In a hospital exam room in Hartsville, South Carolina, investigators say a 53-year-old woman suddenly asked them if they had found any blood. According to police, no one had just asked her about a weapon or a wound.
Alleged New Year’s Day Attack
The woman is identified in court records and police documents as Robin Todd. According to a report by Law&Crime, Todd is accused of stabbing her boyfriend in the early hours of New Year’s Day at a residence on Logan Avenue in Hartsville, a small city in Darlington County in northeastern South Carolina.
Hartsville police say officers responded shortly after midnight to a 911 call about a disturbance at the home. When they arrived, they found an injured man outside the residence. According to the Law&Crime report, the man told officers that his girlfriend had stabbed him.
Officers then tried to make contact at the house. They knocked on the door, but Todd allegedly refused to come out. At some point, she reportedly turned off the lights inside. The publicly available reporting does not describe how officers eventually got inside, how long they remained at the scene, or how Todd was taken into custody.
The Hartsville home sits in a small city that describes itself as a regional hub for northeastern South Carolina, according to the City of Hartsville. Most of what is known about what happened inside that Logan Avenue residence comes from what police say the two people involved later told them.
Unprompted Statements At The Hospital
After the initial response, Todd was taken to a hospital, where she was evaluated under police supervision. It was there, investigators say, that she began making statements that officers interpreted as incriminating.
According to Law&Crime, detectives wrote that Todd asked, without being prompted, “If I stabbed him, did you find any blood?” She allegedly followed that with another statement: “If I did stab him, he wasn’t supposed to be at my house anyway.”
Officers also noted an apparent inconsistency. According to the same report, one officer wrote that Todd had previously told him the man had a key to the home, which would appear to conflict with the idea that he was not supposed to be there.
Police have not publicly released full audio or video of the hospital interaction, so it is not yet clear what specific questions preceded those remarks, whether Todd had been advised of her rights, or whether any attorney had been requested or appointed by that point. In many criminal cases, prosecutors rely heavily on what they describe as voluntary, unprompted statements from people in custody, but how a judge views those statements depends on the precise circumstances in which they were made.
The Charges And Potential Penalties
Hartsville Police booked Todd on one count of attempted murder and one count of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. The charging documents described in the Law&Crime report allege that she tried to kill the man by stabbing him with a knife or similar object.
Attempted murder in South Carolina is a serious felony. Under state law, a person commits attempted murder when they attempt to kill another person with malice aforethought, according to the South Carolina Statehouse. The statute allows for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison if a defendant is convicted.
The related charge of possessing a weapon during a violent crime is a separate felony. State law provides that a person who is in possession of a firearm or knife while committing certain violent offenses can face additional prison time on top of any sentence for the underlying crime. The exact exposure depends on the facts of the case and the defendant’s record.
At this point, those charges are allegations only. Todd has not entered a public plea in the case described in the Law&Crime story. Prosecutors will eventually have to present evidence in court that supports each element of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.
Detention And Case Status
According to the same reporting, Todd is being held without bond at the W. Glenn Campbell Detention Center in Darlington County. The facility houses people awaiting trial as well as individuals serving short sentences for local offenses.
Law&Crime reported that the case had not yet been docketed in the Darlington County court system at the time of its article. That typically means that, while an arrest has been made and charges have been entered, formal court hearings such as arraignments or indictments may still be pending and no detailed case file is yet available in the public docket.
The outlet also noted that public records show prior charges involving Todd dating back to 2015. The article did not specify which offenses those were or whether they resulted in convictions. Without those details, it is not possible from the public reporting alone to determine how Todd’s past record might influence bond decisions, plea negotiations, or potential sentencing in the current case.
What Remains Unclear
Although the outline of the allegations is now public, significant aspects of the case remain unknown. Police and prosecutors have not released a full narrative of what they believe led up to the stabbing, including whether any earlier disputes between the two were reported to authorities.
The publicly available reporting does not state how severe the man’s injuries were, what treatment he received, or whether he remained hospitalized. It also does not indicate whether investigators recovered a weapon, collected physical evidence inside the Logan Avenue home, or documented any defensive wounds, all of which could become central at trial.
There is also no public information yet about whether officers wore body cameras during the initial response or hospital contact or whether any 911 audio will be released. In other South Carolina cases, such records have become important in testing whether statements were truly unprompted and voluntary or whether they came after extended questioning.
For now, the most detailed account of the incident comes through what officers say Todd and the injured man told them, as summarized in the Law&Crime article. Todd’s reported question about blood may eventually be presented as powerful evidence at trial. It is not yet clear how a jury or judge will weigh those words once the full context of that New Year’s Day call is finally laid out in a public courtroom.
