“I dated a serial killer”: Inside The Dating App Killer’s chilling true story – and how Monica White was lucky to escape with her life
Monica White believed she had found companionship when she met Anthony Robinson on a dating app. But months after ending their disturbing relationship, he was arrested and later convicted of murdering two women
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Monica White believed she had found companionship when she met Anthony Robinson on a dating app. But months after ending their disturbing relationship, he was arrested and later convicted of murdering two women
Pics: Getty Images
When Monica White, then 53, joined a dating app in late 2020, she was not looking for a whirlwind romance.
The Pennsylvania mother had gone through a painful divorce three years earlier, and simply hoped to find someone to talk to. Then she matched with Anthony Robinson, a younger man who claimed to work in waste management and have a daughter.
“I wasn’t really thinking romantically. It was just companionship,” Monica previously told PEOPLE. “I thought he was normal.”
But Robinson was far from the man he appeared to be online.
Months after Monica ended their brief relationship, he was arrested and accused of targeting women through dating apps before killing them and transporting their bodies in shopping carts. leading to him being dubbed ‘the Dating APP Killer’ and ‘the Shopping Cart Killer’.
The disturbing case has now inspired the Lifetime film The Dating App Killer: The Monica White Story, starring Lela Rochon as Monica and Jarod Joseph as Robinson.
A seemingly normal online match
Monica met Robinson through the dating app Tagged. His flattering messages quickly progressed to daily phone calls and video chats.
He told her that he had previously worked as a preschool teacher and was now employed in waste management. To Monica, he appeared to be a young man trying to earn a living.
However, she eventually found the constant contact overwhelming, admitting: “Some days I wouldn’t even want to answer the phone.”
In January 2021, Robinson travelled from Harrisonburg, Virginia, to Monica’s home in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, so the pair could meet in person.
It was then that Monica began to realise his online personality may have concealed a far darker side.
“Oh my God, he was totally different,” she said. “He was nice that first visit – but there were things that went up as red flags.”
According to Monica, Robinson told her: “Please don’t judge me straight off the bat. Let’s get to know each other. I don’t like when women reject me.”
He also reportedly asked if he could move into her home, despite the pair having only just met.
“I told him, ‘No. You’re moving too fast, man,’” she recalled.
Disturbing behaviour behind closed doors
Monica decided to give Robinson another chance because of the time they had already spent talking online. However, she alleged that his behaviour became increasingly alarming.
She claimed he attempted to tie her up and grabbed her by the neck during an intimate encounter. Later that night, she woke to find him staring at her while she slept.
“I don’t think he was trying to kill me, but I think that he’s into some freaky, crazy stuff,” she said.
Despite her concerns, Monica allowed Robinson to return the following month for her 54th birthday. He arrived a week earlier than expected with a one-way bus ticket, claiming he had received job offers near her home.
His behaviour at Monica’s birthday celebration proved to be the final straw.
“He was drinking. Then not only that, harassing the kids, flirting with the boys,” she alleged.
Monica said Robinson became angry after she rejected his advances and urinated in her bed.
“He started snapping,” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Get your stuff and let’s go.’”
She gave him $20 to help him reach the train station, hoping she would never have to see him again. Instead, Robinson stayed in the area and repeatedly attempted to persuade her to meet him.
When Monica saw him outside a motel around a month later, she barely recognised him.
“He looked like a totally different man. Something snapped in him. I don’t know whether he was doing drugs, and ended up totally flipping out,” she said. “It was like I’d seen a ghost, a monster.”
The discovery that horrified police
Later that year, women began disappearing in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
In November 2021, police discovered the bodies of 54-year-old Allene “Beth” Redmon and 39-year-old Tonita Smith in a field beside a motel in Harrisonburg. A shopping cart was found nearby.
Surveillance footage showed both women entering the motel with Robinson on separate occasions. After each encounter, he was allegedly filmed leaving his room with a shopping cart containing a large object covered in sheets.
The following month, the bodies of 29-year-old Cheyenne Brown and 48-year-old Stephanie Harrison were discovered near the Moon Inn Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. Again, a shopping cart was found close to the remains.
Brown, who was pregnant with her second child, had met Robinson online before her disappearance. Harrison had reportedly been staying at the same motel as him.
Fairfax County police chief Kevin Davis declared at the time: “We have a serial killer.”
“He preys on the weak and the vulnerable,” Davis said, adding that after doing “unspeakable things” to his victims, “he transports their bodies to their final resting place literally in a shopping cart.”
The grim pattern earned Robinson the nicknames the “Dating App Killer” and the “Shopping Cart Killer”.
Suspected links to two further deaths
Authorities subsequently investigated Robinson in connection with the death of 40-year-old Sonya Champ, whose body was discovered inside a shopping cart in Washington, D.C., in September 2021.
His DNA was reportedly later found on Champ’s body, but no charges have been brought against him in connection with her death.
Police also examined the 2018 death of Robinson’s former fiancée, Skye Allen.
The 30-year-old died after spending the night with Robinson. Doctors attributed her death to cardiac arrhythmia, and her body was later cremated. Robinson has not been charged over Allen’s death.
He was named as the main suspect in the deaths of Brown and Harrison but has not been charged with their murders either.
Two life sentences for murder
Robinson went on trial in January 2025 for the murders of Redmon and Smith.
His lawyers argued that the surveillance footage did not prove he was responsible for the women’s deaths. Prosecutors, however, said the evidence established clear links between Robinson and both victims.
“Anthony Robinson is a cold-blooded murderer, plain and simple,” Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst told the court during her closing argument. “He’s a hunter and a predator of women.”
It reportedly took jurors approximately 30 minutes to find Robinson guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of concealing a body.
In May 2026, he was sentenced to two life terms plus an additional 10 years and ordered to pay approximately $205,000 in fines.
Robinson is now serving his sentences at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.
The Dating App Killer movie changes the real chronology by depicting Robinson’s crimes alongside his relationship with Monica, even though his two proven murders took place months after she ended contact with him.
Director Elisabeth Röhm said the film’s dual timeline was intended to increase the tension while keeping the focus firmly on Monica’s experience.
“We’re not celebrating him, and we are not positioning him to become the most thrilling, sexy monster,” she explained. “It’s really her story.”
Monica later admitted she struggled with guilt, wondering whether rejecting Robinson had contributed to his behaviour.
“I felt like I might’ve been the reason why he might have snapped,” she said. “I had actually allowed this man into my home, allowed him to stay overnight in my home. Then to find out later on, you started killing people?”
However, she said the ordeal ultimately taught her to find happiness and strength within herself.
“I don’t need a man to love myself,” Monica said. “I had to learn that. In order to make myself happy, I didn’t need a man. All I needed was God.”
