$150B Awarded Against Rapist Who Set Boy on Fire, But No Prosecution

A record setting jury award to the family of a Texas child who was raped and murdered has lawyers wondering, where are the criminal charges?

• Robbie Middleton raped, then set on fire in 1998, died this year from complications
• Civil jury holds Don Willburn Collins responsible, but county officials have not brought criminal case
• Collins jailed for separate sex charges, up for parole next year

Robbie Middleton after burn attack

“The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen”

A Texas jury this week awarded a largely symbolic $150 billion in punitive damages to the family of Robert Middleton, who in 1998 at the age of seven was sexually assaulted,then doused in gasoline and set on fire by Don Willburn Collins, the family asserts. Earlier this year, Middleton died from complications from the burns. Collins, who is in prison for unrelated sex offense charges, is up for parole in 2012 and has never been prosecuted for the attack on Middleton.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” says attorney Craig Sico, who litigated the case pro-bono for the Middleton family. Sico says the family understands they will never see the $150 billion punitive judgment from Collins, nor the $370 million awarded in actual damages.

“The family understood from beginning they will not be receiving a penny,” Sico says. “The purpose of the litigation was to turn attention to Montgomery County and ask why they won’t do their job.”

“The Middletons don’t want money from this, they just want justice.”

Unthinkable Attack Leads to Death 13 Years Later

Robbie Middleton

The story began in 2008, when 7-year-old Robbie Middleton was walking through the woods near his home in Splendora, in Texas’ Montgomery County. It was there he said he was attacked and sexually assaulted by the neighborhood bully, then 13-year-old Don Willburn Collins. Two weeks later, on the boy’s eighth birthday, he was again attacked in the woods by Collins. This time, he said he saw Collins throw gasoline in his face, then, blinded, felt the older boy tie him to a tree with fishing line, pour more gasoline on him, and ignite the fuel. The fishing line melted in the fire, and Middleton was able to escape to a neighbor’s yard.

He was admitted to the hospital with third degree burns covering 99 percent of his body. The Shriners Burn Hospital in Galveston treated Middleton with extensive surgical procedures and skin replacements, over 100 surgeries in all. The expert treatment saved the boy’s life, if only temporarily.

On April 29, 2011, Middleton finally succumbed to Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Skin Invading Abdominal Cavity, a cancer caused exclusively by burn damages, doctors testified. What had been an attempted murder in 1998 came to completion this year.

Evidence but No Criminal Charges

Two weeks before he died, Robert Middleton created a video deposition where he identified Don Willburn Collins as his attacker. “He testified that he’d been raped by Don Collins and where,” Sico says. “He saw Don Collins before he threw the gasoline.” The evidence presented by the family was enough to convince the jury to hold Collins responsible.

Attorney Craig Sico

As far as criminal charges go, there has been no news for 13 years. The Middleton family contends that no Montgomery County officials spoke to Robert when he was recovering in the hospital.

The only response to the civil suit by the Montgomery County Attorney’s Office has been to open a cold case file on the Middleton murder, which may indicate an investigation but also allowed them to block lawyers from subpoenaing their files for the civil case. “They don’t disclose their files to us, they won’t talk to me,” Sico says. “We don’t know why.”

Though the attack took place 13 years ago, Texas has no statute of limitations on murder cases, and a statute of limitations for aggravated sexual assault only kicks in ten years after the victim’s 18th birthday. Robert Middleton was twenty years old when he died this year.

The Montgomery County Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Attacker Could Be Freed Next Year

Mugshots of Don Willburn Collins

Collins, meanwhile, was convicted in 2001 of aggravated sexual assault against a different 8-year-old boy and spent four years in juvenile detention. He has since been convicted of theft and resisting arrest in 2007, and in 2009 and 2010 for failing to comply with his sex registry requirements. He is currently in prison on the second charge, and up for parole in 2012.

The consequences of his release could be grave, says Sico. “I don’t believe he is done preying on children,” the attorney says. “And if he continues to refuse to register as sex offender, I don’t know how anyone in the community where he lives will know who he is or what he’s done.”

Collins’ public sex offender profile lists him as a “moderate” risk, with an ending registration date in 2016.

Aaron Kase is a news reporter for Lawyers.com.

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