Robert Singleton, a male New York City Transit Authority worker, was caught in a sudden eruption of violence in Flatbush, Brooklyn, in April 1993. He was not identified as a participant in the crime unfolding around him. Instead, he became an unintended victim when a group of five robbers targeted an armored car and escaped with approximately $101,000.
The robbery turned into a gun battle between the perpetrators and the armored-car guards.
As shots tore through the area, Singleton was struck by a stray bullet and killed. Available online accounts describe him as a working man whose ordinary day ended in the crossfire of a carefully planned robbery. Publicly accessible sources do not consistently establish his age or ethnicity, and they do not clearly identify which weapon fired the fatal bullet.
Police later focused on Richard Jameswhite, a young Brooklyn fugitive known as “Babyface,” as one of the five suspected armored-car robbers. Investigators said Jameswhite was associated with the Parkside Gang, a group based near the southern end of Prospect Park that was known for robberies, including attacks on drug dealers. Authorities linked him to numerous shootings and killings committed while he was evading capture, but the available records characterize him as a suspect in the armored-car robbery rather than documenting a conviction for Singleton's death.
Jameswhite had first been arrested in February 1991 for allegedly shooting Kevin Smith, whom he believed had been involved in the killing of Jameswhite's brother. After being released, Jameswhite jumped bail and remained a fugitive. By September 1993, New York City police publicly described him as extremely dangerous and sought assistance from law-enforcement agencies in several other cities. His suspected role in the robbery that killed Singleton became one part of a broader investigation into a series of violent crimes attributed to him.
The manhunt ended on April 28, 1994, near Atlanta, Georgia. Jameswhite and another Brooklyn man, Devon Brown, became involved in a minor vehicle collision with Anthony Maclin in a shopping-center parking lot. The dispute escalated, and Maclin was repeatedly shot. Jameswhite fled but was captured after a police chase, while officers recovered two handguns from him. Brown was arrested shortly afterward.
Jameswhite and Brown were tried together in Georgia for Maclin's murder. A jury convicted both men of malice murder and felony murder in December 1994, and each received a life sentence for the malice-murder conviction. The Georgia Supreme Court later upheld the judgments. Those proceedings secured Jameswhite's imprisonment, but publicly available case material does not show that he or any of the other suspected armored-car robbers was separately tried or convicted for killing Robert Singleton. The identities and dispositions of the other alleged participants also remain unclear in the available online record.
