What Happened With Whitney Robeson And Her Boyfriend’s Dad?

An odd one out of Alabama.

This one has been making some rounds. It happened back a few months ago in Trussville, Alabama — which is near Birmingham. This young woman, Whitney Robeson, had recently graduated from Auburn University and had a seemingly-cool job at Restoration Hardware en route to maybe eventually having her own interior design biz. Essentially, she was just starting out. She was hanging out with her boyfriend at his parents’ home, and she ended up with a gunshot wound to the chest. She was rushed to the hospital, and eventually died two hours later. (Awful.)

Initially this was ruled an “accident,” but now, as the summer commences, the boyfriend’s dad was arrested on manslaughter charges. He bonded out at $30,000, but things seem sketchier now, and there hasn’t been a ton of releases from the police on this. Here is a video that will sketch the basic outlines for you:

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So, what we know is that within the span of two months, something happened to go from “accidental” to “manslaughter.” That probably means the Robeson family pushed law enforcement, someone dumped a phone, or other people were in the house and came forward with stories of that night. (If I had to guess.)

You basically have several scenarios here, all of which are reasonably plausible and don’t require much suspension of disbelief:

1. Father did not like girlfriend, shot her.
2. Son shot girlfriend, father is taking the heat for it.
3. Father walked in something with son and girlfriend, thought girlfriend was bad influence, ran and got gun.
4. Father and girlfriend were involved, girlfriend threatened to tell people, father shot girlfriend.
5. Someone else in the home shot girlfriend, father took fall for it.

Some of these would rise to second-degree murder charges, so legally-speaking, a few of them are probably not “manslaughter”-ish. Obviously the salacious one above is (4), and you can find some Reddit and other threads on the Internet arguing for (4). I would doubt that’s the scenario, but the Internet loves that shit — there was the Ole Miss girl that Pat McAfee was sure was banging her boyfriend’s dad, and that resulted in a not-nice lawsuit against ESPN. There’s a whole subgenre of OnlyFans, purportedly, about young women sleeping with their boyfriend’s dad. What a world we live in.

I would guess the boyfriend did it and the father is trying to cover for his son. I could see a situation where a gun “backfired” but the police have released that it was a chest wound, so who the hell is aiming a gun at someone’s chest, much less a 23 year-old girl on the rise? It’s fishy.

I guess I could have added “father propositioned girlfriend, she vehemently declined, and the vehemence of the decline caused him to fire at her.” That’s also possible, although I don’t think I would have it as Option 1.

Not much info on the father’s profession or source of money, but apparently this was a pretty nice cul-de-sac as far as Trussville, Alabama goes. Check the booking photo:

He was 54, so enough time to be “established” financially. Also note that it’s manslaughter with a “non-family gun.” That would seem to end the whole “they were looking at the gun collection and something went amiss!” theory.

Be curious to see how this one plays out.