Man Who Was Raped And Burned At Age Eight Names His Attacker On His Death Bed
“He took me out into the woods where I was burned. He pulled my clothes down and started raping me.”
In 1998, when he was eight years old, Robbie Middleton was led into the woods by his thirteen-year-old neighbor, Donald Collins. There, according to Middleton, Collins raped him. Two weeks after the rape, on Middleton’s eighth birthday, Collins took Middleton, tied him to a tree, poured gasoline on him, and set him on fire.
Middleton suffered horrific burns over 99% of his body and endured multiple surgeries in an attempt to improve his physical condition. In 2011, he died of cancer which, according to his doctors, was caused by burns inflicted by Donald Collins. It is believed that Collins burned Middleton in an attempt to make sure he couldn’t tell anyone about rape the had Collins had committed. At the time, Collins was a suspect but was released because of lack of evidence.
“He remembers standing up and rubbing his eyes and he realized he was on fire.”
Three years later, in 2001, a sixteen-year-old Collins was arrested for raping another eight-year-old boy, this time at gunpoint, and served four years in juvenile detention.
Now Collins is twenty nine years old and is being tried for felony murder of Robbie Middleton four years after Middleton died. However, before he died he left deathbed testimony which was played before a Galveston, Texas court room. In it, he names Collins as both his rapist and mutilator.
While the jury intently watched the video, Collins kept his back turned to the screen and appeared to be reading a newspaper.
