Ex-wife’s testimony lands life sentence for man who stabbed and strangled woman to death with electrical cord before setting her house on fire 

Robert Francis Atkins, Joy Hibbs

Robert Francis Atkins and Joy Hibbs (Bucks County DA’s Office)

A 57-year-old man in Pennsylvania will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing a 35-year-old mother and wife inside her home, stabbing the victim before strangling her to death with an electrical cord before setting her house on fire.

Common Pleas Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. on Friday ordered Robert Francis Atkins to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the chance for parole for the 1991 slaying of Joy Hibbs, authorities announced.

Following a bench trial that ended earlier in the week and included particularly damning testimony from Atkins’ ex-wife, Bateman on Thursday found the defendant guilty on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of arson over the horrific attack. In addition to the life sentence, Bateman also sentenced Atkins to 5-10 years on the arson charges.

According to a news release from the district attorney’s office, Bateman handed down the sentence following an emotional sentencing hearing in which several of Joy Hibbs’ family members read victim impact statements, including her husband and two children.

“Joy was my high school sweetheart, my first love, mother to my children, and the loving soul that kept our family together,” her husband, Charlie Hibbs, said on Friday. “The choice he made that day broke our hearts but strengthened us as a family. According to my faith, I am supposed to forgive, and I am finding difficulty in doing so. But I hope that Mr. Atkins lives to be a very old man and thinks about the choices he made that day and all the things he has missed while spending time incarcerated.”

Charlie Hibbs added, “As this nightmare comes to an end for my family, his is about to start.”

A break in the decades-old murder came after Robert Atkins’ ex-wife provided investigators with crucial information implicating him as the killer.

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