Robin Abrams /// Part 1 /// 884

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Speaker 3 This week's true crime story has it all.

Speaker 3 It starts with a missing young woman, then her connection to a married older lover, which leads to protection orders, lawsuits, rage, and vengeance, kidnapping and murder, and a cover-up, or perhaps cover-ups.

Speaker 3 Pointed references to fatal attraction punctuate this story. The difference is that was a movie.
Today's story is real life, and both the missing woman and the accused are police officers.

Speaker 3 This week, we examine the mystery surrounding the question of where is former Will County, Illinois deputy Robin Abrams. This is True Crime Garage.

Speaker 3 Thursday, October 4th, 1990, Don Abrams is driving on Good Now Road. This is in Washington Township near the city of Beecher, which is located in eastern Will County, Illinois.

Speaker 3 The time was just about 4 p.m. in the afternoon.
Don was heading home from work when he spotted a familiar and welcoming sight, his daughter's vehicle traveling in the opposite direction.

Speaker 3 His daughter's car is a red Dodge Daytona hatchback, and it was heading out of the subdivision where the Abrams family lived. Don was very proud of his daughter.

Speaker 3 She was smart and hardworking and stayed close with her folks. Don Abrams' daughter is Robin Abrams, and on this day in 1990, she is 28 years old.

Speaker 3 She is living at home currently while she builds out her life. The two smiled and waved to each other as they passed on the roadway.

Speaker 3 Sadly, this would be the very last time that Don would see his daughter, Robin. Robin didn't come home that evening, but her father didn't fret about it.
She was, after all, a grown woman.

Speaker 3 He told the South Town Star that, quote, she was going out for the night. Everybody asked,

Speaker 3 did she say where she was going? His answer, she didn't have to tell us where she was going. But at 3 a.m., Don was contacted by police.
This is in the nearby town of Harvey, Illinois.

Speaker 3 And they are calling to tell him that the car that Robin was driving, Robin's car, had been found.

Speaker 3 Robin's 1989 red Dodge Daytona hatchback was found abandoned near the intersection of 152nd Street and Winchester Avenue.

Speaker 3 Harvey police were alerted to the car when a town resident called in during the early morning hours of Friday and reported that someone was trying to break into this car.

Speaker 3 Officers responded and interviewed the caller. The caller said that the car had been in that spot, parked in that spot, since it was dropped off around 10 p.m.

Speaker 3 This was Thursday night, and the caller said that it was dropped off by a red tow truck that was being operated by two unidentified men.

Speaker 3 The car was locked, but police opened it up and found the keys were still inside the car. In fact, they were in the ignition.
Police also noted that a camera was found in the vehicle as well.

Speaker 3 And I've seen some reports here, Captain, that they checked that camera later to see if maybe photographs that might have been taken with that camera could provide any kind of clues, leads in this case.

Speaker 3 But the film, there was no film in this camera when it was recovered from the abandoned vehicle.

Speaker 4 Were they able to find any ID or bank cards?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 So this car was registered to Robin Renee Abrams, but there was no sign of her. Police called the phone number associated with the vehicle.

Speaker 3 Robin's father was the one who picked up the phone at the Abrams household. He knew then and there that something terrible likely had happened to his daughter.

Speaker 3 Don Abrams reported Robin missing as of that very moment.

Speaker 3 Robin's sisters, Donna and Jodi, said she did not typically stay out all night, and her car was her pride and joy, and she would never, ever have abandoned it.

Speaker 3 I've seen some, a couple of sources that say two items of interest regarding the placement or the location of where Robin's car was found.

Speaker 3 One, Harvey at the time, might not have been the greatest of areas back then. And with her car being her prized possession, she would not have left it there.
Two,

Speaker 3 her family says Robin had no ties to Harvey. In fact, they believe strongly that it's very likely that she had never, ever been

Speaker 3 there before. Plus, of course, we have the eyewitness who says the vehicle was dropped off by a tow truck with two dudes operating the truck.

Speaker 3 One item of note here on the tow truck, Captain, was I found this quite interesting.

Speaker 3 The caller said that there was some kind of name or company name or logo on on the side of the tow truck as we are used to seeing.

Speaker 3 However, they could not give a great description of it, couldn't remember the name that was on the side of this truck, which that could have been an incredible lead for police in this case.

Speaker 4 So law enforcement wasn't able to talk to either one of these drivers?

Speaker 3 Correct. These men are unidentified.

Speaker 4 And then obviously they never came forward.

Speaker 3 As far as Robin's movements that evening, after her father, Don, saw her, passed her on the roadway, we did find some local media reports that police were able to place Robin at a Joliet gas station near the corner of Jefferson Street and Larkin Avenue on the afternoon of the 4th.

Speaker 3 So she was purchasing gas at this gas station. And this would be after 4 p.m.

Speaker 3 Then, as our friend Robin Gardner would say, the trail went cold. Then go to Sunday.
Okay, so remember here, Captain, we got Thursday. Robin is last seen by her father.

Speaker 3 Then she's getting gas per the police information, then vanishes. Her car is delivered via two strange men in a tow truck at 10 p.m.
on that Thursday.

Speaker 3 And then Friday at 3 a.m., cops call about the abandoned vehicle, and she is reported missing. So we are now two days later from that marker, and we are at Sunday on our timeline.

Speaker 3 And this is when Don says that he received a phone call from a woman who said that her dad had been out for a walk earlier that day and found a woman's purse on the ground.

Speaker 3 This is near the corner of 151st and Wood Streets. This was about three blocks from where the car.
had been dropped off in Harvey. The beige clutch that was found by this man was, in fact, Robins.

Speaker 3 Her checkbook was located still inside of the clutch purse, although her wallet and credit cards were missing,

Speaker 3 and her identification was missing as well. Don later said that he caught hell from the police

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 he went and recovered the purse. from this man and from this woman who had called him.
All of this was very, very odd, odd, of course.

Speaker 3 Dodd Abrams told the Chicago Tribune that Robin had no connection to the town of Harvey and had never been there.

Speaker 3 He believed that the car and the purse were in fact planted in those locations on purpose, possibly to throw police off of the trail of the person or persons who were responsible for Robin's disappearance.

Speaker 4 Well, if you're law enforcement, you don't want the family to get too involved at first because at this point, everybody's a suspect.

Speaker 3 So as Don believed, this was an abduction and then a cover-up. Someone trying to throw the cops off, someone creating a false narrative that would generate incorrect theories.
So what?

Speaker 3 Why would Don come up with this? What is Don talking about? Why would someone take Robin?

Speaker 3 And why would someone try to cover it up? Well, hold on, folks, and I hope you you brought your raincoats because there's going to be some shit. Yep.

Speaker 3 But before we get knee-deep in some poop soup, let's learn some more about the victim here in this case. Robin Abrams was the fourth and youngest daughter of Barbara and Don Abrams.

Speaker 3 She grew up in Orland Park and then Beecher in a working-class family. Her father was a police officer for 10 years, and then he became a bricklayer.

Speaker 3 Robin graduated from Sandberg High School and received an associate's degree from Moraine Valley Community College. She then received a bachelor's degree from Governor State University.

Speaker 3 She was the first in her family to go to college, and her sister said she aspired to become a lawyer.

Speaker 3 Robin put herself through school by working at several fast food restaurants, including a McDonald's, where she worked her way up to manager. This was the branch in Frankfurt.

Speaker 3 Now, it's unknown where Robin was headed on that afternoon when she left the house and she spotted her father driving out of the subdivision.

Speaker 3 When Robin vanished, she was wearing a white long-sleeve shirt, black slacks, black patent leather shoes, and a black leather jacket. And she also had on a gold pinky ring as well.

Speaker 3 On Monday, the Will County Sheriff, his name is John Johnson, issued a press release stating that he was turning the case over to the Illinois State Police.

Speaker 3 He had to recuse his agency, the Will County Sheriff's Department, because some deputies were being questioned about the situation, about the disappearance.

Speaker 3 Lieutenant Larry Broke of the Illinois State Police later said that the case was handed over to ISP because, quote, they weren't sure if there was a connection with some people at the Will County Sheriff's Office, end quote.

Speaker 3 This is not something that we're hearing typically when we cover these kinds of cases. So what is this all about?

Speaker 3 Well, quickly and easily explained, Robin was at one time a sheriff's deputy in Will County. This was from January 11th, 1988, until she was fired in December of that same year.

Speaker 3 So she's given her pink slip just three weeks before the expiration of her one-year probationary period as a new deputy, even though she had graduated in the top half of her class from the Illinois local government law enforcement officers 400-hour basic training course.

Speaker 3 So her dream of being in law enforcement shattered. She had to return to working as a manager at the local McDonald's.

Speaker 3 Despite Robin's academic performance at the police academy and notoriously strong work ethic, Sheriff Johnson claimed that Robin was not unique. Quote, many

Speaker 3 people were let go before the conclusion of their year-long probationary period, people who weren't cutting it as deputies in training.

Speaker 3 But it sounds to me, Captain, like a lot of people were just not buying that story. But regardless if you are buying, believing, or otherwise, this story is much, much bigger, I promise you.

Speaker 3 Because in December of 1989, before she vanished, Robin filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Chicago for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and violations of her civil rights.

Speaker 3 The defendants of this lawsuit, well,

Speaker 3 Some were male members of the Will County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 3 So it makes sense that the Will County Sheriff's Department should not be the investigating agency in the disappearance of this young woman.

Speaker 3 And it looks like Robin wasn't just the typical woman in a male-dominated workplace who was subjected to crude remarks, gestures, and so on.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 3 According to her lawsuit, it went far deeper than that. She had dated a fellow deputy from May to October of 1988.

Speaker 3 Her lawsuit alleged that she was harassed by Will County and Joliet officers because of this romantic involvement with a co-worker. It sounds like

Speaker 3 she believed that the harassment and the violation of her rights came about because she refused to keep quiet about this relationship.

Speaker 3 She was to keep quiet about this relationship for a couple of reasons. One, this man was married.
Two, it's a coworker. And that's often not only frowned upon, but also

Speaker 3 can be grounds for dismissal with many outfits. So for five months from May to October 1988, Robin had been seeing the head of the Will County Sheriff's Auxiliary Police.

Speaker 3 This man was 47-year-old Anthony Marquez, who went by the name of Tony. He was one, of course, very closely affiliated with the Sheriff's Department, two, 18 years Robin's senior, and three,

Speaker 3 a married man.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so do we know how their relationship started?

Speaker 3 I believe that their relationship didn't start until they started working together, but he, from my understanding, frequented the McDonald's, where Robin was once a manager and then later again a manager after her time with the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 3 And it sounds like he, through chit-chatting with her there at the McDonald's, he sorted out that she was seeking a career as an attorney or in law enforcement and encouraged her to sign up as an auxiliary deputy for the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 3 So I don't want to get into this whole mess too much because I don't have a great understanding of how this department works. And every department can be different and oftentimes is.

Speaker 3 But a lot of times you can be an auxiliary officer. And in many locations, that's not a paid position.

Speaker 3 It's similar to being a volunteer firefighter who aspires to get on with the force, right, at some point. And it gives you a leg up on the competition

Speaker 3 when you are interviewing for an opening or want to be a part of that job and and and make it a career and and collect a salary robin's sisters would later say that their younger sibling was naive that robin was naive and and they believe

Speaker 3 that early in that relationship that she probably didn't realize that tony was a married man And they believe that she would not have dated him had she known that at the time. Tony Marquez

Speaker 3 met Robin. As we said, she was still a student at the time managing the Frankfurt McDonald's, and it was he who encouraged her to become a law enforcement officer.
This is per

Speaker 3 Robin's family. And as we know, Tony Marquez and Robin split up right before Robin was fired.
And this, again, from Robin's family, from the Abrams family.

Speaker 3 Her lawsuit claimed that Tony Marquez got her fired because of her refusal to keep the relationship under wraps. Right.

Speaker 3 And after that, they broke up, or sorry, after they broke up, a campaign of harassment against Robin Abrams began. And when we say campaign, it looks like, look, she's not just suing Tony Marquez.

Speaker 3 She's suing several individuals, some of them who work for the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 3 Whether true or not, Robin certainly believed if she's bringing civil action against these guys and the Sheriff's Department, that several people were in cahoots and working together against her to harass her and bully her.

Speaker 4 Well, this case becomes very complicated, and some people will say, well, this is a complete cover-up and conspiracy by the whole department. I would say, nay.

Speaker 4 Because they did turn over the investigation, the missing person case. They turned that over.

Speaker 4 If they wanted to control the situation, the narrative, the evidence, you wouldn't want to turn this case over.

Speaker 3 In regard to the lawsuit, again, I can't stress this enough.

Speaker 3 The complaint here is that the harassment went far beyond vulgar jokes and obscene gestures, that this was directed harassment that deeply impacted Robin's life.

Speaker 4 Yeah, if I'm law enforcement and I'm looking into this, I would want to interview Tony's wife to find out what information she was privy to because it's very possible that Robin finds out that Tony's married.

Speaker 4 She possibly threatens to go to his wife. And if his wife has no knowledge of this, well, let's just harass her to get rid of her.
So then... I could possibly get away with this affair.

Speaker 3 And you're absolutely right here, Captain, because if her disappearance is because of foul play or someone has abducted her or killed her, well, then obviously this relationship and the lawsuit opens the doors to many, many possible suspects.

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Speaker 4 All right, we are back. Talk hands in the air.
Cheers to you, Colonel.

Speaker 3 Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to all the great folks out there in listener land.

Speaker 3 According to Robin's legal filings,

Speaker 3 she says that she was arrested on December 16th, 1988 by sheriff's deputies, that she was detained without any charges being filed.

Speaker 3 She was outside of a dry cleaner when she was arrested, and she alleges that Tony Marquez engineered, orchestrated this arrest. She was arrested again in May of 1989 for disorderly conduct.

Speaker 3 This was a criminal complaint that was never followed up on by prosecutors. So

Speaker 3 that is suggestive that it had no merit. Then on August 27th, 1989, Robin was pulled over by a deputy and told that she had a warrant out for her arrest for reckless driving.

Speaker 3 Apparently, Tony Marquez had filed a complaint against her for supposedly trying to run his car off of the road. The deputy was driving an unmarked white minivan, pulled Robin from the car, right?

Speaker 3 She's pulled over under the premise of we have a warrant for your arrest for reckless driving. Right.
And that deputy that pulls her over, he is

Speaker 3 in an unmarked white minivan at the time, pulls Robin from the vehicle, takes her to jail, takes her to the jail.

Speaker 3 She's strip searched, booked, and printed, gives her a jumpsuit, throws her into a cell with 10 other prisoners.

Speaker 3 And later, so Robin's mother is in the vehicle during this whole arrest incident. Right.

Speaker 3 Robin's mother, Barbara, later tells the Southtown star that, quote, they, meaning law enforcement, they were bouncing her head off of the car, end quote.

Speaker 4 I mean, this story seems so ridiculous.

Speaker 3 yes, it seems ridiculous, but it also seems very something out of a movie where

Speaker 3 you have

Speaker 3 and forget that it's law enforcement. Right.

Speaker 3 Right. Because if you're listening to this show for the first time, we're not a show that searches out these types of cases to bash law enforcement.

Speaker 3 We're not the kind of show that looks for misconduct or claims of misconduct so we can smear the sheriff's department or a police outfit.

Speaker 3 We're the kind of show that tells you, we look at, we research the case,

Speaker 3 take a hard look at it, and we kind of just call it like we see it. And we've said it a thousand times on this show.

Speaker 3 There are great men and women that work in law enforcement, and there's also some shitty men and women that work in law enforcement.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 And like I said, just like any career on this planet, there's good and there's bad.

Speaker 3 Here, a lot of this is allegations. A lot of this is unproven.
However, this is the facts of the case, right? So I believe Robin's mother. Yes.

Speaker 3 We have no reason not to.

Speaker 4 And I just want to be clear what I was saying. I think that's good by law enforcement to say we shouldn't be handling this missing person case.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 we had lawsuits filed against us. We had complaints, and she, meaning Robin, had a relationship with people within the department.

Speaker 4 And so that's great on law enforcement because then somebody else can look at this. And sometimes you need the good cops to investigate the bad cops.

Speaker 4 But that doesn't mean that there wasn't some kind of conspiracy by a few members in this department that were trying to help out their douchebag friend Tony.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And usually I'm pretty quick to rush to defend members of law enforcement.
I'm not so quick to commend them for handing over the investigation

Speaker 3 on this case because I don't know what conversations were had behind closed doors. Right.

Speaker 3 It may have been pointed and suggested to this sheriff that we can take this case from you at some point. Because

Speaker 3 this case does span more than one jurisdiction.

Speaker 3 And then on top of that, you have to keep in mind the sheriff himself is an elected official, and it might not look so good to the public who you are asking to vote for you next time around that you are named in a lawsuit.

Speaker 3 And the person who disappeared that filed that lawsuit, you're investigating her case and making no headway on it. So, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I kind of sit on the fence on this one regarding the sheriff and his decision, but I think you're right.

Speaker 3 I think it's interesting to explore that idea.

Speaker 3 I think it's hard to say that there was somebody that was definitely in the right and somebody that was definitely in the wrong regarding this without knowing more information about these individuals and

Speaker 3 what conversations were had.

Speaker 3 So one thing that seems obvious to me, though, with this lawsuit here, Captain, is when you have somebody being arrested multiple times and then there's no charges filed against them, that to me

Speaker 3 is a strong indicator of misconduct, a strong indicator of harassment, strong indicator of bullying.

Speaker 4 Especially when you have individuals slamming Robin into cars and then also strip searching her, you can make an argument that it's not just harassment, but it's physical abuse and sexual abuse as well.

Speaker 3 And yes, and physical and sexual humiliation as well.

Speaker 3 To be strip searched for what is probably not a legit warrant at all, that aggravates me to no end. Now, Robin's family, of course, paid her $500 bail at the earliest possible date.

Speaker 3 This would be the next day. Her sister, Donna, told this star, quote, she had bruises on her forehead and a purple, a big purple bruise on her wrist from the handcuffs.

Speaker 3 There was no evidence of reckless driving, and Robin was acquitted. That's when she filed her lawsuit.

Speaker 3 Robin claimed that she had performed well on the job and that she was fired for, quote, no good reason, per her court documents. The Joliet Patch newspaper summed up the situation as such.

Speaker 3 At the time of her murder, Abrams had a pending federal civil rights lawsuit that accused several people at the Will County Sheriff's Office of sexual harassment and for being and for bringing phony criminal charges against her as a way to humiliate her and get her fired.

Speaker 3 And quote, interesting there that the newspaper, the local newspaper, right, Captain, chose to use the word murder when we are simply talking about a missing person. case here.

Speaker 3 It sounds like collectively this area, this

Speaker 3 people that know this case

Speaker 3 agree that her disappearance is only because someone killed her i want to put robin's case into the missing person file i'd put this into a murder investigation yeah strong strong suspicion of foul play here is absolutely why she is missing so the lawsuit sought fifty thousand dollars in compensation and five hundred thousand dollars in punitive damages for this harassment.

Speaker 4 A lot of money at the time.

Speaker 3 A lot of money at the time, but frankly, I think it's a little lenient for considering that you were arrested, your head is bounced off of a car and you're strip searched, you're arrested multiple times, pulled over.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is why she, so she, when the harassment began, Captain, she moved back in with her parents. She was afraid.

Speaker 3 I just wish, you know,

Speaker 3 we have this half a dozen times in every case that we look at, but you wish you could just go back and grab her and go, get the hell out of there. Get out of this county.
Get away from these people.

Speaker 3 So I think it's a little light.

Speaker 3 The first of the seven defendants that was named in this lawsuit, of course, was the man she dated, Tony Marquez. Several others were Will County Sheriff's deputies.

Speaker 3 One was a former Will County Sheriff, and one was the sheriff himself, John Johnson, who handed over the case to ISP, to the state police.

Speaker 3 According According to the Joliet Patch, quote, other deputies named in the lawsuit included Marquez, Robert Brown, Charles Masica, Thomas Carey, Lawrence Loefer, Raymond Van Dyke, and Anthony Lucenti.

Speaker 3 Robin's suit was still pending in the U.S. District Court in Chicago when she went missing.
The first hearing with the U.S. District Court in Chicago was scheduled for 18 days after she vanished.

Speaker 3 So she would have testified in a deposition then.

Speaker 4 Right. There's your motive.

Speaker 3 Apparently, though, Robin wasn't the only one who had filed a lawsuit. So in 1989, Tony Marquez, in retaliation, files a complaint, sorry, complaint after complaint against Robin for harassing him.

Speaker 3 He cited 103 incidents. of harassment according to Robin's family.

Speaker 3 Tony Marquez claimed Robin had followed him around, hidden in the building where the insurance agency he owned was based out of, so that she could spy on him.

Speaker 3 He also said that she crashed her car into his and harassed him via telephone.

Speaker 3 Tony Marquez also charged her with assault for an incident in January of 1990 when he says she, quote, raised her hand to me in a threatening manner, end quote.

Speaker 3 According to Robin's lawyer in the case, his name is Winston Block, none of these allegations were true.

Speaker 3 As we said, Robin was acquitted on the reckless driving situation and also later on these harassment charges. And the state's attorney wisely dropped that assault charge.

Speaker 3 All I want to point out here is,

Speaker 3 right or wrong or otherwise,

Speaker 3 All of these allegations by Tony Marquez, anytime they reached the next level, right, The next step just above Tony's head,

Speaker 3 the charges are always dropped, or the person says, there's nothing here. So you don't have to take our word for it.
Just, I mean, look at the evidence and look at the court documents.

Speaker 4 A lot of this would become he said, she said.

Speaker 3 All of the other harassment claims were not followed up on.

Speaker 3 A quote from the South Town Star: information came out in the trial indicating that the man who initiated the charges against Robin Abrams allegedly had beat Robin about the face on October 6th, 1988.

Speaker 3 Robin said Tony Marquez hit her, and that is why she ended the relationship. So according to her, she's the one that ended the relationship after it became abusive.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but that also kind of coincides with she didn't know he was married. So is Was that confrontation? Was that assault?

Speaker 3 Did that take place when she confronted tony about him being married i i don't think we're a hundred percent clear on that information yeah we don't have a clear understanding of that and the other thing too that we we should keep in mind how many of these stories

Speaker 3 do we hear where it's the male individual or the female individual whoever's running around on their spouse and and sparks up this new relationship with someone.

Speaker 3 It's the age-old story of, oh, yeah, I'm married, but I'm, we're in the process of splitting up. We haven't been together for quite some time.
We're separated. We're separated.

Speaker 3 We're, the divorce is, is going to happen. You hear that all the time.

Speaker 3 So while we don't know the particulars of their relationship early on, that's, that's where my mind goes in a lot of these, a lot of these stories, when we hear

Speaker 3 persons close to one or both individuals saying,

Speaker 3 we're pretty sure that he he or she didn't know that the other person was was married or didn't fully

Speaker 3 have a full understanding of their current relationship and their relationship with their spouse or marital spouse.

Speaker 4 Well, a lot of these claims, I think, by Tony is also, we don't know because I haven't been able to find this anywhere. What was his wife saying? What was she privy to know?

Speaker 4 And is it possible that Tony was making these claims against Robin to to then go back to his wife and go, you can't believe anything she said. We didn't have a relationship.
This lady is just crazy.

Speaker 3 From my understanding, Tony and his wife stayed together.

Speaker 3 I don't know for how long, but I believe for

Speaker 3 the extent of most of our story here. So a little more information on to

Speaker 3 what was going on and what Robin was experiencing.

Speaker 3 The tires to her vehicle were slashed on several occasions. This was outside of her apartment.
And this,

Speaker 3 that fear

Speaker 3 of living alone in the apartment, her tires being slashed repeatedly, that led her at the age of 28 to move back in with her parents for her own safety. Right.

Speaker 4 Which is sad.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And her sister Jody told the South Town Star, she moved back in for her own safety.
Her tires were slashed four times at that apartment. And as we know, that's when Robin filed her own lawsuit.

Speaker 3 Much like Tom Petty said, she was determined not to back down. Robin was going to stand up for herself and not cower to Tony Marquez's bullying.

Speaker 3 The South Town Star reported a charge of criminal damage to property against Tony Marquez was dismissed in April of 1989.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors said they did not believe that they had enough evidence to obtain a conviction.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but see, when you're an evil

Speaker 4 bastard and you have other evil bastards that are going to help you out, you can be at the police department

Speaker 4 talking to your boss while your goon buddies are out slashing your ex-girlfriend's tires.

Speaker 4 And what's sad is, yes, there was money involved in this civil suit, but I think Robin was doing this because she knew I have to do something to protect myself.

Speaker 4 I have to do something that gets all this stuff on the record.

Speaker 4 And I'm assuming because she worked with these individuals that she thought, okay, well, some of them will side with Tony and some might even help him harass me and believe me.

Speaker 4 But what we normally see in police departments, the reason why it's hard to have a whole department covering something up is,

Speaker 4 yes, there's douchebag cops, but there's good cops. And those good cops aren't going to always turn a blind eye or help cover something up for the douchebag cops.

Speaker 3 Well, and the other thing, too, forget about the reason why the money is part of the lawsuit is not because she's looking for a handout.

Speaker 3 It's because there needs to be some type of penalty, some type of punishment for this kind of behavior. And if she's...

Speaker 3 If she's able to prove that this kind of behavior was going on and that these individuals were the ones responsible for these actions and for behaving this way, then

Speaker 3 they don't deserve to be police officers.

Speaker 3 Any police officer,

Speaker 3 any good police officer would tell you that. They don't want to work with these kinds of

Speaker 3 asshats. And so, what would happen here, especially, I don't know who would have to pay this out.

Speaker 3 The defendants would, but if many of those defendants are working for the Will County Sheriff's Department, one of them is the sheriff himself.

Speaker 3 It stands to reason that the Sheriff's Department might be the one paying out the $500,000.

Speaker 3 And believe you me, if a police department or sheriff's department has to pay out $500,000, they're going to fire everybody that was named in that lawsuit.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 that is

Speaker 3 set aside that Robin's missing here. I'm talking about as of the filing of this lawsuit, those individuals not being being allowed to be a police officer makes all the sense in the world to me.

Speaker 4 And that's my speculation on why the sheriff would hand over this case, anyways. I think he knew there was a lot of tom fuckery going around.

Speaker 4 But if I turn over this case, maybe that saves myself.

Speaker 3 I think this next bit of information is one of the key details in the story here.

Speaker 3 Because while we just said that the charge, a charge of criminal damage to property against Tony Marquez was dismissed in April of 1989.

Speaker 3 Remember, this is for the tire slashing.

Speaker 3 They didn't have enough evidence to convince anyone that he was directly responsible for that damage. So those charges are dismissed.

Speaker 3 That's if you're keeping score at home, that's one in the Tony column.

Speaker 3 But the result of this criminal charge, regardless of it being dismissed, they determined that there was, in fact, enough evidence for an order of protection.

Speaker 3 So Robin petitioned for this, stating in her petition that Tony Marquez falsely accused her of crashing her vehicle into his vehicle, as well as calling him and following him.

Speaker 3 Abrams and her mother were afraid of Tony Marquez and claimed that he carried a gun and abused his position as an auxiliary officer, the petition says.

Speaker 3 Robin and her mother were both awarded, both Robin and her mother, awarded orders of protection against Tony Marquez on November 1st, 1989, and Robin's was extended for a year until November 27th of 1990.

Speaker 3 Now, clearly, this order of protection was not a deterrent because someone disappeared Robin while the order was still in place.

Speaker 4 Right. And whoever that order of protection was against, that's your number one suspect.

Speaker 3 Robin Renee Abrams has been missing from Beecher, Illinois since October 4th, 1990. Robin was born August 13th, 1962.
She was just 28 years old when she vanished. Make no mistake about it.

Speaker 3 This is a foul play case. Robin was a former sheriff's deputy with Will County.
At the time of her disappearance, Robin was 5'4 inches tall. She is a Caucasian female with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Speaker 3 There is a Facebook page dedicated to Robin's case. It's Help Find Robin Abrams Facebook page, and her case is also profiled on The Charlie Project.

Speaker 3 At the time of her disappearance, it's believed that she was wearing a white long-sleeved knit pullover, a black leather jacket, black slacks, black patent leather shoes, and a gold pinky ring, carrying a light beige pattern clutch purse.

Speaker 3 Remember, Robin's purse and checkbook were recovered, but her driver's license was not.

Speaker 3 Anyone with information, including the known whereabouts of the previously mentioned items, please call the Illinois State Police at 815-726-6291 or submit a tip at isp.crimetips at illinois.gov.

Speaker 4 Stick around for part two. So much more to get to.

Speaker 3 Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

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