A Date That Turned Into A Nightmare
The neighborhood here really shook up about this one. The girl’s body was found inside an abandoned house behind me. They’re back outside still no clothing on from the waist down. How painful would that injury have been? Very painful. Today we are rejoicing that it looks like we have the person who killed our daughter.
We’re so incredibly grateful for all of the hard work. 2:05 in the morning, a bus stop in Oakland. A young woman is standing there alone. A few minutes later, a red Toyota 4Erunner drives past her. Once, then again, it keeps circling. The SUV makes a U-turn, pulls up right next to her. She gets inside. By 6:40 that morning, her body is found on the 1900 block of Third Avenue, not far from FM Recreation Center.
Her face is crushed, severe head trauma, a brain hemorrhage, defensive wounds on her arms, like she tried to fight back. Her jewelry is gone, her phone is missing, and according to the medical examiner, there are clear signs of sexual assault. This is 23-year-old Kimberly Robertson, a mom to a 2-year-old little girl, a student in a criminal justice program.
She left her home on the evening of April 4th, 2014. No one ever saw her alive again. The last person she spent time with was her boyfriend. They were at Lakeside Lounge. Surveillance cameras caught them there at 11:30 p.m. They barely spoke. At 1:15 in the morning, they left the bar. Next stop, the parking lot near Walgreens.
Cameras show a taxi pulling up. She gets inside and then like 30 seconds later, she steps back out. The taxi drives away without her. Her boyfriend returns. Then he parks near the bus stop. Cameras show his car sitting there until 6:18 that morning. He never gets out. His alibi checks out. He didn’t kill her, so investigators shift their focus to another vehicle, a red Toyota 4Erunner.
Bank cameras capture it circling the bus stop several times. Then it pulls over. A figure gets inside. The SUV drives off. About an hour later, that same vehicle is seen near FM Recreation Center, right by the spot where her body would later be discovered. At the crime scene, detectives find a receipt from Lowe’s dated March 23rd.
The store is about 100 m from where her body was found. Luckily, the surveillance footage from that day is still available. That red Toyota 4Runner pulls into the parking lot. Two men walk into the store. The purchase is made with a bank card. But here’s the thing. The card is stolen. 3 hours later, that same card is used at a fast food restaurant.
And that’s where investigators get a clear image of the license plate. The vehicle is registered to a 41-year-old man named Prince Chetch, who goes by Frank, originally from Ghana. Married, three children, living in Oakland. He sells clothing at local farmers markets. During his first interview with police, he says he has never seen Kimberly.
Denies even knowing her, but police already know she was inside his vehicle. Later, he changes his story. Admits he gave her a ride. Claims the sexual encounter was consensual and involved money. Says he dropped her off alive. His DNA matches samples recovered from Kimberly’s body. Prosecutors build their case step by step.
He’s circling the bus stop right before she disappears. He’s the last person to see her alive. He admits to sex, but lies about it at first. His SUV is captured near the location where her body is found. His DNA is on her. The jury needs less than 2 hours. Verdict guilty of first-degree murder with a special circumstance.
Murder committed during rape. Life in prison without the possibility of parole. And still, he insists. I didn’t kill her, but the video footage, the timeline, the route he took, the lies, and the DNA, they all line up into one clear picture of that night. Everything fits together piece by piece.
So, to really understand what happened, we have to go back to the very beginning, Oakland, California. That’s where 23-year-old Kimberly Robertson was building her life. She was originally from Texas, raised in Dallas. After graduating from Kimble High School, she completed her studies at ITT Technical Institute in December of 2013.
Not long after that, she moved to Oakland with her 2-year-old daughter, determined to start fresh. Kimberly was also studying at Heielded College in San Francisco, enrolled in a criminal justice program. She was confident, open, and completely devoted to her little girl. Like her daughter was her whole world.
But Kimberly’s life hadn’t been easy. When she was just 2 years old, her mother was shot and killed by her boyfriend. That kind of trauma, it stays with you. Years later, Kimberly came to Oakland with one clear goal, to give her daughter the best possible start in life. And Oakland, it’s the kind of place you feel right away.
It’s not glossy, not trying to impress anybody. It’s real. The cool air from the bay mixes with the warmth of the California sun. In the mornings, the city feels calm. People jog around Lake Merritt. They sit outside with their coffee. They greet each other without rushing off. By midday, the personality shows.
Colorful murals covering brick walls, music spilling out of open bar doors, different languages floating through the streets. Oakland isn’t just multicultural on paper. You can feel it in the food, in the rhythm of the music, and the way people dress. At night, the atmosphere shifts. Yachts sway gently along the waterfront. The sun dips behind the hills.
There’s this soft hum of conversation and laughter in the air. From the Oakland Hills, you can see the lights of the bay flickering calm, a little nostalgic, very California. This city doesn’t try to sell you anything. It just lets you become part of its rhythm. So, tell me, what city are you watching this from, and what time is it where you are? I’m honestly really curious where my audience is tuning in from.
Go ahead, drop it in the comments, and while you’re typing, I’ll keep going. Friday, April 4th, 2014. That day, Kimberly got her hair done. She had her nails done, too. She went over to her sister’s place, getting ready to spend the evening with her boyfriend. Her sister, Marquita, was watching her daughter. And Kimberly was in a great mood.
She was excited, looking forward to a fun night out. She walked out the door, ready to enjoy the evening. not far from FM Smith Recreation Center. Her body was discovered by a cyclist who happened to be riding past. Oakland police arrived at the scene along with the Oakland Fire Department and paramedics. They did everything they could to save her, but it was already too late.
She was pronounced dead at the scene. A sweater was found nearby. It was bagged and taken as evidence. Investigators also collected a receipt for gardening supplies. Through documentation, they were able to confirm the victim’s identity. 23-year-old Kimberly Robertson. Her face had been brutally beaten. There were bruises on her hands and forearms, signs that she had tried to fight back.
Her jewelry was gone. Her phone was missing. When Kimberly didn’t come home, her sister assumed she had stayed over at her boyfriend’s place. But very soon, her entire world collapsed. Detectives came with the news. A body had been found. It was Kimberly. Her sister was devastated. She couldn’t even begin to imagine who would want to hurt her, let alone kill her. But she was certain of one thing.
Her boyfriend, Dany, couldn’t have done this. Dany was quickly brought in for questioning. He remained calm, told officers they hadn’t been dating long, but they had been friends for several months. The night before, they had been drinking at Lakeside Lounge, located at 338 East 18th Street.
He explained that after drinking, he didn’t want either of them getting behind the wheel and driving home. Kimberly disagreed. An argument broke out. He called a taxi, but Kimberly walked away, saying she would get home on her own. Dany didn’t want to just leave her there, so he let the taxi go, got into his own car, drove a short distance, and parked across from the bus stop where she was standing. He decided to wait.
He told detectives that he fell asleep, and when he woke up, she was gone. While officers worked to verify his story, preliminary autopsy results came in. Kimberly had suffered severe head trauma and a brain hemorrhage. She had also been sexually assaulted. On Kimberly’s Facebook page, messages of grief began to pour in.
People were in complete shock over her death. One person wrote, “It’s hard to smile knowing you’re not here anymore.” But there’s still a smile in my heart because I know you’re in a better place now than in this cold world. While the investigation into Kimberly Robertson’s murder was unfolding, police needed witnesses from Lakeside Lounge, detectives headed there to piece together what had happened the night before.
And that’s where they found something that could actually speak for itself, the surveillance cameras. An exterior camera captured the couple walking into Lakeside Lounge at 11:30 p.m. They weren’t talking. Didn’t really even look at each other. It felt distant, quiet, like something was already off between them. Later in the footage, Dany is seen talking with two women while Kimberly is just sitting there looking down at her phone.
The tension between them is obvious. You can feel it even without sound. Other recordings show them moving around the club, keeping some distance between each other. At 1:15 in the morning, cameras captured them leaving the club together with another man. Kimberly’s sister was asked to review the footage and she recognized him as one of Dany<unk>y’s friends.
Police brought him in for questioning. He confirmed he had been with them and that at 1:24 in the morning, he drove them to the parking lot where their car was parked. When officers went to that parking lot, they got a bit of unexpected luck. It was right next to a Walgreens and Walgreens had surveillance cameras. The footage [mu
sic] begins at 1:24 a.m. For more than 20 minutes, there’s no sign of Danny or Kimberly. And then at 1:50 in the morning, a taxi pulls up. You can see Danny getting into the car first. A few seconds later, Kimberly walks up and gets into the front passenger seat. About 30 seconds go by. The car just sits there, not moving. Then Kimberly steps out and walks away.
The taxi pulls off with Dany still inside. Another camera angle shows Kimberly getting out of the taxi and walking back toward the parking lot. So yeah, she doesn’t leave in that cab after all. She turns around and heads right back. About a minute later, the taxi shows up on camera again. It’s not completely clear what’s happening, but investigators believe Dany may have been circling the parking lot looking for her.
The taxi drives off again and then about 2 minutes later, it comes back. This time, Danny steps out of the vehicle. The taxi pulls away, but Kimberly is nowhere in sight. A little after 2 in the morning, the camera captures a black SUV pulling out of the parking lot. That’s Dany. His version of events checks out.
Officers then head to the bus stop where, according to Dany, Kimberly had been waiting before he fell asleep. That location had to be verified first. If what he said was true, the cameras would show it. Luckily, that area was also under surveillance. The cameras covered both the roadway and the bus stop itself.
Detectives start reviewing the footage minuteby minute. They see his vehicle pull up and parked directly across from the stop exactly as he described. The position matches perfectly. The angle of the stop, the distance from the curb, the alignment of the SUV with the road. Every detail lines up. After that, the vehicle doesn’t move.
No shifting forward, no backing up, no headlights flipping on, no doors opening. The car just sits there all night. The footage clearly shows that Dany doesn’t get out of the vehicle until 6:18 in the morning. That’s when the door opens and he appears on camera. The timestamp leaves no room for doubt. Every single minute supports his story.
Dany was telling the truth. His alibi holds. He was not the one who killed Kimberly. So then who did? Surveillance cameras from a nearby bank, the ones covering the area where Dany<unk>y’s SUV was parked, gave investigators an unexpected angle. In the reflection of the glass windows, you could actually see the bus stop across the street. The image wasn’t perfect.
It was dim with glare and shadows, but it was clear enough to catch movement. Around 2:05 in the morning, just minutes after Dany parked, a faint figure appears in that reflection. A silhouette, a light shape against the dark street. She’s standing at the bus stop, exactly where she was last seen. Then, across the road from Dy’s vehicle, a red Toyota 4Erunner drives past the stop. It doesn’t pull over at first.
It slowly continues down the street, makes a turn, and comes back the same way. The movement looks deliberate, not random. When detectives rewind the footage and review it more carefully, they notice something unsettling. This isn’t the first time that SUV has passed through. It had already been there before.
Same path, same slow maneuvers. The vehicle goes back and forth several times, circles near the stop, slows down, disappears from frame, then reappears. That kind of driving doesn’t look casual. It looks like someone watching. waiting, choosing the right moment. Then comes the part that makes everything tighten up.
In the reflection, the SUV finally stops next to the bus stop. You can see someone in the driver’s seat. Another figure stands beside the window talking to him. Just a few seconds, maybe a short exchange. Then the silhouette opens the passenger door and gets inside. The SUV makes a turn and slowly drives past Dy’s parked vehicle.
Now, in the front passenger seat, there’s a second outline, a human shape, and investigators are left with a chilling realization. The timing matches, the location matches, everything lines up. That silhouette was Kimberly. The footage just wasn’t clear enough to make out the license plate. The numbers blurred in the darkness.
Headlights bounced into the lens. The details they needed were lost. Investigators knew without a plate they couldn’t quickly identify the owner. So, they shifted direction. They started interviewing Kimberly’s friends and family, hoping the vehicle might belong to someone in her circle. Maybe someone would recognize a red Toyota.
Maybe someone had seen her with that driver before. The interviews were long, exhausting, the same questions over and over again. But the answer stayed the same. No one recognized the SUV. No one could give them a name. The next place detectives checked was FM Recreation Center, the exact area where her body had been found. The logic was simple.
If that SUV had been nearby, cameras might have caught it. Just like the other locations, this area was also under surveillance. Officers began reviewing footage starting at 2:30 in the morning. Hour by hour, frame by frame, they waited for the red Toyota to appear again. At 3:00 a.m., it finally does.
The SUV moves along the road nearby. Smooth, no sudden turns, same body shape, same outline. It’s clearly the same vehicle, but once again, the license plate is impossible to read. The video is powerful. It confirms the SUV was in a critical place at a critical time, but it’s still not enough.
They need something solid, something physical. So, officers return to the evidence collected at the crime scene. One of those pieces is a receipt. Just a simple paper receipt, the kind of thing most people would overlook, but sometimes it’s the smallest detail that breaks a case open. The receipt is from Lowe’s Home Improvement.
Dated March 23rd at 6:02 in the evening. The date and time are printed clearly. No ambiguity. The store is located only about 100 meters from where Kimberly was found. That kind of proximity can’t just be random. Police call the store hoping security footage from 2 weeks earlier might still exist.
Normally archives aren’t kept that long. By most standards, it’s almost a long shot. And yet somehow the footage is still there. March 23rd, 2014. 5:37 p.m. A red Toyota 4Erunner SUV appears on camera in the parking lot. The vehicle slowly pulls in and parks. Two men step out. They close the doors and head toward the store entrance.
The camera captures it clearly. Another piece of the puzzle. And now it’s starting to come together. The receipt showed the purchases were made with a bank card. Detectives traced the transaction. The card belonged to a 53year-old woman, which meant it was most likely stolen. And that detail, it added something darker to an already disturbing picture.
This wasn’t looking random at all. Records also showed that about 3 hours later, the same card was used at a fast food restaurant. The time was precise, the location confirmed. That gave investigators a new direction. The restaurant’s surveillance cameras captured the red Toyota 4Erunner pulling onto the property.
The SUV rolls confidently up to the drive-through window, and this time, detectives get something they hadn’t had before. A clear view of the driver’s face. Not perfect, but good enough to begin identification. The license plate though is still too blurry. The numbers blend together, almost unreadable. For a moment, it feels like the trail is slipping again.
But then an employee mentions there’s footage from a rear-facing camera. Different angle, better quality. Detectives agree to check it, and that’s when it happens. The license plate is visible, sharp, clear, no distortion. They run the plate. It leads to a man living in Oakland. His name is Prince Chatch, but he goes by Frank, originally from Ghana.
He moved to Oakland in 2007. At the time of the murder, he was 41 years old. He sold clothing at local farmers markets, married, three children. On the surface, a normal life, family, work, routine. Investigators also identify the passenger seen in the earlier footage, but official records confirm that at the time of Kimberly’s murder, he was in custody. He’s immediately ruled out.
Now the circle narrows. Every road leads to one name. All attention turns to Frank. Investigators now had one goal to prove he was responsible for the rape and murder of Kimberly. Suspicion wasn’t enough. Not even close. They needed evidence. Solid, clear, the kind that would hold up in court.
Using hidden cameras, detectives began canvasing his neighborhood. They put up flyers, knocked on doors, asked neighbors if they had seen anything unusual. On the surface, it looked routine, standard followup, short conversations, calm voices, careful observation. Every reaction mattered. Eventually, they knocked on the door of apartment number eight, Frank’s apartment. The door opened.
Officers introduced themselves, said they were investigating the recent murder of a young woman. Their tone was steady, professional. One of them showed him a flyer with Kimberly’s picture and asked if he had ever seen her before. Now, here’s the thing. Police already knew she had been inside his vehicle, so this wasn’t just a casual question.
It was a test. Frank looked at the photo and said he didn’t know her. Claimed he had never seen her in the area. His response was firm. No hesitation. They told him that if he remembered anything, anything at all, he should contact the Oakland Police Department. The exchange seemed ordinary on the surface, but to investigators, it meant everything.
One officer confirmed his name. He verified his identity. It was him, the same man from the video, the same face behind the wheel of the red SUV. His complete denial, even knowing her when detectives already had footage placing her inside his car, created a direct contradiction. That contradiction became grounds for arrest.
He was taken into custody and brought in for questioning 5 days after Kimberly’s body was discovered. 5 days during which investigators had been quietly assembling the timeline. Now he needed to explain. Why was he driving back and forth along that street the night she was killed? Why did his vehicle appear in that same area multiple times? During questioning, he told officers he was going through a difficult period in his marriage.
Said things at home had been tense for a while. The atmosphere in the apartment felt heavy. Because of that, he claimed he often didn’t want to be inside, so he would get into his car and just drive. No destination, no plan, just driving. That, he said, was how he dealt with stress. “You’ve never seen her before?” the officer asked.
Frank hesitated. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember. She had a long wig, long extensions. I don’t remember her face.” But then his story shifts and it shifts fast. He admits he had met Kimberly before. Admits he gave her a ride that night. I gave her a ride, he said. Frank claimed there had been a sexual encounter between them.
According to him, she initiated it. He said Kimberly offered sex for money. That was the core of his version. He insisted it was consensual, no force, no aggression. He said after that, he dropped her off and drove away, completely denying any involvement in her murder. But the shift in his story raised serious red flags.
First, he denied any sexual contact at all. Then he admitted to it. That inconsistency combined with the way Kimberly died became critical. He was formally charged with murder under special circumstances. Murder committed during rape. The wording of the charge was clear. Direct. No room for interpretation.
Then more evidence came in. Forensic testing confirmed that his DNA matched semen samples recovered from Kimberly’s body. That wasn’t speculation. That was science, and it became one of the central pillars of the prosecution’s case. He was held without bail at Sanorita Jail, meaning he stayed in custody while awaiting trial.
When the case finally went to court, Frank told the jury that in the early hours of April 5th, he picked Kimberly up from a bus stop at the intersection of East 18th Street and Park Boulevard. He described it as random, a brief conversation, an offer, an agreement. He firmly denied killing her. Frank testified that Kimberly proposed sex in exchange for money.
He said she asked for $250 and told him she was working that night. According to him, he negotiated the amount down to $200. After she got into his vehicle, he claimed they drove into a residential area where they had sex in the backseat of his SUV. He stated these details under oath, maintaining that everything was voluntary and nonviolent.
But that version of events would be examined very closely by prosecutors and by the jury. I did not kill that woman. We only had sex, he said. He also told the court that earlier that evening he had been with his wife and children at a concert at the University of California at Berkeley.
It sounded like a normal family night. music, crowds, that kind of festive atmosphere you’d expect to become a pleasant memory. When they got home, he said his wife told him she was tired and didn’t want to have sex. He mentioned this calmly in court, almost like it was just an ordinary detail.
But then came something important. He admitted that he initially lied to police about having any sexual contact with Kimberly. The reason, he said, was fear. He didn’t want his wife to find out about the affair. That’s why he claimed he hid the truth during the early stages of the investigation. The defense argued that the prosecution had not proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
There were no direct eyewitnesses. No one saw the actual moment of the crime. His attorney emphasized that point repeatedly. Assumptions cannot replace solid proof. The defense said Frank made a mistake picking Kimberly up. Called it a one night thing. A bad decision. Irresponsible, but not murder. According to the defense, after spending about an hour with her, he dropped her off near FM Recreation Center around 3:00 in the morning. It was dark.
The area was mostly empty. And then, he said he simply drove home. No fight, no violence, just parting ways in a night that would later become the center of a homicide investigation. A one night affair doesn’t make you a rapist, and it doesn’t make you a killer. There’s no evidence that he had any motive to murder her or harm her, his attorney said.
Frank also said he noticed blood on Kimberly. According to him, she told him she had argued with another man earlier that night and that he had pushed her out of a car. He claimed she assured him she was fine, like it was just an unpleasant incident. Nothing serious, but that explanation, it sounded simple, almost too simple considering how everything ended.
During cross-examination, Frank admitted that his wife had been extremely angry about the affair. She told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. That was a major blow to his family life. And in court, it was made clear he had been deeply upset, angry, emotionally shaken. The prosecution openly acknowledged that the case was built on circumstantial evidence.
There were no direct eyewitnesses to the killing. But the prosecutor emphasized something important. The evidence didn’t stand alone. It connected. Piece by piece. It formed a single picture. And according to the state, that picture led to only one reasonable conclusion, that he raped and murdered Kimberly. The evidence, they said, was this.
His wife had told him she no longer wanted to be with him because of his infidelity. Testimony showed that this left him deeply angry and depressed. His emotional state became part of the overall narrative. His red Toyota 4Runner SUV was captured on surveillance cameras driving around the area where Kimberly disappeared. multiple passes, same zone, same time frame.
He was the last person to see her alive. After that encounter, no one else saw her living again. The receipt found near her body and the surveillance footage confirming he had purchased the items listed on it. Date, time, transaction, all tying him directly to evidence found beside her. The location where he claimed he dropped her off, that’s where her body was discovered.
That overlap was hard to ignore. The place he named became the crime scene. and his DNA was found on her, a central piece of scientific evidence the jury heard during trial. The jury deliberated for less than 2 hours. The decision came quickly. When they returned to the courtroom, they delivered the verdict guilty of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of committing the murder during rape.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, meaning he will never be released. His attempt to portray Kimberly as a sex worker who willingly entered into a one- night affair clearly did not convince the jury. That defense did not dismantle the broader structure of the evidence. It didn’t explain the contradictions and it didn’t shake the conclusions.
Despite his continued denials, the judge turned to him and said, “The jury concluded that you were simply lying and that you gave false testimony. They determined that you raped and killed her.” The judge also said that he had hoped when Frank finally had the chance to speak in court that he would show even the smallest sign of remorse.
Anything, a single word, a look, an acknowledgement of guilt, just the slightest indication that he understood the pain he had caused. But addressing him in the courtroom, the judge added in a cold, controlled tone, “I doubt you have that kind of heart. I don’t believe you’re capable of it.” The room fell silent. Those words didn’t sound emotional.
They sounded measured, deliberate, like a conclusion drawn after hearing everything. There was no visible anger, just a clear understanding of the man standing before the court. Then Kimberly’s sister turned to him. Her voice trembled, but she spoke directly. No softening the pain, no masking the grief.
In front of her sat the man she believed was responsible for an unimaginable loss. And what she was about to say wasn’t just a statement. It was something deeper. An attempt to express what no sentence, no verdict could ever truly fix. You had a choice. You didn’t have to kill her. I will never be able to replace my sister.
My life will never be the same again. It’s almost impossible to imagine what Kimberly Robertson went through in her final moments. What thoughts crossed her mind. What fear she may have felt. How helpless she might have realized she was. Those seconds are forever beyond anyone else’s understanding.
But their shadow still lingers over this story. The impact of her death rippled through everyone who knew her. For her loved ones, it was a blow no words can soften. For her friends, a deep and sudden emptiness. For her family, a sense of injustice that doesn’t fade with time. And the fact that her child will grow up without a mother just as Kimberly once did because of someone else’s violent and selfish actions. That part is almost unbearable.
It’s like history folded in on itself. a painful circle that ended exactly where it never should have. Kimberly Robertson was vibrant, open, happy. She connected easily with people. There was warmth in her, sincerity, light. There was no visible darkness in her world. No sign of what was coming. She had her whole life ahead of her.
A life filled with plans, dreams, possibilities, days she never got to live, years that never arrived. And that contrast between who she was and how her story ended is what makes this case so deeply unsettling.
