The shocking true story behind ‘The Dating App Killer’
Netflix is now officially home to yet another Lifetime thriller, The Dating App Killer: The Monica White Story, and all viewers can ask about is its origin story.
The movie initially premiered on Lifetime earlier this year before being licensed to Netflix for subscription streaming, starting August 15th, and for those curious, it indeed has a shocking true story behind it.
Directed by Elisabeth Röhm, whose Lifetime credits also include Husband, Father, Killer: The Alyssa Pladl Story, The Dating App Killer follows divorcee Monica White, who, while adjusting to an empty nest following her son’s enrolment in the military school, turns to online dating and matches with a charming man, Anthony, who, unknown to her, harbours the darkest secrets.
Monica White is the real-life figure whose true story forms the plot of The Dating App Killer. She met a real-life Anthony Robinson in 2020 after matching with him on a dating app, and while the two dated for a few months, the former called off the relationship after he started displaying erratic behaviour towards her and her family.
It turned out that Anthony Robinson was actually a convicted serial killer, AKA the Shopping Cart Killer, whom White was dating shortly before his 2021 arrest. Robinson allegedly used shopping carts to move around his victims’ bodies, which is how he earned his name.
Police authorities in Harrisonburg, Virginia, reportedly discovered the dead bodies of Allene Elizabeth Redmon and Tonita Smith in November 2021, and both allegedly met Robinson on dating apps. The Shopping Cart Killer was linked to both women through surveillance footage and mobile records later in the same year that White ended the relationship with Robinson.
Robinson was reportedly found guilty on all six counts of the Redmon and Smith murder case, including two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of first-degree murder, and two counts of concealing a dead body in 2025. He received two life terms and was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2026.
Additionally, police have identified Robinson as the primary suspect in the murders of Cheyenne Brown and Stephen Harrison, whose bodies were discovered together in 2021.
Although he was not charged with those killings, investigators also explored his potential involvement in the 2021 Sonya Champ murder case and Skye Allen’s death in 2018, who happened to be Robinson’s former fiancée.