This week, People Magazine Investigates will make a comeback with a new episode that examines Robert Atkins’s role in the murder of Joy Hibbs. Before the killer was apprehended earlier this year, the case, which lasted 31 years, underwent a number of twists and turns. Hibbs’ neighbour and a long-time suspect in the case, Robert Atkins, was the murderer; however, Atkins was never found.
David Hibbs, then 12 years old, came home early from school on April 19, 1991, to discover his house on fire and his mother, Joy, inside. Authorities determined that a tragic house fire caused her burned death to be discovered in her son’s bedroom.
The autopsy report, however, revealed as the investigation went on that Joy had likely been strangled, assaulted, and/or stabbed before the house caught fire.
Bucks County’s prosecutor
Robert Atkins was accused of killing Joy over 31 years after the crime after his ex-wife came forward. She opened up to her about having stabbed someone that day, and she told the authorities that Robert had returned home that day with blood on his clothes.
Atkins is currently being detained at a Pennsylvania prison.
What did Robert Atkins do and who was he?
Robert Atkins, who resided a few houses away from the victim’s home in the 1990s, worked as a confidential informant for Bristol Township Police. Along with Charlie and Joy Hibbs, he was allegedly selling marijuana at the time.
Robert came to the attention of authorities after Joy was discovered deceased in her home. Around the time of the murder, a neighbour allegedly observed a dark Chevrolet Monte Carlo swiftly parked outside Joy’s home. The fact that Robert was operating a dark blue Chevrolet Monte Carlo led the authorities to suspect that he might be involved.
Charlie also acknowledged buying marijuana from Atkins, who was supposedly also addicted to methamphetamine.
When Atkins was questioned, he asserted that he had departed for the mountains the day before the murder and denied any participation. Authorities had no choice but to believe him after his alibi was verified. Robert, however, said that he suffered nerve damage and declined to take a polygraphy test.
After a short while, the case was closed, but it was later reopened. Robert’s ex-wife April Atkins emerged as a key witness in the case, although his capture took some time.
In 2014, when April was initially questioned, she vehemently denied all knowledge. She supposedly changed her mind two years later and came forward on her own to admit that Rober was the real murderer.
Robert forced his entire family pack their possessions and leave for the Pocono Mountains, April said, after he arrived home that day covered in blood. In 2014, she allegedly hid the knowledge from her older children because she didn’t want them to learn what had transpired.
Robert Atkins was finally charged in May 2022 with killing Joy Hibbs in the first degree. Matt Weintraub, the district attorney for Bucks County, said:
“Atkins has been living freely but on borrowed time for the last 31 years. We now begin to pay him back for that time with interest.”
Atkins was accused of two acts of robbery, seven crimes of arson, and one each of first- and second-degree murder. He was recently denied bail and is currently being imprisoned in the Bucks County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania.
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