Do you know who murdered Richard L Robinson?
On the warm evening of Saturday, June 5, 1999, Richard L. Robinson, a 56-year-old Caucasian man, drove his 1995 Chevrolet pickup truck into the south parking lot of the Silverton Casino. The hotel and casino, located at 3333 Blue Diamond Road, sits at the southern edge of the Las Vegas Valley, a gateway for travelers from California and a popular spot for locals. As Richard was getting out of his truck, the routine evening was violently interrupted when an armed man suddenly approached him, turning a simple stop into a scene of fatal violence.
The assailant, brandishing a handgun, confronted Richard and demanded his truck. In the tense moments that followed, the attempted carjacking went horribly wrong. The suspect fired a single, fatal shot, striking Richard. Curiously, after firing the weapon, the gunman did not take the Chevrolet pickup. Instead, he fled the scene on foot, running through the expansive casino parking lot toward a waiting getaway vehicle. His ultimate motive, while appearing to be robbery, remains clouded by the fact that he abandoned the vehicle he had seemingly targeted.
Witnesses to the chaotic aftermath provided police with a clear description of the shooter and his escape. They described the gunman as a Hispanic male, likely in his late teens or early twenties, standing approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall with a weight of around 180 pounds. He was seen jumping into a late-model, full-size Chevrolet pickup truck that had an extended cab and was driven by an unseen accomplice. The getaway truck was distinctive, with a two-tone paint scheme where red was the primary color. It was further customized with special wheels, a bed liner, and running boards that were equipped with lights beneath the doors. The detailed description offered promising leads, but the truck and its occupants disappeared into the Las Vegas night.
Emergency services were dispatched to the Silverton parking lot immediately. Paramedics arrived to find Richard critically wounded. They rushed him to the University Medical Center’s Trauma Center, the primary facility in the region for treating such severe injuries. Despite the swift medical response and the efforts of the hospital's emergency staff, Richard succumbed to the single gunshot wound and was pronounced dead. His death marked another homicide in a year of significant growth and escalating crime for the city of Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) took charge of the investigation, with homicide detectives processing the scene and interviewing witnesses. The case, assigned number 990605-2391, presented immediate challenges. While investigators had a description of the suspect and the getaway vehicle, the attack appeared to be random, and the identities of the two men involved were unknown. The public nature of the crime, occurring in a busy casino parking lot, did not yield the clues needed to break the case open.
For more than two decades, the murder of Richard L. Robinson has remained unsolved. No arrests have ever been made, and the names of the shooter and his getaway driver are still a mystery. The case is now considered a cold case, one of many that LVMPD detectives revisit when new technologies or information become available. Key questions linger: Was it a simple carjacking that was botched, or was there another motive? Why did the shooter fire his weapon and then leave the truck behind? As of November 2026, the investigation is still officially open, awaiting a new lead that might finally provide answers and deliver justice for a life cut short by a senseless act of violence.
