When an apartment manager walked up to serve paperwork at a complex on Shoreline Drive, he found a front door sitting cracked open. Nobody answered when he called out, so he pushed it open a few inches. What he saw inside had him calling 911 right away. That was around 8:45 on Wednesday morning, September 23.
Travis County sheriff’s deputies got to the Wells Branch apartment fast and found two women dead inside from gunshot wounds. Authorities identified them as 37-year-old Anecia Kay Thacker and 32-year-old Lamonica Webb. At first, local officials thought they were looking at an apparent murder-suicide.
During a Wednesday press conference, police spokesperson Kristen Dark told reporters that investigators were treating it as a potential murder-suicide. But she made sure to add that detectives weren’t closing their eyes to other possibilities just yet. They needed a search warrant before they could really dig into the apartment.
Once crime scene specialists got full access to the apartment, the original story started falling apart. The evidence on the floor didn’t match up with one person shooting the other and then taking her own life. Detectives spent Thursday matching up autopsy reports with ballistic analysis from the scene.
By Thursday afternoon, the physical facts made everything clear. This wasn’t a murder-suicide at all. It was a double homicide, and somebody else had walked out of that apartment after pulling the trigger. Investigators immediately shifted gears and began using every tool they had to track down the real shooter.
It didn’t take long for new leads to point toward 24-year-old Michael Robinson of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Detectives ran background checks and checked his recent movements around Austin. They quickly figured out he was likely right inside the Shoreline Drive apartment when the shooting happened.
Deputies tracked down Robinson’s car and found where he was staying in the area. After gathering more evidence that placed him directly at the crime scene during the shootings, officers moved in on Friday, September 25. They took Robinson into custody and officially charged him with capital murder.
For the families of Anecia Thacker and Lamonica Webb, the arrest brings a small piece of relief after days of heavy confusion. A false narrative could have easily stayed attached to their names forever. Instead, good detective work set the record straight before the week was even over.
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