John Robinson

What would make a man who was originally planning to join the seminary, become a killer? Whatever sparked a change in John Robinson, changed him from a boy scout to a monster. Here is the story of the man who is sometimes referred to as the internet’s first serial killer.

John Edward Robinson was born in Illinois in 1943, and originally planned to become a priest but due to disciplinary issues he dropped out. He eventually would move to Kansas City and marry Nancy Jo Lynch in 1964. They would eventually have four children John Jr, Kimberly, and twins Christopher and Christine.

Starting in 1969, John would be arrested for embezzlement from a doctor’s office as he was using forged credentials. He would be given three years’ probation. Breaking probation he moved to Chicago without permission and would be arrested again in 1971, again for embezzlement at an insurance office. He was returned to Kansas City and his probation was extended.

Unbelievably, in 1975, he was arrested again, and his probation was extended again, this time for securities and mail fraud. Finally in 1979, he would complete his probation. He would be arrested one last time on embezzlement, and serve 60 days in 1982, but after that he graduated onto more heinous crimes.

In 1984, John chose to establish 2 bogus companies and hired a 19-year-old named Paula Godfrey to be a sales representative. She informed her family that she would be sent for training. When she disappeared, her parents filed a missing person’s report. Shortly after a letter arrived with her signature telling them she no longer wanted to see her family. The police closed the case as she was an adult, and she was never seen or heard from again. Her remains have never been found.

Lisa Stasi, 19, had a four-month-old baby girl named Tiffany, and she was staying in a women’s shelter. John Osborne offered Lisa a job, an apartment, and daycare for Tiffany. This was just what she needed to get back on her feet. Lisa was asked to sign several sheets of stationery, and then a few days later Lisa disappeared. John’s brother and his wife were unable to adopt children through normal channels, and when John stated he knew of a baby whose mother had committed suicide and for a “legal fee” of $5500 he would help them with the legal paperwork to adopt the child. Tiffany was placed in the arms of her new family and would not be identified until 2000 by DNA testing.

In 1987, 27-year-old Catherine Clampitt arrived in Kansas City looking for work. She had left her child with her parents in Texas and was hired by John Robinson who told her he would provide her a new wardrobe and she would have extensive travel. When she disappeared in June her family opened a missing person’s case on her, and this case remains open.

For the next six years, John was incarcerated in Kansas for fraud convictions and then in Missouri for other fraud convictions and parole violations. While incarcerated he met Beverly Bonner, the prison librarian, who left her husband, a prison doctor, and moved to Kansas to be with John. Beverly was receiving alimony checks and they were being sent to a Kansas post office box, Beverly’s mother would forward the checks and they were always cashed, but nobody heard from Beverly again.

The internet became a new discovery for John, and he had a kink. He would roam and hunt in social networking sites and used the name “Slavemaster” and liked women who were into the BDSM role playing during sex. One of his first partners was a 45-year-old woman, Sheila Faith with a 15-year-old daughter Debbie, who was wheelchair bound. John portrayed a wealthy man who would pay for Debbie’s medical expenses and give a job to Sheila. In 1994, Sheila and Debbie moved from California to Kansas City, and were never heard from again. John would continue to cash the pension checks for Debbie for the next 7 years.

John was becoming more well-known online in the chat rooms, and in 1999, he began a bondage relationship with Isabela Lewicka she was a 21-year-old Polish immigrant who moved to Kansas City from Indiana. John was still married to Nancy but provided an engagement ring to Izabela. They paid for a marriage license but never picked it up. Izabela did tell her parents that she was married but didn’t tell them her husband’s name. Izabela gave John complete control over her life and then in the summer of 1999 she disappeared. John told people that she was caught smoking marijuana and deported.

John didn’t have to wait long to find another willing partner, Suzette Trouten moved from Michigan to Kansas to travel the world and become a submissive slave to John. Suzette was close to her mother and typed letters signed by Suzette were sent to her mother from all over the world, ironically the post office it originated through was Kansas City. However, Mrs. Trouten would suspect something was wrong as all the letters were mistake free. John would tell her mother that Suzette had run off after stealing money from him.

But all things must come to an end, and John’s own carelessness was his downfall. His name was becoming more and more connected with missing person’s cases in both Kansas and Missouri. Finally in June of 2000, he was arrested at is farm in Kansas when a woman had filed a sexual battery case against him, another woman stated he had stolen her sex toys.

The theft charge was what investigators needed to obtain search warrants. On the farm, a task force was charged with searching and they found the bodies of two decaying women in two 85-gallon chemical drums. They were identified as Izabela Lewicka and Suzette Trouten.

Across the state line in Missouri another task force was conducting a search in a storage facility that John was renting two units in. Inside they found three more chemical drums, inside were thru

John faced trial in and was eventually convicted receiving a death sentence for both Izabela and Suzette.

John also faced trial for the three women found in the storage units but didn’t cooperate with the prosecution in a plea agreement to take him to the bodies of Paula, Lisa and Catherine. John declined to help. In October of 2003, John acknowledged that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him of capital murder. This was accepted in court as a guilty plea. He received a life sentence without possibility of parole for each of the murders.

After 41 years of marriage, Nancy Robinson filed for divorce in 2005.

Tiffany Stasi who had been raised as Heather Robinson settled with the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City and social worker, Karen Gaddis who had put John Robinson in contact with her mother, Lisa. They settled for an undisclosed sum. She also won a suit to prevent John from profiting from the case.

John Robinson remains incarcerated in the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.