History of the Brooks Case
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del.icio.usJune 20, 2006: Slain teen had been pressured, filing says
BY TIM POTTER
THE WICHITA EAGLE
Months before two men found the body of a pregnant 14-year-old girl by a wheat field, her mother alleged in a court document that Elgin "Ray-Ray" Robinson Jr. did more than impregnate her daughter.
In seeking a protective order on behalf of her daughter Chelsea, Terri Brooks also accused Robinson of pressuring the girl to keep quiet so he could stay out of jail.
Now Robinson, 20, is one of three men arrested in the past few days in Chelsea's killing.
In a Feb. 13 petition for a protective order, Brooks wrote: "The defendant has been in a sexual relationship with my minor daughter for at least eight months, perhaps longer. She is now pregnant, and he is psychologically manipulating her to keep secret the fact that he is the father.
"He needs to be restrained from contacting her so that she will feel comfortable to tell the truth. He has told her that he will die if he is put in jail."
And Chelsea wasn't Robinson's only underage sex victim, Brooks alleged in the petition, which was signed by a judge. In the document, Brooks cited two Wichita police case numbers and wrote this: "In 2004, he was caught in a park with a 14-year-old girl."
When The Eagle asked about those cases, police Capt. Randy Landen said he couldn't comment.
Police Chief Norman Williams told The Eagle that after lawyers with the city legal office and district attorney's office were consulted, he was unable to release the records Monday.
The Eagle then filed a formal written request for the records, part of which are open records under state law. City spokesman Van Williams said the request would be considered.
Asked whether the mother's allegations in the protective order came to the attention of prosecutors, the district attorney's office said protective orders are civil proceedings and that allegations contained in the documents are not always reported to law enforcement.
District Judge Joseph Bribiesca - who signed the temporary protective order and granted a final order that Robinson not have contact with Chelsea - said he couldn't comment, partly because he could become a witness in the homicide case.
In the final order, Bribiesca ruled that Robinson not have contact with Chelsea "by phone, by text- or instant-messaging, through third parties or by any other means."
The night Chelsea disappeared, she reportedly told friends she was meeting with the father of her baby.
Charges possible today
If prosecutors decide to pursue charges against the three men arrested in the killing, the charges would be filed today at the earliest, police said.
Landen said police are still investigating Chelsea's death.
The girl, who was nine months pregnant, was last seen June 9 at the Skate South skate park, on MacArthur near Hydraulic. Her body was found Thursday off a rutted, remote dirt road in Butler County.
An autopsy has been done, but police would not release any of the details.
Landen said all three of the men were arrested without incident.
He said the three are not related.
The two other men arrested in the case are Theodore G. Burnett, 49, and a 17-year-old male who has not been identified.
Kansas Department of Corrections records show that Burnett's parole ended in November. He had convictions for theft, burglary, aggravated escape from custody, a drug offense and trafficking in contraband at a correctional facility.
Over the years, he had repeatedly violated his parole and broken contact with parole officers, records show.
Another view of suspect
Robinson's grandmother, Pauline Lancaster, said Monday that she was too upset to say much about his arrest. She said she had never heard of Chelsea until she saw her picture on television.
There was one thing she wanted to point out on a wall of her Wichita home. It was a framed Wichita Eagle article with accompanying photographs, dated May 15, 1997. In the photographs, her grandson, then 11, was smiling and wearing a suit for a special occasion -meeting one on one with then-Mayor Bob Knight at City Hall.
The article told how Robinson had been a troubled student who got a teacher's attention when he said Knight was his hero. So one day Knight had the boy come to City Hall, sit in the mayor's seat in the council chambers.
Knight took the boy to Wichita State basketball games and to dinner and spoke to his class at College Hill Elementary.
The mayor stayed in touch with the boy for a while, then lost contact with him.
"Just from my experience," Knight said Monday, "I thought he was a good little guy."
When Knight learned that Robinson had been arrested in the pregnant girl's death, it was "just heartbreaking," he said.
Others saw good things in Robinson, too.
For the past three years, Robinson washed dishes and ran the cash register full-time at a cafeteria in the basement of the Farm Credit Bank Building downtown at Second and Waco.
His manager, Jeanne Lewis, found him to be quiet. "I couldn't crack him," she said. "He's pretty private, but just a sweetheart."
His arrest on suspicion of murder stunned her.
"I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it," she said. "He's a promising young man."
It would take strong evidence to convince her otherwise, she said.
"They'll have to prove it to me."
Obtaining a protection-from-abuse order
A protection-from-abuse order is a civil court action intended to end abusive behavior aimed at you or your children. In order to get a PFA, as they are commonly called, you or the child and the person you want restrained must be intimate partners or household members.
Also, abuse must have occurred. This means that one of the following has occurred:
• The person physically hurt you or the minor child on purpose. The person tried to physically hurt you or the child.
• The person threatened to physically hurt you or the child.
• The person engaged in sexual conduct (touching or sexual intercourse) with a child under 16 years of age.
People who violate the conditions of PFAs may be arrested.
More information is available in the district court clerk's office at the county courthouse.