Family of Joy Hibbs’ accused killer said aunt he assaulted bore striking similarities to victim

Over three decades passed before Robert Atkins was charged for fatally stabbing his 35-year-old neighbor Joy Hibbs and setting fire to her Croydon home in 1991.

New testimony, however, led Bucks County prosecutors on Monday to allege that Atkins, of Bristol Township, had committed a similarly violent attack on his aunt years before murdering Hibbs. The two women, they said, were mirror images of each other.

The allegation came 14 months after a grand jury indicted the 57-year-old on charges of first- and second-degree murder, arson, burglary, and robbery in Hibbs’ death following months of deliberation.

Prosecutors relied heavily on a statement made to police six years earlier by Atkins wife, April, implicating her former husband in the murder. She recalled Atkins coming home after the alleged killing covered in blood and visibly agitated, telling his family they had to go to the Poconos and indicating he had a knife to keep his wife “in line.”

Atkins pleaded not guilty, maintaining an alibi that he and his wife were away in the Poconos when the murder took place.

Atkins’ family members testified that less than a decade before Hibbs was stabbed, a teenage Atkins had strangled and stomped on his aunt, Charlene Atkins, also 35.

Charlene, Atkins family and prosecutors alleged, was a spitting image of Joy Hibbs — from her slender frame and brunette hair to her gentle Southern drawl to the women’s identical ages.

“The two seemed to be a mirror of each other,” said Daniel Atkins, Robert Atkins’ younger brother, not long after prosecutors showed side-by-side images of both women.

Teenage Robert Atkins had attacked Charlene at some point between 1981 and 1982 when he was around 15 years old and living next door to her in Tennessee, where he’d been sent to live with extended family, Daniel Atkins said. He told the court his brother had strangled Charlene with a telephone cord and stomped on her chest.

She was found with her underwear pulled down, Atkins testified, and had been admitted to a hospital for her injuries. He told the court his aunt had been “left for dead” and recalled a phone call years after the alleged attack in which his brother blamed “bad drugs.” Robert had told him he heard voices telling him to attack, he recalled. Prosecutors said he’d been “listening to Ozzy [Osbourne]” and was “compelled to do it.”

Charlene survived and eventually forgave her nephew, Daniel Atkins said.

Prosecutors said county detectives had recovered a record that showed Atkins had been processed by a Tennessee court as a juvenile, but they did not have full documentation of an arrest for attacking Charlene.

Lawyers for Atkins argued before Bucks County Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. whether that testimony and statements made by April Atkins were admissible in Atkins’ forthcoming jury trial. They questioned whether Atkins family members had direct knowledge of the details surrounding Charlene’s attack, or whether they had overheard stories as young children.

But Melanie Robertson, Atkins’ first cousin, testified that she’d found a note written on toilet paper in her now-deceased aunt’s cookbook from Atkins in which he makes an apology. After seeing Atkins arrested for Hibbs’ murder on the news, Robertson said, she decided to come to police with her aunt’s story.

“Charlene was beautiful, energetic, loved to travel, independent, always my favorite aunt,” Robertson told the court.

With Atkins’ trial date pending, his attorneys raised concerns that a People magazine documentary about the cold case and Atkins’ subsequent arrest titled “American Nightmare” could present challenges in finding impartial jurors.

Judge Bateman Jr. suggested he would allow the defense to strike jurors who had seen the documentary, which People released internationally last summer.

Prosecutors will continue to argue over admissible evidence in court this week.