John Edward Robinson - Murders Begin

Murders Begin

In 1984, having started two more fraudulent shell companies (Equi-Plus and Equi-2), Robinson hired Paula Godfrey, 19, ostensibly to work as a sales representative. Godfrey told friends and family that Robinson was sending her away for training. After hearing nothing further from her, Godfrey's parents filed a missing persons report. Police questioned Robinson, who denied any knowledge of her whereabouts. Several days later they received a typewritten letter with Godfrey's signature at the bottom, stating that she was thankful for Robinson's help, that she was "OK", and that she did not want to see her family. The investigation was terminated, as Godfrey was of legal age and there was no evidence of wrongdoing. No trace of Paula Godfrey has ever been found.

In 1985 Robinson, using the name John Osborne, met Lisa Stasi and her 4-month-old daughter, Tiffany, at a battered women’s shelter in Kansas City. He promised Lisa a job in Chicago, an apartment, and daycare for her baby, and asked her to sign several sheets of blank stationery. A few days later Robinson contacted his brother and sister-in-law, who had been unable to adopt a baby through traditional channels, and informed them that he knew of a baby whose mother had committed suicide. For a $5,500 fee to an imaginary lawyer, Don and Helen Robinson received Tiffany Stasi (whose identity was confirmed by DNA testing in 2000) and a set of authentic-appearing adoption papers with the forged signatures of two lawyers and a judge. Lisa Stasi was never heard from again.

In 1987 Catherine Clampitt, 27, left her child with her parents in Wichita Falls, Texas and moved to Kansas City to find employment. She was hired by Robinson, who reportedly promised her extensive travel and a new wardrobe. She vanished in June of that year. Her missing persons case remains open.

From 1987-1993 Robinson was incarcerated, first in Kansas (1987–91) on multiple fraud convictions and thereafter in Missouri for another fraud conviction and parole violations. At Western Missouri Correctional Facility he met and ingratiated himself with 49-year-old Beverly Bonner, the prison librarian, who upon his release left her husband and moved to Kansas to work for him. After Robinson arranged for Bonner's alimony checks to be forwarded to a Kansas post office box, her family never heard from her again. For several years Bonner's mother continued forwarding her checks, and Robinson continued cashing them.

By now Robinson had discovered the Internet and roamed various social networking sites using the name "Slavemaster", looking for women who enjoyed playing the submissive partner role during sex. The first victim he met online was Sheila Faith, 45, whose 15-year-old daughter Debbie was wheelchair-bound due to spina bifida. He portrayed himself as a wealthy man who would support them, pay for Debbie's therapy, and give Sheila a job. In 1994 the mother and daughter moved from Fullerton, California to Kansas City and immediately disappeared. Robinson cashed Faith's pension checks for the next seven years.

Gradually, Robinson became well known in the increasingly popular BDSM online chat rooms. In 1999 he offered a job and a bondage relationship to Izabela Lewicka, a 21-year-old Polish immigrant living in Indiana. When she moved to Kansas City, the still-married Robinson gave her an engagement ring and brought her to the county registrar where they paid for a marriage license that was never picked up. It is unclear whether Lewicka believed she and Robinson were married; she told her parents she had married, but never told them her husband's name. She did sign a 115-item slave contract that gave Robinson almost total control over every aspect of her life, including her bank accounts. Sometime during the summer of 1999 she disappeared. Robinson told a Web designer he employed that she had been caught smoking marijuana and deported.

About the time of Lewicka's disappearance Robinson convinced a lonely licensed practical nurse by day and submissive slave by night named Suzette Trouten to move from Michigan to Kansas so they could travel the world together. Trouten's mother received several typed letters, purportedly mailed while the couple was abroad, although the envelopes were stamped with Kansas City postmarks. The letters were, her mother said, uncharacteristically mistake-free. Later, Robinson told Trouten's mother that she had run off with an acquaintance after stealing money from him.