Deborah Robinson’s body remained inside a New York City morgue for more than a year.
She was only 67 when she died last September in her childhood home in Hollis, Queens. Her siblings heard the news from a neighbor, who called to tell them police were swarming their old block. They said they were surprised because she didn’t have any serious health issues.
David Robinson, one of her younger brothers, visited the house the day she died. As he sat in the living room waiting for his sister’s body to be carried out, a man he’d never met was upstairs. Police said he claimed to be Deborah Robinson’s husband and therefore wanted dominion over her remains, but had no legal proof of the marriage.
“I said, ‘I don't know who this individual is. I want him out of my mother's house,’” David Robinson recalled telling the police officers at the scene.
He said the officers encouraged him to handle the matter himself, which meant his sister’s remains had to go to the city morgue. They would stay there until October of this year as David Robinson fought for custody over them.
It wasn’t the first time David Robinson and his four surviving siblings dealt with a mysterious family death.
Their mother, Elsie Robinson, died at 92 in the same house about two years earlier, in June 2021. Again, David Robinson and his siblings didn’t find out she had passed until a neighbor called a month after her death. At the time, they attributed their delay in finding out to some increasingly strange behavior from Deborah Robinson, who was their mother’s sole caretaker.
“My sister was pretending my mother was still alive,” David Robinson said.
Whenever he’d call the house during that period of time, his sister would say, “‘I’ll have her call you back. Everything is fine. We’re good.’” By the time the siblings found out about their mother’s death, Deborah Robinson had already had her cremated. To this day, they’re unsure where her ashes are.
David Robinson and his surviving sister, Teresa Kamara, say the lack of physical remains to bury – and the lack of clarity around what happened to their mother and sister – means they’ve been denied the opportunity to mourn both their mother and sister.
Starting around the time of their mother’s death, they’ve also been mired in a familial struggle that’s been dragged into an often illogical and intractable tangle of New York City bureaucracy.
They say they’ve been denied, misled and disappointed by both the NYPD and the Queens district attorney’s office. So far, they say neither agency has done enough to investigate whether there was any criminality around their sister and mother’s deaths, despite evidence that both women were severely emaciated when they died.
The siblings said the Hollis home where both women died could provide some answers – but they can’t get in. The very same man who claims to be Deborah Robinson’s widower is currently living there, shuttered inside. Court documents say his name is Leon Clark.
Neighbors say they rarely see him; he has no online profile, no voting records and no listed phone numbers. One of the few records available for Clark is a lawsuit filed by the city’s medical examiner, asking David Robinson and Clark to resolve the dispute over Deborah Robinson’s body.
“As a result of an irreconcilable difference over the disposition of her remains between her brother, David Robinson, and Leon Clark, who alleges to be her husband, her body has not been removed from the OCME morgue,” reads the lawsuit, filed in August.
That person – grifter, narcissist, squatter, whatever he is – made no contribution to my father's accomplishments, my mother's accomplishments, our accomplishments … and has the audacity to illegally occupy the home.
David Robinson and Kamara say they have no idea who Clark is. Yet because of his claims, their sister’s body sat in a refrigerated drawer for more than a year. For months, there was also no cause of death listed on her death certificate. Only around the first anniversary of her death did the medical examiner’s office come back with a ruling: “Complications of inadequate oral intake of unknown etiology.”
She had starved to death and it was unclear why.
Deborah Robinson had no known illnesses, but her autopsy photos show a skeletal woman compared to photos of her from several years prior. Her mother, while much older, died in a similar fashion, according to information the siblings were finally able to get from an NYPD official who was familiar with the case. Because Deborah Robinson had her cremated so quickly, Elsie Robinson did not have an autopsy – further confounding her four surviving children, who wondered why their sister would have acted in such a rush without even telling them.
Former Brooklyn prosecutor Robert Altchiler is now working as the family’s private attorney and helping them gather information to mount a potential criminal case.
“This is so obviously at the very least a double homicide investigation,” he said. “It’s amazing that no one has done anything.”
A young Deborah Robinson with her mom Elsie Robinson and brother Philip Robinson on the front stoop around 1965.
'Hollis Royalty'
The Robinson family home is a tidy, two-story brick house on 202nd Street and 99th Avenue. It sits on the corner at the end of a quiet block, right across from the Long Island Rail Road tracks.
When Elsie Robinson and her husband Layhmond Robinson bought it back in 1964, they felt like they’d made it. Elsie Robinson worked for the New York City Housing Authority. Layhmond Robinson served in the Navy and was later hired as one of the first Black reporters for the New York Times.
“Hollis is the Black middle class that made a way out of no way, and my parents were part of that,” Kamara said. “My father came from Louisiana. He fought in World War II. My mother's an immigrant from Jamaica. They met in Harlem where everybody met.”
The couple raised their five children in the home, which was a gathering place for the neighborhood as it stood right near the railroad tracks and on the way to Haggerty Park.
“That was the place where everybody came. And since our house was located where it was, people would always ring the bell,” David Robinson said.
The siblings all grew up, moved out and started their own careers. Kamara spent years abroad working as an international humanitarian specialist, consulting to UNICEF and other UN agencies. David Robinson took a job with the city’s Department of Probation. Since he was the only sibling who stayed in New York, he’d often come by the house with groceries for his parents.
Deborah Robinson never married or had children, but became a successful marketing executive, and her siblings say she bought a big house of her own in Pennsylvania.
“She made six figures before anybody knew what that was,” David Robinson said – so he thought it was particularly strange she moved back in with their parents around 2008.
“My mother did try to insinuate something bad happened, but [Deborah] didn't inform her,” David Robinson said.
Layhmond Robinson died in 2013, leaving Deborah Robinson to care for her mother inside the home. It was then the two siblings say their sister grew more isolated and agitated – changing the locks on the house and not letting them see their mother. After Elsie Robinson died in 2021, the siblings received multiple unpaid bills and notices that the electricity was being turned off – which Kamara called a “travesty” because her parents were always meticulous about finances.
David Robinson and Kamara believe that is around the time Leon Clark came into the picture.
“That person – grifter, narcissist, squatter, whatever he is – made no contribution to my father's accomplishments, my mother's accomplishments, our accomplishments… and has the audacity to illegally occupy the home of Hollis royalty? It’s unimaginable,” Kamara said.
The man who answered the front door of the home on Oct. 31st when Kamara knocked with a reporter
A mystery man
For more than a year after Deborah Robinson’s death, Leon Clark remained a total mystery to her brother and sister. David Robinson and Kamara heard plenty of whispers about Clark from neighbors – and communicated with him indirectly through a lawyer – but had never laid eyes on the man who claimed to be their brother-in-law, and who had apparently discovered their sister’s body when she died, according to the medical examiner’s lawsuit.
Clark claimed that he had paperwork authorizing him to make funeral arrangements for Deborah Robinson. When David Robinson contested those claims, Clark stated in court documents that “the siblings were estranged from the deceased and thus found it strange that they are coming forward now.”
But after putting the remains in legal dispute, Clark seemed to disappear. The medical examiner made multiple attempts to reach him, the court papers state, and each time he had offered another reason why he couldn’t discuss the matter, including asking for a mediator to be present. Ultimately, Clark stopped responding to phone calls and mail altogether, according to the medical examiner’s lawsuit.
In August, neighbors on the quiet residential street told Gothamist that Clark was there – he just kept to himself, rarely interacted with anyone and kept the window blinds shut. Besides trying multiple phone numbers listed online for Leon Clark, reporters visited the house, knocked on the door, and got no answer. While they were there, a car alarm in the driveway suddenly went off but there were no other signs of life inside.
“We never see him come out and do anything. It’s kind of sad,” said neighbor Norma Howard.
So when Kamara met a reporter at the house on Oct. 31, she didn’t expect Clark to show his face. She hadn’t visited her childhood home since the day her sister’s body was removed more than a year ago.
She opened the latch on the gate, marched up the front steps, and knocked on the front door, hard. Nothing.
“That’s what cowards do,” she said, before sitting down on the stoop.
“You know, I've sat on these steps countless times my whole life — all of us,” she said. “It's still very hard to come to terms with this kind of action – deaths, and illegal possession. It's just heartbreaking, but I’ve moved past the heartbreak. I’m now just in the patience waiting game.”
A few minutes later, the door opened. A man wearing a black face mask, dark sunglasses, a white button-down shirt and jeans emerged. He trembled as he reached for the mailbox.
He would not respond to a reporter’s questions about whether he was Leon Clark.
“Thank you,” the man said, trying to shield his face with a pile of mail. “Excuse me.”
“I have never seen you before a day in my life,” Kamara said.
“That’s not true,” the man said. “I am actually her brother-in-law,” he said, gesturing to Kamara. “I don’t have to prove anything.”
He closed the door and disappeared back into the darkened living room.
“This is incredible… I am shocked,” Kamara said. “My sister was never married.”
The Robinson home at 202nd Street in Hollis, Queens.
A 'protracted crisis'
The Hollis home’s exterior does not look much different than it did during those days the siblings remember so fondly from their youth: The square green front lawn is mowed, the white picket fence is sturdy and bright. Their mother’s red Honda sedan is still in the driveway, with her NYCHA employee sticker. But small changes are noticeable: someone has outfitted the front door with multiple surveillance cameras and keeps the blinds drawn.
Before the October visit, reporters scoured the internet, looking for any online trace of a man living in Queens named Leon Clark. Phone numbers for Clark and potential members of his family were either disconnected or not functioning. Information for his lawyer was not immediately available. No social media profiles, possible relatives or paper trails seemed to exist.
Clark has not been accused of any wrongdoing and it’s unclear if he’s being investigated by police.
But David Robinson and Kamara say any investigation into the deaths should start with Clark. He’s staying in the family home where both women died, and where mail is still delivered to Deborah Robinson.
“Your ‘wife’ died on your watch. You failed to render aid,” Kamara said. “You failed to call your in-laws to tell them that your loved one was passing away right before your eyes.”
When asked about efforts to look into the deaths of the two women, the Queens DA’s office said it “remains an active investigation,” and because of that, it could not comment further.
But neither death has officially been ruled a homicide, according to the NYPD. Police officials did not specifically address efforts to investigate when Gothamist sought comment. Kamara said a detective only contacted her seven months after Deborah’s death to discuss a toxicology report; she hasn’t heard anything since.
Since Deborah Robinson was listed as executor of her mother’s estate when she died, David Robinson has to be named administrator in order to start trying to evict Clark. Jeffrey St. Clair, the family’s estate attorney, said it’s hard to say when the Surrogate’s Court will respond to their request to hear the case. And even if the court finds in their favor, removing Clark could take time.
“Landlord-tenant laws in New York are very pro-tenant, which is good in a way, but also bad when you have somebody like him,” St. Clair said. “So it’s a double-edged sword. The eviction process could take a year or even more.”
Kamara said their patience is limited.
“We have sent countless requests. Can we get a court date? Can we get a hearing for our family home?” Kamara said. “This is like knife wound after knife wound.”
After seeing the house as a source of pride for so long, the siblings say it’s now a source of pain and tension.
“Angry doesn't begin to describe how I feel,” Kamara said. “It's rage because this just didn't happen to us … It happened to everyone who was associated with us. Everyone who was associated with Hollis. Everyone who knows what the Black middle class had to do to get there and to stay there.”
“This has been a really, really protracted crisis for us,” she said.
The family matriarch, Elsie Robinson is at center. On the far right is Deborah Robinson in this undated photo. Both women were severely emaciated at the time of their deaths.
One house, two bodies
There are multiple similarities between the deaths of the two women, even though they died two years apart.
In June 2021, Elsie Robinson, died in the home at 92. Deborah Robinson died in September 2023 at the age of 67.
According to police, both women were discovered face-up in bed. Both were extremely underweight, according to the siblings, who viewed Deborah’s autopsy photos and were told about Elsie Robinson’s condition by law enforcement officials. And neither of their deaths were immediately considered suspicious, according to the NYPD.
But David Robinson and Kamara say otherwise. So does their private attorney.
“It's easy these days to say, ‘no, two people died and we don't have a murder weapon. Let's walk away.’ But that's just not how good police work is done,” said the family’s lawyer, Robert Altchiler.
When Deborah Robinson died, David Robinson said an investigator for the medical examiner’s office told him she was severely emaciated, weighing barely 80 pounds. He heard little else for almost a year. Only after Gothamist began asking questions about her death did the medical examiner’s office call David Robinson to inform him that they’d finally concluded their investigation.
The office also shared the results with Gothamist, writing that Deborah Robinson had died because she wasn’t eating enough. She had also been suffering from a fractured femur and hypertensive cardiovascular disease at the time, according to the report. The medical examiner's office said both conditions were "contributing factors" to her death.
Her manner of death was “undetermined,” according to the report. Police officials said the department is still investigating, but declined to provide further details.
In her autopsy photos reviewed by Gothamist, Deborah Robinson doesn’t look anything like she had in family pictures taken just a few years earlier.
Howard, who lives near the family’s Hollis home, said she remembered how Deborah Robinson had grown increasingly thin and seemed afraid to be outside of her house.
“She would run if she went into the store, and run back,” Howard said.
One of the last times David Robinson and Kamara saw their sister alive was in March 2023, after they'd received a notice that utilities at the house had been turned off due to unpaid bills. They said they thought Deborah Robinson had moved out, so they came by to collect some personal belongings.
They quickly realized someone was home. As far as they could tell, it was their sister, but they were concerned enough to call the police.
“She came to the window and I screamed and screamed when I saw her,” Kamara said. “I was like, ‘What are you doing? Why are you in the house? Let us help you.’”
Deborah Robinson nodded when officers asked her to identify herself. She was wearing her mother’s coat and hat, and a mask, David Robinson and Kamara said. She said nothing, just threw a paper out the window claiming she was a “sovereign citizen” and “freeman-on-the-land” who did not have to respond to local authorities.
The siblings say the strange events at their childhood home began years earlier.
David Robinson said he’d often come by the house to drop off groceries for his mom during the pandemic.
“Everything had to be ripe,” he remembered with a smile – his mother’s passion for food was shaped by her upbringing in Jamaica. “She loved cashews, but no salt, no salt, no salt, no salt. She didn't buy real processed food.”
But one day in September 2020, he came through the back door to find Deborah Robinson feeding their mom plain chicken broth.
“I was like, ‘What is going on?’ She mentioned the term, ‘We're eating clean,’” David Robinson recalled.
Around the same time, he found that all the locks at the house had been changed. He noticed their mother losing weight, and Deborah Robinson was speaking more and more on their mother’s behalf.
“I know that she was starting to have this control over my mother,” David Robinson said of his sister.
“So when you would call, she would try to finish the sentences. When you would be there, she would try to be in the next room,”he said.
The siblings say it’s very odd that Deborah Robinson had their mother cremated so quickly, without telling anyone – leaving more questions behind about what her last days must have been like.
“It was devastating … thinking about my mother dying in the same way where she couldn't call us, call for help,” David Robinson said. “And then my sister, meeting the same demise.”
The medical examiner’s office ruled that Elsie Robinson died of natural causes, with hypertensive cardiovascular disease as a contributing factor.
Teresa Kamara, left, and her mother Elsie Robinson in an undated photo.
Closing the box
David Robinson and Kamara said the situation has taken a sharp toll on them and their remaining two brothers, who live out of state.
With no immediate resolution to the dispute with Clark over Deborah’s remains, David Robinson finally authorized the medical examiner to bury his sister at the Hart Island potter’s field: a city cemetery traditionally reserved for the poor and abandoned. He said it was the only option the city gave him to get his sister’s body out of the morgue – since Leon Clark had effectively stopped responding, and since the dispute had prevented David Robinson from being able to make proper funeral arrangements in the first place.
“We don't have an attachment to the tissue, the bones, whatever's left. We have our memories,” Kamara said. “We had to end this.”
Kamara said she has spent tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, and countless hours tracking down documents. She keeps them all in a large box that includes death certificates, unpaid utility bills, her parents’ will and trust, and several of the bizarre manifestos Deborah Robinson sent around during the last years of her life.
“I want this box to be shut,” she said. “This sounds like a ‘Dateline’ special, but all of this really happened, and all I have are the records that even tell us this is real.”
David Robinson said he’s haunted by the fact that he was denied access to his mother during her final year, and that his sister met a similar fate. He said leaving the groceries on her front stoop, not knowing what was happening inside, “broke my heart.”
For Kamara, closure will come if and when Clark gets removed from the house, and the Robinsons can return to the place that holds so many of their memories.
“As my brother visualizes being present when he is escorted out of the house in handcuffs, I take that vision one step further to the celebration in that house, in that backyard, about our parents’ legacy,” she said. “That's what we want.”
Clayton Guse and Bahar Ostadan contributed reporting. This story has been updated with additional information provided by the city medical examiner's office.
