John Robinson - First Internet Serial Killer

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.


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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


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John Robinson - First Internet Serial Killer

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