Bedford man gets life sentence in fatal stabbing of pregnant girlfriend

A Tarrant County jury rejected Robert Atlas’ account of killing his pregnant girlfriend in self-defense and convicted him Friday of capital murder.

Atlas, 28, of Bedford was automatically sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

“Stabbing a woman who is pregnant in the stomach multiple times is one of the most brutal acts I’ve ever seen,” prosecutor Lisa Callaghan told the jury in her closing argument.

“His doing this proves that this defendant is the kind of person who needs to be kept behind bars for the rest of his life.”

The body of Tracy Anderson, 27, was found on March 23, 2014, in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Atlas.

Police were called by her mother who was worried that she hadn’t heard from Anderson. Police found the door of the apartment in the 2500 block of Central Park Boulevard damaged, as if someone had broken in. Anderson left a trail of blood as she crawled from the bathroom to the bedroom.

Atlas was arrested three days later near Shreveport where he was found asleep in his Dodge Charger in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Anderson and Atlas had a tumultuous relationship, according to witness testimony. Callaghan questioned Atlas about bringing a co-worker to their apartment for sex. Anderson had told Atlas that she had no tolerance for infidelity before she caught him with the co-worker, hadn’t she? Callaghan asked.

“You fancy yourself as a smooth talker, don’t you?” Callaghan asked. “You like the ladies and the ladies like you?”

Atlas answered yes to each question.

On the night Anderson was killed, before he came home Atlas was out with another woman he found on the same website where he found Anderson, prosecutor Art Clayton told the jury.

On the floor of the courtroom, prosecutors created a mock-up of the bathroom where the fatal stabbing occurred, and members of the district attorney’s staff acted out the murder with Atlas’ direction from the witness stand.

“We wanted to show that it was such a small room the murder could not have happened the way that he said that it happened,” Clayton said.

But the most damming evidence was the number of stab wounds, 56, found on Anderson’s body, prosecutors said.

“The kind of attack she endured was truly horrible and vicious,” Clayton said. “There is no way this could have been self-defense.”

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 6:08 PM.