March 29, 2024

An apparent victim of the “shopping cart killer” — suspected in the deaths of five women in the Washington, D.C., area — was a Redding woman who had gone missing after traveling to the nation’s capital.

Stephanie Harrison. (Family photo via Redding police) 

Stephanie Harrison, 48, was last in contact with her family on Aug. 19, 2021, a missing-persons announcement from the Redding police said. She had traveled to the D.C. area for a sightseeing visit, relatives said.

Her family told police she was in a “vulnerable” mental state.

On Dec. 15, her body was found in a large plastic container near the Moon Inn in Alexandria, Virginia — the motel where her sister said she had been staying during her trip.

Anthony Robinson, 35, who had also stayed at the Moon Inn, has been charged with the killings of two women whose bodies were found in November. Police are investigating his possible connection to three other deaths, including Harrison’s.

Investigators say Robinson met his victims on dating websites and lured them to motels where he killed them and transported their bodies in shopping carts. He has no prior criminal record.

After the discovery of two bodies in a northern Virginia city two days before Thanksgiving, police used cell phone records and video surveillance to determine that Robinson was a suspect. He was arrested the same day, Nov. 23.

The map below shows approximate locations of key sites in the case.

1/ Moon Inn motel. Robinson is known to have stayed at the motel at least six times, police say. On Dec. 15, the bodies of Stephanie Harrison, 48, of Redding, Calif.,  and Cheyenne Brown, 29, of Washington, D.C., were found in a container in a wooded area near the motel. A shopping cart was nearby. Brown had gone missing on Sept. 30 after riding to the Huntington Metro station, half a mile from the motel. Harrison had last been heard from on Aug. 19.

2/ Harrisonburg. On Nov. 23, the bodies of Allene Elizabeth Redmon, 54, of Harrisonburg, Va., and Tonita Lorice Smith, 39, of Charlottesville, Va., were found in a vacant lot in Harrisonburg, 100 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. They are believed to have been killed about three weeks apart; Redmon was last seen alive on Oct. 24 and Smith on Nov. 14, police said. Robinson has been charged with their murders.

3/ Washington, D.C. On Sept. 7, the body of Sonya Champ, 40, was found covered by a blanket in a shopping cart near Union Station. She has been identified as a potential victim of the same killer.