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The mother of a five-year-old who was shot and killed in Knoxville on Saturday has been released on bond Wednesday after being charged with tampering with evidence.

Robin Howington was released on bond set at $20,000 for each charge – two counts of tampering with evidence – in a shooting that claimed the life of her five-year-old daughter.

Knoxville police said Wednesday they had charged Howington, 36, with two counts of tampering with evidence in a shooting that claimed the life of her five-year-old daughter.

KPD responded to a reported shooting on the 500 block of Balsam Drive just before 9 p.m. Saturday. After being transported to the UT Medical Center, the victim, a 5-year-old girl, succumbed to her injuries.

Once at the hospital, Howington did not want to give officers her cell phone and attempted to destroy the phone placing it under running water because she feared it would have evidence of drug sales on it.

Howington admitted to hiding the firearm that was used in the shooting and wiping the gun down prior to hiding it in the bushes. She also admitted to altering the crime scene back to its normal state.

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has opened an investigation related to this incident.
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The Knoxville mother accused of tampering with evidence in her 5-year-old daughter's shooting death told police three different stories about what happened, records show.

Police responded Sept. 14 to a home on Balsam Drive in Fountain City, where they found the girl, Destiny Oliver, suffering from a gunshot wound. She was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

The girl's mother, 36-year-old Robin Howington, initially told police an unknown man entered her home, pointed a gun at her daughter and shot her once in the chest before running outside, getting into a black Chrysler 300 and driving away, Knoxville Police Department Investigator Tim Riddle wrote in a search warrant.

Howington then changed her story and said it was Destiny's father who came to her home and shot their daughter before getting in a white Chrysler 300 and driving away. Howington identified the father through a photo lineup and said the two have a "volatile relationship," Riddle wrote.

When investigators questioned Howington about a handgun found hidden in a bush near her home, she claimed her boyfriend — a different man than Destiny's father — put it there. But a neighbor captured video footage showing Howington hiding it there herself, according to the warrant.

When confronted, Howington admitting to wiping down the gun and throwing it in the bush. She then changed her story again, this time claiming her 2-year-old son "climbed into her closet, retrieved the 9 mm gun from the top of her closet using a stool taken from the living room, and shot" Destiny in the chest, Riddle wrote.

Howington's boyfriend later told police he saw her pull a gun on Destiny's father in the front yard the day of the shooting, according to the warrant. The father took the gun away from her, the boyfriend said.

Riddle wrote in the search warrant that he believes Howington lied and tampered with evidence "to hide the true identity of the suspect/suspects."

Investigators obtained the warrant to examine the contents of Howington's phone. The phone wasn't working when it was seized, but police are trying to recover data from it.
 
A Knoxville mother now faces multiple charges, including felony murder, in the death of her 5-year-old daughter.

Robin Howington, 36, was arrested in September after her daughter, Destiny Oliver, was shot and killed in their Fountain City home.

She was initially charged with tampering with evidence after investigators said she changed her story several times as to what happened to Destiny.

An arrest warrant also said Howington wiped and stashed the gun and moved other items at the crime scene and that she refused to give investigators her phone. Investigators said she put her phone underwater in hopes of destroying it. Documents state Howington feared the phone would have evidence of drug sales on it.

She waived her right to a preliminary hearing in December and the case was sent to the grand jury for review.

This week, the grand jury returned an indictment against Howingtown for felony murder, aggravated child neglect, false report, tampering with evidence and attempted tampering with evidence.

According to the indictment, the grand jury found that Howington "did unlawfully kill [Destiny Oliver] during the perpetration of aggravated child neglect"
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A Knox County jury began hearing testimony Monday in the 2019 killing of a 5-year-old girl where it's not absolutely clear who pulled the trigger.
Robin Howington, 41, is accused in Knox County Criminal Court in the felony murder of her daughter, Destiny Oliver. In addition to felony murder, which alleges a killing committed during the commission of another felony, Howington is also charged with aggravated child neglect, evidence tampering, making a false report and attempted evidence tampering.
Prosecutors Franklin Ammons and Ashley McDermott allege Howington lied and tried to deceive police repeatedly after the child was shot in the chest. She variously blamed a random man, her daughter's father and her 2-year-old son for pulling the trigger.
At the hospital where she learned her daughter had died, she asked a woman in a restroom to get rid of her cellphone, indicative of her deceptive attempts to avoid police scrutiny, Ammons told jurors in his opening statement. Found on the phone were messages about selling narcotics, previous testimony has shown.


Howington's gun was used to kill Destiny, Ammons said, and Howington is the one who tried to hide the gun under a bush outside the house immediately after the shooting.
The mother never took responsibility for what happened, Ammons said.

"She is tossing everything she can out there," he told jurors in his opening statement.
Defense attorney Mike Whalen countered that on the night of the shooting Howington was a shell-shocked mom enduring post-traumatic stress disorder from a prior sexual assault. She was in no rational frame of mind, he told jurors.


"If you were in her position would you be making rational decisions?" Whalen quizzed the jury.
What happened was an accidental shooting -- a "family tragedy" -- involving a 2.5-year-old child, Whalen said, suggesting Howington's young son got the gun and fired a bullet that hit his sister.


Howington had texted as much to an acquaintance after the shooting, lawyers say. When she called 911 to report that a random man had entered her home that night, her young son could be heard in the background, at times crying.
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A Knoxville mother was convicted on Friday of negligence leading to her daughter’s death in 2019 and is now facing a minimum of 15-25 years in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the Knox County District Attorney’s Office.


Robin Rebecca Howington, 41, was convicted of reckless homicide, two counts of aggravated child neglect, tampering with evidence, attempted tampering with evidence, and false reports, DA Charme Allen’s office released.
 
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