Gilbert Testifies to Fair's Murder

Thursday, 3 May 2012 07:35

*Warning: The contents of this story are graphic in nature and may be offensive to some readers. Amy Gilbert is on the witness stand today, sobbing as she recounts the night her then boyfriend bludgeoned her friend Clifford Fair to death in their basement apartment in Woodstock. Gilbert says Fair knocked on the door of their apartment that night and came in for "a couple of beers". She says she sensed Robinson was jealous, like the way he was around many of her male friends. But she says things were going well, as the two talked about their jobs. She testified that about an hour into the visit, Robinson went to the bathroom, and was taking a while. She said he came back and stood behind Fair, who was seated in a recliner. Robinson smiled at Gilbert and she smiled back. He then struck Fair in the side of the head with a steel pipe wrapped in a cloth and duct-taped. She says the blow split open Fair's ear. Fair got up and was struck again in the head by the pipe. He hit the wall and then the floor face down. She says Robinson checked his vital signs and said he was dead. She testified Robinson wrapped his head in a towel and covered the body with a duvet. Gilbert says she started "freaking out", and Robinson tried to calm her down saying he didn't mean to kill him and that he started crying. She also described how she helped Robinson carry Fair's body up their stairs to he could bury it. She says he had to re-bury the body at one point, becuase his toes were sticking out of the ground. Gilbert's also testified about her relationships with Robinson started in 2007, saying the met through a friend. She says they drank most of the time they were together. She said "he was really abusive to me". She described one night where Robinson tried to strangle her and left her at the side of the road where she woke up in the morning. The couple lived together in the basement of a Princess St. apartment for a few months before Fair's death in the fall of 2008. Gilbert met Clifford Fair through her former husband, and she struggled to talk about him, calling him "a good guy". She also described him as an alcoholic.