BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio — Opening statements in the capital murder trial of a man accused of setting a woman on fire in 2023 in Butler County began Wednesday afternoon.
Jury selection began Monday and those jurors took a tour of the crime scenes Wednesday morning, ahead of opening statements.
You can watch the trial live in the player below:
Robbi Robbinson Jr., 25, is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated arson and felonious assault after he allegedly set 50-year-old Brenda Scott on fire.
Police said Robbinson and Scott lived in the home together and referred to Scott as Robinson's stepmother.
Prosecutors said on May 11, 2023, Robbinson filled a container with accelerant, took it to an upstairs bedroom and doused Scott before lighting her on fire. He is also accused of hitting her in the face, knocking out her teeth.
Fairfield Township police were called to a home on Arroyo Ridge at around 10:30 a.m. after receiving reports of a woman on fire in a back yard. Investigators said she'd jumped from a second-story window in the home while on fire.
Body camera footage released by police shows an officer arriving at the home and finding her:
"I gotta breathe," the woman tells police in body camera footage. "My inhaler's in the house ... I can't breathe, he knocked my teeth out."
After asking who hurt her, the officer runs to the front of the house and immediately takes Robinson into custody. Robinson tells the officer, "I don't know what happened."
Scott was airlifted to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, but she died from her injuries one month later.
Dennis Williams, a neighbor, was the one to find Scott laying in the backyard and called 911.
Williams said it was a normal day of working from home, until he heard his dog barking in an unusual way. This got him outside, where he found Scott laying on the grass and yelling for help.
"She had just terrible, terrible burns on — I mean I'm no expert, but at least half her body — I mean terrible burns," Williams said. "She wasn't still on fire at that point, but there was a little bit of flame next to her that was dying."
Robinson's trial has been delayed multiple times since Scott's murder. Robinson’s competency was first questioned in March after a psychologist said he claimed to be “the Supreme Being,” according to court records.
Defense attorneys Hawkins and David Brewer said in the formal motion, “Mr. Robinson was so delusional that Dr. Jenny O’Donnell could not complete her evaluation. Mr. Robinson claimed to be ‘the Supreme Being’ and made other claims that the court had no power over him.”
Then in November, Robbinson was expected to take a plea deal that would have removed the death penalty from the case in exchange for his guilty plea. However, in court that day, he ultimately refused the deal.
