Angela Rabotte: After 2 years, family gets closure in case of Atlanta dancer found dead in woods

Angela Rabotte, 26, was a mother to 3-year-old Sharon when she was killed execution-style by Charles Outlaw on March 29, 2014. Outlaw was convicted on August 17, 2016.

Exotic dancers in Atlanta, Georgia, all tell nightmarish tales about disrespectful patrons and jealous boyfriends. But the story of Angela Rabotte, a 26-year-old dancer whose body was found in the woods in spring 2014, continues to resonate in this city of strip clubs and neon lights.

Police believe that Angela Rabotte, a popular dancer who performed under the name "Climax," was killed March 29, 2014 because she had a run-in with a man who was close to her and was trying to be her manager and boyfriend at the same time. 

After two years of legal wrangling, including a mistrial, Charles Thomas Outlaw was convicted in August 2016 of the murder of Rabotte.

According to court documents, Outlaw had told friends that things “accidentally happened” between the two after he gave her a ride from dancing one night, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post. 

Rabotte was a caring person and mother to a 6-year-girl. The child is being raised by her father.

“She will never know what it’s like to have a mother love her for the rest of her life,”  Darryl Campbell, Rabotte's former boyfriend, said in court during Outlaw's sentencing in August.

Campbell said he never trusted Outlaw: "He was just the perfect criminal. I never had any doubt he was involved. Because his stories never added up, even from the beginning," he told WGCL two years ago.

The victim’s mother, Judy Rabotte, said that she had always suspected Outlaw knew more than he let on about the slaying, which sent shockwaves across Atlanta's adult dancer community.

“I had a very long conversation with him when she went missing,” the mother told the Gwinnett Daily Post. “The story kept changing. I never believed it from the get-go, because he couldn’t get the story straight.”

According to testimony culled from investigator Bert Ross, Outlaw shot Rabotte while he was giving her a ride home. The two got into an argument after Rabotte had performed a bachelor party earlier that night. Police said that he dumped her body near a roadside and continued on his way.

Later it would be revealed that he would ask acquaintances about  how to dispose of shell casings and whether a disabled cell phone could be tracked.

Outlaw's first trial ended in a mistrial after prosecutors bungled the case by accidentally playing an interview that mentioned Outlaw's previous criminal record, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The defense team seized on the mistake and insisted to the judge that there was no way Outlaw could get a fair trial.

Campbell, speaking to Atlanta TV station WGCL in July 2014, said that his daughter was confused as to why her mother was no longer present in her life.

"It is so sad," Campbell said. "Cause she (Sharon) asks questions. ‘When is mommy coming home? When is mommy coming out of the sky?' And I just don't know how to answer those questions."

Outlaw was a calculating killer. He was apprehended by police while among a search party looking for Rabotte's body.

People in a search party for Angela Rabotte collapse in grief in 2014 after it was confirmed that the body found in the woods was into her.