Poor Little Rich Boy

On November 25, 1997, Terry Robertson's co-worker, Debbie Brisson, was concerned when she didn't show up for an important work meeting. Assuming Terry had probably overslept, Debbie went to the Robertson's Rock Hill home to get her. When she got to the home, she found the beaten and mutilated bodies of Terry and her husband, Earl.

Earl and Terry Robertson

Detectives and forensic pathologists found blood spatter all over the walls, floors, doors, and ceilings. Earl was found lying face down wearing nothing but his underwear. He had been beaten repeatedly, and his skin had deep imprints left by the baseball bat used to attack him. Investigators determined that injuries to Earl's head were made by the claw end of a hammer. The head injuries were so traumatic Earl's brain had spilled out of his broken skull and pooled around his head.

Terry was found lying next to her bed. Her skull was too fractured by multiple blows which were also from the end of a claw hammer. Terry had been stabbed repeatedly on her face, arms, neck, and back. One stab wound went from her wrist to her elbow and was so deep her bone was exposed. The attack was so violent that the blade broke off during the attack.

It didn't much for detectives to learn about the couple's oldest son, James "Jimmy" Robertson. According to close friends and family, Jimmy had been cut-off financially by his parents after they learned he'd been expelled from Georgia Tech for failing to complete his classes. Jimmy's friends explained he had been failing classes because he had an addiction to illegal and prescription drugs. This was disheartening to many who knew him as he been previously described as a math genius.

Detectives on the case put the pieces of the puzzle in place. They quickly concluded that Jimmy, who had been angry at his parents’ after they refused to give him more money to support his drug habits, killed them in a blind rage induced by snorting crushed Ritalin. The plan was to inherit their $2.2 million dollar estate.

Meredith Moon, Jimmy’s then-girlfriend, was originally charged as Jimmy's co-defendant with two counts of murder, armed robbery, and credit card fraud as she was waiting in the car while he committing the murders. In exchange for her testimony, she pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory to murder after the fact and armed robbery. Moon was sentenced to 20 years in prison and was first eligible for parole in 2007.

Jimmy wouldn’t get that same leniency. Because of how gruesome the murders were and the evidence had strongly suggested he plotted against his parents, prosecutors sought the death penalty against him.

During the guilt-phase of Jimmy’s trial, defense lawyers tried to make prosecutors prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. During the penalty phase, defense attorneys tried to save him from the death penalty by arguing that he and his mother suffered from manic depression (now called BiPolar) and argued that his frontal lobes were abnormal. The defense also argued that Jimmy’s abuse of Ritalin triggered a psychotic episode. I think it would be safe to say, his defense team during the trial was almost nonexistent.

Jimmy also had a younger brother named Earl “Chip” Robertson, Jr. that was questioned during the investigation. At the time of James Jimmy’s trial, Chip wasn’t accused of being an accessory to his parents' murder. It was revealed that Jimmy called his brother before he called Meredith on the day of the murders. What exactly Chip knew and when he knew it still remains a mystery, but it’s assumed that Chip also wanted his parents killed and may possibly have actively conspired with his brother to kill them. During the time of Jimmy’s trial, Chip was serving jail time awaiting his own prosecution on drug charges.

In 1999, Jimmy would ultimately be convicted for the double murder of his parents, armed robbery and credit card fraud.

In 2010, Chip Roberston would eventually fall for a large Ponzi scheme ran by a local financial planner named Gene Sullivan. Chip would again be in court, testifying that Gene Sullivan gave him a reason to live. Jimmy at that point had been on death row for 11 years. He sent a letter to the federal court asking for mercy for Gene. Jimmy wrote he was "sentenced as one of the worst of the worst," but Gene "treated him as one of the best of the best."

It’s reported that Jimmy often goes back and forth with the idea of being on death row. Sometimes he does want the death penalty, sometimes he wants to appeal it. In 2019, Jimmy was pleading in a courtroom, claiming he deserved a new trial. Previous to that, he had appealed his conviction in 2016, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled his court-appointed lawyer did not have the legal training or experience required to represent him, thus failed to do an adequate job… even though this lawyer had 35 years of death penalty trial experience. His new lawyers argued that he deserved a new trial and wanted an expert on parricide to be the focal point of this new trial.

Days before he was originally set to be executed in 2005, he filed court documents blaming his lawyers. His execution was rescheduled for 2010 before he filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was wrongly convicted. So now, his new lawyers say mistakes that were made during the 1999 trial justified a new one, mainly claiming the trial lawyers in 1999 didn’t produce any mental health histories of both Jimmy or his mother. His lawyers claim she was bipolar and also abused Ritalin. They also claimed that Jimmy had severe mental health issues that had not been properly treated. But, prosecutors said in the original court proceedings that Jimmy received several mental evaluations, and concluded that he knew right from wrong.

He still occasionally appeals his conviction, with his last appeal occurring in 2019.