Murder.com (10 page)

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mong serial killers, John E Robinson is unique. During a career of trawling for victims, this murderer graduated from newspaper personal ads to the internet with homicidal results, earning in the process the distinction of becoming the first cyber serial murderer.

Robinson’s case exposed a strange and dangerous secret world of bondage and sadomasochistic sex – one that is flourishing in chatrooms and on other websites today.

But who is this man? Where did he come from and what were the circumstances that brought him the notoriety he so richly deserves? John E Robinson, known to his friends as JR, was born on Monday, 27 December 1943, in Cicero, Illinois, a working-class suburb of Chicago.

One of five children in a devout Roman Catholic family, John grew up at 4916 West 32nd Street. His father, Henry, worked as
a machinist for Western Electric and, although respectable enough, was given to occasional bouts of heavy drinking.

By all accounts, John’s mother, Alberta, was the backbone of the family and ensured that the couple’s five offspring had a decent upbringing.

At 13, John became an Eagle Scout and in November 1957 was chosen as the leader of 120 Scouts who flew to London to appear before the Queen at the Palladium theatre. A popular boy, he had an engaging smile that seems to have served him well.

At 21, he married Nancy Jo Lynch and moved to Kansas City, where Dr Wallace Graham employed John as a lab technician and office manager. Dr Graham was, for many years, the personal physician to no less eminent a patient than the former US President Harry S Truman.

Robinson began his criminal activities in 1967, but he soon came unstuck and was placed on probation for three years. He had embezzled $33,000 from Dr Graham. A spell of probation did not deter the young man, who, after becoming a manager in a TV rental business, started stealing merchandise from his new employer. The company fired him, but did not prosecute.

Over the next decade, Robinson – of whom one employer said he ‘gave a very good impression, well dressed, nice looking… seemed to know a lot, very glib and a good speaker’ – was often in trouble with the police. He defrauded tens of thousands of dollars from companies who took him on, and set up his own bogus businesses to help him along the way. But, despite being on parole for most of the time, he still managed to prosper.

In 1977, Robinson bought a large house set in four acres in Pleasant Valley Farms, an affluent and prosperous neighbourhood
in Johnson County, Kansas. By now, he and Nancy had four children and it was here, in picturesque, rural surroundings, that the confidence trickster and embezzler formed another company, Hydro-Gro Inc, which dealt in hydroponics.

His own publicity material, a 64-page brochure, portrayed him as a sought-after lecturer and author and ‘one of the nation’s pioneers in indoor home hydroponics’. He managed somehow to engineer his appointment to the board of governors of a workshop for disabled people. He had been involved with the workshop for scarcely more than two months when he was named ‘Man of the Year’ for his work with handicapped people. Amid much publicity, the
Kansas City Times
proclaimed Robinson’s virtues and, at a special dinner and presentation ceremony, he was given a grandiose gesture of approbation in the form of a certificate signed by the mayor.

A short time later, however, the meritorious award was exposed as having been obtained fraudulently. It had been granted as a result of faked letters of commendation received at City Hall, all written by none other than ‘Man of the Year’ himself, John E Robinson.

Nevertheless, in 1980 Robinson was given the position of director of personnel by another company, and very soon he homed in, like a heat-seeking missile, on his employers’ money, directing some of it into his own bank account. After diverting $40,000 to PSA, a company he owned, he yet again found himself placed on probation, this time for five years.

Undaunted by this latest setback, Robinson founded yet another firm, Equi-Plus, to add to his impressive portfolio. This newcomer to the Robinson stable specialised in management
consultancy and was very soon engaged by Back Care Systems, a company which ran seminars on the treatment of back pain.

Equi-Plus was asked to prepare a package that included a marketing plan, printed publicity material and videos. However, what the company actually provided was a string of inflated, and in some cases bogus, invoices. Once again, a criminal investigation was begun into the business activities of John Robinson, who responded by producing a series of faked affidavits, all of which attested to the legitimacy of the invoices.

While the investigation continued, Robinson founded Equi-II and it was while at the helm of this new outfit that he moved into a sphere of activities far more sinister than fraud and embezzlement.

With the $40,000 of stolen funds, JR acquired an apartment in Olathe, a town to the south of Kansas City. Here he was able to enjoy sexual affairs with two women, one of whom is quoted as saying, ‘John kind of swept me off my feet. He treated me like a queen and always had money to take me to nice restaurants and hotels.’

But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and retribution loomed on the horizon for the thieving and libidinous Robinson. The theft of the money resulted in his being convicted and, given his criminal record, this time he faced a possible prison sentence of seven years. However, he escaped with having to spend only a couple of months behind bars and once more found himself placed on probation for five years.

In 1984, an attractive young woman named Paula Godfrey went to work for JR at Equi-II. She was told by her new boss that she was going to be sent to Texas to attend a training course paid for by the company. Robinson collected Paula from her parents’
home in Overland Park, a southern suburb of Kansas City, to drive her to the airport.

Her family never saw her again.

Having heard nothing from their daughter for several days, Paula’s parents became anxious and eventually contacted the police to report her missing. The police questioned Robinson, but when he professed ignorance of Paula’s whereabouts they went away satisfied with what he had told them. Not long afterwards, the police received a letter bearing Paula Godfrey’s signature which began: ‘By the time you read this I’ll be long gone. I haven’t decided on Cleveland, Chicago or Denver, oh well.’ In the rest of the letter, Paula seemed to be saying that she was perfectly fine but didn’t want to remain in touch with her family.

After reading the letter, the police closed their investigation. It is now widely believed that Paula Godfrey was JR’s first murder victim, as she has never been seen again.

In pursuit of his new vocation as a philanthropic helper of young women, JR approached the Truman Medical Center, a Kansas City hospital. There he spoke to social workers, telling them that he, together with some other local businessmen, had formed Kansas City Outreach. This was a charitable organisation, he said, which would provide young unmarried mothers with housing and career training, along with a babysitting service. He pitched the same story to Birthright, an organisation which gave help to young pregnant women.

According to the writer David McClintick, JR told both organisations that Outreach was likely to receive ‘funding from Xerox, IBM and other major corporations’. In any event, the
great philanthropist asked the social workers to submit candidates who they felt would be suitable for the Outreach programme and in early January 1985 he was contacted by the Truman Medical Center and put in touch with Lisa Stasi.

Nineteen-year-old Lisa had a daughter of four months named Tiffany. Her marriage had fallen apart and Carl Stasi had left his wife and baby to join the US Navy.

Lisa and Tiffany were staying at Hope House, a shelter for battered women, when JR, using the name John Osborne, arrived on the scene, offering her free accommodation and career training. He explained to Lisa that this involved helping her to gain her High School Equivalency Diploma, after which he would arrange for her to go to Texas to train as a silkscreen printer. After she had completed her training, he said, there would be job opportunities for her in Chicago, Denver or Kansas City. In the meantime, her new mentor told her, he would not only pay for her accommodation and living expenses but also give her a monthly stipend of $800.

It was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

The kindly benefactor then took Lisa and Tiffany from the refuge and installed them in Room 131 at the Rodeway Inn, a motel in Overland Park, telling her that she and her baby would be travelling to Chicago within a few days. He then got her to sign four blank sheets of notepaper and provide him with the addresses of her immediate family, saying that, as she would be too busy to write letters when she got to Chicago, he would write them for her, to let her relatives know her whereabouts. When JR had left the motel, Lisa went to see some relatives in Kansas City to discuss the matter with them.

On 9 January, JR collected Lisa and the baby from her sister-in-law’s
home. After expressing anger that she had checked out of the motel, he insisted that they leave with him immediately and so they drove off in a heavy snowstorm.

Like Paula Godfrey, Lisa Stasi was never again seen by her family.

The following evening, JR’s brother Don and his wife Helen turned up at JR’s home. The childless couple had been trying to adopt a baby for some years, and now JR said he could help them. He explained that the baby’s mother had committed suicide at a women’s shelter and, for a cash sum of $5,000 and their signatures on a bogus adoption certificate, JR handed Tiffany Stasi over to them.

According to testimony given by Nancy Robinson years later, JR had brought the baby home the previous night, 9 January 1985. She recalled that it was snowing heavily when her husband arrived home and that the infant was not very clean. Apart from some spare nappies, the baby had only the clothes she was wearing, and some baby food.

Don and Helen Robinson were delighted with their new child, whom they named Heather. It would be 15 years before Heather’s true identity was revealed, and then in the most shocking circumstances: the man she knew as ‘Uncle John’ would stand in court accused of murdering her mother.

At the time that Lisa and Tiffany Stasi disappeared, Ann Smith, an employee of Birthright, began to check up on the details that Robinson had provided concerning Kansas City Outreach. They were false. Deeply concerned, she contacted two FBI agents, Thomas Lavin and Jeffrey Dancer, who were assigned to investigate JR and teamed up with his probation officer, Stephen Haymes.

Among the information that began to emerge about JR was the fact that Johnson County’s district attorney was investigating Equi-II in connection with strong allegations that it had defrauded its client Back Care Systems. Not only that but JR and a fellow ex-convict, Irvin Blattner, were being investigated by the US Secret Service for forgery involving a government cheque.

None of this, however, was connected to the disappearances of the two women and the baby, and the trail in this direction was in danger of growing cold.

Although everything seemed to point to JR’s having abducted and murdered two women, the two FBI investigators and Haymes could do little, despite their own strong suspicions. Nevertheless, Haymes ordered JR to attend his office for further questioning. During the interview, the wily Robinson protested about being harangued over the matter and insisted that Lisa and the baby were, in fact, alive and well. He claimed that a woman who lived in the Kansas City area, for whom Lisa had recently done some babysitting, had told him this. However, when agent Lavin questioned the woman, she confessed that her statement that Lisa had babysat for her was untrue. She said that Robinson had made her go along with the story because she owed him money and he had photographed her nude in order to promote her services as a prostitute.

With this new angle to pursue, the FBI men arranged for a female agent to pose as a prostitute and approach JR on the pretext of looking for work.

According to David McClintick, it was around this time that Robinson developed a taste for sadomasochistic sex. However, not only did he himself engage in S&M, but he also saw its potential to make a lot of money, and very soon he was running
a thriving business exploiting this lucrative sector of the sex market. He organised a string of prostitutes to cater for customers who enjoyed S&M. To look after his own appetites, JR employed a male stripper, nicknamed M&M, to find suitable women for him.

The female FBI agent was wired, to record any conversation, and arranged to meet JR at a restaurant in Overland Park. Over lunch, JR explained to her that, working as a prostitute for him, she could earn up to $3,000 for a weekend travelling to Denver or Dallas to service wealthy clients. She could also make $1,000 a night just working in the Kansas City area. His clients, he said, were drawn mainly from the ranks of doctors, lawyers and judges.

JR went on to explain that, as an S&M prostitute, the young woman would have to allow herself to be subjected to painful treatment, such as having her nipples manipulated with pliers. When they heard this part of the recording of the conversation, the FBI investigation team decided to end the undercover operation out of fear for their agent’s safety. It is doubtful that the woman herself would have been enthusiastic to continue after hearing about that aspect of the job.

Robinson maintained an apartment on Troost Avenue in Overland Park and it was here that he installed a girl named Theresa Williams in April 1985. Twenty-one and attractive, Theresa had been introduced to JR by M&M as a suitable candidate for prostitution. She had been working at various odd jobs around Kansas City and jumped at the chance. After photographing her nude in a hotel room, JR initially offered her a position as his mistress. This involved her being given an apartment with all her expenses paid, and for her there was the
added attraction that JR would keep her well provided with amphetamines and marijuana. She would also be expected to provide sexual services for others, for which she would receive prostitution fees. Theresa took the job and moved into the Troost Avenue apartment.