Post on 23-Feb-2023
RUNNING HEAD: JOHN ROBINSON – FIRST INTERNET SERIAL KILLER 1
John Robinson – First Internet Serial Killer
Jessica Turner
MSCR660 Week 8 IP
8/2014
Running Head: John Robinson – First Internet Serial Killer
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Abstract
Perhaps one of the most motivated manipulators of the 21st
century, John Robinson convinced several women to move their
flirtations and exchanges offline and into the real world,
manipulating women to move long distances to become his
mistresses through underground BDSM chatrooms. The women were
kept in various dens he provided – at times, with money defrauded
from the collected social security of previous victims – until
her grew tired of them, bludgeoned them, and disposed of them.
His vicious crimes were made infamous by being the first internet
serial killer.
Running Head: John Robinson – First Internet Serial Killer
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John Robinson – First Internet Serial Killer
Introduction
The internet became an advent that defined the 21st century,
changing not only the way that people communicate and conduct
business, but how they would connect. And, thereby, it changed
the face of crime. Certainly one of the most sensational of these
was the introduction of murderers using the web to lure identify
and victims, creating a new breed of fear around the use of
chatrooms and social networking and revealing too much about
one’s personal information. John Edward Robinson of Johnson
County, Kansas, became the first internet-based serial killer,
using various chat services and online BDSM communities to locate
and identify his victims. Through a series of manipulations he
was able to systematically use them to his purposes and pleasure
until they no longer suited his need or he grew tired of his
games. Killed and disposed of similarly, he committed fraud in
connection to these crimes. The murders spanned from 1984 to
2002, but moved online in 1994.
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Robinson’s career in crime began long before he began
picking off mistresses, and long before the internet was
available to the public. In fact, it became almost a portentous
statement when a Boy Scout leader stated that he had
extraordinary drive and motivation, but lacked the skill. Some of
his earliest crimes included forging diplomas and credentials to
attain employment at a children’s hospital, which only lasted a
short time until other staff noticed that he was inept at
handling infants. After that, he failed training to become an X-
ray technician, but still obtained a position working as one in
1966. This was known to be his first offence of fraud (Gribbon,
2014).
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The Killer
Robinson, a pathological liar, married his first wife,
Nancy, shortly after she gave birth to their first child. Even
though he was quickly marked again as unskilled and incompetent
at his job – once again, failing to be able to handle children
effectively – he retained his position for some time. He was once
described as being able to produce anything he wanted when he
talked, shrewd and charismatic. This charisma doubtless played a
key role in his later crimes of luring, manipulation, and
control, just as they aided him in committing fraud. He had even
indulged his narcissism by creating an elaborate ‘Man of the
Year” hoax which was attended by civil leaders and was covered by
the local news, humbly accepting the award that had been rigged
and set up by Robinson himself. When he was fired from the
position as X-ray technician, he found another just as quickly.
At this job, he began embezzling. For this, he served three years
of probation, having utilized his seemingly sincere and
charismatic nature to plea down for the $33,000 theft from the
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company. It was the succession of these white-collar crimes that
landed him in probation for an accumulation of about twenty
years, in which time he committed eight murders, all while being
under state supervision.
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The Victims
This path shifted to the more extreme in 1984, when he first
began taking the lives of various women and tested the waters of
his modus operendi and select victims. His first was Paula
Godfrey, a young woman who he’d promised a good job and special
training to. When she went missing and her family questioned it,
they received a typewritten letter with her signature as a
reassurance… and eventually, the Overland Park police removed her
from the missing-persons list when Robinson himself delivered the
letter stating that she was ok, and did not wish to see her
family. No trace of Paula and her body has ever been found.
His second murder was another elaborate and well-thought out
scheme based more in fraud than his entitled sense to kill some
victims that simply could be killed. As would prove to be a
pattern, he selected a particularly vulnerable and easy victim,
as always, designing that she come to him and willingly. His
brother and his wife had had no success in conceiving a child.
Offering to act as liaison between them and an ‘attorney’ he
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fabricated that supposedly acted as a handler for private
adoptions. All they needed to do was pay him a $2,500 retainer
fee and simply wait. He had initially contacted various agencies
that worked with women in need and pregnancy programs, claiming
to work with wealthy businessmen from the East Coast in search of
young women, preferably white with few connections of family to
support them, on the premise, of course, that they would not be
missed. One social worker, Karen Gaddis, was well aware of the
black market for illegal adoptions, and testified years later
that this behavior seemed blatantly suspicious.
Even after being turned down – creating a long wait for the
would-be parents – Robinson located his victim. 19 year old Lisa
Stazi was estranged from her husband and located in a shelter by
Robinson, who introduced himself as “John Osborne.” He offered
her the aide that the social worker quickly turned down on the
suspicious nature of the specifications he gave. She accepted.
She and her four month old daughter Tiffany went with Robinson,
under the rouse that she would travel to Texan, and be offered
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daycare services and training programs meant to make her more
self-sufficient. Using this particular setup, he had informed her
that she would be very busy with hardy any time to contact her
family, and procured blank, signed papers to write letters on
later. Her family received a frantic call telling them she had
been informed that her mother-in-law saw her as an unfit mother
and intended to take her child. Through this, she was manipulated
into no longer contacting her family, while they did not question
her disappearance until it was too late. No trace of Stazi has
been found, her infant daughter was sold to his brother and
sister-in-law (Gribbon, 2014).
Two other women fall victim through traditional means,
Catherine Clampitt and Beverly Bonner, who fell into the same
patterns of vulnerability, provisions of alibi for later on blank
letters, and disposal without a trace – save for Beverly Bonner,
who was found much later, and that will be elaborated upon
further in full explanation of his MO.
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It was in 1994 that he sought out ‘submissives,’ willing
slaves that were members of the BDSM subculture, who not only
made easy targets, but expected a measure of violence and control
from the man they were meeting. These became his target of
choice, and he would target these types for exploitation for more
than eighteen years. When he selected his first victim from an
online forum, he had already taken the lives of four women lured
through print media or manipulation.
His first cyber-luring victim was a 45 year old widow,
rather plain in appearance, who could easily be profiled as
seeking out an escape in the BDSM culture and masochism from the
hardships in her life (Goleman, 2006). Sheila Faith was regarded
by family and friends as an unhappy person, whose husband had
died of cancer only one year before she met Robinson. Believing
she had found her ideal partner online. He catered to her desires
and shared her passion for bondage, playing the role of master to
her preferred submissive. He was, as she was told, a wealthy
businessman who would move her and her invalid daughter to his
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fabricated farm where she could ride horses, pay for his daughter
to attend private school, and take them on a lavish cruise.
Sheila had spent most of her spare time man-hunting over the
internet, and in this, made herself a readily available victim
(Doerner & Lap, 2008). She was an easily accessible target,
placing no guardian over her well-being or the well-being of her
daughter, and placing herself right in the path of a motivated
offender (NSW Attourney General, 2011). All of this done
unconsciously.
Her daughter Debbie, 16, suffered from cerebral palsy and
was severely incapacitated. When she and her daughter told family
and friends that they would be visiting Texas over Christmas,
they made a pit-stop in Missouri from their home in Pueblo,
Colorado. They never would, of course, make it to their family in
Texas, as Robinson bludgeoned both Sheila and her daughter Debbie
to death when they arrived in Missouri. When family members
contacted him to get ahold of the girls, they were sent the same,
familiar type-written letters with the signatures of both
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victims. However, these were viewed as suspicious. Being posted
from the Netherlands, the tone sounded upbeat and happy, and, as
mentioned, she was not a happy or happy-toned person. Robinson
then began to collect and claim the social security for both of
these women for the next several years. Between 1994 and 1997, it
was estimated that he defrauded the federal government of over
$29,000 (Mellor, 2012).
His second victim was contacted in 1997, through the same
system of online BDSM forums. Izabela Leweka, 18, was an
immigrant, studying at Purdue University. By all accounts, she
appeared to be a very well-put-together student and no stranger
than many teenagers in the 90’s, with a penchant for ‘goth’
culture and the occult, while such trends were at their peak. So
young and willing, she became a prime target for Robinson, who
was and had been keeping multiple mistresses for many years. He
moved the emotionally vulnerable Izabela, or ‘Izzy,’ out to him,
this time not altogether dishonest about offering her work – as
he had so often done – and she did help design covers and layouts
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for Robinson’s magazine about manufactured home living. He, in
turn, used the social security checks that he was still
collecting rom the Faith’s that had been his previous victims to
pay for her art and fencing classes, and keep her in an
apartment. Izabela had signed a slave contract, giving him full
power over her as master – a penchant of some members of the BDSM
culture – and began using the name “Izabela Leweka-Robinson,
reading a ruby wedding band, and a dog-collar that denoted his
ownership, often passing her off as his adopted daughter while
they worked as partners in a kink supply business. He had made
her many promises, training her to become a dominatrix and taking
her to Europe whish she waited for for a good deal of time. She
spent much of her time frequenting a bookstore and taking part in
alternative culture, but at one time came in with him to inform
the clerk that he would be picking up her orders from then on out
(Mellor, 2012). It could be assumed that it was shortly after
this that she was killed, but a definite time is unknown, only
that it was in 1999.
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When Robinson grew tired of her, he attacked her in her bed
with a hammer, just as he had killed the Faiths. He disposed of
her body in the same way. Her parents began to question her
absence and lack of oral communication and began to email her.
Robinson, claiming to be her, gave them a new e-mail address to
contact her from, although he – as she – continued to state that
she wanted no contact with them and was happy. When her father
wrote her an e-mail entirely in Polish – her native tongue –
because of his suspicious, it was met with a murky reply that she
was fine and wished to only communicate in English.
Suzette Trouten, like the other two before her, was looking
for a man online, seeking a master, and was instantly attracted
to Robinson, who claimed to be a wealthy businessman, as was his
way. Trouten, 27, was his most submissive victim, playing the
role of a “Gorean” or full-time slave, who was owned not only in
part time or in scenes, but was treated as a true slave
constantly. Sexually abused as a child, she had had a master
prior to Robinson for nearly 11 years, and like Izabela, had
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hoped to keep her long term. However, in the seventeen days she
remained at a hotel and alone – as Robinson himself had a wife
and other mistresses to juggle, was unable to frequent visits as
often as she expected, and was quickly disappointed with his
failure to keep the promises he had made to take her on a
tropical vacation and set her up in a more permanent location
with glamorous work. Instead, she helped him build a website for
BDSM dominants and messaged her friend frequently.
On March 2nd, her friend received messages that were from
Robinson posing as Janet, sent from her Hotmail address that she
rarely used. They claimed she was leaving for California, but
that if the friend ever wanted a good master, she should contact
him, and included information. It was quickly noted that it
sounded wrong – and was clearly from someone more literate than
Trouten (Mellor, 2012). He had killed her and disposed of her
when this occurred, and continued to send dissatisfying signed
letters to her family, who she had promised to call.
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Capture
Robinson was captured shortly after he selected a new
mistress whose tastes ran far less deviant than his had become.
He hit too hard and played too rough, and his promises were not
enough to keep her around, and when she left – on his
instruction, she would later realize her fortune in that - he
kept all of her money, several hundred dollars in sex toys, and
pictures she had told him not to take while she was restrained.
He left her degraded and had gone against her wishes during their
sex acts, and she had never signed any contract – refused to, in
fact. Because they had no agreement and he went against her
wishes, his actions were counted against him as sexual battery,
and had been listened to by police (Gribbon, 2014).
A 30-man task force was assigned to taking him down once
they had the evidence against him for the sexual battery of what
could have been his next victim, removing her from the hotel room
before he could do her deadly injury, and determined to remove
him from the streets and online chat rooms where he found his
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victims. It was fortuitous when, on Jun 2nd of 2000, the
taskforce raided his mobile home and made an arrest. He had been
very close to convincing a Tennessean woman to come to him with
her eight year old daughter (Gribbon, 2014). He was said to have
gone pale when confronted with evidence that they had connected
him to Stazi and Trouten as well. The following day, K-9 units
discovered the metal drums where he had been disposing of his
victims in. In fetal positions and in varying stages of decay
were found Sheila and Debbie Faith, Izabela Leweka, Suzette
Trouten, and Beverly Bonner (Mellor, 2012). He was 58 years old.
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The MO
The MO remained very similar from early on. Serial murderers
often change their MO as they develop their tendencies. All too
often, law enforcement get too focused on MO and miss the far
more important signature and victim selection (Bartol & Bartol,
2011). Robinson targeted emotionally vulnerable women, often who
had strained or limited communications with their families. When
the communication was not as strained, he systematically groomed
them out of it and placed a strain on interpersonal
relationships. He used ads, organizations, and internet chatrooms
to lure victims so that they would always come to him – never to
be stalked directly, with promises of work, vacation, and wealth.
He always checked his accountability and alibies by either saying
the person had moved on and directed letters from that area, or
claimed the victim no longer desired any contact, all on blank
papers he convinced his victims to sign through manipulation to
be used later, dozens of them, and fake email-addressed under the
victim’s name. As time went on, these methods become more and
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more sophisticated, but always bore the trademarks of
manipulation and covered tracks. Finally, his method of disposal,
once developed, was his standard.
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The Signature
A signature is a method which is not deviated from, often a
compulsion to perform the act, and ritualistic in nature. The
signature does not change (Bartol & Bartol, 2011). Robinson’s
signatures included the serial-rapist typology signature of
dominance and control – absolute control – over his victims. His
personal signature was the bludgeoning of his victims with a
hammer, often in their own beds.
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The Criminal Element and Psychopathology
Robinson utilized any resource available to his advantage,
from the people around him, to state and federal agencies, and to
the online chatrooms that provided him with access to easy,
willing targets, luring his prey and finding another measure of
power in watching his victims come crawling to him on their knees
– and in some situations, literally. Robinson was a narcissist
who went out of his way to build up situations and environments
where he would be the center of attention, respected, and
admired. From creating fake organizations, to orchestrating
entire events and banquets to receive a fake award in front of
his town elite, to falsifying any certification or connection
that would impress the group he was standing in. To his slaves
and victims, he claimed elite membership to renowned
international BDSM organizations. To his workmates, he claimed
the role of the most qualified man for the job – but could never
live up to the title, and continued to lie in spite of his
glaring failure.
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His wife was aware, as it was discovered later, of his many
affairs, but he continued the appearance of family man and
upstanding citizen. A sadist, he kept his victims around for his
darker desires to keep up appearances of success and
functionality in the home – where he was likely shut down on his
desires and would never accept a bargain of middle-ground.
Robinsons was a controlling man, stemming from his narcissism,
and insisted all be done his way. When it was not, he would
punish, humiliate, or kill. He felt entitled to kill his victims,
doing so thoughtlessly when they no longer served his purpose.
The dark triad of Narcissist, Machiavellian, and Sadist suited
him perfectly (Goleman, 2006). It is very likely Robinson never
thought he would be captured, set about long-term traps to keep
victims in ‘communication’ with their loved ones, and failed when
he sent his final would-be victim away with insults about her
lack of sophistication before he visited again to be monitored by
police. He did not gain full control over her in his arrogance.
This laziness and arrogance proves to be the downfall of many
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serial killers, as they begin to feel they are above the law and
more intelligent that law enforcement, and no longer fear
capture. They become sloppy and disorganized as they might have
been in the early parts of their career, failing to cover all
their tracks (Bartol & Bartol, 2011).
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Conclusion – Serial Killing and Cybercrime
In cases like these, it is easy to see the shift from the
traditional methods – however well-planned and operated they were
– to a shift to technology. It presents the query: Has technology
changed the face of crime, or have criminals changed and bent
technology to their will? Whatever the case, a new criminal
element was formed, and online interactions were changed forever.
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References
Bartol, R. C., & Bartol, M. A. (2011). Criminal Behavior; A Psychological
Approach. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, Prentice Hall.
Doerner, W. M., & Lap, S. P. (2008). Victimology. Newark, NJ:
LexisNexis.
Goleman, D. (2006). Social Intellegence. New York: Bantom Books.
Gribbon, M. (2014). John E. Robinson, Sr.: The Slavemaster. Retrieved from
Crime Library:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/john_ro
binson/index.html
Mellor, L. (2012). John Edward Robinson: The Spider’s Web. Serial
Killer Quarterly.
NSW Attourney General. (2011). Routine Activity Theory; Crime Prevention.
Retrieved from New South Whales Attourney General and
Justice:
http://www.crimeprevention.nsw.gov.au/agdbasev7wr/_assets/cp
d/m660001l2/routineactivityfactsheet_nov2011.pdf