Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Estranged husband still jailed
Charges pending in shooting that left wife paralyzed, companion dead
While celebrating his 20th birthday at a downtown West Palm Beach club, Robert Anthony III met a young woman named Roqueria Mills.
They exchanged phone numbers, and the next night, March 10, she drove to see him. But gunfire abruptly ended any possible romance.
He was shot to death and she was left paralyzed. The accused shooter: Mills’ estranged husband, Robert Finney, 36.
He has pleaded not guilty. The prosecution is in the early stages on charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and shooting into a car with people inside.
It originally looked as if Finney had regrets as he performed CPR on his wounded wife and immediately confessed to a cop.
“I did it, help her!” he demanded, after police responded to his 911 call. A bleeding Anthony managed to run to his aunt’s residence nearby before collapsing.
Finney had ambushed his victims in the parking lot of the Village Place Apartments, say investigators and a witness.
Finney had tracked his 20-year-old wife’s location using a phone app; she had been driving his 2012 Toyota Scion. Finney got a ride from a friend to the gated complex in the 2100 block of Brandywine Road, records show.
At about 10:30 p.m., Finney hopped out of his friend’s car and ran to the parked Scion. The friend later told detectives that Finney opened the rear driver’s side door and immediately started firing.
Finney, speaking with a 911 operator moments after the shooting, was overheard asking Mills, “Why you cheatin on me?” according to a police report.
A West Palm Beach police
sergeant who responded to the call recovered a 9 mm handgun from Finney’s right front pants pocket. At the same time, Anthony was losing blood and his father rushed over to the aunt’s apartment.
While struggling to breathe, he told his dad that Mills was behind the wheel and he was in the front passenger seat when the unimaginable happened.
“He said somebody opened the back door and shot her first,” Robert Anthony Jr., the victim’s father, said in an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “He didn’t see his face or nothing.”
The young man known affectionately as “Rasz” died a few hours later at the hospital. He grew up in Royal Palm Beach, was a 6-foot-6 high school basketball player who kept out of trouble and was working for Burger King before he died.
Anthony III’s family then tried to figure out how it happened.
They learned that Finney and Mills were living together in Belle Glade when they decided to get married in the summer of 2016. He was 34 and coming off a divorce less than two months earlier, and she was 18. He was a barber and a father to three children.
The relationship didn’t last long.
Finney and Mills filed for divorce on Feb. 21 of this year, and a final hearing was set for April 13, a month before the shooting. Mills had already moved out of their place in Wellington and was living with her mother when she met Anthony III.
“He got caught up in a messed up situation,” Anthony Jr., the victim’s father, said. “We still can’t believe it, it’s crazy. [Finney] took my son’s life for nothing.”
More than a dozen of Anthony III’s close relatives went to the Palm Beach County Courthouse last week, as Finney asked to be released from jail while awaiting trial.
They wore red T-shirts with photos of Anthony III and the words “Justice for Razz” on the back. The nickname happened to be misspelled, but the intent is the same for their loved one who is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Riviera Beach.
“I want justice for my son,” said Valerie Anthony, mother of the victim. She sat next to her children, Robbie, 18, Bobbie, 16, and Raven, 13.
Also present in court was Venita Mills, who said her daughter remains hospitalized and still married to the man who shot her.
Finney’s attorney argued that Finney, who had no prior criminal record, was not a danger or a flight risk and should be released to house arrest.
“Where is the threat to the community if he were to be released?” asked David Magilligan of Hollywood, calling the shootings a “terrible tragedy.”
But Assistant State Attorney Lauren Godden argued that there is sufficient proof of Finney’s guilt and he should be denied bond while the case is pending.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley agreed, after hearing from the lead detective on the case and learning about Mills’ paralysis. It’s unclear if the woman will be able to testify before a jury.
Magilligan told a reporter he didn’t want to divulge a potential trial strategy.
According to Finney’s arrest report, he told an officer he thought his car had been stolen that night.
While on his way to the police station after the shooting, he said he “tracked my car” to the parking lot.
“Once I got there I ran up to my car I saw my wife and blacked out,” Finney said, according to the report, adding, “When I came to it was too late.”