GREENE — Mark Robert last saw his daughter, Adrianne, on June 23, when she came up for her cousin’s wedding.

“At 2 p.m. this afternoon, we got a phone call telling us our daughter was dead in Florida,” Mark Robert said Saturday night from his home in Greene. “She was supposed to be moving in with the love of her life today, and unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”

Police in Pinellas County, Fla., were investigating 29-year-old Adrianne Robert’s death in her Clearwater Florida apartment. She was found by her roommate, Jay Leffue, at 3:30 a.m., according to an online report in the Tampa Bay Times.

Police wouldn’t comment on the investigation and had not released the cause of death.

“Adrianne was chipper, wonderful,” her father said. “It was a wonderful conversation. Adrianne was a sweet girl. She’d give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. She’d give it up, and do whatever she could to help people. She just had a big heart.”

He said she was scheduled to move in with her new boyfriend, Justin Pounders of St. Petersburg, this weekend. Mark Robert and his wife, Lori, spoke with Pounders on Saturday afternoon.

“They were moving in, and he told us he was going to propose to her on her 30th birthday, this January,” he said. “It’s sad for us, but it’s sad for him, too. He found the love of his life. And now she’s gone.”

Robert was a 2001 graduate of Leavitt Area High School, a member of the school’s cheerleading squad and co-founder of the Buzz, the school newspaper.

She got her start as a graphic designer at the Sun Journal, working as a page designer from May 2004 through March 2007.

“She had everything we needed for the job, and she was really good at it,” said Peter Phelan, managing editor/nights at the Sun Journal, who hired Robert. “Everyone liked her, liked having her around the office. She was very lively and volunteered to help anybody out.”

She moved to Florida in 2007. She was currently working for H.I. Development, a business consulting firm specializing in the hotel industry. She’d also started Splatter Concepts, a graphic design firm, with a friend.

Her father said he talked to her co-workers Saturday.

“Everyone we’ve talked to said that she had a smile that just made everyone smile,” Robert said. “She was great at what she did. They described her as ‘profoundly amazing.'”

The family plans to leave Sunday to go to Florida to bring the body back for burial. A local memorial service has been scheduled.

Robert said police have told family members about the investigation, but he was unable to comment.

“I don’t know enough to tell anybody anything,” Robert said. “I have to do what I can to keep it together, and I just don’t know how to deal with it.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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