Update 2:45 a.m. June 26, 2021 — Police have announced 41-year-old Tony L. Robinson is charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of robbery, and three counts of aggravated battery. He is due in bond court this afternoon. CPD lists his home address as the 300 block of South Lower Wacker Drive.
The possibly homeless man who’s being questioned by police in connection with last weekend’s fatal stabbing of a Maryland woman in the Loop has never been charged with a felony in Cook County, according to court records.
While his history in other jurisdictions is unknown, local records show the 41-year-old has only faced minor charges like CTA violations and theft. Other records show he was convicted of burglary in St. Clair County in 2006.
CWBChicago is not naming the man because charges have not been approved against him, but CPD records show police have built a case against him for fatally stabbing Anat Kimchi, 31, last Saturday afternoon and beating a 50-year-old hotel guest with a heavy object in the Loop on June 13.
Detectives and Central (1st) District tactical officers arrested the man around 3:30 p.m. Thursday on the 300 block of South Lower Wacker Drive, less than a block from where Kimchi was killed by a man who stabbed her repeatedly in the upper back, according to police.
Police were still working to link the man to a violent attack on a 25-year-old woman in the 500 block of South Franklin around 9:30 p.m. on June 10. That victim was injured so badly, fire department personnel initially thought she had been shot in the head.
Court records show he has faced nine misdemeanor charges in Cook County since 1997. No cases were filed against him between 2003 and 2011. But another case file shows he may have been in St. Clair County or behind bars for at least some of those years.
His most recent local case, filed in May 2018, included two counts of misdemeanor battery and criminal damage to property. Prosecutors said he tore up the Subway restaurant at 66 East Washington, pushed two workers, and struck them with a metal stool. Prosecutors dropped all of the charges less than a month later, records show.
Other charges like selling loose cigarettes on CTA trains and possessing stolen credit cards were also dropped over the years.
In 2014, the man was arrested in Chicago on a Lake County warrant for harassment through electronic means for allegedly threatening to injure a woman via phone calls and text messages, records show. The outcome of that case was not immediately available.
The man has consistently given police and court officials a home address in the Englewood neighborhood since at least 2014, records show. But that does not necessarily mean he lives there.
In the June 13 attack that he will likely face robbery charges for, a man allegedly approached the hotel guest on the 100 block of East Ida B. Wells and asked, “are you following me?” The attacker then struck the woman in her head with a heavy object, which caused the woman to drop her phone. He allegedly picked up her phone and hit her two more times with the object before leaving the scene.
CWBChicago will continue to follow the story and publish updates after charges are finalized.