Bucks County man accused of murder has violent juvenile record. Should jurors know?

After Robert Atkins was charged last year with murdering his ex-neighbor and setting her Croydon home on fire in 1991, his family members who live out-of-state contacted the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

They wanted to know if prosecutors had heard about what Atkins did to his aunt when he was a teenager living with his grandparents in rural Tennessee.

After hearing what he was accused of in Bucks County, and seeing photos of his victim, the family members said that they felt compelled to bring the previous incident to the attention of prosecutors in Pennsylvania.

More on the arrest of Robert Atkins Ex-police informant charged in 1991 murder of Croydon mom found dead in arson fire at her home

What they claimed is that a decade before Joy Hibbs, a 35-year-old mother of two was found murdered in her home on April 19, 1991, Robert Atkins had been arrested for attacking his then-35-year-old aunt and leaving her for dead. He was 16.

The relatives also noted that not only were there similarities in the crimes, but his aunt’s physical appearance and demeanor bore a strikingly eerie resemblance to Hibbs.

First Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Schorn wants jurors in the murder trial expected to take place later this year to hear about his crime in Tennessee. Atkins was adjudicated delinquent, the juvenile court equivalent of guilty in adult court.

Schorn contends the similarities in the crime and victims makes it relevant as a “signature crime.”

Defense attorneys for Atkins, 57, believe his juvenile arrest record should remain sealed because it is irrelevant and prejudicial. They have filed a motion to suppress it, arguing prosecutors were improperly given a copy.

The details of Atkins’ juvenile arrest are among so-called “prior bad acts” evidence and witnesses that his defense attorneys are seeking to exclude. Prior bad acts involve actions that took place before the crime a defendant is charged with.

Under Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence, evidence of prior crimes or other wrong actions of a defendant is not admissible at trial for the sole purpose of showing a defendant or witness in a bad light. But there are limited exceptions, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, or identity, under the rules.

More: Bucks County man wants evidence in 1991 Croydon murder, arson of young mom thrown out

What happened when Robert Atkins moved to Tennessee

On Monday and Tuesday, Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Wallace Bateman Jr. heard testimony during pretrial hearings from three Atkins family members and a Bucks County Detective about what happened in Hamblen County more than four decades ago.

Bateman is expected to render his decision on the motion to suppress Atkins’ juvenile record and roughly two dozen other pretrial motions at a September hearing.

Prosecutors allege that Atkins strangled, stomped on the chest of his aunt, and possibly sexually assaulted her, when he was living with his grandparents.

But what prosecutors know about the incident has come only from Atkins family members, who are fuzzy on the details, including whether it happened in 1981 or 1982, and a single 1982 order that the Bucks County Detectives obtained from a Tennessee Juvenile Court.

What family members testified to Monday and Tuesday is that his father and stepmother sent Robert Atkins to live with his grandparents when he was 15 or 16.

Not long after he moved, he attacked his aunt, the sister of Atkins’ father, a widow, in the mobile home where she lived.  The aunt died of cancer in 2016.

Atkins allegedly strangled his aunt with a telephone cord, stomped on her chest, breaking her ribs and left her for dead. She was found wrapped in a rug in her bed. Her pants were around her ankles, but it was not clear if she was sexually assaulted.

Robert Atkins then stole his aunt’s car and fled, but he was found at the local high school and arrested – by his grandfather – who was the county constable.

Bucks County Detective David Hanks testified Monday while he was in Tennessee speaking with Atkins family members he met with a judge who signed an order releasing Atkins’ juvenile court records.

More than 40 years later, though, the only document found was an order dated July 28,1982 releasing custody of Robert Atkins to his maternal grandmother in Croydon.

Defense attorneys for Atkins contend that the county was improperly given a physical copy of the records citing Tennessee law that allows for “inspection only” of juvenile court records and only if there is a “legitimate interest” in the proceedings, according to court documents.

In Tennessee, family members Hanks met with also shared family photos including one taken 19 days before Joy Hibbs was found dead in her son’s charred bedroom, he said. She had been stabbed multiple times, badly beaten and possibly strangled with a computer cord found draped on her body.

The photo was taken during an Easter trip Robert Atkins and his wife and kids took to visit family in Tennessee.  Among those Robert Atkins saw during the trip was his aunt, who at that point had forgiven Atkins for his attack on her, family members said.

Photos the family provided Hanks show what appears to be an electric blue vehicle, the same color car witnesses placed outside the Hibbs' Spencer Drive house shortly before the fire. Robert Atkins owned an electric blue Monte Carlo sedan.

Hanks testified that the electric blue car wasn’t the only thing in the photos that he found interesting.  The resemblance between Hibbs and Atkins’ aunt at the time she was attacked was undeniable, he said.

“They were strikingly similar,” Hanks said. He added that when Hibbs’ daughter, Angie, was shown a picture of the aunt she thought it was her mother.

What the family of Robert Atkins remembers about his juvenile arrest

On Tuesday, Barbara Atkins, Robert Atkins’ 81-year-old stepmother, testified that she and her late husband had problems with Robert’s behavior before they married in December 1978.

A month before their wedding the couple were in court after neighbors accused a then 12-year-old Robert of making harassing phone calls, she said.  She recalled that Robert had a “short fuse,” but she never saw him act violently.

Robert was around 15, when the couple sent him to live with his grandparents because they were concerned he was hanging around with the wrong crowd, might be using drugs, and they worried about his influence on the seven other children in their home.

They felt moving him to a more rural environment would have a positive effect on him, Barbara Atkins testified.

She testified she was unable to recall the year when Robert was sent to live with his grandparents or how long before she and her husband were notified about his being arrested for attacking his aunt.

Barbara Atkins said that any information she had about the circumstances for the arrest came from what her husband’s father told them. She never spoke with Robert about what happened, she said.

She and her husband attended his court hearing in Tennessee, as did the aunt.  Barbara Atkins testified the bruises were still visible on both sides of her neck.

After the hearing, where Robert was adjudicated delinquent, Barbara Atkins recalled that the judge said he didn’t think Robert presented a risk for reoffending and he was placed on probation.

But when the Atkins were asked if they would take him back to Pennsylvania, they refused, the stepmother said, adding they were concerned about the safety of their other children.

“It was painful,” she added, as her voice choked with emotion. “ We loved the kids…They were ours. There was never any differentiation between the kids.”

Robert Atkins was sent to a juvenile detention facility, but at some point an aunt and uncle in Tennessee took custody of him, but the arrangement didn’t last long.

After that, the court approved a transfer to his grandmother’s house in Croydon.

After her stepson returned to Bucks County, Atkins testified that neither she nor her husband had contact with him, though they lived in the township.

On Monday, Daniel Atkins testified he believed his older brother was sent to Tennessee after he was caught sneaking into the house of a neighbor girl and his parents had to go to court because of it.

He also testified that Robert told him that he was on “bad drugs” when he assaulted his aunt in Tennessee.

Melanie Robertson, one of Atkins’ cousins, testified that she found an apology letter that Atkins allegedly wrote in pencil on toilet paper when he was in juvenile detention in Tennessee.  She found the note in a cookbook she inherited from her aunt after her death.

Robertson also testified that she and Robert Atkins reconnected on social media and started communicating through Facebook messages. But some of his interaction with her she found disturbing.

She recalled one message, where Atkins told his cousin, who bears a striking resemblance to their late aunt, that she “looked hot today,” and he also referred to her as “my Melanie.”

Robertson testified that Robert Atkins also told her the aunt he assaulted had “raped” him.

Bucks County authorities believe that Atkins killed Joy Hibbs over a dispute involving a marijuana sale. After killing he stole the money from a paycheck she had cashed, and set the family’s Spencer Avenue home on fire to destroy evidence.

Within days after the murder in 1991, Bristol Township police identified Atkins immediately as a prime suspect, but then swiftly dismissed him, despite strong evidence at the time that suggested his involvement, the grand jury found last year.

Atkins has denied he was involved in the murder.

For three decades Atkins has maintained that his family were on route to a planned Poconos vacation when Hibbs was murdered;  April Atkins’ coworker at the time provided him an alibi for the time Hibbs was murdered. The grand jury, though, found both stories neither believable or credible.

The Hibbs family have said they believe that Atkins’ previously undisclosed work as a confidential drug informant for Bristol Township Police influenced the murder investigation and resulted in a 30 year delay of justice. Bristol Township police have denied the family’s allegation.

How informants impact criminal cases How did murder suspect's status as a police informant impact a Bucks County cold case?

More on the 1991 murder of Joy Hibbs Did police ignore evidence in 30-year-old Bristol Township murder? Family seeks answers

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County DA offers juvenile record as evidence in Croydon murder