ALLENTOWN, Pa. – One of the Lehigh Valley’s most notorious killers has eluded the execution chamber again.

Last month, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Secretary Laurel Harry signed a notice of execution setting March 24, 2026, for the execution of serial killer Harvey Miguel Robinson of Allentown.

The execution was immediately stayed by Governor Josh Shapiro, a process that has become routine in Pennsylvania, which has not carried out a death penalty sentence since 1999.

Robinson’s crimes stunned the Allentown area in the 1990s. He was 17-years-old when his rape and murder spree began. His victims were Joan Burghardt, a 29-year-old nurse’s aide; Charlotte Schmoyer, a 15-year-old newspaper carrier and Dieruff High School student; and Jessican Jean Fortney, a 47-year-old grandmother.

Two other victims- a 5-year-old girl; and another woman, Denise Sam-Cali- survived.

Robinson returned to Sam-Cali’s house a second time after the first attack in 1993. Police officers were waiting for him. Robinson was shot in an exchange of gunfire with police and finally was arrested when he went to a hospital for treatment.

All of the attacks happened on Allentown’s east side, not far from Robinson’s house.

Robinson was convicted in all of the attacks and sentenced to die for his crimes.

In 2019, following a court decision that banned the death penalty for juvenile offenders, Robinson was resentenced to life in prison for the Burghardt murder, because he was a minor when the crime occurred.

He agreed to waive his appeal rights in the Schmoyer case in exchange for a life sentence. But the death penalty in Fortney’s murder was upheld.

Shapiro has been vocal in his opposition to capital punishment. He has continued enforcing a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania, which was put in place by his predecessor, Tom Wolf, in 2015.

“I have previously stated that I will not authorize any execution warrants during my tenure and that I will issue a reprieve in every instance,” Shapiro wrote, in his proclamation in the Robinson case.

Robinson is now 51-years old. He’s an inmate at SCI Phoenix in Skippack Township.