True Crime Campfire - Ctrl + Alt + Delete: Serial Killer John Edward Robinson Pt 2

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

In part one we introduced you to the rather creative and varied criminal career of John Edward Robinson, a man whose mask of respectability hid a scheming mind and a heart as cold as needles. Robinson spent his entire young adulthood going from con to con, scamming everyone from corporations to mayors to young single mothers. For the first half of this episode, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a story about a con man. But when we left you at the end of part 1, things were beginning to take a much darker turn. A young woman named Paula, who had accepted a “job offer” from Robinson, had disappeared. Her family suspected Johnny boy was involved, but the police didn’t feel they had any justification to start a missing persons case, so Paula’s family was left with nothing but worry and unanswered questions. And campers, it’s about to get much worse. Join us now for part 2 of this chilling story.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, in part one, we introduced you to the rather creative and varied criminal career of John Edward Robinson, a man whose mask of respectability hit a scheming, mind and a heart as cold as needles. Robinson spent his entire young adulthood going from con to con, scamming everyone from corporations to mayors to young single mothers. For the first half of this episode, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a story about a con man. But when we left you at the end of part one, things were beginning to take a much darker turn. A young woman named Paula, who had accepted a job offer from Robinson, had disappeared. Her family suspected Johnny Boy was involved, but the police didn't feel they had any justification to

start a missing person's case, so Paula's family was left with nothing but worry and unanswered questions. And campers, it's about to get much worse. Join us now for part two of Control Alt Delete, the story of John Edward Robinson. So this is where John's illicit behavior started really ramping up. He decided he was going to try his hand at being a pimp. So he hired an experienced sex worker to run the brothel that he'd rented out in his company's name. Then he went about finding girls to start working. Probably shouldn't surprise us that this quickly became one of Robinson's highest grossing business ventures.

It had a specialty in BDSM, which according to Robinson's former lovers, Robinson was super into. Now, in case you don't know what BDSM is, campers, well, here's the thing. You know how to use Google. My mom listens to the show, okay? And so does Katie's. Just don't look it up at work. That's my only advice. Both of my parents do.

It's the worst. And like your grandma, too, right? Like Katie's grandma, we're not going to make you listen to us explain what BDSM is to these people. In fact, just fast forward to the end of the episode, Grandma, you got this. Yeah. So, you know, just Google it, but don't do it at work. So anywho, 1984 was a big year for Robinson, and by the end of the year, he was still going strong. This dude had several plates spinning at all times.

You know, I wish I had that kind of stamina, because, like, I go to work, I come home, I do some knitting or writing, and then I go to bed. I just can't handle more than that. This dude was doing everything. Yeah, I know. I'm like, I'm tapped out if I go to the grocery store and vacuum. I'm like, woo-hoo, I was productive today. I deserve to binge watch investigation discreet. discovery for four hours.

God, we're pathetic. So I just realized something. We're too lazy to be criminals. So everybody can relax because we just don't have it in us. All we can do to talk about it for a couple hours a week. So, whew, right? I mean, I know some of you all were worried. I know the FBI was because we're on like every watch list ever made, right?

So anyway, John had a younger brother, Donald. And Donald and his wife were having trouble conceiving a child, and they were looking to adopt. And ever the opportunist, Robinson told Donald that he just happened to know an attorney that specialized with adoptions. And for the low, low price of $2,500, the guy could produce a baby in October. And this is $194, $2,500. So that's actually pretty high. It's a chunk of change. It is.

So October came and went, but no stork showed up to drop a baby on the family's doorstep. So that was a little disappointing. But Robinson said, look, don't worry. There are just some issues with the adoption. It's going to take a few more months. And then in December, Robinson had more good news. He was ready to present them with the best Christmas present in the world, but he would need an additional $3,000 for the final adoption fee.

Now, that's $5,500 now total, if you're counting. And coincidentally, in December, Robinson's probation officer got a call from a woman that worked for a local charity called Birthright. Now, this was a charity that helped young pregnant women with housing and job training and stuff like that. she had a very unnerving story about everybody's favorite man of the year he told the charity that he was representing the first presbyterian church of stanley and that they had a program to help young women who had just had a baby the church would be willing to put up the young woman and her child in a small home in olatha and give her an eight hundred dollar a month stipend plus expenses until she could get back on her feet sounds like an incredible deal right so they set up a meeting between john robinson a represent from the charity and a young woman who had just had a baby. Now, Johnny Boy said his program had already housed six mothers, talked it up big, and he asked the young woman what career she was interested in.

And when she responded that she was interested in silk screening, the ever-accommodating Robinson had a solution. He said, I know of a school in Dallas that could teach you. Now, Robinson was adamant that the girl be moved into the home by Christmas, but the problem was he didn't seem to have any details about any of it. So it was like, where's the duplex? I don't know the exact address. What's the name of the school in Dallas?

It must have slipped my mind. What's the name of the business that sponsors the program? Transtech. The name, you say? Letter open or you. No, no, that's not it. Paperweight college. That's it.

Paperweight college. Convincing, my dude. I think you would have anticipated those specific questions, but apparently not. And that set off all kinds of alarm bells for the charity rep, who immediately went about verifying Robinson's rather fantastic claims. And the church that he said he represented hadn't ever had a program like that, first of all. Robinson wasn't head of anything for them. And a little bit more digging brought them to Robinson's probation officer.

Yikes. And the probation officer had a sneaking suspicion that this guy was getting involved in selling babies. But why? Like who were his clients? so when birthright shut down his scheme Johnny Boy was in a bit of a pickle but he was nothing if not resilient and he made contact with the Truman Medical Center

in Kansas City in the week leading up to Christmas there he met two social workers who were just completely captivated by him again he's really charismatic and one of them said you know look he knew names he knew agencies he had an answer for everything there it is again campers charm

beware of charm my loves it can grease the wheels for some scary shit and try to train yourself to be aware when somebody's working you. Absolutely. Just remember what Gavin DeBecker says. Charm is a verb. It's a skill. It's not a natural quality necessarily. So John presented himself as a representative

of a local coalition of businesses that wanted to give back. He had a couple stipulations, though. This is unbelievable. The mother had to be white and have no history of mental illness. So gross and gross. racist and ablest both. He said he needed a white mother, specifically because they, quote, had enough black mothers, which again, what the hell. So anyway, that alone, I would think, would have set off several massive red flags for these social workers, like, for example, sex trafficking. But instead, as soon as they found a young woman that fit Robinson's criteria, they handed her over. And they did initially actually find a young black woman, but he just denied her right off the bat, which is just charming. This guy's such a champ. But it was a bit of good luck for her that he did. deny her, obviously. Yeah, so the young woman that he did accept was a 19-year-old named Lisa Stacey

who moved to the Kansas City area from Huntsville, Alabama, when she was just 17. She had a rough life. Both her father and one of her brothers died when she was a child, and it left Lisa feeling kind of rudderless. So she decided to start over in a new city when she turned 17. And start over, she did. But unfortunately for Lisa, her fresh start was less than fresh. Lisa fell in with a group of barflies and soon met her future husband, a Navy man named Carl. And they immediately developed a codependent, toxic relationship, which, yay. You like to hear that. Soon, Lisa got pregnant and married Carl right away. Just like Robinson and his wife, Nancy, interestingly enough. Everybody's getting married after like five minutes in these stories.

Shockingly, their matrimonial bliss didn't last very long as Carl turned into an abusive shitstorm shortly after their daughter Tiffany was born. So Lisa left. Good for her. And moved herself and her daughter into a battered women's shelter. And that was where Robinson's unwitting accomplices found her. She was told that she'd get the $800 stipend, that she'd be able to take. a silk screening class in Dallas and that she'd get opportunities to work all over the U.S., which

I find it interesting that he reused that silk screening class because that wasn't her dream. Yeah, that was a different girl. It's just, it's so creepy to me. So Lisa, like anyone would be, was ecstatic. And soon, Robinson showed up to pick her up and the baby up. He told her that the house that they would be living in was being readied for them. in the meantime he would put them up in a hotel with his company credit card and for some reason he used the name john osborne yeah that's not a red flag or anything no no red flags here robinson kept lisa busy over the next few days

and took time to get to know her he found out about her hopes and dreams about her worries and about her life up to that point. Then Lisa's mother-in-law got a strange phone call. Lisa was inconsolable. She was asking why Carl was divorcing her and why her mother-in-law was filing for custody of Tiffany. The bizarre thing for Lisa's mother-in-law? None of that was true. Carl had no idea where his wife and daughter were, and he was on a deployment at the time. And the mother-in-law certainly hadn't filed for custody of the baby. So this is like clearly something that Robinson is putting in her head. Absolutely. That's so creepy. It's so creepy. And at one point during this baffling conversation, Lisa told her mother-in-law that the people she was staying

with had her sign four blank pieces of paper. Please don't do that. Yeah. Shortly after Lisa said, here they are. I can't talk. And hung up. This would be the last time anyone heard from Lisa Stacey. John Robinson collected the young mother and baby and checked them out of the hotel, disappearing into the icy Midwestern landscape. Oh, I just got goosebumps. That's so creepy. The worst.

Not long, after that, Donald Robinson and his wife would welcome an infant daughter named Heather Tiffany. Middle-named Tiffany at John's insistence, by the way. As far as they knew, this was a legal adoption. They were thrilled. This seems like a very clear case of, if it seems too good to be true, it absolutely is. Almost always, absolutely.

This vulnerable young woman was gift-wrapped for a predator, and no one stopped to ask any hard questions. Yeah, and just a quick PSA before we move on, campers, please do not sign blank pieces of paper with your name on them. We're not blaming Lisa. Obviously, she was young and naive, and John was very practiced at this. And, you know, she was in a tough situation. She trusted her new employer. But still, we have to acknowledge that these things are cautionary tales nonetheless and recognize that, you know, if somebody hands you blank piece of paper and says, put your name on this and I'll fill in the details later, just don't do that. That's a bad idea.

Nothing good is happening with a blank piece of paper with your signature. Lord, no. So the Truman Medical Center did report her missing and so did her mother-in-law. But shortly after this, they both received letters that purported to be from Lisa. Oddly enough, the letters were typed. And everyone who knew Lisa well knew she couldn't type. The medical center also got a phone call from John Robinson asking where the hell Lisa was. He said that Lisa had run away with the baby and called her ungrateful.

Piece of shit. Yeah, and this is the scariest shit I've ever heard in my life. I mean, imagine, you know, you're in your, I don't know what it turns out. to be teens or something, and you find out that you were kidnapped as a baby and given to the family of your biological mother's murderer. I mean, that's like a lifetime movie or something, and it really happened to this girl. It's horrifying. Yeah, there's a book that has a very similar plot.

It's the face on the back of the milk carton, I think. Yeah, I think I remember that. I remember that being read to us in, like, sixth grade. Damn, that's what the hell. Harsh book to read to a bunch of 11-year-old kids, but cool. I would have been all over it. Yeah, I loved it. So in 1987, John placed an ad in the newspaper for a secretary, and the high pay rate

caught the attention of a woman named Catherine Clampett. Catherine was born in Korea, but adopted by an American family as a kid. She struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, but her family had banded together to help her get clean. She had a young son and she desperately wanted to be better for him. Bless her heart. That's tough. Tough stuff. Tough stuff. Her job for Robinson was her first job since moving back in with her family and she quickly became Robinson's right-hand woman.

He flew her all over the U.S. on business and then a few months after starting work, she went missing. Her family immediately suspected Robinson, but when the cops questioned him, they immediately dropped the case. They said there wasn't enough evidence for them to keep looking into him. So for those keeping track at home, this is three women that have gone missing around Robinson. Apparently, that wasn't enough for the Kansas City PD, who apparently had better things to do. Yeah, and I wonder how hard they looked for said evidence. I mean, yes, you have to have evidence to charge somebody, but you know how you get that evidence as you investigate, like you take an interest.

It doesn't just walk in through the door of the police station usually. have to go find it. So it seems like this weird catch-22 where like, well, we don't have evidence. We'll go get evidence. We don't have enough evidence to invent. What does that even mean? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. And Catherine's brother knew how important evidence was, too. So he put together a complete file that included a ton of evidence that linked his sister to Robinson. But even then, the police weren't motivated to continue searching, which is just infuriating. Her family knew that Catherine would never up and leave her kid, but as time went on, it became clear that she was gone.

She just poof, vanished off the face of the earth. Another girl, gone. And that same year, John was arrested again for fraud for pretending to be a wealthy cattle baron. That's a new one. And convincing a businessman to give him 150K for a quarter stake in a condo development. I really hope that he, like, went full on with this and wore a 10-gallon hat and cowboy boots and tried to fake like a Texas accent. or something. Anyway, I think he did it over the phone. Just, I think it's another

audio catfish. Do you think he tried to project a 10-gallon hat through a fake Texas accent? I hope so. Absolutely. All right. So finally, he was actually convicted for something. Ugh. And this fraud took place in Kansas, but he'd violated his parole in Missouri. So he was required to serve time there as well. So finally, this man actually served some real time. He served five years in the Kansas State pen and was then extradited and served seven years in Missouri. So that's like a good old 12-year sentence, right? Never wanted to admit defeat, though.

Johnny Boy started a campaign in prison to get out as soon as possible by staging a series of strokes and heart attacks and then appealing his sentence on the basis of poor health, which is something that will occasionally happen. They call it compassionate release. What it really probably means is we don't want to have to pay for your medical care, but they'll let people out sometimes when they're sick, because I guess they figure they're a spent force if they're that sick. So a doctor that treated Robinson at the end of his sentence had doubts about the validity of most of his ailments, shockingly, and he wasn't able to get out of the clink.

God. God, wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall of one of his little episodes, like a fake heart attack? I really would. What how theatrical he got with it? Well, we know he had lots of charisma. So my guess is he probably, you know, really chewed the scenery. I mean, it's probably one of the reasons why it was so obvious to the doctor that it was bullshit. Oh, it's like, what was that old show?

See, now I'm showing my age with that show, Stanford and Son, where the main character would grab his chest and say, oh, this is the big one, Elizabeth. Oh, yeah. I'm coming, Elizabeth. And it was just like, you know, he was being a drama queen or whatever. So that's probably what it was like. And in 1992, he met the prison librarian, Beverly Bonner.

She was, interestingly, the wife of the prison doctor, William Bonner, who treated Robinson for a quote-unquote stroke. and Robinson worked in the prison library with Beverly, and they became fast friends. Beverly confided that she was unhappy, both in her marriage and her job, and of course with that, she was singing old John Boy's favorite song. Like so many of the predatory creep shows we've talked about so far, John loved him a vulnerable woman. So he went right to work on Beverly. He complimented her looks.

He offered to make her his partner in Hydro grow when he got out of prison. He filled her head with exotic travel and money and freedom and all kinds of fairy tale like stuff and bless her heart beverly ate it up and of course john convinced her that he was innocent and after his release the two of them began an affair i wonder actually whether it actually started while he was still in prison oh it absolutely did they were like groping each other in the stacks the prison library i would not be surprised and it also makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach to think about it anyway so the good doctor found out about this before long and he filed for divorce and in the settlement he agreed to pay $18,000 to Beverly out of a shared property

sale. She told him to send the check to a Pio box in Kansas. After the court appearance where she and her ex worked all that out, nobody ever saw Beverly alive again. But her family did receive several typed letters from all over the world that confirmed that she was fine and having a grand old time. Is it starting to sound familiar? They were all signed by Beverly but typed other than that. And her family was kind of concerned, but they didn't really question the letters until they had a tragedy. Beverly's oldest son died, and she didn't show up for the funeral, nor did she get in contact. Even then, though, they still didn't report her missing because all the alimony checks that Dr. Bonner, her ex, was sending, were being cashed. So they figured she was

out there, and she just didn't want contact for whatever reason. And, you know, it's really disturbing how easy it can be to convince family members and law enforcement that a missing person isn't really missing. It just scares the crap out of me. So I'm saying this right now for the record, campers, if I ever disappear, it's because somebody damn well disappeared me, okay? So I don't care what kind of letters or texts or emails or edible arrangements you get with my name on them, teddy bear of the month club. I don't care. Look into it, damn it. Please, for the love God, just because you get some weird thing with my name on it, I'm not going to just go missing, I promise. Promise me, Katie.

I promise you. Okay, thank you. All right. So around this time, Robinson's wife rented a storage unit, and John was seen moving large metal drums into it. And then, in 1994, John Robinson discovered computers. He started joining some BDSM forums using the username the slave master. Charming. He presented himself as a wealthy businessman and drew women in really easily with promises of fulfilling their every fantasy. And it was on one of these BDSM sites that he met a

widow from California named Sheila Faith. Sheila had a teenage daughter, Debbie, who had cerebral palsy and was in a wheelchair, super sweet, fun-loving kid. Some stuff in Sheila's childhood had given her some abandonment issues and a really deep need to be loved and accepted, and this was made a lot worse by the fact that she was kind of a shy, quiet teenager and she got teased a lot in high school. And in high school, she met her future husband, John

Faith, and they got married and had Debbie. Aside from some financial issues and some medical pressures caused by Debbie's cerebral palsy, they were a really, really happy family. But then, in 1991, John died of cancer and this absolutely destroyed

Sheila and Debbie. Sheila was lonely, she was grieving, and she started acting really strangely. She posted pornographic pictures on the walls of her bedroom. She answered more and more lonely hearts ads, she started trawling chat rooms, you know, stuff that was pretty out of character for her. And then, in 1994, she met the slave master.

John Robinson showered Sheila with attention, and under the guise of getting to know her, he peppered her with questions about the social security check she was getting, as well as the names and addresses of her close. hostess to family and friends. Hell no, uh-uh. Another massive red flag right out of the gate campers. No one needs to know your family's addresses.

Absolutely not. Sheila was big in love with John, though. And when he asked her to move to Kansas City, she happily accepted. Homeboy actually showed up to her home in Colorado to drive Debbie and Sheila the eight hours to Kansas City. Sheila hadn't told anyone they were going, which was totally out of character. Another thing that you should please not ever do. Please don't move to another state with some guy you met on the internet and not tell

anybody where you are. They don't know where you are. What if he locks you in the basement? Nobody knows where you are. Oh, it just stresses me out even to think about it. Tell people where you're going. I don't make decisions that quickly, so the whole process just stresses me. I know.

It is really like watching a horror movie. You're like, don't go up the stairs. You can't reach back in time and stop. It's really sad. After they left, her family and friends started receiving typed letters signed by Sheila, assuring them that she and Debbie were very happy. Sheila's welfare checks were still getting cashed. In fact, the Social Security Administration received a doctor's note from Dr. William Bonner.

Remember him, Camper's, the prison doctor, stating that Debbie was now completely disabled and required in-home care for the rest of her life. This note, by the way, was a complete forgery. Oh, yeah. I was, I was confused by the fact that it was Bonner. Like, does Bonner crooked or something? Like, was he paying him off? It was just a complete lie.

Mm-hmm. Just a complete... He just signed his name to it. Yeah, well, that's on-brand for Johnny Boy. So on-brand. Not only that, but the checks were now supposed to be sent to a PO box in Olathe, Kansas. Owned by one James Turner. Coincidentally, this was the same PO box.

where Beverly Bonner's checks were being sent. I wonder why that was. Yet another damn alias. So many. He likes his aliases. Now, John was juggling several relationships under his online persona. And he had all of his girlfriends sign a slave contract, which he led most of them to believe was legally binding. And, okay, we're not lawyers, but we can very comfortably say that that's not true.

I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure a sex contract is not going to hold up in a court a law. And by the way, remember he's married while all this is going on. So poor Nancy is like presumably home, you know, doing what she does. And he's striking up just one online relationship after another and one real life relationship after another flying all these women now. It's just crazy. Okay, guys, here are some excerpts of this slave contract, mom, dad. Fast forward, please. Whitney's mom, too.

Yeah. Okay. I feel like I should do a lawyer voice for this. Of my own free will, as of this day, I, name of slave, here and after, called all caps, slave. Hereby grant, name of master, here and after called master, again, all caps, full ownership and use of my body and mind from now until I am released. I will obey my master at all times and will wholeheartedly seek your pleasure and well-being above all other considerations. I renounce my rights to my own pleasure, comfort, or gratification, except insofar as you desire or permit them. I strive diligently to remold my body,

my habits, and my attitudes in accordance to please you better, and will gracefully accept criticism as a means for growth and not a threat of abandonment. I understand. that for a training period indicated by you, all punishment will be given at a five to one ratio to the offense. Yikes, damn. I unconditionally accept as your prerogative anything that you may choose to do with me, whether as punishment for your amusement or for whatever purpose, no matter how painful or humiliating to myself. I understand that if I use certain words which are deemed by you inappropriate for a slave, the punishment will be automatic and then it is my duty to remind master in the case that he

fails to remember. And one of those words was pickle weasel. I'm just kidding. I don't know. Like, what words? I don't understand that part. I'm sure it was cussing. Oh, for fuck's sake. Don't boss me. I'll cuss if I want. Okay, so I actually spoke to somebody

who is involved in the BDSM scene because it might be pretty clear from our reactions as far that we're not. So we're, you know, we're nobs at this. Because I wanted to figure out whether this contract is unusual, you know, if it's too harsh or whatever. And I was surprised to learn that she said it's actually pretty standard, which actually kind of cracks me up that there are like boilerplate sex contracts out there. They undersigned.

But a person who has experience in this scene would probably want to put something in there about what constitutes quote unquote severe punishment and set some hard limits on that is what she said. And that makes perfect sense to me. And I also want to make it clear that, look, we're not trying to crap on the BDSM lifestyle. Really not. It's just not something we have a lot of experience with ourselves. Most people who enjoy this kind of stuff, though, are normal people who would never kill anyone, you know, or anything like that. They're just folks who enjoy a type of role play that gives them the ability to explore sexual roles and escape their everyday personas, basically. So some people like to relinquish control, some like to take

control. But most of the time, the folks who practice this stuff are very careful to respect each other's limits and feelings. But that said, there are also people in that scene, which anybody in that scene will tell you, who are wolves and sheep's clothing and actually do get into it because they want to abuse or exploit people or genuinely really hurt people. And John Robinson most definitely is one of those people. And the person that I spoke to pointed out that including lines in the contract like, no feeling I can have is invalid. I think that was a part that we actually didn't read. We just read little excerpts. But there was a part in there where it said, I understand that no feeling I can have is invalid and that I should bring these things up because

they might need to be discussed. And it seemed very, like, fair and respectful. And so he said that and he said at one point that everything they did would be safe, sane, and consensual. And the person I spoke to pointed out that lines like that would be a good way to come across like a caring dominant when really your intention is anything but caring. So it's kind of a way to fly under the radar because apparently that contract that we just read

for somebody in that scene wouldn't necessarily send up any red flags. As horrifying as it might look to me. Like I saw severe punishment in 5 to 1 ratio and I was like yikes, but I mean that's par for the course if you're into the dominant submissive stuff.

Hmm. Thank you, reporter from the field, Whitney. you're welcome sorry mom um like we said we're on several lists it's fine amazon doesn't know what to advertise to us anymore so robinson's so-called slaves would be required to send him money pictures or give him access to their retirement funds several of them were offered high-paying jobs in kansas city but most of them declined mind. Most of them. One unlucky woman who fell into Robinson's web was a 19-year-old art student named Isabella Loica. She was a Polish immigrant who moved to Indiana with her family when she was 15. She was kind of rad. She really was. She's a pretty, pretty girl, and I love

her style. Yeah, so she wanted to study fashion, and her wardrobe consisted mostly of those beautiful Victorian dresses, like the ones with the neck ruffles. Yeah, and like lace. And so, you know, she was goth, 90s goth, which is like high quality goth. Agreed. Not, yeah. Anyway, she announced to her family out of nowhere that she would be dropping out of school

and moving to Kansas, but neglected to tell them that it was for a man she'd met on a BDSM message board, which I'm assuming would concern them. I would think so. Supposedly, John Boy was embarrassed by Isabella's goth look. Oh, fuck off.

Right? What a square. But he hired her to do some design work for his company anyway, and then he agreed to marry her. Oh, nice, right? You just met. When they showed up to the courthouse, Isabella's naturally red hair was dyed a brownish color, and Robinson gave the name John Anthony Robinson to the clerk, which is decidedly not his name. No, and Robinson put his new wife, quote unquote, up in a one-bedroom apartment,

and she lived there for two years while he still lived in his family home with his actual wife, Nancy. And when people would ask Isabella, like, why don't you live with your husband? She'd say, it wouldn't be proper, which is just weird and must have not satisfied anyone, but okay.

And in June of 1999, Isabella and Robinson were seen shopping at her favorite bookstore when she told the owners that this would be her last trip to the store because she and her husband were moving away. And like we've said so many times this episode, Isabella Luaica was

never seen again, but her parents started receiving letters detailing her adventures abroad. For his part, Robinson told people that Isabella had been arrested for weed possession and was deported back to Poland. Right. So it was about a year later that John would strike for the last time. Suzette Troughton was a 28-year-old home health care worker in Monroe, Michigan. She was the youngest of five children and had a fierce spirit. She loved animals and always had a couple pets in her house, and she was described as independent to the point of rebelliousness. She wanted to be treated like everybody else, even when she was like four and five years old.

She felt like she was ready to roll. Suzette had pretty much always struggled with depression and anxiety, and at one point attempted suicide by shooting herself in the stomach in front of her mom, which just, holy shit, that's intense, you know? And her family pretty much agreed that it was a cry for attention, which even if true doesn't make it any less serious. Like, if you're doing that for whatever reason, you need help. Absolutely.

So she obviously had some, you know, some troubling stuff in her past. But she found her calling as a nursing assistant for a home health care business. She would care for terminally ill people in their homes. And her family and friends say it was the perfect job for her because she was such an empathetic person and she seemed to really thrive when she was taking care of people. She had two Pekingese doggies who were the loves of her life. Sweet little fluffs, I love Pekingese. They're the cutest. Oh, I mostly love like Biscanese.

fluffy dogs. Like if I ever had a dog, I'd want one like just a big honkin floof of a dog. Or like a big dog you can saddle up like your fin. But I have a soft spot for the little ones as well. I call them cat dogs. They're really cute. And pecanese are just, oh my lord. We had a peekapoo when I was growing up and that little pumpkin, oh Lord, she was cute. So my opa had a peekapoo. And Sorry, we're getting off track, but I need to tell you this story. I want to hear about the peek-a-poo. So his name was Shorty, and it was my Oma's dog, and she had him for years and years, and she passed away. But my Opa kept Shorty, like, because that was her dog, right?

Sure. This dog lived for 20 years. Wow. Yeah. He was the meanest little fucker in the entire world. He bit me in the face. I deserved it. As a kid, I got in his face.

Oh, no. But he, he would hide under, like, my, my Oma decorator house. She had these, like, you know, those lacy hang-down tablecloths on the end tables. And he would hide under there and, like, attack you. Lay and wait. Like, surprise, attack you. And get your ankles. He was a beloved member of the family.

I love him. Shorty, rest in peace. Rest in peace, Shorty. We love you. You little mean asshole. We love you. So, yeah, dogs are the best. Susat was interested in the kink lifestyle, particularly in a scene called the Gorian scene.

And I won't go too far into that because, frankly, I don't want to. But basically, it's a style of kink that does not have the quote-unquote safe, sane and consensual tenants that are central to the mainstream BDi-E. SM world. In fact, some people don't even consider it part of the BDSM scene. Like, it's a separate thing. I googled this because obviously we have to make sure we're on every list in existence. But it's based on a series of sci-fi novels set on the planet Gore from I assume that's where it gets the name Gorean that feature charming plot points such as all women are slaves who exist solely to fulfill men's desires. So, yeah, not my thing. Thank you. No. Oblek. But on a goryan message board, Suzette met a woman named Tammy Taylor, a Canadian mother of two, and she and Suzette hit it off right away, struck up a really close friendship. She told Tammy everything. Well, almost everything. Because internet chats weren't enough for Suzette. She started meeting with strangers in real life for rough sex and partook an increasingly dangerous behavior, and she knew Tammy wouldn't approve of that. So she started hiding things from her, as people tend to do.

And at some point in 1999, she became acquainted with a man named J.R. online, who drew her in with promises of riches and sexual and romantic fulfillment. Playing to her compassionate tendencies, he told her about his diabetic dad who needed daily care. In fact, J.R. was actually looking for a full-time nurse to take care of his dad while they went on a father-son sailing trip. So he offered the job to Suzette and told her that her salary would be 65K a year, which is incredible for 1990. And she'd also get a car and housing. Suzette couldn't believe her look. She was a little hesitant, though, because she'd never met the guy. So she said, look, I really want the job.

But can I come out and meet you and your dad first and get to know you? And JR said, that's such a good idea. He praised her for being cautious because, you know, I could be anybody. I could be some kind of creep or pervert. And he agreed to fly her out for a visit. And pretty much everybody in Suzette's life had their antennae raise when she told him about this. She neglected to tell them that she'd met the guy on a sex message board and instead told them that it was through a nurse placement agency. But even so, they were still worried already.

Yeah, yikes. I'm not saying that you should tell your friends or family everything, but when you find yourself concealing the story this much. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe it's time to take stock. She could have just said that she met the guy online. But instead, she fabricated an entire story to cover. her tracks, which would end up putting her in a really dangerous situation. Yeah, it's so unfortunate.

And now comes campers the bug nuts craziest part of this entire story, in my opinion. Suzette landed in Kansas City and was picked up by a limo that drove her to a mansion-style house where J.R. told her he lived. Now, this was not John Robinson's house. I don't know where the hell he got this house, but it was a mansion, okay? And he introduced her to his elderly father. Now, John Robinson's real dad had passed away while he was in prison. This was not his dad.

She also met his quote-unquote wife and several women who he said worked for him, all of whom gushed about what a great boss he was, what a nice guy he was. Y'all, this dude engineered an entire fake life for the five days that Suzette was visiting. He somehow obtained a mansion, a fake dad, a fake wife, And a bunch of fake employees to pretend to be, you know, people in his life to fool this poor girl. And it's just so much effort. And it goes to show you that honestly, no matter what you do, if somebody is committed enough to getting you, you're going to get God. Because who would expect that?

You would never expect that somebody would go to those lengths. No, I'm nauseous just thinking about it. It's just horrifying. It's like a movie. And he really did this. He freaking hired a dad and a wife. I'm not laughing because it's funny. No, it is. It's absurd

is what it is. That's why we're laughing because it's just outrageous. It's a sitcom plot. It's fucking terrifying. Yeah. And unsurprisingly, this sold Suzette because it would anybody. And she made plans to move to Kansas City in February of 2000. She was completely reassured by this. Everybody says he's a nice

guy. He's got this beautiful home. Oh, God. It's just, like you say, it's nauseating. And Tammy said that she had no idea that Susette's new boss was actually her new master and if she had known she would have hit the roof because working for your master and putting yourself in a situation like that is beyond the pale in Tammy's opinion anyway and I have to agree. So before her big move, Suzette seemed to have some second thoughts though. In an I am conversation with Tammy she told her about her doubts and Tammy told

her look just quit quit but Suzette told her look my days are numbered baby I have to go I need the money. It's just like a horror movie. When she did arrive in Kansas, Robinson took her to an extended stay hotel because, according to him, the apartment that he'd already showed her as being fully furnished wasn't ready yet. She set up her desktop at the hotel, told everybody she'd arrived safely, and for the first couple of weeks, she barely left that hotel room. And Robinson, of course, was a frequent visitor. He would take sexually explicit videos and photos of her, and she'd send those to Tammy. And Cato, I got to tell you, baby, I love you, but I'm glad we don't have that kind of friendship. where we like send each other sex videos.

I'm just grateful for that. We just stick mostly to memes and cat videos and that's a okay with me. Yeah, that's a level of friendship. I've never breached. I can comfortably say. I know. I just, please don't send me any sex videos. I won't.

Anybody. So, ever. Anybody at all ever. So she constantly asked John when her job was starting, but he kept brushing her off. saying, look, I'm in the middle of buying a new business, but we will leave for the trip soon. Now, the isolation depressed Suzette, who told Tammy that she felt like a caged cat in that she was desperately homesick. Her only comfort were her two dogs. Yeah, I mean, basically what has happened here is he's just stashed her away, just to kind of use her whenever he wanted

her. Basically, he would just show up, and they would have rough sex, and then he would leave and go back to his life and she was stuck there in the hotel. It's just so, what a despairing kind of situation. The worst. But Suzette still refused to give up on the job, which hadn't even started yet. And eventually she told Tammy the truth about her relationship with her boss. She gloated, just so you know, I have the hots for my boss. He's a dom too. Did you expect me to work for a normal person? This is me we're talking about. Now, Tammy was upset. and told Suzette she should keep it in her pants. But sadly, Suzette brushed her off.

In one final message to Tammy before she had to pack up her computer, she said, Well, sweets, I have to run. I'm off to the farm this morning for a while. Love to you, baby. That same day, Animal Control received a call about two well-groomed Pekingese dogs that had been running around the neighborhood. And when the officer arrived, he found the two dogs in a carrier in Nancy Robinson. Robinson's office. Oh, wow. So just to be clear, John Robinson absolutely found those dogs, right?

Yeah, I just found these Pekingese dogs running around. And I just have this carrier to keep them in. One kind of bright spot, the dogs were okay. They were separated, but placed in new loving homes. No one saw Suzette Troughton ever again. The next day, Tammy got a strange email from Suzette. She told Tammy, who had recently broken up with her master over a disagreement about nipple piercings, which... I'm sorry. I didn't even know that was going to happen.

It just burst out of me. I'm sorry. I broke up with my master over a disagreement about nipple piercings. That's just not a sentence you usually hear, if you're me. Anyway, he wanted her to pierce her nip-nops. No, she wanted to pierce her nipples, and he didn't want her to. And he freaked out, and she told him to kick rocks, which I fucking, I adore Tammy. So she had just gone through this breakup and, Susette told her that J.R. had this friend who would be willing to be her new master.

And she gave her an email address to contact him. And the email address was, erudite master at hotmail.com. Barf. This guy is the fucking worst. Every time I think I can't hate his stupid baby face more, he goes on and makes this stupid fucking email address. And I don't remember him being particularly erudite in any of the like interrogation videos or letters or anything else.

You're not erudite and you're nobody's master, you asshole anyway. He just owns a thesaurus. Fuck off. Now, so Tammy ended up reaching out, and the man introduced himself as J.T. or James Turner, which we know as an alias of John Robinson. Tammy was far more cautious than Suzette and asked her friend for the rundown. Of course, Suzette confirmed that J.T. was the best. She said, I was introduced to him. by my master, who, by the way, is the best fucking thing that ever happened to me in my whole life. Which is just the most pathetic thing I've ever heard in my whole life knowing that

John wrote this about himself. Now, as this exchange went on between Tammy and quote-unquote Susette and Tammy and JT, John kept getting his personas confused. So Tammy would write a letter like asking questions of Suzette and then JT would. respond. Like as JT. Yeah. So as time we're on, Tammy was like highly suspicious and started to worry that her friend had been trafficked. So she decided to start her own investigation.

And I fucking, I adore this woman. I love Tammy. She's so like determined and brave. And I mean, everybody needs a friend like Tammy. Everyone needs a friend like Tammy. Absolutely. I would I would absolutely do this for you Whitney I would 100% do this for you absolutely I'd go after him like he was made out of cheesecake If only

I would take him down If John Robinson was made out of cheesecake the world would be a better place Anyway I digress So Tammy would message Suzette about her doubts regarding JT And would in turn flirt with JT to keep them interested Suzette, or rather, John as Suzette, would reassure her and encourage her to open up to J.T. Man, he must have felt like he'd finally found his perfect tool when that internet came out. It gave him so much more flexibility with which to manipulate people.

This man is a sentient garbage pale kid. And I literally hate every electron in his body. That's how much I hate him. I hate him at the subatomic level. That's the true crime campfire stand. Yeah. God. So then Tammy reached out to a friend to help her trap John. This friend, who I could only find under the pseudonym Trixie, asked J.T. to introduce her to a master since he was apparently the Tinder for this message board. He knows all the masters. Yeah. And, you know, because things were going so well between J.T. and Tammy. So he obliged. And, Magnet. And, you know, because things were going so well between J. And Magnet. unanimously gave her the contact info for a friend of his named Tom. And Trixie got Tom to give her his phone numbers.

Then Tammy reached out to an ex of Suzette's who happened to be a police officer and had him run the numbers. The numbers led not to Tom or to J.T. But to one John Edward Robinson. Boom, goes the dynamite. That's right. And, you know, this is catfishing. before we even had the word catfishing. Mm-hmm.

Just after that, Suzette's family received an email from someone claiming to be their daughter. Her mother knew immediately that they weren't from her daughter because Suzette was awful at spelling when she got excited. And there weren't enough typos in the note. And Suzette also got the name of her own dog wrong. Oh. Yeah. Red flag. Soon after, the Lenoxa Police Department. called. They'd finally opened an investigation on John Edward Robinson, and they wanted to

interview her. Then Detective Jack Boyer, head of the task force, reached out to Tammy and told her they needed her help. They instructed her to stay in contact with Robinson and to pretend that she suspected nothing. She told John that she would be willing to come to Kansas soon, and he took the bait. His emails to her became more and more sexually violent, but she kept leading him on. It was her way of taking back control and helping to find her friend. Yeah, and, you know, detectives using private citizens in this way is really very unusual, but I think they felt they had such an opportunity because she already had established contact with Robinson as these false personas, and it was just too good to pass up, I think, and she was willing to do it,

and she was damn good at it, too, and brave. And again, we love Tammy. So we can't go too deeply into the investigation in favor of time, but essentially John got careless. And his name kept popping up in missing persons cases, and the police and FBI were waiting for the final nail in the coffin to put the old habeas grab us on him. So in concert with Tammy's leading emails and also a few women that had some really disturbing sexual encounters with John, the DA finally issued an arrest warrant on John Edward Robinson. And on June 2nd, 2002, the task force arrested our boy and converged on his home to search the property. They found two metal drums almost right away, which drew the attention of the cadaver doggos, who I'm sure are good boys or good girls or both. And in each 80-gallon barrel, they discovered a badly decomposed body. Both women were naked, blindfolded, and had blunt force trauma to the head.

It was Isabella Luica and Suzette Troughton. And by the way, Katie accidentally came across some photos of these while she was researching the case, and it was upsetting. So just so you know, if you Google around on this case, you might actually come across pictures like that, you know, which maybe that's interesting to you, but maybe it would really upset you. So we wanted to kind of warn you. They're brutal. And they are really high up. So I was looking for pictures of one of the victims. I don't even remember which it was.

And they are very high up in the Google, like, algorithm. So just be careful. Yeah, it's really very upsetting. I've seen them, too. So they quickly found out about John Boy's storage unit and gained access to that, and inside they found Suzette's Social Security card, her birth certificate, and her signed 100-page, 100-page, slave contract, as well as Isabella's IDs. Along with those, they found dozens of blank pieces of paper bearing Suzette and Isabella's signatures. They also discovered three additional barrels, carrying the bodies of Sheila Faith,

her teenage daughter Debbie and the prison librarian Beverly Bonner. The police believed that John would get his victims into a vulnerable position, tied up, blindfolded, unable to fight back, and then he'd hit them over the head with a blunt object. And it is striking to me, and I know you and I've already talked about this, Katie, that he definitely went after vulnerable women. And that's something that we also, of course, saw with Bill Bradfield in season one, with a, Martin McNeil in the doctor's wife episode, like he would have affairs with all these women that were, you know, going through divorces or that were disabled or having health problems or something or in financial need. And John seemed to have an uncanny ability to find these women and zero in on them, women that were emotionally vulnerable or had a, you know, obvious need

to be accepted, et cetera, et cetera. And some of them were clearly murdered for their money, but others, it seemed to almost just be a game to him. Just he enjoyed it. Just pure, you know, scary, sadistic psychopath stuff. And yeah, it's freaky when we talk about serial killers how a lot of the victims have this thread that runs through their lives beyond, you know, the basic, you know, sexuality, gender, race. but like this a lot of them had were children of divorce or adopted or were grieving wives it's just very interesting to me that they all had this singular thread running through their lives that drew them to John Robinson yeah that's scary and he because he had this charisma and this charm and he would promise them not only jobs and money but also security and love and he would love bomb them and compliment them until he would them how beautiful they were and you know it worked like a charm sadly so he's a monster of of epic proportions i cannot stand this dude yeah he's awful so as they searched the properties they realized that there

were two victims missing lisa and tiffany stacey that's when they discovered that robinson's teenage niece heather tiffany was actually a victim of kidnapping now at the time of this case, the courts let Heather decide if she wanted to stay with her adopted family and she decided that she did, in fact, want to stay. And today, I watched an interview with her. She's starting to look for her biological father and she didn't want to meet him before, which I understand. If you're 16, that's a really complicated mess to deal with. And this is the only family she's ever known. I mean, you know. Yeah. And I mean, by all accounts, they were a very loving family.

Yeah, they didn't know. I mean, it wasn't. their fault. They didn't know about the murder or anything. So they thought it was a legal adoption, like we said earlier. So she's become dedicated to finding her mother's body, and she also filed a civil suit against the hospital and the social worker that handed her and her mother over to Robinson. Good for her. Damn right. Absolutely. So infuriating. Lisa Stacy, Paula Godfrey, and Catherine Clampett remain missing. In 2003, after the longest trial in Kansas history, John Edward Robinson was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for the murders of Trouton, Llewica, and Stacey.

The jury sentenced him to death for the murders of Trouton and Llewica and for life in prison for the murder of Lisa Stacey. Yeah, and he also faced another murder trial in Missouri for the murders of Catherine Clampett, Beverly Bonner, and Debbie and Sheila Faith. The prosecutors offered him a deal in exchange for him leading them to the remaining bodies, but he refused to cooperate. Right. Are we surprised? I'm not. But he ended up taking a plea to avoid the death penalty, life without parole, and it was an offered plea, by the way, so he didn't admit fault. He just

admitted they had enough evidence, which is, you know, gross in my opinion. So in 2015, his convictions for Suzette Troughton and Lisa Stacey were vacated because of legal technicalities, but not to worry, he remains on death row in Kansas for the murder of Isabella Llewica, where he sits rotting to this day. And we hope he's having a horrible time. What an absolute walking nightmare of a human being. Ugh. Shake it off, campers. Shake it off. He's awful. So anyway, that's all we have for you today, campers. But remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The person behind the screen name could be anybody. So proceed cautiously.

You know, we'll have another one for you next week. So in the meantime, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. Until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And we want to send a shout out to our newest page. patron. Thank you so much to Tanya. We appreciate you to the moon and back. And if you haven't become a patron yet, you're missing out. Patrons get every episode a day early and an extra episode every month. Plus, you get a free sticker when you sign up. And we're working on some more surprises and extras for the upcoming months. So stuff like discounted and free merch just for patrons. So come join us if you can. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page.

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