Family members say justice was served Friday for 83-year-old Sally Bryant in a Phoenix courtroom 35 years after she was slain.

A judge sentenced Larry Lee Robinson to 21 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections. Robinson, 56, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in August. 

On Sept. 5, 1982, Bryant was stabbed in the face and chest during a home burglary near 15th Avenue and Buckeye Road. Her body was found later that day by her son, Charles.

A portable television set and an envelope with an undisclosed amount of money were reported missing from the house. Left there was a white blood-stained T-shirt that was inside out.

Multiple witnesses told police they saw a shirtless man carrying a television set across the street from Bryant’s home. He was described as having a similar height and build to Robinson’s.

That wasn’t enough to warrant his arrest back in 1982. But in 2012, the case was reopened by the Phoenix police cold case team, and DNA evidence led back to Robinson. 

He was arrested on June 1, 2016, and Bryant’s family was elated.

Sandra Thomas, Bryant’s youngest granddaughter at age 63, said the reopening of the case was like a miracle, and Friday’s sentencing made it even better.

“I think justice was finally served,” Thomas said. “It was beyond my imagination that this day would come.”

Thomas said that, while she feels empathy for Robinson and wants to know what happened in his life that led him to crime, she doesn’t think her family will ever be able to forgive him.

“I don’t have the forgiveness, my family doesn’t have the forgiveness to give him,” she said.

Thomas’ daughter, Tracee Crockett, was 9 years old when her great-grandmother’s body was found. She hadn’t talked about it for years before the case was reopened, but she said the pain was always there.

While she said she was happy to see Robinson sentenced, the pain of what happened will never fully disappear.

“There’s no real relief for a circumstance like this, but you can get closure,” Crockett said. “I think what today was really about, was closure.”

Before Robinson was sentenced, he told the court he is “very ashamed” of himself, and he asked for mercy so he can go home to his 4-year-old daughter before she gets too old. He knows he can’t fix what he did.

“I feel shame,” he said. “I feel remorse because I know that there’s no way I could ease anybody’s pain in this room.”

Prosecutor Robert Shutts said that, although Robinson seemed remorseful in court Friday, that doesn’t make up for the lack of remorse he showed in the 35 years since the murder.

“He had a lot of years to come forward,” Shutts said. “He had a lot of years he could have expressed remorse.”

He pointed to the fact that Robinson was on parole for another crime when he committed the murder, and he burglarized another home three days later.

“At a time when he should have been working, he was out committing crimes,” Shutts said. “At a time when he should have been a part of the community, this is what he did.”

Shutts requested the maximum sentence, and the judge complied. Because Robinson pleaded guilty, the maximum sentence he could get was 21 years.

“It’s almost surreal,” granddaughter Lynette Bryant said. “It’s finally over.”

The Sept. 10, 1982, edition of The Arizona Republic included an obituary for Sally Bryant. She was born in Granada, Massachusetts, and became a resident of Phoenix in 1925.

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