Food Network contestant sentenced to life after abusing foster daughter to death

hello and welcome to True Crime daily the podcast updates I'm your host Anna Garcia in May of 2022 Tracy Tambora and I discussed the case a former Food Network star Ariel Robinson who was convicted of killing her foster daughter by abusing her to death and this happened in January of 2021 the three-year-old girl Tori died from blunt forced trauma injuries and had bruising all over her body Arielle was sentenced to life in prison on May 12th of 2022 for a homicide by child abuse Ariel's husband Jerry Austin Robinson pleaded guilty to the same charge in April of 2022 a judge sentenced him in June to 20 years behind bars let's take a look back at the True Crime daily episode where Tracy and I delve into the horrific murder of an innocent little girl so 30 year old Ariel Robinson was the winner of the Food Network's worst Cooks in America contest show and she has been found guilty of homicide by child abuse in the death of three-year-old Victoria Tory Smith whom she was fostering the homicide case was heard in a court in Greenville County South Carolina um you know Tracy we're talking about this case before we even started recording and sadly these things happen all the time children in foster care who are removed from their family because of circumstances which the government decides is unsafe end up being put in a home that is even either more unsafe or equally unsafe yes and that's what we're finding in this situation yeah you know Anna um first of all this isn't a nuanced case in that we've seen it before right um but I think you make a really good point about the fact that we're removing a child from one home placing them in a home that we at least have the expectations of a greater level of safety hence the removal one thing I think that um you know often gets highlighted is in a case where there is a foster care death is not just the particulars of the relationship between the parent and the child but the system because as a criminologist I'm very aware that human beings do terrible things all the time that does that's not what surprises me at the end of the day what surprises me at the end of the day is when the system fails right the system is comprised of a lot of people a lot of professionals who have a wide array of air of expertise in a variety of areas and so you're at least hopeful that even when you have an individual who is frail mentally emotionally whatever that someone from that system will be able to recognize some signs and intervene and I think that's what probably outrages the general public the most that you know sure a a woman on one of her worst days committed a heinous act not justifiable at all but the fact that nobody was able to intervene on behalf of this child there were no other warning signs there was nothing available that that for me is one of the points um that stands out with this particular case absolutely and I think a lot of times these cases do not get the focus and the spotlight and therefore we may hear of a death but the justice system keeps everything very private and keeps cameras and reporters out one of the fights I've always had here in the courts in Los Angeles has been trying to open up the door for us to figure out what is going on with the foster care system because the problem is it's so secretive because it's supposed to be protective of the children that when really bad things happen we're not allowed to see it and reveal the process and so this case made a lot of headlines I think that that's important because only through that and through the prosecution of people who commit crimes against children can we see change in this broken system now Anna you point out another really important fact here the fact that the system is closed I mean on the one hand as you actually pointed out there's confidentiality we want to protect the um children and also the parents that are involved in the foster care system but when we protect individuals we also protect the system so we don't have a chance and by we I mean at researchers and journalists don't have a chance to do a full inspection of that system to either shed a light on a problem um you know provide some opportunity for evaluation and growth and so that's important one of the factors that I would assume is at play here uh not assume because there is research to support this individuals from impoverished backgrounds are less likely to Garner media attention so we do right we we pay a lot of attention in the media when these are traditional celebrities this particular individual area Robinson's not a traditional celebrity right um and so when someone like a Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian right they engage in some behavior that is newsworthy it goes uh whatever it's deemed newsworthy it's all over this particular case involves someone who had some celebrity status but who also interestingly enough has this very uh you know has a background of not uh perhaps being in the spotlight and also I don't know the socioeconomic status of the the young girl Victoria I will assume that she uh it comes from a lower socioeconomic status because about 95 of children in foster care do um well her mother the biological mother of Victoria did say that she you know she had Victoria as a newborn and we're going to get into that and she had two other children um her partner had left her so financially she was struggling struggling to find a place to live there were a lot of issues going on besides there was also you know allegations that she may have the mother the biological mother may have used drugs while she was pregnant which of course would have had serious implications on Victoria at her birth all those factors going on there were many things going on so let's get back to the details of what happened to Victoria and when and we'll start piecing that all together um so the three-year-old died on January 14th of 2021 at the family's home in Simpsonville now the cause of death blunt force trauma and internal bleeding one doctor testified that the trauma was the worst that that person had ever seen which you know we see a lot of horrible things so when you hear someone's say this is the worst I've ever seen you gotta really wonder how it had to have been the worst really the worst now a few days later on January 19th the foster parents Ariel and Jerry Robinson were arrested Now Tracy here's what's interesting to me they were arrested one day before the the adoption was supposed to go through the adoption was scheduled for the 20th of January uh it's mind-boggling what almost happened and of course this ending was horrible i what does that tell you about supervision of this family and this child you know you know not only do I do research on uh abuse but I was a former before I went back from my doctorate I was a child protective service worker so I actually saw firsthand how um you know custody hearings occur how transference of guardianship occurs I've seen that firsthand um a lot of things fall through the cracks Anna um you know investigations are looking for some big red flags um a social worker I'm I you know I have east coast experience I'm not sure uh North Northeast Coast experience so I'm not sure if this applied uh in this particular case in South Carolina but we only need to do one visit per month while we're establishing custody rights custody hearing transference of guardianship Etc we're also collecting documents of course from doctors teachers daycare providers but one visit a month does not give you a lot of insight into the daily workings of a home right you know I think what you and the general public are assuming is that there's these spot checks that occur all the time there's a very rigorous examination of the family yeah not so right we like to think we like to think that if a system that you know we pay our taxes into that if a system is placed in charge of a child who is vulnerable that that system will do um it's like um in in place of a mother right in place of a father you you are given a very special legal right to protect this child because for you to come into a home and take a child it takes a lot to take a child out of a home you know from from the parents so I mean we could go on and on about the system and what's wrong with it and we'll have more opportunities but I'm gonna get back to um the background of this family and the foster mom and you know why she got all this attention yeah I believe she got a lot of attention because she was a winner of a reality show contest let's be real if if no one knew this mother you know would the court case have been televised to the degree that it was Maybe not maybe not okay so back to Ariel she had this prior appearance on the Food Network um she was considered a fixture in the local community you know kind of um person that people knew she was a middle school teacher she performed comedy under the pseudonym air funny the clean queen of comedy and she hosted God help me a parenting podcast with her husband okay oh boy right Ariel and Jerry Austin Robinson because a lot of times Jerry was called by his middle name Austin um they had two biological Sons prior to taking in Victoria and her two biological Brothers they were all taken in the three of them in 2020. so this was a blended family Ariel Robinson was a participant on season 20 of the Food Network's worst Cooks in America now that's where the show tries to take contestants with no prior cooking background or skills and make them into more masterful chefs in um you know by working with celebrity chefs I'm sorry I've never seen the show so I don't know what it is but I thought we should have some background on why this woman was on this program so she won twenty five thousand dollars the couple of course I think when you have people who live on reality shows they also have a lot of social media Tracy so there were a lot of posts of Victoria which this is going to get very interesting here so they were active on social media um the the the foster parents were um always making a very big point of a blended family you know it was a very colorful diverse family um between the foster children and the children that um the Robinsons had and it is Victoria's biological family the little girl's biological family that says the red flags were in the social media the entire time but no one was looking no one was looking so I want to talk about that because um I I think that's a very important point I went through the photographs last night and I thought to myself wow as I looked closer I was like yeah it's right there it's right there one image you know you've got Victoria's right wrist has you know what appears to be some bruising she's got in one photo it looks like she has the beginnings or the healing of a black eye and then um it looks like on her neck especially like at the back of her head back of her neck but it looked like there was some red bruising as if you know someone had been maybe holding or strangling um that was not the cause of death but but Tracy I mean what do we do with this now so social media posts are showing something is amiss yes do do kids always have all sorts of bumps and bruises yes but these are in some strange places sure so you know I'm a forensic scientist uh but yeah bruising uh I did receive training when I was top trick to service bruising in certain areas are odd right we don't care shins elbows right this is what we're expecting kids running around playing the bruises you're describing I suppose could be considered odd however hindsight is 20 20 right I don't know I mean I can think of times where I photographed my own children uh after having a black guy from a you know a sport injury sure or a bee sting and you're like saying look at the kid look what happened to my kid today right and so but but that aside so when you evaluate if child abuse is present you know you're not just looking for an occasional bruise in in in an odd spot like you said bruising on the neck is bizarre uh bruising in the abdomen area is bizarre uh anything you know it appears to be a wrist hole might be bizarre but you're also looking for interactions between child and parent and again I wasn't involved in this case in the terms I hadn't I haven't read the court documents I don't know if the social worker uh that was evaluating the case noticed anything about the Rapport between the parents and the child when I would go into a home and see children who did not want to be near that parent who um were very uh trepidatious in their presence who were very standoffish especially young children I'm not talking about adolescence right because yeah because they hate everyone yeah um well when I had a child on my caseload under nine or ten and they were exhibiting certain emotional characteristics this is is what I would note so I don't know that I could evaluate from a few from social media posts anything because the I also saw posts where they're hugging the girl is smiling right and so I know we love to play social media sleuth after the fact whether it's a breakup or it's obviously something as horrendous as a child murder but we're looking for a pattern of behavior that's also indicated in their emotional Rapport it's interesting that the Robinson family said that they had security cameras in their home which they said they had to set up because Victoria's seven-year-old biological brother had anger issues and would hit her I don't know if that's true I don't know if that's been established yet it is interesting and yes sometimes you know when you take in um children from other families there are going to be challenges and issues um so what I also find interesting is that um we're being told that during the pandemic Jerry worked while Ariel stayed home with the children and that she used the cameras because that's a lot of kids in the house as an extra set of eyes and ears and a lot of it was streamed I guess so the husband Dad could also watch so it's interesting that there were so many cameras around yet um I don't believe that any incident was specifically recovered and used in trial that I can tell now the thing that is interesting is other cameras sometimes pick up things when you least expect it and here's something days you know well actually almost a day the day before that the little girl um was killed January 13 2021 the Robinsons all went to church there is surveillance video from the church according to police that showed that the mother the Foster mother Ariel is walking out and little Victoria is just in her underwear just in her underwear as they're walking out okay now stuff happens all the time with kids together I have accidents or whatever I mean a ton of things happens with children all the time I mean usually you try to have a spare set of clothes but I mean maybe they were going to the car to get the spare clothes I don't know apparently uh what ended up happening or the story was told to police that Ariel said they were running 15 minutes late that the girl had thrown up on herself um and that one of the other parishioners saw Ariel in the bathroom washing out the dress that she again had thrown up on herself and that's I guess a reasonable explanation as to why the child is walking out of church in her underwear in her panties um but this is actually going to come back again this idea of food and what's going on which really I want this is I wish we knew even more about this because this is going to be a theme Here according to the husband Jerry he said the following morning following morning after this church incident he heard Ariel his wife giving little Victoria who was all of three years old what he described as quote a whooping with a belt that could be heard outside of the house how loud does something have to be to be heard outside a house I don't even I can't I just I want to cry I can't I can't even I can't even imagine what that is so um the beating according to the husband the explanation was that Victoria was not eating her pancakes fast enough and that supposedly through the Foster mother off the deep end we know it is challenging to be a parent without question but I'm wondering it's like this is two days in a row where you're having some issues what if this child had true real medical problems either with food with eating keeping it down or or or the little girl is scared out of her mind and so stressed out that of course she's throwing up and no no matter what she does she knows she's never going to do it well enough and she's going to get a beating because at three you know that yeah you know Anna I could paint for you real quickly two very different plausible pictures right you could have had a little girl maybe she can Drax a virus or a bug she throws up it's in the middle of something very stressful mom has something going on Mom uh snaps there was no history of abuse I mean maybe she doesn't wouldn't mother of the year but there's no history of uh physical abuse and Ma you know it's I've been involved in cases like this this perfect storm um and somebody snaps we could have that as a scenario we could also have as a scenario that you have an individual who either has uh you know maybe an uh a lot of times it's correlated between child abuse and post history of trauma for the adult so Arielle the mother could have had you know could have had some issue that's uh manifesting in her parenting and she is a poor parent and there is Habitual abuse they're his habitual neglect and nobody's weighing in nobody's watching right either of those two scenarios is plausible and anything in the middle well Jerry claims that when he went inside after hearing the beating that he claims he found Ariel standing over Victoria with the belt he says that he told Ariel that she had quote gone too far this time that indicates to me this time this time this time gone too far right you'd gone too far okay so I don't think it's the first time according to the Foster fathers testimony he supposedly purchased liquid Tylenol for the baby's injuries and then they gave him gave her a little bath in Epsom salt you know to help ease the the bruising I guess and the pain but of course if you have such a severe beating Tylenol and a warm bath are not going to help you you need a doctor So eventually he called 9-1-1 by the time the ambulance arrived Victoria was already in Cardiac Arrest she died at the hospital she didn't stand a chance so according to the arrest warrants the Robinsons inflicted a series of blunt force injuries to Victoria who died of internal bleeding now what I find interesting we've just been discussing this in South Carolina um they have a law which I don't know if all states do but I like this that says that if um if there is a death of a child it must be investigated because you know children just don't die you know it's not like a 90 year old person with multiple health issues right you expect that you know life will end soon but not for a child so um and five days later after the investigation and after her death the adoptive well excuse me soon to be adoptive um but foster parents were in handcuffs so Jerry Austin Robinson that would be the foster dad he pleaded guilty in April to aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse Jerry claims that he never physically hit Victoria and that Ariel would beat the child with different things including a belt so according to his testimony this wasn't the first time and it was the mother now I'm also going to say look he might be lying to save his his himself that may be possible I'm not going to put that past anybody in this situation I do believe that the truth will come and probably did come from all of the children in the house because they're the ones because isn't that what happens Tracy don't they not only are those other children interviewed by police but by social workers and that's how they figure out what was going on and where and when and who was exposed to what yes yes so when a child I don't know if every state like you say has a in South Carolina has a automatic investigation but most States If the child is in foster care it triggers A specialized team that investigates internally and cooperates with the police so um yeah and that would include interviewing because of course at this point social Department of Social Service in South Carolina has to go in and remove the other children uh the children all over again right has to go right the Robinson's biological children taken because both their parents have been arrested and then you have Victoria's two biological Brothers the foster children now they're taken so now everybody's taken and like what happens to them like what a traumatic experience for all of them very traumatic and each of the children I'm especially uh Victoria's biological siblings you know they're probably also reeling with things like guilt so now these kids are in a situation in which they will carry with them this kind of Trauma from not intervening um but they're also in a situation where we know this children in abusive households feel torn they don't necessarily want to leave the abusive household and so even though it's in their best interest and and of course there isn't a choice because the Pirates could be in custody they they must be placed elsewhere it is very devastating for children to leave even abusive homes yeah that's always been the saddest thing ever right a child can be just so abused and still clings on to that parent because at the end of the day it's their parent it's such a complicated relationship so complicated now um so as we said that the husband is pleaded guilty so he but he has not been sentenced yet the wife decided that she was going to have a trial she insisted she's not guilty and she wanted a trial she said that it was her husband who she calls Austin is the one who killed the girl because Ariel said the husband had anger issues so we're going to play a clip of Ariel taking the stand in her defense on the murder for the murder trial she says that she was out grocery shopping when Austin must have hit the child and that when she noticed something was wrong with Victoria she called up for her husband let's play the clip a hollered for Austin to come upstairs and he's he came in the room when she was on her um our stool and he looked at me and he was like is she breathing and I said I think I hear her trying to breathe I hear something in her lungs though I it sounds like it sounds like she's got like fluid in her lungs and so um they said should I call 9-1-1 I said yeah call 9-1-1 because I don't I don't know I don't know what to do well I got a lot of problems with what she just said really how does she know that the girl has fluid in her lungs unless she knows something really like something else was done to this child I just didn't find her convincing at all on the stand I'm sorry I didn't yeah and and I mean she's she's not convincing um and at the same time you know there's all sorts of red flags in my mind as studying these cases on the aggregate uh oftentimes it is the male in the home who is taking the lead on the physical violence right and so on the one hand her personal demeanor does not appear to be credible but then if I were going to you know do an assessment without interviewing both parties I would there would be some credibility I would give to her testimony about the engagement of the father because that's what we find most likely and that's the hard thing about these cases is just because on the average it is the um it is the uh male who is perpetrating the majority of violence in the house doesn't mean that it always is and so I'm sure that was something that prosecutors also took into account like how much do we go down this some you know when we take when we offer The Plea and accept the plea from uh Mr Robinson in this case you know is this sending up any red flags for them because this kind of flies in the face about what we know uh from data about the effects of child mortality and and who is responsible for trauma well I don't think he's getting away with it you know no certainly he's pleaded guilty to basically eating and abetting and which is very different from homicide and my guess is prosecutors knew it was going to be very hard to prove um that he had done other things um because that's that's always the challenge is can you get a conviction so you got a plea deal he's not walking let's hope we don't know what the sentence is and uh my guess is I don't know that he's maybe being cooperative and is providing evidence that could be corroborated let's not forget the children the children were there the children were there so before we get into sentencing which is unbelievable what the judge had to say we're going to play a clip of that I want to talk a little bit about Victoria Smith's biological family here because you know as we said there were reasons that the child was in the foster care system with her brothers her biological family has been very critical of the foster care system clearly there's been a massive failure here there is no question about it and there's plenty of blame for everybody here absolutely I totally agree with them the biological mother Cassie fares um you know she has admitted and has done interviews where you know life was not easy the family has told media organizations that the biological mom had a health screening and she tested positive for marijuana when she was pregnant with Victoria and that when Victoria was born the family is told news organizations that the Victoria was born with some traces of drugs in her system and um Cassie that's the mom so Cassie's Aunt claims that the mother was trying her best to deal with nausea and morning sickness and that the aunt has said you know that the biological mother struggled she had a newborn and um she was a single mom and she had two other children and apparently there was an incident where I guess the mom fell asleep and then the two other children ran to a neighbor's house and I guess that's when police got called you know we don't know all of the details there but that was the beginning in many ways in addition to the other medical issues so um the way Cassie describes it is that she was presented with the option of signing away her rights as a parent um and there was there was you know it got a little complicated for me as to what her options were and um whether she would fight it meaning could she fight for her children or should she sign away these rights I have to think that's not an easy process and not one which is very forgiving of the biological parent who's in crisis trying to figure out what to do yeah uh if that part was a little surprising to me how quickly um these children went up for adoption in turn usually there's a case management plan since probably about early 2000 2007 is a is a noted year in the child protective service where we try where they really put a lot of emphasis on um uh reunification with parents as opposed to you know trying to get the child adopted so in the last you know 15 years we there's been so much emphasis on family reunification so this one these were young children why they were up for adoption so quickly is strange to me I mean again there's always cases um but why they were up for adoption rather quickly is strange especially the only drugs like you mentioned that I saw was was marijuana I didn't see these ongoing histories these these huge red flags um and then the the other issue is um you know I I don't know if they tried to engage family members so uh again around 2007 there was big you know uh Federal uh uh act that looked at how we how the foster care system was uh operating and one thing that came out was more emphasis on family reunification get get the parents in in programs and treatment Etc and then the second if that fails can we get them with the caretaker relative can we get them with uh someone in the family so I'm not it's not clear to me how those things were exhausted so quickly yeah there's um the mother Cassie the biological mother did an interview with the local TV station we're gonna play a little bit about it where basically the mom is is describing it she thought she was doing the right thing and I just rushed into a decision thinking that it was what was best for my children and that's what I should do when I really feel like now I should have done anything but I'm sure now Cassie you know without question is feeling that she did not do the right thing you know she was probably thinking that maybe someone can give my daughter and my you know two boys a better life and that is not what happened so I can't even imagine the level of guilt that you know she's feeling and the heartache that she's feeling at losing her baby so tragic um you know and the aunt had said um the Victoria's biological aunt said you know these people meaning the the welfare system these quote these people are the experts we trusted them to put the kids in a safe and loving environment and that is without dispute we all have the same expectation even more so if you're a blood relative without without question and they've been very critical of the screening process because clearly it failed again in this system so now I want to get back to Ariel here so Arielle Robinson was sentenced to life in prison life in prison uh on Thursday May 12th her husband Jerry Austin Robinson who's 35 has also been implicated in the homicide he's pleading guilty to aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse he's not been sentenced I really believe that the judge in this case said it best here's a clip from the courtroom feed that was provided by WYFF TV and this is Judge Leticia verden medical testimony in this case was incredibly heartbreaking and for folks who deal in the emergency room and who serve Us in that way and folks who deal with children in the most critical of situations for them to say that this was substantially worse than anything they had seen I think that has to put something into perspective for you um I can say that in my 13 14 years of being a judge I've never seen anything like this I've never seen anything like this not even approaching it um and what compounds it is that I understand what your attorney is saying perhaps you snapped at that moment but then why then why let this child suffer and not get her medical attention that she desperately needed as she Lay Dying in her own bedroom based upon all that the sentence of the Court cannot be anything but life in prison thank you I think the Judge really said it all there Not only was this one of the most horrific examples of child abuse but but she even gave some potential credit and said look even if you did snap what you should have done is call 911 immediately to get that child help and maybe Victoria could have been saved yes would you likely have been charged with child abuse yes without question would you be spending the rest of your life you know in prison for murder no I don't think so especially if she lived right yeah so mitigating aggravating circumstances add to a case and and what the judge is assessing is was this person at all remorseful right because the purpose of prison at least in theory is some sort of uh rehabilitative process and and so a good judge is assessing where is the starting point with this defendant right and if the defense defendant showed at at time of action or subsequently some remorse then their starting point is a little bit different and so the judge can consider that a sentencing but as you aptly point out as the judge States the individual didn't take any opportunity to rectify what could have been a very unfortunate unplanned uncalculated moment but instead of you know addressing that on that moment it's almost like when we say someone is doubling down right like you not only committed this crime but you didn't take any action to prioritize the life of this individual well just you know either because you were remorseful or because you felt a sense of obligation to the child and I blame both parents here because their actions guaranteed the Victoria would die without question delaying calling 9-1-1 they're both guilty both of them it'll be interesting to see how the judge rules um in terms of the father because even if it's determined that he did not play a role in the active murder in in the engagement the physical abuse um his lack of action led to her death and and also that's we have a higher standard of course for people who are in Parental roles you know you are supposed to act you're supposed to be the adult in the room right right so yeah we'll watch it

Channel: True Crime Daily

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Id: eEBtwzK8wdE

Length: 38min 0sec (2280 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023