AUBURN — A Lewiston man was sentenced Friday to 55 years in prison for the “savage” slaying of Christiana Fesmire, 22, in 2011.

Buddy Robinson, 32, was convicted of murder at trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court nearly a year ago. Fesmire’s remains weren’t recovered until two months later.

In a statement to the court Friday, Robinson apologized for withholding information about the location of Fesmire’s body. He eventually told police where to find her remains in a wooded part of Lisbon. But he didn’t apologize for killing Fesmire.

“The world lost one of its brightest lights that day and I wish there was something I could have done to stop that light from being extinguished,” he said.

According to prosecutors, Robinson drowned Fesmire in a bathtub by sitting on her.

Justice MaryGay Kennedy said Robinson had never taken responsibility for the “heinous act” of killing Fesmire in a “brutal and vicious” manner and his apology “doesn’t ring true for me.”

She said his disclosure was not made out of compassion for Fesmire’s family, but in an effort to reduce his sentence.

Meanwhile, Robinson’s attorney, Edward “Ted” Dilworth, said his client would appeal both his conviction and the sentence.

Fesmire disappeared on July 1, 2011; Robinson was arrested and charged with her murder more than three months later.

Fesmire rented a first-floor apartment in a building at 36 Highland Ave. in Lewiston; Robinson lived upstairs with his sister, Brandi, and her young son.

An aspiring model, Fesmire’s blue eyes and wide smile were striking. Most of her family and friends referenced in their remarks her physical beauty and her joyful spirit.

Friends and family filled the courtroom, sporting red lapel ribbons. Her parents, sister, Katrin, and brothers, Andrew and Nicholas, stood side by side, arms encircling each other at the front of the courtroom as they told the judge about their missing family member. Slides depicting Christiana’s short life were shown on a screen set up in the courtroom as the family spoke.

Her father, Chester Fesmire, recalled the last exchange with his daughter as he dropped her off in Lewiston. She got out of his pickup truck and he said, “Take care, Sweetie. I love you.” She replied, “I will, Dad. I love you, too.”   

“She wasn’t allowed to die of natural causes or old age,” Katrin Fesmire said. “She didn’t die in an act of bravery. She didn’t die doing something she loved. She was forced to die by the ultimate act of diabolical hatred. Alone, scared, suffering and suffocated. Those were her thoughts as she took her last breath.” 

Prosecutors presented nearly six days of circumstantial evidence that painted a picture of an angry Robinson who “snapped” on the morning of July 1, 2011, and killed Fesmire. He fought with her in her apartment from which she had been moving that morning. Her head smashed against the side of the bathtub, then he drowned her in it.

“She died hard,” Robinson had told witnesses who testified.

Robinson faced punishment of 25 years to life for his murder conviction. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson argued Friday for a 55-year sentence, the same sentence the judge imposed. But, in exchange for Robinson’s disclosure of the whereabouts of Fesmire’s remains, Benson had agreed to recommend a 40-year-sentence, which he did, according to Deputy Attorney General William Stokes. Dilworth had agreed to do the same, Stokes said. 

Benson said Robinson’s lack of apparent motive for the “savage and ferocious” attack coupled with his history of criminal activity were aggravating factors. His prior convictions include stalking a University of Maine at Presque Isle student. Robinson had been on probation for that crime when arrested for Fesmire’s murder. Benson said those negative factors outweighed his laudable military service and good behavior at Cumberland County Jail.

Dilworth recommended a sentence of 25 to 30 years. He blamed Robinson’s prior record on “poor decision-making.”

He said Robinson had tutored GED students at the jail and took all of the courses offered to prisoners. 

Kennedy appeared to agree with Benson’s assessment. After offering her condolences to the Fesmire family, Kennedy called the crime “despicable.”

When she set Robinson’s basic sentence at 50 years, there was an audible sigh in the courtroom. When she settled on 55 years, the sighs were mixed with sobs.

“What Mr. Robinson did does not define her life,” Kennedy told Fesmire’s family.

Outside the courthouse after the sentencing, Chester Fesmire told reporters, “Buddy Robinson will no longer be able to occupy our thoughts … We appreciated the judge’s recognizing the disingenuousness of his own speech and that she saw through” it. He said they would focus on the “fond memories” and “leave this courthouse behind and leave this all behind and just remember the good things … of Christiana.”

After killing Fesmire and mopping up the evidence, Robinson wrapped her body in a comforter and stuffed her in the trunk of a black Lexus sedan parked in the garage, police said.

That was the same car Fesmire was supposed to have borrowed from Brandi Robinson to drive to a family reunion in Rangeley the morning Fesmire was killed.

Robinson called his sister, Brandi, using Fesmire’s cellphone at about 8:30 a.m. to tell his sister he had fought with Fesmire, prosecutors showed. He mopped up the bloody evidence of his crime and waited for his sister to return to their upstairs apartment, according to police.

Despite several police searches, Fesmire’s body hadn’t been found by the time he went on trial.

Benson said after the verdict that he had worried about his witnesses, many of whom had been granted immunity from prosecution for crimes including prostitution, drugs and perjury.

But Robinson had incriminated himself to a Lewiston police detective and to a Maine Army National Guard soldier with whom he had served.

He told Lewiston police Detective Roland Godbout that he couldn’t remember where he put Fesmire’s body. To Rebecca Cornell du Houx, who is a mental health case worker, he sent text messages saying he hurt a woman “badly” and, “She’s dead.”

Their testimony corroborated the statements made by less credible witnesses, including a man who occupied the same prison cell pod as Robinson. That man, awaiting trial on a drug charge, said Robinson had confessed to killing a woman.

Benson said it was “very unusual” to prosecute a murder case when no body had been recovered to link the defendant to the victim.

But because Fesmire’s blood had been found in her apartment where she’d been killed as well as in the back of the car in which her body was transported, the court was satisfied the state had proved a crime had been committed, he said.

Dilworth sought to present at trial Robinson’s sister, Brandi, as an alternative suspect.

He told the jury that she had more motive than her brother to kill Fesmire. Brandi Robinson had hired Fesmire to work for her as an escort and held some of her earnings from that business.

The two had argued and once had a physical altercation at a hotel outside Boston. Dilworth had hoped to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of jurors by diverting attention from Buddy’s actions to his sister’s.

In his closing arguments, Dilworth claimed his client was “wrongfully accused of a crime he did not commit.” He said the case was “full of doubt,” especially the testimony of Brandi Robinson who, Dilworth said, never made eye contact with any juror.

But Benson downplayed Brandi Robinson’s role in the crime. During his closing arguments, he said Dilworth “would have you believe Mr. Robinson is the victim of some sort of vast conspiracy, a conspiracy that must be … instigated by his sister.” Benson said she must be the “arch criminal, an absolute criminal genius … who was so cunning that she wove a cunning web in order to ensnare her brother” and enlisted many others, including a Lewiston police detective.

Moreover, Benson said Brandi Robinson tried to cover for Buddy and didn’t tell police what she knew for months in an effort to keep him out of trouble. That didn’t fit with Dilworth’s theory that she was the mastermind, Benson said.

The most convincing evidence came down to opportunity, Benson said. Brandi Robinson had alibis all day on July 1, 2011. She never had time to kill Fesmire that day, unlike Buddy, Benson said.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com