Cassandra Robinson and Henry Steiger: Murder, Life Sentence, Appeals

Cassandra Robinson was a 25-year-old Pensacola mother strangled by her boyfriend, Henry Steiger, on their daughter’s first birthday in February 2018. Steiger hid her body in a 55-gallon steel drum inside a cargo trailer, where it remained undiscovered for more than five months. He is now serving life in Florida prison without the possibility of parole for second-degree murder, plus a concurrent 20-year federal sentence imposed after his probation on an earlier wire fraud case was revoked.¹²

Who Cassandra Robinson Was

Robinson was a stay-at-home mother and former certified nursing assistant. Her family said she had struggled with depression after her own mother’s death, and that the birth of her daughter Evelynn in early 2017 had changed her life. She began dating Steiger around 2013. Her sister Karen later told reporters that Steiger was abusive, that he isolated Cassandra by taking her phone, and that people around him were “terrified of him.” Cassandra had been trying to leave.³⁴

What Happened on February 1, 2018

The killing happened the day of Evelynn’s first birthday party at the Perdido Key home Cassandra shared with Steiger. Prosecutors presented evidence that Robinson had sent Steiger a text that day telling him the relationship was over and that she was leaving with the baby.⁵

According to Julian Mesure, a business associate, Steiger confessed to him that he strangled Robinson with his bare hands while she was holding Evelynn. As Robinson lost consciousness, the baby slipped from her arms to the floor. Mesure also told investigators that before the murder, Steiger had discussed three options for dealing with Robinson: “sell her to slavery, pay her off, or kill her.”⁶⁴

Steiger did not call for help. He put Robinson’s body in a 55-gallon green steel drum and placed it in a cargo trailer he owned near North 65th Avenue and West Fairfield Drive in Pensacola. The trailer had previously held supplies for his hot air balloon company. He disposed of Robinson’s phones and personal belongings. The day after the killing, he brought the baby to another woman’s home, told her he had a “surprise,” and said Robinson “was only used for breast milk.”⁷⁶

The Five Months Before the Body Was Found

Robinson’s family last saw her on February 1. Because Steiger had cut her off from them before, they initially assumed she was being isolated again. “All those times, February, March, we thought she was OK,” Karen Robinson later said. “We thought she wasn’t talking to us because of him.” A missing person case wasn’t opened until early June 2018, after the family noticed she had gone silent on social media entirely.³⁸

When police interviewed Steiger, he first said Robinson had driven off on February 1 in a black BMW with packed bags. Later he suggested she was on a “well-deserved vacation” to Bermuda, while acknowledging she likely didn’t have a passport. Investigators didn’t buy it. Phone records from the evening of February 1 led them to Mesure, who described Steiger’s confession. Mesure also admitted helping Steiger load, move, and dispose of the barrel, though he said he never saw the body. He said he never called 911 because he was afraid of “what a man who could kill the mother of their child on its first birthday would be capable of.”⁶⁹

On the night of July 11, 2018, investigators located the cargo trailer and found Robinson’s decomposed body inside the drum. She was identified by tattoos and a rib bone. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, though decomposition made it impossible to determine the exact mechanism. Steiger, already in custody at the Santa Rosa County Jail on a federal probation violation, was formally charged with murder on July 27, 2018. Questioned at the jail after the body was found, he told detectives, “I am at peace with what occurred and I understand it. I’m not happy about it but I understand it. I don’t think I can get anyone else to understand it, so I have not explained it to anyone.” Then he asked for a lawyer.⁵¹⁰¹¹

The Trial and Life Sentence

Steiger’s trial began in Escambia County on June 18, 2019. The state’s theory was that he killed Robinson because she planned to leave and take their daughter. Mesure’s testimony was the centerpiece. Steiger took the stand and offered a different account: he said he had found Robinson’s body in the laundry room with a plastic bag over her head and knotted bags around her neck, calling it a “staged suicide stunt” gone wrong. He admitted hiding her body, destroying evidence, and lying, but denied killing her. He also denied telling Mesure he had planned it or demonstrating a choking motion.¹¹

On June 21, 2019, a six-member jury convicted him of second-degree murder. On August 13, 2019, Circuit Judge Jeffrey Burns sentenced him to life in prison without parole or early release.¹²¹

The State Appeal

Steiger appealed to Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, arguing that his trial lawyer was ineffective for letting the jury hear a police interview that referenced an unrelated 2014 federal wire fraud case, and that three autopsy photographs should not have been admitted. The First District rejected both claims, finding no fundamental error and holding that the photographs were relevant and more probative than prejudicial.¹³

The Florida Supreme Court took the case because the First District’s ruling conflicted with other Florida appellate courts on when unpreserved ineffective-assistance claims can be raised on direct appeal. In November 2021, the court sided with the First District: such claims can only be heard on direct appeal if they amount to fundamental error, and otherwise must be brought through a separate postconviction motion in the trial court.¹⁴

The Federal Sentence After Probation Revocation

Steiger had pleaded guilty in September 2017 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud tied to a mobile app scheme. He received three years of probation in December 2017. He killed Robinson roughly two months later.¹⁵

In February 2022, the federal district court revoked his probation. The federal sentencing guidelines called for 12 to 18 months. The judge imposed 20 years on each of the four counts, running concurrently with one another and with the state life sentence, finding that the guidelines “grossly understated the egregiousness” of his conduct on federal supervision. The judge pointed to the planning, the child’s presence at the killing, the strangulation, the months of concealment, and the lies to investigators.¹⁶

Steiger appealed. The Eleventh Circuit first vacated the sentence for lack of an adequate explanation of the upward departure. The full court then reheard the case en banc and changed its own rule, holding that when a defendant does not object at sentencing, the appellate court reviews only for plain error rather than reversing automatically. The three-judge panel, applying that standard on remand, affirmed the 20-year sentence on July 16, 2024, finding no procedural error and no abuse of discretion.¹⁷¹⁸

Where Things Stand

Robinson’s daughter Evelynn was placed with Robinson’s family after the killing, and her aunt Karen took on raising her. “The fact she’s been sitting for months the way she had, sitting in a storage drum, it’s terrible,” Karen told reporters at the time of Steiger’s arrest, saying her sister would never have willingly left her child.³

Steiger is serving concurrent sentences: life without parole in Florida state prison for second-degree murder, and 20 years in federal prison on the wire fraud counts.¹⁹

1
Pensacola News Journal. Pensacola Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murdering Baby’s Mother
2
Bloomberg Law. Florida Man’s Post-Murder 20-Year Fraud Sentence Survives Appeal
3
Pensacola News Journal. Family Gives Insight Into Cassandra Robinson’s Relationship With Murder Suspect
4
WEAR-TV. Report: Man Strangled Girlfriend With Bare Hands While She Held Their Child
5
WKRG. State Says Steiger Choked Cassandra Robinson to Death
6
Pensacola News Journal. Pensacola Murder Suspect Confessed He Strangled Daughter’s Mom
7
Pensacola News Journal. Perdido Key Man Charged in Homicide of Missing Pensacola Woman
8
Pensacola News Journal. Missing Pensacola Woman’s Homicide: PPD IDs Suspect, Works to Locate Crime Scene
9
WEAR-TV. Co-Defendant in Cassandra Robinson Murder Trial Testifies
10
City of Pensacola. Henry Martin Steiger Charged With Murder of Cassandra Robinson
11
WEAR-TV. Pensacola Man Testifies He Tried to Cover Up Death of Cassandra Robinson
12
WEAR-TV. Deliberations Start in the Henry Steiger Murder Trial
13
Pensacola News Journal. Murder Conviction, Sentence Upheld for Henry Steiger in Cassandra Robinson Death
14
Findlaw. Steiger v. State
15
Findlaw. United States v. Steiger
16
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. United States v. Steiger, No. 22-10742
17
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. United States v. Steiger, No. 22-10742 (En Banc)
18
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. United States v. Steiger, No. 22-10742 (Panel Opinion)
19
WKRG. Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for the Murder of Cassandra Robinson