In the days leading up to Christmas 1999, neighbors on East Fourth Street in Lexington, Kentucky, grew concerned. They hadn't seen or heard from 48-year-old Doris Ann Roberts in a few days, which was unusual. A woman who had known hardship, Doris was facing a particularly difficult period. She had been struggling with alcohol, and the recent death of her roommate from a heart attack had left her isolated and alone in her apartment just weeks before the holiday.
When neighbors decided to check on her, they made a devastating discovery.
On December 22, 1999, Doris was found deceased inside her apartment. An investigation by the Fayette County coroner's office quickly determined that her death was not from natural causes. Doris Ann Roberts, a female, had been the victim of a homicide, killed by strangulation and suffocation. The attacker had used her own clothing to take her life. In the initial stages of the investigation, police had few leads, and with no clear suspects, the case for who killed Doris gradually went cold, leaving a painful void and unanswered questions.
For nearly seven years, justice for Doris remained elusive. Her case was one of several unsolved homicides in the Lexington area that puzzled investigators. During this time, two other women in the city were murdered under similar circumstances. Sonora Lynn Allen, 29, was found in a parking lot in August 2002, and 33-year-old Erica C. Butler was killed in her home in April 2006. Police suspected the deaths might be connected, noting that the victims often lived "high-risk lifestyles," but they lacked the evidence to prove it.
The breakthrough came in August 2006 when the Kentucky State Police Forensic Lab, using DNA evidence collected from the different crime scenes, confirmed that a single unknown man was responsible for all three murders. This confirmation turned the separate investigations into a hunt for a serial killer. The search, however, did not last long. Within weeks, the DNA profile was matched to a man who was already in state custody for a probation violation on a drug charge.
The killer was identified as Robert Franklin Smallwood Jr., a Lexington native who had managed to live a seemingly normal life while hiding a dark and violent history. His criminal record stretched back years. In 1993, he had brutally raped an 83-year-old retired schoolteacher, a crime that went unsolved for over a decade. In 1998, he was arrested and tried for another sexual assault, but a jury acquitted him, a verdict that left him free to begin his killing spree the very next year with the murder of Doris Roberts.
In September 2006, while incarcerated, Robert Franklin Smallwood Jr. was charged with the murders of Doris Ann Roberts, Sonora Lynn Allen, and Erica C. Butler. The DNA evidence also linked him conclusively to the 1993 rape. Faced with an overwhelming case against him, Smallwood eventually pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, two counts of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree robbery, and first-degree burglary. In 2007, to avoid a potential death sentence, he accepted a plea deal.
Robert Franklin Smallwood Jr., known as "The Lexington Serial Killer," was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His conviction brought an end to a years-long reign of terror and provided answers for the families of his victims. For Doris Ann Roberts, a woman who found herself in a vulnerable position, justice was delayed but not denied. Her case stands as a somber reminder of a life cut short and the relentless work that ultimately brought her killer to account. Smallwood remains incarcerated in a Kentucky state prison.
