Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Slave Master” Pt. 2: John Edward Robinson

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

By 1984, after a lifetime spent breaking the law and facing few consequences, John Edward Robinson had finally crossed the line into cold-blooded murder. Having gotten away with it before, he decided that nothing was stopping him from doing it again, and again... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive, we advise extreme caution for children under 13. The hotel room was disappointing and a bit dreary. But still, nothing could dampen Beverly's mood. The recently divorced mother of two was excited to start a fresh life with her new boyfriend. To others, it may have appeared crazy. While working in a prison library, Beverly had fallen in love with a convicted felon, a

fast-talking con man named John Robinson. But John wasn't like the other convicts. He was intelligent, thoughtful, and perhaps most importantly, he paid attention to her. During their time together in the library, John had explained to Beverly that he was wrongly convicted of fraud. He was simply a victim. And now that John was out of prison, all that was behind him. The couple could fulfill their dream of traveling the world together. As John showered, Beverly flipped through a stack of blank paper. John had instructed her to sign the bottom of each one. He had explained that as the couple traveled, Beverly would not have time to write letters home. If she signed the blank pages now, John could quickly type up and send the letters for her. Beverly finished signing

the papers and laid down on the bed. Content, she closed her eyes and listened to her. She closed her eyes and listen to the sound of running water. When Beverly opened her eyes, steam had filled the room. Partially hidden by the mist, John stood in the bathroom doorway. He stared at her with cold eyes. As John slowly approached the bed,

Beverly noticed the hammer gripped tightly in his hand. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is serial killers, a parkhouse original. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're wrapping up the story of John Edward Robinson, a con man with a pension for S&M and murder. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone.

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Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. Last week, we examined John Robinson's early life and the events that led to the disappearance and murder of two women between 1984 and 1985. This week, we'll follow John as he shifts from finding young women in the personal ads of Kansas City to using the Internet to use the Internet to live. lure women in from all around the country. In 1985, 41-year-old John Robinson was still on probation for felony theft. For four years, he had managed to stay out of prison and keep his criminal activity concealed. But all that would change after a single phone call. His probation officer, Stephen Hames, got a call from an employee of a woman's outreach program

called Birthright. The employee told Hames that she suspected John was wrong. running an illegal adoption scheme. She explained that John had contacted Birthright, claiming to run a charitable organization for underprivileged women. But when he asked her if Birthright had any women with white-skinned babies,

she knew something wasn't right. Hames pulled John's files and saw that he was on probation for fraud and embezzlement. Concerned, he called John in for a meeting. When questioned, John immediately went on the defensive, claiming his efforts to help women were legitimate. To prove it, John told Hames that he was involved with other organizations besides birthright. Hames, who had majored in criminal justice and sociology in college, was skeptical.

He suspected John wasn't telling him everything. After the meeting, Hames called multiple women's outreach programs and asked them if John had contacted them. Not only had John picked up a woman named Lisa Stacey, but shortly after, Lisa and her her baby had gone missing. Alarmed, Hames contacted a detective in Overland Park, Kansas, to ask about Lisa and see if they had any leads on her whereabouts. But the detective said they didn't have enough evidence to pursue the case. More troubling, the detective told Hames that an employee of Johns named Paula Godfrey had also

been reported missing. So Hames called John in for another meeting. This time, John came armed with excuses. When Hames asked him about Lisa, John explained that she and her baby had left town with a man named Bill. He'd tried to help her, but she insisted on running off. Feeling out of his depth, Hames contacted the FBI for help. The Bureau was already aware of the con man's other shady dealings. They assigned two agents to assist Hames with the missing person case.

Once they started digging, the team was astonished by John's multitude of criminal activities. In addition to the missing women, John was embezzling money from bogus companies, defrauding investors, reportedly running a brothel and more, all while playing the role of a loving husband and father. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. This kind of compartmentalization is all too common in serial killers. Dr. Elliot Layton, author of Hunting Humans, explained that most serial killers are sociopaths,

so they lack any kind of remorse over their actions. He said, if you strangled somebody in a fit of rage, you wouldn't be able to cope with it. The thought of it would be just utterly overwhelming to you. But serial killers have no guilt, no remorse, no feelings of having done something wrong. There's just more triumph. Clearly, John was a danger to his community. Hames and the FBI were keen to put him behind bars for anything they could make stick. To gather more evidence, Hames and the FBI widened their investigation.

They set up a sting operation. An undercover agent contacted John and told him she was looking for sex work opportunities. John agreed to meet. The agent wore a wire and met John for lunch at a restaurant. There, John told her that his business provided adult service. for businessmen, doctors, and even influential judges. The job paid well, but he warned her she would have to engage in extreme sadomasochistic practices with these powerful men. John's eagerness to put the agent to work as soon as possible surprised the FBI.

For safety reasons, they withdrew her from the undercover operation and decided to change their strategy. The Secret Service was also investigating John over check forgeries. The task force reached out to combine their investigations. In 1985, agents picked up John's accomplice, Irv Blatner, and offered him a plea bargain. To escape jail time, Irv signed a statement admitting John's involvement with the fraudulent checks. It was the final piece of evidence they needed. The next day, the police arrested John for a parole violation. But to everyone's surprise, John posted his $50,000 bond and was released the same day.

the same day. Less than a week later, John arrived at Hames' office with a lawyer and accused him of evidence tampering. At this point, John desperately wanted Hames to back off. Hames knew that John was dangerous, but he had no intention of letting up the pressure. Faced with a fresh mountain of legal fees to pay, John ramped up his escort business. Through a contact at a strip Club, John recruited an attractive 21-year-old named Teresa Williams. She was just what he needed to pull in more money. Teresa was a free spirit from Idaho who got by working odd jobs. John, now 42, offered Teresa drugs, money, and a place to stay if she agreed to perform sexual services for him and his clients. He called it mistressing. On April 30, 1985, John paid Teresa,

$1,200 to mistress for a client of his. He asked Teresa to put on a seductive dress and sent her out on a job where she was physically abused by a man she knew only as the judge. When the judge complained that Teresa had not lived up to his expectations, John became enraged and forced Teresa to give the $1,200 back. She was relieved when he took the money and left her unharmed. A few days later, John told Teresa that everything would be forgiven if she did him a favor.

He would even sweeten the deal by taking her to the Virgin Islands as a thank you. All Teresa had to do was write a fake diary. John wanted her to write daily entries that contained specific information. He told her to include fears that Irv Blatner was trying to kill her. John told Teresa that she should enter journal on June 15th and then place it in. in a safety deposit box that his lawyer had access to. Then they would leave for the Virgin Islands. But a week before June 15, the FBI arrived

at Teresa's apartment. They told her about John's suspected involvement in the disappearance of at least two women and warned Teresa that she could be next. The 21-year-old broke down and told them everything. Worried about what she knew, John hired a private detective to find Teresa. In response, the FBI relocated her to another state.

With Teresa's evidence, Stephen Hames and the FBI were finally ready. They planned to revoke John's probation and send him to prison for good this time. But the agents didn't have the slam-dunk case they thought they did. At his probation hearing in August of 1985, John's lawyer argued that because Teresa wasn't present, she couldn't give a legally sworn deposition. Therefore, the court couldn't revoke John's probation. The judge disagreed and ordered John to serve seven years in prison for parole violations. But before the sentence was set to begin, John filed an appeal.

At the appeal to the utter dismay of Haynes and the FBI, John was triumphant. The judge ruled that John had the right to confront Teresa in court. His seven-year sentence was thrown out. But John's legal problems were just beginning. After a lengthy investigation, the Johnson County District Attorney finally had enough evidence to charge him with felony frauds, stemming back to 1981. In January of 1986, a Kansas jury found John guilty of false billing and a judge sentenced him to 14 years in prison. To Hame's delight, Kansas also added a second charge against John for stealing $50,000 in a real estate deal. After being found guilty once more, John was allowed a few months to get his affairs in order before entering the prison system.

But instead of spending that time with family, John carried on as if nothing had interrupted his ordinary life. He placed an ad in the local paper offering a job at Equit II, his bogus company. A 27-year-old woman named Catherine Clampett called the number. And John immediately offered her a great job, a lot of traveling, and a new wardrobe. When Catherine's family noticed she was missing, her brother called the police. He told them that Catherine had started working for John right before she disappeared. But once again, the police said they lacked enough evidence to pursue John as a suspect. Nobody ever heard from Catherine again.

In May of 1987, a few months after Catherine disappeared, John entered the Hutchinson Correctional Facility in Kansas. Similar to how he had presented himself to his community as a typical family man, John cultivated the image of an ideal inmate. The prison staff favored John and even gave him the task of managing their maintenance operations office. He overhauled the entire office and actually saved the prison system around $100,000 a year. During this time, John suffered a series of minor strokes. In treatment, he befriended the prison doctors. These relationships would prove beneficial in 1990 when two of the medical staff wrote a detailed report.

In it, they said that John was not a threat to society. When John came up for parole the following year, he showed the report to the board. They were convinced by the statements and granted John his freedom. But Stephen Hames, who'd been keeping an eye on John, decided to step in. Hames argued to a judge that John had only served his time. for one conviction for false billing. He should still serve time in Missouri for the fraudulent real estate deal. On January 23rd, 1991, John was released from a correctional facility in Kansas and brought directly to one in Missouri. In a moment, John uses the internet for murder.

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John jumped at the opportunity. It was while spending time in the library that he met 47-year-old librarian, Beverly Bonner. The two had a shared history. They'd both worked for mobile oil some 20 years earlier. It's unclear if their paths had ever crossed during that time. But now, Beverly was going through a rough patch with her husband, who happened to be the prison's physician.

So she was likely feeling vulnerable and looking for someone else to connect with. Seizing his son. chance, John turned on the charm. He regaled Beverly with stories about traveling the world, and within a few months, the two began a romantic relationship. John promised Beverly that when he got out, they would have their own adventures together. She just had to wait until he was free. In 1993, at the age of 49, John was finally given his freedom. During the six years he was behind bars. His wife Nancy had remained loyal to him. In her eyes, John was a good provider, a good husband,

and a loving father. But as John was no longer providing for the family, Nancy had sold their home and taken a job managing a trailer park. This meager living wasn't enough for John after his release. He was eager to get his many businesses back up and running. While John was busy getting his old life back, Beverly Bonner was also keen for a restart of her own. In 1994, she left her husband and partnered with John to help run his hydroponics business, Hydro Crow. In an article about midlife crises, Doctor of Psychology Marcia Reynolds states that due to inequality in the workforce, many women around 40 lose faith in their job. With no upward mobility, these women often drop everything in an effort to discover themselves. Instead of calling this a crisis, Dr. Reynolds refers to

this pattern of behavior as a midlife quest for identity. This may be what Beverly was going through when she met John. She felt distant for her husband. And since they both worked together at the same place, she lacked an independent identity. Therefore, it might have been even more appealing for her to try a new path with John. John, a practiced con man with a gift for manipulating people. found it easy to control Beverly. With promises of taking her traveling around the world, he had her sign blank sheets of paper. The thought of sending letters home from exotic places

probably filled her with excitement. John also told Beverly to open a post office box and to direct her monthly alimony checks there. John then rented a storage locker in Missouri and loaded it with Beverly's things. When he noticed the clerk watching him, he said they belonged to his sister. Now, seemingly in control of Beverly's entire life,

he was ready to end it. In January of 1994, John used a hammer to murder Beverly. Then he sealed her body inside a 55-gallon drum and placed it inside the storage unit alongside her possessions. John took the stationery signed by Beverly and wrote letters to her family. Nobody ever reported Beverly missing, and her ex-husband continued sending alimony checks to her PO box.

John happily deposited them into his own account. He didn't waste time enjoying the fruits of his evil labor. He was ready for the next. It was that very same year, in fact, that John answered the personal ad of 45-year-old Sheila Faith. Online and on the phone, but two developed a friendship. John learned that Sheila's husband had died and that she was lonely. Sheila was also burdened with financial debt due to her daughter's medical condition. Sheila's 15-year-old daughter, Debbie, suffered from spina bifida.

Debbie was funny, enjoyed racing people in her wheelchair, and was optimistic that she would someday walk again. When Sheila told John that Debbie's monthly disability check was not enough to cover her treatment, John offered to help her pay. In the spring of 1994, Sheila and Debbie loaded up their car and moved from Colorado, to Kansas. Once she was there, John told Sheila to forward Debbie's disability checks to a PO box. Sheila didn't know it, but this was the same mailbox Beverly's alimony checks were going to. The specific events that took place after Sheila and Debbie left Colorado are vague. The only thing we know for sure is that John killed both of them with a hammer and sealed

their bodies inside separate 55-gallon drums. John placed the barrels in the storage unit with Beverly's body and drove home to his family. He felt nothing. Through Beverly and Debbie's monthly checks, John had amassed a tidy sum. He bought a house in Florida for his son and daughter-in-law, who had just had a baby. John and Nancy then moved into the mobile home park that Nancy managed. One of the first things John did was put a sign in the front yard that said, grandpas place, we spoil grandchildren.

Indeed, John was a monster who had murdered numerous women, but it's also true that he was a loving grandfather. Even after years of running scams and killing his marks, he had a way of compartmentalizing his many opposing lives. In the book, Confessions of a Sociopath, the author, who uses a pseudonym, talks about their ability to separate relationships by saying, you can be one person when that fits the situation, and another when that's more appropriate.

In John's case, he took this concept to an extreme. Perhaps that's why John's family never realized he was capable of these evil deeds. He could fool anybody, and the only thing that seemed to slow him down was the technological limitations of the time. But that was about to change with the advent of the computer age. In the 1990s, people embraced personal computers and going online became normal. In prison, John had developed a passion for computers. After getting out, he built his own to spend time online.

It didn't take long before he was well known in the online BDSM community. BDSM, which stands for bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism. There's a term used to describe a range of sexual activities. In BDSM, there's often a master-slave relationship, in which one individual is dominant and the other is submissive. Online, John used the name slave master. In 1997, 53-year-old John began emailing a 19-year-old named Isabella Levitska. Isabella was a freshman at Purdue University in Indiana. She wore dark clothes, was interested in the arts, and enjoyed reading books about vampires.

She was also intrigued by the mysterious world of BDSM. Online, the slave master presented himself to Isabella as a dominant male and offered to apprentice her. In June 1997, Isabella dropped out of school and moved to Kansas. When Isabella arrived in Kansas City, John had her sign a 115-item slave contract, declaring that he was her master. John and Isabella also filed for a marriage license. although no formal record exists of them getting married. John helped Isabella enroll in a community college where she studied art.

He rented her an apartment and paid her bills. In return, they engaged in BDSM sex, and Isabella let John take nude photos of her. Isabella's parents were understandably worried about her. They drove to Kansas City to search for their daughter, but when they arrived, the address Isabella had given them led to a mail center. It was the same PO box Beverly and Sheila's monthly checks went to. Dejected, Isabella's parents returned to Indiana. They weren't sure what to do and considered contacting authorities for help.

But shortly after arriving home, they began receiving emails from Isabella. In the emails, Isabella threatened to cut off all contact with her parents if they went to the police for any reason. Scared of losing their daughter, they agreed to. this demand. Over time, Isabella became a regular at a nearby used bookstore, dressed in black clothes and a dog collar. She drew the attention of the owner, who enjoyed her unique personality. The owner looked forward to Isabella's visits. They had shared interests, and she was more interesting than his other customers. That's why he remembered the last time he spoke

to her. While purchasing a book, Isabella said she was going on a trip. and that her husband would be buying her books from now on. Around that time, Isabella's parents received a strange email. It didn't sound anything like Isabella. As they read it, their hearts dropped. Isabella said she was happily married, traveling, and wished to cut off all contact with the family. But Isabella was not traveling.

Sometime during August of 1999, John had killed her. He used his weapon of choice, a hammer, then stuffed her body inside a 55-gallon drum. John terminated Isabella's apartment lease and placed her stuff in storage. The apartment managers remembered inspecting Isabella's apartment. They noted how odd it was for a tenant to deep clean the place before they moved out. Isabella's parents continued to believe their daughter had married a rich man and no longer wanted to talk to them. They never reported her missing to the police. Everything had gone according to John's plan.

Feeling untouchable, John went back online to search for his next victim. He sent women pictures of himself dressed in a cowboy hat and bragged about how rich he was. He took these photos on his ranch, a 16-acre parcel of land near Lassine, Kansas. Besides using the land as a backdrop, John also used it to stash the 55-gallon drum, containing Isabella's body. Online, John introduced himself to a 27-year-old named Suzette Trouton. Suzette was a home health care worker who dreamed of becoming a full-time nurse. She enjoyed braiding the hair of her two Pekingese dogs, collecting teapots and BDSM.

John used Suzette's nursing dream to his advantage and offered her a job taking care of his elderly father. John said that his father, whom he called Papa John. was rich and still traveled. He needed someone like Suzette to care for him while on trips. It sounded like a good deal, but Suzette was on the fence. She didn't want to leave her mother. To convince her, John bought Suzette a plane ticket to Kansas City for the weekend. He told Suzette she could decide if she wanted the job after that. When she landed, a limousine was waiting at the airport to pick her up. Over the weekend, John was kind and good-natured. He happened, drove her by a mansion where he said Papa John lived. He showered her with praise and said

he thought she would be a perfect fit for the job. It worked. In November of 1999, Suzette signed a contract to care for Papa John. What Suzette didn't know was that John's father had been dead for ten years. Susette moved from Michigan to Kansas City on Valentine's Day 2000. Although John had promised her an apartment. He told Susette that she would have to stay in a hotel until he put the necessary paperwork together. At the hotel, Suzette waited around to start her new job. To pass the time, she began to have sex with John. John filmed these encounters. In one video, John asked Suzette, would you give your life for your master? She replied, yes, master.

The days dragged on, and Suzette bored in her hostess. hotel room, braided her dog's hair, and organized her teapots. Finally, John told Susette that Papa John was ready. But first, he needed her to sign some paperwork. Susette signed 30 blank sheets of paper and addressed dozens of envelopes to her family. The next morning, John picked up Suzette and offered to show her his ranch near Lucene before their trip. When they arrived at the property, they got out to have a look around. When Susette had her back, back to him. John swung a hammer into her skull. Like his other victims, he then sealed her body inside a drum.

When he was done, he brought Suzette's two Pekingese dogs to his trailer park and called animal services to pick them up. John put most of Susette's belongings in storage, but he kept her computer. With it, he hacked Suzette's passwords and found her online contacts. He messaged her friends and told them about the trip she was going on. Suzette's mother, Carol, also received letters signed by her daughter, but she immediately recognized them as fakes. Suzette had notoriously terrible spelling. All of these letters were perfect.

Carol called John and asked him where her daughter was. John tried to convince the worried mom that Suzette had left town with a man named James, but Carol wasn't buying it. Backed into a corner, John warned her not to go to the police because Suzette had stolen a lot of money from him. The accusation was so out of character for Suzette that Carol knew for sure that John was hiding something. She contacted the police and filed a missing person's report, determined to find out what had happened to her daughter. In a moment, a mother's love finally brings John Robinson to justice. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars.

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He was scared she would discover the truth about her deceased daughter. In mid-March, Carol reached out to police. By chance, she connected to the Lenoxa Police Department in Kansas instead of the Overland Park Department that handled Lisa Stacey and Paula Godfrey's cases. Detectives at Lanexa took the case more seriously and opened an investigation. An officer even searched the city shelters for recently adopted Pekingese dogs. That officer found one of Suzette's dogs at a couple's house. The dog had braided hair and recognized its name when the officer called it. The Lenoxa Police Department gathered files from both Missouri and Kansas Police departments.

They noticed similarities between the missing women and immediately put together. a task force to investigate John Robinson. The task force included members of the FBI as well as detectives from both local and state law enforcement agencies. Their first order of business was to contact Stephen Hames. When detectives arrived at his office, Hames handed them a folder which was inches thick. Even though he was no longer John's probation officer, he had continued to update his file. Unaware that he was being investigated, John continued to meet women on the internet. In the spring of 2000, he contacted a woman named Vicky.

She was a regular in BDSM chat rooms and she was looking for a dominant partner. She also needed help catching up on unpaid bills. John offered Vicki some money and invited her to Kansas City for a visit. When Vicki arrived at the hotel room to meet John, the task force was ready. They knew John often put up women in the same hotel. So before Vicky even arrived, surveillance equipment was in place to monitor them from the next room. On Easter Sunday, 2000, John met Vicky in the hotel and convinced her to sign a slave contract. After they had sex, Vicky emailed a friend to say it went well.

A few days later, John returned to the hotel room. He was rougher during this encounter and failed to acknowledge Vicky's safe word. He also demanded Vicky let him take nude photos of her. Vicky felt like she didn't have a choice and relented. To Vicki, John had crossed a line, but she didn't call things off because he had promised her a job. It's possible she also didn't believe she was in any real danger. Research suggests that people often fail to take appropriate action in life-threatening

situations. In an article for the British Psychological Society, Drs Nicola Bridges and Sarita Robinson point to the role of denial in people when confronted with a deadly threat. It's not that Vicky didn't understand that John was dangerous. It's possible she simply failed to take appropriate action because nothing like this had ever happened to her. She was in denial about the seriousness of the situation. So Vicky stayed.

And the next day John returned to the room. This time, he slapped Vicky harder than she agreed to. When she threatened to leave, John became irate. Next door, the police were hesitant to interfere. They didn't fully understand the boundaries and nuances of BDSM and weren't sure if Vicky was in danger or not. When John stormed out of the hotel room, he grabbed a bag of Vicki's personal belongings.

Inside was $700 worth of adult toys she had brought from home. Confused over the whole interaction, Vicky decided to end her relationship with John and returned to Texas. She called John and threatened to tell them, the police if he didn't give back her stuff. The items had been a gift and held sentimental value. John refused and even threatened to release Vicki's nude photos in retaliation. It was enough to make Vicky back down. She didn't realize that the police were waiting for her to report the stolen items, so they had an excuse to arrest John and question him about Suzette Troughton.

As the police waited for Vicky to file a report, John continued to scour the internet for potential. potential victims. He was getting better at it and was able to contact many women at a time. John listened to their hardships and offered to help. John was so good at this that as he was seeing Vicky and hiding Suzette's body, he was cultivating a third relationship with another woman. Gina, that's not her real name, but will use it to protect her identity, was a 34-year-old divorcee interested in exploring BDSM culture. After learning that she'd recently, she'd recently lost her accounting job, John offered to fly her to Kansas for a visit. She agreed.

As the task force had hoped, John rented the same hotel room. When Gina arrived, their equipment was already set up in the suite next door. John and Gina engaged in sexual intercourse throughout the weekend. Towards the end of Gina's stay, John offered her a position at his company, HydroGrow. He said she could make a lot of money, excited for the new opportunity. she agreed. In May of 2000, Gina relocated to Kansas City to start the job, but she checked into a different hotel than before. The task force wasn't set up to record there, so they weren't privy to what was going on. John visited her occasionally, but mostly he was absent. Gina began to wonder if she had made a mistake. On May 19th, John called and instructed Gina to be

kneeling when he arrived at the hotel room. She didn't do as he asked, and when John entered, he got angry that Gina had disobeyed him. Sean flogged Gina across her chest. He then photographed her bruises and raped her. After, he gave her $100 and left. Terrified, Gina raced to the hotel's front desk and begged for help. Her hands trembled so badly she couldn't use the phone. The clerk called the police for her. A detective from the task force arrived and swiftly moved Gina to a safer location. There she made an official report with the police. Around this time, Vicky also came forward.

John's threat to release the nude photos hadn't worked. She wanted to press charges over the theft of her toys. Now the task force had enough to obtain a search warrant and justify an arrest. On June 2, 2000, a large police force arrived outside 56-year-old John Robinson's mobile home. As they apprehended him, John appeared shocked and demanded they tell him what he'd done wrong. When an officer mentioned Suzette Troughton, John grew pale. John was brought to Johnson County Jail and placed in solitary confinement. The task force searched his home and found blank sheets of paper with Lisa Stacey's signature on them.

and Social Security forms for Debbie and Sheila Faith. Detectives also searched John's storage trailer. Inside, they found Suzette Trouton's birth certificate and Isabella Levitska's driver's license. The next day, investigators arrived at John's ranch near Lassine. Using cadaver dogs, the police located two 55-gallon drums near a tool shed. Inside the drums were the decomposing bodies of Isabella Levitska, and Suzette Troughton.

That same day, investigators discovered that John had another storage unit in Raymore, Missouri. They obtained a second warrant to search it. Inside, they found three more barrels. They held the bodies of Sheila Faith, Debbie Faith, and Beverly Bonner. In 2001, John Robinson was charged with two counts of capital murder, 54 forgery charges, aggravated kidnapping, and two counts of fraud. When asked for his plea, John stood silent.

The judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Before the trial commenced, John's family issued a statement that he was a loving and caring husband and father. In 2002, John was found guilty in Kansas for the murders of Suzette Troughton, Isabella Levitska, and Lisa Stacey. He was sentenced to the court. death with an additional 20-year sentence for kidnapping Lisa's baby. The following October,

John pleaded guilty to the state of Missouri for the murder of Paula Godfrey, Catherine Clampett, Beverly Bonner, and Sheila and Debbie Faith. John never revealed where he hid Paula Godfrey and Lisa Stacey's bodies. Their whereabouts, and perhaps that of other missing women, are secrets he seems determined to take to his grave. and though withholding the resting place of his victims is cruel, it's comforting to know that John Robinson can do no more harm than that. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back Monday with a new episode.

For more information on John Edward Robinson, amongst the many sources we used, we found, Anyone You Want Me to Be, a true story of sex and death on the internet, by John E. Douglas and Stephen Singular, extremely helpful to our research. find more episodes of Serial Killers and all other Parcast originals free on Spotify. Not only does Spotify already have all of your favorite music, but now Spotify is making it easy

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