Seated with her mother Linda and daughter Adrianna Reams, Sheena Scarbrough recounted memories of her 19-year-old daughter Sade Carleena Robinson, who has been missing since April 1.

The family had spent Easter together, she recalled, and Scarbrough flipped through photos and videos of Robinson on her phone. She showed photos of her daughter’s recent trip to Jamaica in January and thought of their favorite traditions: meals through the Milwaukee Area Technical College culinary programs they did each year to celebrate their birthdays together — Scarbrough’s on April 27 and Robinson’s on May 10 — around Mother’s Day.

“She takes me out to MATC, they have a little cuisine school out there, a chef school,” Scarbrough said. “I said, ‘did you book mommy’s birthday tickets?’ I had just said that Sunday… we just like spending time together as a family.”

It’s been over a week since Robinson has gone missing, leaving Scarbrough with little sleep or appetite. And as the search for Robinson continues, another investigation has loomed.

Just a day after Robinson was reported missing, police found a severed human leg near Lake Michigan at Warnimont Park in Cudahy — earlier that day they found Robinson’s car torched. In the week-plus after the disappearance, police have found other human remains. The missing Robinson and the human remains have not been connected by officials.

On Tuesday morning, a person of interest in the remains case appeared in court: 33-year-old Maxwell Anderson. No officials have publicly connected Anderson to Robinson’s disappearance, however statements in court by his attorney Anthony Cotton alluded to it and Scarbrough indicated she believed he was tied to her daughter’s disappearance.

“He’s been arrested now and held for going on over four days… on nothing more than a written submission to the court indicating that because he supposedly had contact with a missing person and there’s some cell tower suspicion that he continues to remain detained,” Cotton said.

In court, Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Ian Vance-Curzan, a member of the office’s homicide unit, said authorities found blood on the stairwell of Anderson’s house and on a comforter.

He suggested investigators have obtained more blood evidence as well, with blood testing results from the state Crime Lab expected within two days. Testing on human body remains is also underway.

Scarbrough had strong words for Anderson or whoever may have been involved with her daughter’s disappearance. She said she didn’t know of any connection between Anderson and her daughter and that he didn’t seem like the company she would keep.

“At this point, as a mother, I know somebody harmed my baby and I’m going to need that person held full accountable,” she said. “That individual will be haunted eternally.”

The search for Robinson began on April 1, when she didn’t show up for her shift at the Pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee’s east side. In the days since, police, friends, family and community members have been searching for Robinson, looking for evidence.

The searches have been, at times, helpful, such as when a community search group found a blanket Robinson kept in her car, just days after the car was found burned out in an alley behind a home on North 29th Street and close to where other human remains where found.

Scarbrough said she’s been too exhausted to participate. Inundated with media, community outreach and the emotional toll of her missing daughter, she said she’s eating sparely and getting little sleep.

The mother recalled the last texts the two shared, with each checking in with one another, and Robinson asking for $15 through CashApp. The request was odd, she said, as Robinson made good money at her work, but she figured she needed some extra cash to pay for her favorite meal at JJ Fish & Chicken.

“She said ‘Thank you. I love you,’” the mother said.

The two investigations are weighing heavily on Scarbrough.

“This is my worst nightmare,” she said. “Who would do this to my daughter, who would harm or hurt my daughter?”

Scarbrough said Robinson is outgoing, prone to helping people and has hopes of joining the U.S. Airforce.

She was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, moving to Milwaukee before she turned two years old and splitting time between here and Florida, where her father Carlos Robinson lives, her mother said. Scarbrough and her father never married, but she said the two tried their best to co-parent, with Robinson living in both states. By late 2019, she had returned to Milwaukee to live with her mother again.

Scarbrough was always impressed by her daughter’s initiative. She remembered that she graduated from high school a semester early after moving from Florida, and that she surprised her when she told her she needed a ride to a job interview.

Robinson worked at Pizza Shuttle on Milwaukee’s east side, becoming a cashier where she was a favorite among coworkers and customers alike, a manager said.

Only a month away from finishing her associate degree in criminal justice at MATC, Scarbrough said her daughter was young and figuring out her next steps, but she was looking at joining the U.S. Air Force. The family has other veterans, with her grandfather a retired U.S. Navy veteran and her uncle a U.S. Army veteran, she said.

Robinson recently had received her passport and planned well with her money, self-funding recent trips to Jamaica and Atlanta.

The family is tight-knit, Scarbrough said, texting frequently and having groups on the family tracking app Life360. Robinson’s last location on the app has been a source for searches, her mother said.

Scarbrough said she was a standout older sister, even getting her little sister Adrianna a job at the Wisconsin Club, where she worked a second job, and often picked her sister up for work.

She lived in a small “bachelorette” apartment and her grandmother Linda would often visit her, where Robinson loved to cook seafood for her, Scarbrough said.

“Her whole life was so ahead of her, she was so, so amazing. So beautiful, such a beautiful angel. Everywhere she went, people just admired my baby,” the mother said.

On social media, Robinson’s mother has shared numerous photos of her daughter, often with the hashtag #JusticeforSade, and she hopes to rally public support for information on what happened. She said she’s grown frustrated with the pace of the police investigation but is trying to “let them lead and do this investigation thoroughly. I need this individually fully charged.”

“To have community, family members pull up and things (like the blanket) being brought to attention, that’s been frustrating,” she said.

Scarbrough urged anyone with information to share it. Police asked anyone with information to call 414-935-7252.

Ebony Cox of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee mother of missing Sade Robinson urges public to share information