Burn Alive - Robbie Middleton

gasoline and set on fire. Doctors never expected him to survive, yet Robbie defied the odds and spent the next thirteen years enduring hundreds of surgeries while investigators struggled to prove who had done this to him. What followed became one of the most disturbing and emotionally devastating criminal cases Texas has ever seen, and eventually, through sheer determination, Robbie made sure that the one who did this to him was

held accountable in the end. This is the story of eight year old Robbie Middleton.

grab a coffee and go check it out under around. Yeah, it's always fun to go do those things.

also meant freedom. Summer had turned the wooded trails around his neighborhood into a giant playground, and that day he planned to spend much of his time outside as he could, basically, you know, enjoying the sun, enjoying the warmth enjoying the outdoors. Robert Middleton aka Robbie, lived with his family in a

quiet rural area north of Houston. The neighborhoods around Splendora were separated by stretches of woods and dirt, trails and patches of undeveloped land, where local kids spent their afternoons riding bikes, exploring building forts, and cutting through the paths between their homes. Parents in the area were very used to children wandering from yard to yard. It was the quintessential place where kids disappeared outside for hours and came back when the street lights came on. By all accounts,

Robbie was a sweet and unusually compassionate little boy. Friends and family described him as polite, energetic, and sensitive towards animals and other people. Even at a young age. He had a reputation for being very responsible, and he loved being outdoors and spending time with neighborhood friends. Now that Sunday, Robbie had plans. His family had bought him a new tent for his birthday, and he was excited about camping

out in the backyard for the night. There were hot dogs, marshmallows, and birthday food waiting for that very evening, and at some point during the afternoon, Robbie planned to invite a neighborhood boy by the name of analvererto Padilla aka Beato, to spend the night camping with him in the backyard. Now, the Middletown family's home sat near a network of wooded trails, the ones I was talking about, the ones where children regularly used as shortcuts between neighborhoods and homes and all

this sort of stuff. Robbie walked these paths countless times before. To him, they were so familiar, safe and normal. It was just like going through somewhere where he knew, just like the back of his own hand. And somewhere nearby in that same neighborhood lived another boy, Don Wilburn Collins. Don was older than Robbie by several years. He was born on April fourth, nineteen eighty five, and he was

thirteen years old that summer. Over the years, neighbors would later describe Don as being aggressive and unpredictable, even violence. As just a child, he was like this, and kids in the neighborhood were said to fear him, and adults remembered him fighting carrying knives, hurting animals, and causing trouble

around the community. But on June twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, he was simply just another neighborhood teenager living near the wooded trails outside Splendora, and as the afternoon moved along, Robbie headed towards the woods on his way to go invite his friend to his birthday camp out. Now, at some point around late afternoon, Dawn also entered the same wooded paths between the neighborhoods. The trails there were quiet, the thick trees and brush surrounded the narrow dirt paths

that cut through the area. Then less than an hour later, the entire neighborhood would erupt in panic. You see, sometime during that late afternoon, Robbie encountered thirteen ye old Don Collins in the woods, and what happened would become one of the most horrifying crimes the area had ever seen, because Dawn attacked Robbie. In that moment in the woods, eight year old Robbie was grabbed from behind and as he turned around, he had gasolene thrown in his face.

From there, it was then poured all over his body as he was tied to a tree inside that wooded area, more gasolene was poured over his body, and then came the fire. The flames ignited all over him almost immediately, and soon with those flames engulfing Robbie as he was tied to the tree, the fishing line that was used to restrain him began to melt as the heat ate away at it and it let loose. Robbie now managed to break free from being bound to this tree and

collapsed onto the ground, Still engulfed in flames. He began rolling the dirt, trying to distinguish the fire as the heat licked at his skin, burning him badly. Eventually, he forced himself back to his feet and stumbled down the trail towards the neighborhood, all while he was still set on fire. Now people nearby would later describe seeing smoke

rising from the wooded path right before Robbie emerged. One witness saw what looked like a blackened figure stumbling from the trail, and another remembered hearing screamings before realizing that this blackened figure was a child. Now, Robbie ran as far as he could before collapsing near the sidewalk close to his home. Neighbors and witnesses rushed towards him. At first, some reportedly could not even recognize who they were looking at.

Robbie's body had been burned so severely that much of his skin was black and melting away from his body. Witnesses described skin hanging from his fingers, the smell of gasoline still lingered around him. Smoke was even reportedly still rising from parts of his body when people reached him, clearly showing the flames had just been snuffed out moments

before he stepped out into the open. One witness stayed with Robbie while another ran and called nine one one, and all the while, despite the unimaginable injuries and pain he was enduring, Robbie was still conscious. He begged for

help and reportedly asked for water. Emergency responders soon raced to the scene, and when Robbie's father, Bobby Middleton arrived, he initially struggled to even comprehend what he was seeing before him was his son, and his body was just blackened from burns, with only the whites of his eyes allegedly clearly visible. So, needless to say, the injuries that

he had sustained were clearly catastrophic. Robbie was rushed to the hospital and was in critical condition, and medical personnel quickly realized that this was not just a normal burn injury. Reports later placed the percentage of his body being burned between ninety nine percent to ninety nine point five percent of his body burned seriously, almost the entirety of his body.

medical professionals. Now, for clarification, severe burn victims like Robbie often pass away, and not just from the burns themselves, though, but from shock, infection, fluid loss, organ failure, and respiratory complications.

There is a whole library of things that go wrong with situations like this, and Robbie's body had endured trauma so extreme that the doctors and physicians reportedly warned his family that he was likely not going to survive, and at one point, doctors even prepared Robbie's mother, Colleen Middleton, for the possibility that her son would die within hours of arriving at the.

his skin. For example, he lost his eyelids. One eye, suffered severe permanent damage that would eventually leave him partially blind. Muscles tightened and contracted beneath scar tissue. His body struggled to regulate temperature, and even breathing became difficult because of how badly skin across his chest and torso had been damaged. So think of how when you take a deep breath in the expansion of your chest. Now imagine all that

skin being burnt. Not only burnt, but trying to recover the sores, the rawness, the dryness, the cracking from simply inhaling and breathing.

untouched by the fire. Even with those procedures, though, the recovery process was absolutely brutal, and the burn treatment is well, it's very excruciating. See dead tissue, for example, It has to be removed repeatedly to prevent that infection. So while you're healing, you have dead tissue being left behind, and that has to be scraped and cut away from your burns.

As you try to heal, skin graphs will fail, medical dressings have to be constantly changed, and patients often undergo endless rounds of surgery just to preserve mobility and to try and keep wounds closed. Now, keep in mind Robbie endured all of this as a child, just a kid, and over the years he would ultimately undergo more than one hundred and fifty surgeries, with some sources estimating the number being over two hundred procedures if smaller operations and

revisions were included in that number. These treatments stretched across more than a decade of Robbie's life, and still in those first months after the attack, investigators still had no certainty that he wouldn't even live long enough to leave the hospital. The pain medication required to keep Robbi alive complicated things even further. He drifted in and out of consciousness while being very heavily medicated. Family members later described

periods where Robbie was hallucinating or became very confused. At times, he reportedly blamed strange things for the fire that occurred, things like neighborhood dogs, accidental causes, and even completely unrelated people. And so investigators really struggled to determine which statements were reliable, in which ones were the product of trauma, medication and the excruciating physical pain. However, through it all, one thing kept resurfacing over and over, and that was the name

Dawn Collins. So, now armed with this name and with Robbie fighting for his life in Gavelston, detectives in Montgomery County began trying to reconstruct what had happened in the woods outside of Splendora that day. At first, some investigators believe the fire might have actually been an accident. You know, children playing with gasoline or matches was not exactly unheard of in rural East Texas, especially when you consider that this is the nineties after all. But Robbie named Don

Collins repeatedly and insisted on an intentional attack. Well that was very hard to ignore, so soon police arrested Down and took him into juvenile custody while investigators tried to build a case around what Robbie had described. But as the interviews continued, problems began appearing almost immediately. Wherever detectives looked,

Robbie's condition was deteriorating constantly. The pain medications keeping him alive also affected his ability to communicate consistently, and according to later testimony, this is where Robbie's ups and downs of his condition played a very big part. Sometimes he appeared very lucid and focused, while other moments he hallucinated, he became confused, or gave contradictory sorry accounts of what had happened, and those inconsistencies would become one of the biggest obstacles in this story.

been disturbed before investigators fully secured it. Not to mention, this was a public area where people were going through constantly, So what was part of the scene and what was part of what was left there before? Now, there was also another major problem too. None of the evidence that was there directly connected back to Don Collins at all. It did not connect him to the attack. There were also no eyewitnesses who saw him and tying Robbie to

the tree. There was no DNA evidence that was linking him to the gasoline or the fire, and no fingerprints placing him at the scene in any sort of meaningful way. So investigators strongly suspected Don. But suspicion and proof, well those are two very different things, you know.

had actually been obtained. Defense attorneys would later argue the juvenile interrogation process had not been handled correctly, so whatever evidence they did get while questioning Don was essentially moot, and concerns were raised about whether Don had been questioned even in an approved juvenile processing office, whether officers had improperly influenced portions of those statements, and whether his age

and intellectual limitations made a confession even reliable or not so. Ultimately, after spending several months in a juvenile detention center, Don Collins was released, and for Robbie's family, who firmly believed he was the one responsible, it was devastating. But even still, the legal collapse mattered far less than the physical reality

Robbie now faced every single day. While investigations stalled, the eight year old boy who should not have survived at all was beginning a recovery process that would consume the rest of his life. Because against almost every single expectation doctors originally had, Robbie Middleton continued to survive day after day,

week after week, month after month. Robbie remained at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Galiston for extended periods while surgeons and specialists tried to rebuild what the fire had destroyed. The process was agonizing slow and never truly ended. As a severe burn, recovery became a permanent condition. I already alluded to all the surgeries Robbie would endure, and it was all so severe that nearly every stage of his childhood became tied to nothing but surgeries, rehabilitytion, wound care,

and recovery. Doctors used every technique available to keep him alive, and those burns permanently changed nearly every part of him as he just kept surviving. This was his life for the next twelve years, surgery after surgery, skin grafts, reconstruction, wound revisions, eye procedures, therapy sessions. They were relentless, and so was the pain. Family members later described Robbie screaming through parts of his recovery as doctors cleaned wounds and

changed dressings. Even routine physical therapy could become absolutely unbearable for him. Burn survivors often have to force scar tissue to stretch repeatedly to avoid losing mobility entirely. But people who worked with Robbie remembered something else just as much as they remembered the pain. They remembered his attitude. Rebecca Whitlock, a therapist who worked with Robbie at Shriner's, later described him as being funny, resilient, and unusually compassionate towards other patients.

Staff Members watched him encourage younger burn victims, despite the fact that he himself had endured one of the worst injuries many of them had ever seen in their career, and over time, Robbie became more than just a patient at the hospital. He became part of the community there. He spent years around other burn victims and began developing

a deep passion for helping them. Robbie reportedly struggled to understand why some children could not afford certain surgeries or treatments that they needed, so he started helping raise money for other burn victims and became an advocate for the hospital and the children inside of it. Even after everything that had happened to him, Robbie remained deeply empathetic to others.

him or made very cruel comments about his appearance. See the burns that Robbie was left with. While visible, scars covered almost his entire body, leaving him very scarred and disfigured, and after spending years in hospital and surgeries, re entering normal life wasn't easy, But over time classmates began seeing past those scars. Of his friends described Robbie as funny, determined, and surprisingly social considering everything that he had survived and

the he was still actively going through. People who knew him, even said he rarely wanted sympathy. Instead, he just tried to move forward. He joked with nurses, He even flirted with some hospital staff. As he was getting older, he talked about driving someday. He participated in fundraising efforts, and at one point, after Hurricane Ike damaged the Gavelston Burne Hospital and its future became uncertain, Robbie reportedly helped hand

out flyers advocating for the facility to reopen. He believed the hospital had saved his life and he wanted it to remain open for future burn victims to have a place to go, just like he did. Meanwhile, while Robbie spent his teenage years and during all these surgeries rehabilitation, Don Collins was living a very different life. After being released from juvenile detention in corrections with sort in connection with Robbie Middleton's burning, Don Collins returned to the community

around Splendora. Legally he was free, but some investigators never stopped believing Don was actually fully responsible. However, without enough evidence to prosecute, the case slowly faded from public attention as the years passed.

of those records are sealed. But the conviction, however, became enormously important years later when prosecutors reopened Robbie's case. And one of the most disturbing details that emerged from that case much later was when the victim testified in court that Dawn threatened to burn him. Quote like he burned that little boy.

But either way, by the time he was released, he was now officially a registered sex offender, and the legal trouble for him didn't stop there either. Over the following years, Don was repeatedly accused of failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements. He even served additional time connected to failure to register charges and other criminal offenses, including theft related crimes, and most of all, he continued displaying violent and predatory behavior.

a young boy. And then well one he did light him on fire, and the other he threatened with a gun and threatened he might light him on fire too.

going to authorities, at least not yet. But even still, it seemed like Don couldn't help himself as he continued to at least occasionally insert himself into conversations about the crime in very strange ways. Now, at one point later, witness mentioned how Don reportedly discussed how many times Robbie even fell while stumbling out of the woods after lighting him on fire. Now that indicates he was watching this happen too. He was watching him run away. He stayed

there and witnessed this entire thing. He didn't turn away, he didn't run away. He wasn't fearful of what he had done. He was watching the whole damn thing, which is.

the case. It was just all rumors, and for years Robbie's attack remained suspended in a very strange place, as memories just faded, witnesses moved away, some people even died, Physical evidence degraded, and the case became increasingly difficult to prove with certainty, especially considering the weakness that had already caused prosecutors to back away in nineteen ninety eight. But then another devastating mistake happened in two thousand and six.

Critical evidence collected from the original crime scene was destroyed. Now at the time, authorities still considered the case as an assault investigation rather than a homicide, and Since no charge had been filed against Dawn, the statue of limitations on certain offenses was believed to have expired, and so a judge signed a destruction order authorizing disposal of stored

evidence connected to the case. Among those items destroyed were cigarette butts recovered from the woods, a lighter, fuel related materials, a plastic jug hose, and a gauge connected to a boat fuel tank, Burnt clothing, and other seen evidence investigators had preserved since the original date in nineteen ninety eight, And to top it all off, no DNA testing had ever been performed on many of these items, so by two thousand and six, much of the physical evidence from

this crime scene was simply gone forever. Meanwhile, Robbie Middleton kept fighting for his health, and by the late two thousands, his body was still paying for the price of what had happened to him in the woods all the way back in nineteen ninety eight. The surgeries continued, the scar tissue continued tightening, chronic wounds continued reopening. Years of grass and reconstruction had placed enormous stress on his body, and yet people around Robbie consistently described him as positive now,

even though Robbie was consistently in high spirits. Underneath all that optimism, there were still signs that the attack had never truly left him psychologically. According to his mother, Robbie sometimes believed he saw Don Collins outside watching him. It seems that even years later, the fear remained buried somewhere inside him, never really truly letting him rest. And then

in twenty eleven, everything changed. After more than a decade of surgeries and survival, doctors discovered that Robbie had developed an extremely aggressive form of squamos cell carcinoma, a rare cancer that medical experts later linked directly to the massive burn trauma and years of reconstructive skin graft procedures that he had undergone since nineteen ninety eight.

He had adapted to pain most people could never imagine, but the cancer spread aggressively, and eventually doctors determined there was little more they could do, so as the time continued on and as Robbie's condition deteriorated, the unresolved question surrounding the attack that destroyed his life it still remained. Don Collins had never been prosecuted for burning him. The original case had collapsed years earlier, and despite persistent suspicions,

no one had been convicted. Robbie knew that he had always known that, and according to his family and investigators, he wanted to finally tell the full story of what had happened to him that day before he died. So on April twelfth, twenty eleven, Robbie gave a videotaped deposition from his bed while receiving palliative care. The deposition lasted roughly twenty seven minutes, with Robbie being sworn in at

the beginning. People who later saw portions of the recording described Robbie as physically exhausted and visibly weakened by the cancer, but despite the condition he was in investigators and prosecutors said he remained very focused while recounting the story. Of what had happened to him, and during the deposition, Robbie again identified Don Collins as the person who attacked him in nineteen ninety eight, but this time he revealed far

more than he had before. Robbie alleged that approximately two weeks before the burning had occurred, Dawn had committed sexual assault and rape against him in the wooded area near the Neighborhood trails. According to Robbie's account, the attack on June twenty eighth, when he was dosed in gasoline and lit a blaze. It happened because Dawn feared Robbie was eventually going to tell someone what he had done. Robbie also alleged that he was sexually assaulted again that same

day during the day he was burned. According to later prosecutors, the motive behind the attack was twofold to destroy evidence connected to the earlier assault and to silence Robbi through terror, violence, and even the extent of possible death before he could report what had happened. Now for investigators this deposition, it

changed everything. The original nineteen ninety eight case had largely centered around arson and aggravated assault allegations involving a child's suspect, But Robbie's final statement introduced a whole new alleged motive that prosecutors later argued transformed the crime into capital murder tied to another felony offense. Now, ultimately, I've alluded to this already, but seventeen days after giving that deposition, Robbie

Middleton passed away. He died on April twenty ninth, twenty eleven, in Galveston, only weeks before what would have been his twenty first birthday.

a civil lawsuit. This was a civil wrongful death lawsuit directly against Don Collins, arguing that the injuries Robbie suffered in nineteen ninety eight ultimately caused his death. Thirteen years later, an attorney, Ken Bigham Junior and Craig Sicco both took the case on pro bono, representing the family in this wrongful death suit against Dawn. Now this is not a criminal case. This is a civil case, mind you. From the beginning the goal was not The goal was not

about money for them. That was not what they were After everyone involved understood Don Collins would almost certainly never be capable of paying any sort of meaningful damages, so instead the lawsuit became something else. Entirely a public spotlight placed back onto the case that many believe the criminal justice system had failed to resolve, and the civil proceedings

centered heavily around Robbie's final deposition. Jurors heard about the attack in the woods, the years of suffering that followed, and the allegations that Dawn had sexually assaulted Robbie before burning him alive to silence him, and medical testimony connected Robbie's cancer directly to the injuries and skin graft procedures caused by the fire. The emotional impact over this was enormous, and by that point Robbie's story had already spread far

beyond just Splendora. The image of an eight year old boy surviving burns over nearly his entire body for more than a decade, only to later die from long term effects, ultimately turning into cancer, horrified people across the country. In December of twenty eleven, a jury in Lagrange sided with Robbie's family and they awarded them a one hundred and fifty billion with a b US dollars in damages against Don Collins. It became the largest civil verdict in American history.

impossible to ignore. Basically, Yeah, like trying to attract national attention, trying to basically put a big stamp of like, there's something wrong here, law enforcement, look into it. It's not about the dollars, it's about the attention.

case detectives Tommy Deroy and Terence Greenwood. Together with prosecutors and investigators, they began combing back through the enormous amount of material generated since nineteen ninety eight, and the scope of the review became absolutely massive. According to later testimony, investigators accumulated roughly fifty three thousand to fifty five thousand pages of reports and records. There were dozens of CDs

with informations. There was banker boxes full of evidence and statements, and well over a hundred interviews connected to this case. Witnesses who had spoken publicly in the years prior were all tracked down again. Old statements were re examined, Detectives revisited inconsistencies from the original investigation, and searched for anything prosecutors can now use to support the charge of murder.

One of the biggest changes was Robbie's deposition that videotape that became central to the entire reopened investigation and prosecutors belief Robbie's detailed account of the alleged earlier sexual assault and rape provided motive in a way the original investigators never fully understood in nineteen ninety eight, because, after all, now Robbie's not hallucinating anymore. He's very vivid about what he remembers. He is a witness to the event itself.

New witnesses slowly began to emerge, too, and among them were the cousin Heather White, the cousin of Dawn, and he told investigators Don confessed to her shortly after Robbie was actually attacked, and she later testified. Don admitted sexually assaulting and raping Robbie, tying him up, setting him on fire, all that because he directly feared that Robbie would tell someone what happened. But even with all these new statements,

there were still a major obstacle. Don Collins had been thirteen years old when Robbie was burned, and under Texas law in nineteen ninety eight, juveniles generally had to be at least fourteen years old before they could be transferred into adult court for a capital felony offense. Don had fallen below that threshold at the time of the attack.

But by twenty eleven, however, Texas law had changed. The state had lowered the transfer age to ten years old for certain offenses after the original investigation had collapsed, so prosecutors now argued something legally significant. The murder itself had not technically occurred until Robbie died in twenty eleven. That's when the murder took place. That meant, according to the state, the newer law applied.

spoke out. Heather white Don's cousin described the alleged confession she claimed Dawn made years earlier. Cold case investigators explained why they believe the case now contained evidence strong enough to finally proceed, and at one point during the hearing, Dawn himself even briefly took the stand, but he ended up invoking his Fifth Amendment right, stating quote I will

remain silent. Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that Robbie's final deposition, combined with the new witness statements uncovered during the cold case investigation, fundamentally changed the strength of the case compared to when

it occurred originally in nineteen ninety eight. The defense, though insisted nothing truly existed at all, But after hearing testimony for three days, Judge Kathleen Hamilton issued her ruling Don Collins would be transferred into adult court, and for the first time since Robbie Middleton stumbled burning out of the woods in nineteen ninety eight, the case was finally heading towards a murder trial. The trial for Robbie's murder began

in early twenty fifteen. Prosecutors argued Don Collins burned Robbie Middleton in an attempt to silence him after committing rape and sexual assault against him weeks earlier. Their case centered around motive, witness testimony, Robbie's disposition, and Don's later criminal history, as well as numerous alleged confessions made over the years. However,

defense attorney Tapond focused on several key arguments. There were no eyewitnesses, no one that saw Don commit the crime, There was no physical evidence that directly tied him to the attack, Robbie gave inconsistent statements in nineteen ninety eight, and trying Don as an adult violated constitutional protections.

In order to keep him silent, according to multiple reports, Don sat there in the courtroom with his back partially turned towards the projection screen and spent portions of the testimony reading a newspaper rather than watching Robbie.

to hit back end quote. And on February ninth, twenty fifteen, the jury found Don Collins guilty of the capital murder of Robbie Middleton.

sentencing was still limited. Even though prosecutors successfully tried him this way, their hands were still a bit tied, but the jury gave him the maximum that they could, and he received forty years in prison. Now, because of Texas sentencing rules, Don will eventually become eligible for parole after serving roughly half that sentence, though parole is far from guaranteed.

Defense attorney E. Ta Bond also announced plans to appeal all these things that largely focused on two arguments, whether Don could legally be tried as an adult under laws that changed after nineteen ninety eight, and whether Robbie's cancer legally constituted murder caused by the original burns, and those appeals were ultimately rejected.

He became known for encouraging younger burn victims, helping with fundraising efforts, and advocating for the hospital that helped save his life, and eventually, the city of Galveston recognized his impact by declaring June twenty eighth Robbie's birthday as Robert Middleton Day. A plaque featuring Robbie's photograph and the city's

proclamation was placed inside the Burn Center lobby. The attack on Robbie Middleton remained one of the most horrifying crimes many of the investigators and doctors and witnesses had ever encountered. An eight year old boy had walked into the woods on his birthday to go invite a friend to a backyard camp out, and he came back out burnt over nearly his entire body. By every medical expectation, Robbie should

have died in nineteen ninety eight. Instead, he survived long enough to tell investigators what had happened to him and to make a positive impact in others' lives. More than sixteen years after the fire, a jury finally believed him. He was more than a victim. He was funny, kind and inspiring even in the face of unimaginable pain. But also Robbie Middleton, he has since become a symbol of resilience, compassion, and the refusal to stop fighting. And that's the story

of Robbie Middleton. Oh that's a tough one to swallow.