Roberts was some sort of easy stripper-prostitute-slut, while maintaining plausible deniability.
There is simply no excuse for Amanda Hill’s misrepresentations.
Note, too that the headline is, “Florida man convicted of murdering Maine woman.” It should be, “Black man convicted of murdering White Woman.” If Adrianne Robert had been black, Frederick would almost certainly have left her alone.
Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
Shamelessly ripped off from the indispensable >New Nation News!
Here’s Amanda Hill’s story.
Florida man convicted of murdering Maine woman
By Amanda Hill (ahill@gannett.com)
9:27 P.M., Feb 1, 2014
• WCSH 6 News
• WLBZ 2 News
0 comments
War criminal Thomas Hampton Frederick: Jeez, he’s ugly; did Adrianne Robert really have consensual sex with him? No!
GREENE, Maine [?] -- A man from Florida has been convicted of murdering a woman from Maine. Adrianne Robert was just 29-years [sic] old when she was stabbed to death in Florida. She had moved there from Greene, Maine to work as a graphic designer. Prosecutors argued Thomas Hampton Frederick had met Robert at a strip club in Clearwater, walked her home, had sex with her and then stabbed her. [“Prosecutors argued Thomas Hampton Frederick… had sex with her”? That’s a bald-faced lie! They argued that he raped her, while holding a steak knife to her eye!] Defense attorneys said Frederick killed Robert in self defense [sic]. [Ha, ha, ha, ha!] Frederick was sentenced to life in prison with [until parole] no parole. It took the jury less than two hours to return a guilty verdict. - (Black-on-white)
Now, here’s the Tampa Bay Tribune version.
Assistant States Attorney Kendall Davidson carries the murder weapon during the murder trial for Thomas Frederick at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater, FL on January 31st, 2014. The victim, Adrianne F. Robert, can be seen on the screen at top. LUKE JOHNSON/STAFF
Man guilty in killing of
Pinellas woman
Thomas Frederick sits during the murder trial at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater. LUKE JOHNSON/STAFFThomas Frederick sits during the murder trial at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater. LUKE JOHNSON/STAFF
By Stephen Thompson | Tribune Staff
Published: January 31, 2014; updated: January 31, 2014 at 11:48 P.M.
CLEARWATER — Jurors heard two versions of what happened after Adrianne F. Robert met Thomas Frederick at the Diamond Dolls strip club, where Robert and her male roommate had gone following a night of drinking in July 2012.
Everyone agrees Frederick ended up at the town home where Robert lived, while her roommate stayed for a lap dance. What was in dispute was what occurred next.
Prosecutors say Frederick, then 23, raped an inebriated Robert while holding a steak knife to the 29-year-old woman's eye on her bed, then fatally stabbed her in a bathroom, plunging the knife 4 1/2 inches into her chest.
In the version presented by Frederick's defense attorneys — and which jurors heard in a tape-recorded interview of Frederick by detectives — the sex was consensual.
Robert flipped out in the bathroom after the sexual encounter and grabbed a knife, Frederick told the detectives. Frederick took it from her and during the ensuing tussle Robert was fatally stabbed.
After deliberating for fewer than two hours, the 12-member panel found Frederick guilty of first-degree murder. Prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty, so Pinellas Circuit Judge Thane Covert meted out the only punishment allowable under Florida law — life in prison.
“He knew she couldn't tell her story so he was going to tell a story that worked for him,” Assistant State Attorney Noelle Festa told jurors Friday in her closing arguments. “The evidence told Adrianne's story.”
Before Frederick left the town home at of 2958 Pinecone Circle, he cut out a swath of the sheet on the bed where he had raped Robert and took it with him in a failed attempt to destroy DNA evidence, prosecutors said.
But DNA consistent with Frederick's remained on the mattress pad underneath, and he left a palm print on the exterior of the bathroom door, prosecutors said.
He also took the steak knife, a cell phone belonging to Robert's roommate, and the keys to Robert's Jeep, later abandoning the vehicle, prosecutors said.
sthompson@tampatrib.com
(727) 215-6504
Previously, on this case, also from NNN:
- Clearwater neighborhood shocked by mysterious death - Jul 14, 2012
- Thomas Frederick arrested in the death of Adrianne Robert - Jul 26, 2012
- Man guilty in killing of Pinellas woman - January 31, 2014
Prosecutors say Frederick raped an inebriated Robert while holding a steak knife to the 29-year-old woman's eye on her bed, then fatally stabbed her in a bathroom, plunging the knife 4 1/2 inches into her chest. - Greene family 'elated' by guilty verdict in daughter's Florida murder case - January 31, 2014
“The animal that took my daughter is now going to be in a cage like an animal should be,” Mark Robert said
In these kind of murder trials, the defendant, his attorneys and supporters always argue that if the sex was "consensual" (and it obviously was not) a not guilty verdict is justified.
ReplyDeleteDavid In TN
Shades of the Amanda Knox case. According to Rudy Guede, he had consensual sex with Meredith Kercher before Amanda and Rafaell snuck in and killed her while he was in her toilet takin a dump. Actually there were various versions he told, that was the last one.
ReplyDeleteIf you go to any Amanda Knox discussion forums many of Guede's many worshipers claim that Meredith and Amanda both were lusting after Guede, because lord knows he was so irresistable.
Now all rapists, white or black, will claim that sex with their victims was "consensual".
The difference is that most white rapists will be believed by very few outside of maybe their close relatives, it's when the rapists are black you notice they receive near universal support from the black community and also the usual white black crime apologist lackeys. Jerry
In the mind of the negro, the whitey woman is always lusting after the black man.
ReplyDeletePut together better physically, better dancers, etc.
OH, the mind of the negro has it all figured out.
NOT!!
Right. This beautiful White woman was just dying to have sex with some strange black man that she didn't even know. If she had knew him, maybe not.
ReplyDeleteThis is sick what most of you write but do not even know.... She was planning on moving in with her BOYFRIEND that very weekend she was murdered. She did NOT ask for sex and was definitely in a committed relationship. Speak of things you KNOW to be true and do not allow the speculation of the color of the skin to make a difference. Adrianne deserves more than that.
ReplyDeleteDearest Anonymous Coward, Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 2:54:00 P.M. EDT,
ReplyDeleteI just re-read my blog item and the comments by other readers, and your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
Neither I nor any of my previous commenters suggested that the sex was anything but rape. The only person cited here who tried to present the rape as consensual sex was Amanda Hill. Yet you didn’t attack her, you attacked me and my other reader-commenters. And you attacked us for “speculation” and for citing race as the motivating factor in this crime. Yet you are guilty of baseless speculation. You insist that Adrianne Robert was raped, as if anyone here had suggested otherwise, but dishonestly assert knowledge that race had nothing to do with the crime.
Your cowardly, dishonest comment is part of a pattern I have seen over the past few years. A white is murdered in a crime that was transparently racially motivated, I report on it, and then people who claim to be friends or relatives of the victim denounce me for citing the racial motivation, and assert that they know that there was no racial motivation.
If such people are really the friends and loved ones of the victim, they show her little love. It’s bad enough to be raped and murdered, based on the color of one’s skin. The least we can do is tell the truth about the crime.
One can’t help but speculate as to the motive of these lying posters. Do they spew such lies, so they can suck up to racist black colleagues? Or is it racist whites they are sucking whites they are suckling up to, whites who will gladly sacrifice other members of their own race, in the hopes that that will save their skin, at least for a little longer?
P.S.: I notice, as well, that although the media typically misrepresents such cases, and much of your comment responded to Amanda Hill, you couched it completely as a response to me. People like you never vent at the MSM, but have no problem making idiotic, baseless criticisms of bloggers like yours truly. That’s yet another expression of your cowardice.
ReplyDeleteI was led to this "blog" after stumbling upon Ms. Robert's murder. Thankful for clarifying things! At first, I was confused as to why this young woman was: at a strip and picked up a yella (regardless of race) for a nighter if she was about to move in with the supposed "love of" her life. Ms. Hill, this so-called, "reporter" (my opinion) is a disappointment. Thank you again for the clarification of the case facts.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like an ignorant racist pig. Someone's race does not define their attributes. Maybe this case was racially motivated but that doesn't mean all black men are rapists or lusting after white women. If that's the case you can say that all white men are lusting after little kids because majority of men convicted with raping children are white. Pop your racist bubble and open your eyes.
ReplyDelete