Investigators say a woman repeatedly kept her former boyfriend outside before he allegedly entered anyway and confronted her with a machete.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — For hours, according to police, a Columbus woman did not open her door to a former boyfriend who repeatedly asked to come inside. By morning she believed he had gone, but investigators say Robert Robbins instead appeared inside the home using a key he had previously told her was lost.
What police allege happened next resulted in a felony charge. Robbins, 40, is accused of confronting the woman with a machete, cutting her hair and injuring her head and hands as she struggled to get away. Officers responding shortly before 8 a.m. Sept. 6 found the woman with a visible head injury at the home in the 600 block of South 22nd Street. She was taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, and Robbins was subsequently charged with felonious assault with a deadly weapon.
The case stands out in the public court-record account because investigators describe a clear refusal at the door before the alleged violence inside. The woman told police Robbins had returned to her home the previous evening after being gone for several days. They argued outside. She then went into the residence, while Robbins remained outdoors. Police say he knocked repeatedly over the next several hours and asked to be admitted. The woman did not let him in, according to the account reported from the court records.
That sequence places the alleged retained key at the point where the encounter changed. At some point in the morning, the woman believed Robbins had left and sat down inside the home. Police say Robbins then entered using the key he had said was lost. The records described in published reports do not say why he had previously told her the key was missing, whether he had once routinely used it or whether she had asked him to return it. Those questions remain unanswered and should not be filled with assumptions about the former couple’s living arrangements.
Investigators allege Robbins was angry because the woman had refused to let him inside. She told police he approached with a machete held behind his back. Authorities say he then got on top of her and began cutting her hair with the blade while she struggled. The woman suffered a cut to the top of her head and cuts to her hand or hands, according to reports based on the filings. Her injuries were reported as not life-threatening. No more detailed medical account has been publicly established in the material reviewed for this story.
The alleged conduct was reported to police as domestic violence, terminology that reflects the claimed relationship between the people involved as well as the nature of the call. Ohio law includes current and certain former dating relationships within statutory definitions used for domestic violence protections. That context helps explain why officers responding to an alleged confrontation involving an ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend would treat the relationship as significant. It does not, however, establish a separate domestic violence conviction or even a separate criminal charge.
The criminal count publicly reported against Robbins is felonious assault with a deadly weapon. Ohio law provides that a person commits felonious assault by knowingly causing or attempting to cause physical harm to another person by means of a deadly weapon or dangerous ordnance. The offense is generally a second-degree felony. Prosecutors’ decision to file that count identifies the legal theory reflected in the available case record, while the longer narrative about the door, the key and the argument supplies the surrounding factual allegations.
Those surrounding allegations also show why precise attribution matters. Police did not witness the hours leading up to the alleged attack, based on the accounts available publicly. Much of the chronology came from what the woman told investigators after officers reached the residence and after she was taken for medical treatment. Her statement may become evidence in court, along with any other material investigators gathered, but the published reports do not detail the full evidence file. There is no verified basis to describe every allegation in her account as an established fact.
Authorities have not publicly identified the woman in the reporting reviewed for this article. They also have not disclosed whether another person was present during the alleged assault, whether neighbors reported hearing the earlier knocking or whether investigators recovered the machete. The record summaries do not describe photographs, video or forensic testing. Those may or may not exist. Their absence from news reports should not be taken as proof either that the evidence exists or that it does not.
After his arrest, Robbins appeared in court and received a $50,000 bond. Reports of the arraignment said the judge ordered that, if released, he have no contact with the woman, possess no firearm and use no drugs or alcohol. No-contact conditions can create a legally enforceable separation while a case is pending, but they do not determine whether the defendant committed the charged offense. The bond proceeding addressed the immediate management of the case, not its ultimate outcome.
The early court setting is also important. Municipal courts in Ohio have authority to conduct initial proceedings and preliminary hearings in felony cases. A felony accusation can later proceed through additional stages if prosecutors continue the case, but the accessible reports reviewed here do not establish which later steps, if any, have occurred in Robbins’ prosecution. There is no verified basis in those reports to announce an indictment, trial setting or plea that has not been documented.
Nor do the available materials establish a broader history between Robbins and the woman. They are consistently described as former romantic partners, but the reports do not say when the relationship ended, how long it lasted, whether the two had previously lived together or whether police had responded to earlier incidents involving them. Adding an assumed pattern of prior abuse would go beyond the verified record. The Sept. 6 allegations are serious enough to report without assigning a history that authorities have not publicly documented.
Within the facts that have been released, the woman’s effort to keep the door closed forms the dividing line in the chronology. She went inside after the argument and did not admit Robbins despite repeated requests, according to police. She later believed he had left. Investigators then allege that the key he had said was missing allowed him to enter anyway. The felony charge stems from the violent encounter police say followed, not simply from the existence or possession of the key.
As of Oct. 21, accessible reporting reviewed for this article established Robbins’ arrest, one reported count of felonious assault with a deadly weapon, the woman’s hospital treatment and the $50,000 bond set at arraignment. No verified final adjudication was located. Robbins therefore remains accused of the attack, and the allegations have not been reported here as a judicial finding of guilt.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 21, 2026.