#577 - Behind A Serial Killer's Mask - Lenexa, Kansas

Summary

Small Town Murder - Episode #577: Behind A Serial Killer's Mask - Lenexa, Kansas

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode #577 of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve deep into the chilling case of John Edward Robinson III, a seemingly upstanding man from Lenexa, Kansas, who led a double life as a serial killer. This episode combines meticulous research, harrowing tragedy, and the hosts' signature comedic perspective to unravel the dark layers of a man who masqueraded behind a mask of normalcy.

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Background of John Robinson

[03:44] James Petragallo: "He couldn't be more different from Haddon Clark... almost like if BTK had social skills, this is who he would be."

John Edward Robinson III, known later as John Robinson Jr., was born on December 27, 1943, in Cicero, Illinois. The third of five children, his early life was tumultuous, marked by absenteeism from his mother and a father struggling with alcoholism. At the age of 14, Robinson embarked on a journey towards the priesthood by joining the Quigley Preparatory Seminary. However, his inclination towards discipline waned as he engaged in brawls and spent significant time in detention, ultimately abandoning his religious aspirations.

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Early Criminal Activities

After dropping out of seminary, Robinson pursued various careers, including a stint as an X-ray technician, where he deceitfully secured positions without proper qualifications by falsifying diplomas and recommendations. His pattern of embezzlement began in the mid-1960s, leading to multiple arrests for theft and fraud. Despite repeated convictions, Robinson's charm and deceit allowed him to evade significant punishment, receiving minimal probation sentences each time.

[12:03] Jimmy Wisman: "Well, what is that about?"
[12:04] James Petragallo: "That's a lot. It's just a wealthy little suburb."

In 1975, his fraudulent activities culminated in an indictment for securities fraud and mail fraud, for which he pled no contest and was fined $2,500 with additional probation. His criminal endeavors continued unabated, leading to further fraud charges in 1986 and subsequent convictions, although his sentences were often mitigated through appeals and probation loopholes.

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Establishing a Façade in Lenexa

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Robinson had relocated to Lenexa, Kansas, a seemingly idyllic suburb with low crime rates and a high median household income. Here, he presented himself as a devoted family man and community member, engaging in roles such as a Sunday school teacher, Scoutmaster, and neighborhood Santa Claus. His outward persona was meticulously crafted to earn the trust and admiration of his neighbors.

[16:18] James Petragallo: "They have the power to ticket vehicles. In Kansas City, the barbecue really rules the roost."

Robinson's charm extended into establishing legitimate businesses, including Professional Services Association, Inc., and later, Hydro Grow Inc., a medical consulting firm. These enterprises served as fronts for his fraudulent schemes, embezzling funds from unsuspecting clients and investors.

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BDSM Involvement and Criminal Escalation

In parallel to his financial deceit, Robinson developed a deep involvement in the BDSM community. This facet of his life was characterized by manipulative and abusive relationships with young women, whom he would lure with promises of employment, financial support, and personal attention.

[27:19] Jimmy Wisman: "This kid praises like nobody."

Notable victims included:

• Lisa Stasi (1984): A young mother promising stability and a job, who disappeared without a trace.
• Paula Godfrey (1984): Another woman entangled in Robinson's web of deceit, coerced into a subservient role.
• Suzette Trouton (1997): A BDSM enthusiast who vanished after moving to Kansas under false pretenses.
• Isabella Lewicka (1999): An artist and submissive partner who disappeared alongside Suzette.

Robinson's pattern involved gaining the trust of vulnerable women, exploiting their desires for control and acceptance within the BDSM lifestyle, and ultimately resorting to violence and murder when they attempted to break free or uncover the truth.

[35:25] Jimmy Wisman: "That would get us all in trouble."
[35:27] James Petragallo: "You can't do that, man."

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The Disappearance and Murders

Between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, Robinson's criminal activities intensified, leading to the disappearance and eventual death of at least five women. His modus operandi involved:

1. Recruitment: Offering employment or relationships within his businesses.
2. Isolation: Moving victims to secluded locations such as apartments or storage units.
3. Exploitation: Engaging in abusive and violent BDSM practices.
4. Concealment: Disposing of bodies in concealed areas like storage units with barrels, often tied up or hidden behind objects.

[52:17] Jimmy Wisman: "You're ugly. Leave me alone."

The bodies were discovered years later in various storage units, confirming the quadruple murder charges Robinson faced. The forensic evidence, including fingerprints and DNA, directly linked Robinson to the crimes, cementing his status as a serial killer.

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Arrest and Investigation

In March 2000, Robinson was apprehended following a series of investigative leads:

• Surveillance: Probation officer Steve Hames identified suspicious patterns and incongruities in Robinson's stories.
• Undercover Operations: FBI agents posed as potential victims, leading to direct confrontations and evidence of his violent tendencies.
• Forensic Evidence: Fingerprints and DNA linked Robinson to the remains found in storage units across Kansas.

[82:43] Jimmy Wisman: "Meanwhile, he's running schemes constantly."
[82:45] James Petragallo: "But he's just like this middle-aged, you know, got a tie on, his hair's combed neatly."

Robinson's charismatic facade made it difficult for authorities to uncover the extent of his crimes, allowing him to evade detection for years despite consistent red flags and missing persons reports.

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Trial and Sentencing

Robinson's trial was a complex affair, involving multiple jurisdictions and charges. Ultimately, in October 2003, he was found guilty of capital murder for the deaths of five women and sentenced to death. Additional sentences included life imprisonment and extended probation for various fraudulent activities.

[176:24] Jimmy Wisman: "Don't you dare think we thought we forgot about the theft of the dildos. You'll be doing that first."
[176:26] James Petragallo: "He's got how many bodies more are out there that we haven't found? Yeah."

His sentencing highlighted the challenges of prosecuting white-collar criminals who maintain impeccable outward appearances while committing heinous crimes behind closed doors.

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Current Status and Conclusion

As of the episode's release in 2025, John Robinson III remains on death row in Missouri, now over 80 years old. His case serves as a stark reminder of the dual lives some individuals lead and the importance of vigilance within communities. Despite his apparent remorse and attempts to portray himself as rehabilitated, the evidence against him remains incontrovertible.

[187:53] James Petragallo: "They found Trouton's contact list with all their mailing addresses. They also found 31 pieces of pastel colored stationery with 'Love you Suzette' signed at the bottom."

The hosts conclude by reflecting on the disturbing ease with which Robinson manipulated those around him, emphasizing the need for awareness and trust within small communities to prevent such tragedies.

[185:27] Jimmy Wisman: "So she broke it off and didn't see him anymore."
[185:29] James Petragallo: "Yeah, she didn't see him anymore because he was lying to her and shit like that."

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Notable Quotes

• James Pietragallo at [03:44]: "This is who BTK would dream to be. Just dream about it."
• Jimmy Whisman at [12:03]: "Well, what is that about?"
• James Pietragallo at [27:19]: "But we're not scumbags."
• James Pietragallo at [35:25]: "You can't do that, man."
• Jimmy Whisman at [52:17]: "You're ugly. Leave me alone."
• James Pietragallo at [82:43]: "But he's just like this middle-aged, you know, got a tie on, his hair's combed neatly."
• Jimmy Whisman at [176:24]: "Don't you dare think we thought we forgot about the theft of the dildos. You'll be doing that first."

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Conclusion

Small Town Murder Episode #577 offers an in-depth exploration of John Robinson III's life, unraveling the deceptive layers that allowed a serial killer to operate within a community believed to be safe and prosperous. Through detailed storytelling and engaging dialogue, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman shed light on the complexities of human behavior, the allure of false personas, and the dark realities that can lurk beneath the surface of small-town America.

For those intrigued by the intersection of true crime and human psychology, this episode serves as both a cautionary tale and a compelling narrative on the nature of deception and criminality.

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Disclaimer: This summary is based on the provided podcast transcript and is intended for informational purposes only. The events described are based on the hosts' discussion and may contain speculative elements.

Transcript

[James Petragallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

We just give the stylist our sizes, style, budget preferences. I hope we order boxes when we want, how we want. No subscription or any of that required. And they send all just for me pieces as well. Oh, like maybe you'd like this. And it's awesome. Outfit recommendations, styling tips. You keep what you love, you send back the rest. It's super easy. You can do it. And we are doing it because it's excellent personal styling for everyone. Get started [e-mail] STM that's stitchfix.com STM.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petragallo]

Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about Noom. Has Noom helped you? I believe it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

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[James Petragallo]

It does it. Noom builds personal plans that can meet individual needs. That's the thing. Takes into account any dietary restrictions, medical issues, other personal needs that helps build a plan that works for you. And yes, so you've. I know that you've had your own personalized program here that you've been working on and weight loss, that, that, that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is, this is weight loss results that last. They stick around because you, you get yourself into a lifestyle change and that's what matters.

[James Petragallo]

That's mainly. You can't just say, I'm going to for a month and then go back. That's not where you don't. So I'm glad it's helping you. That's great. And it really does. I like the psychology and biology based approach here. Noom weight uses psychology. That's why they say losing weight starts with your brain, but it also takes into account your unique biological factors. Jimmy. All of all of your multitude flora and fauna that goes on inside of you there. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology based approach. Sign up for your trial [e-mail] noom.com n o o m.com here based on 3.5 year study of actively engaged Noom users with minimum starting BMI of 25. Individual results may vary. Visit our website for more information. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery exposes a multibillion dollar criminal empire. Every suspicious text you ignore masks a huge network of compounds where thousands are held captive and forced to scam others under the threat of death. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Lenexa, Kansas, a vicious serial killer uses lies and promises of jobs to lure women into his horrifying trap of murder and strange perversions. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Oh yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm Jimmy Wisman.

[James Petragallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely crazy edition of Small Town Murder. We have another serial killer this week. Didn't plan on having two within three weeks of each other with Haddon Clark a couple weeks ago or whatever, but this is a completely different guy than Haddon Clark. Like couldn't be more different. This is almost like, this is almost like if btk, like had social skills, this is who he would be. Put it that way. Yeah. You know, BTK was weird. Nobody liked him. If he was a good con man, he would be this guy. This would be his dream would be to be this guy. Like I'm sure he was looking at him with like wide eyed admiration the whole time this was happening. So we'll talk about all that and more. First of all, head over to shut upandgivemerder.com get your tickets to live shows. First of all, get your ticket to the virtual live show because that's our next live show. Anywhere you are in the world with an Internet connection. It is just like a regular live show except you're in your living room. Except. And we are going to be doing the same thing with the screen and the jokes and the story. It's the 420 virtual live show April 19th. It's available for two weeks after that. So get your tickets. Now. I am going to have some crazy smoking apparatuses to show Jimmy and force him to smoke out of. So it's going to be a lot of fun. We can't wait. Then get your tickets to regular live shows as well. The next ones are in May, St. Louis and Chicago. St. Louis, I think is sold out. So Chicago is your best buy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petragallo]

You guys are great. All the shows for the rest of the year are selling very fast. A few are already sold out. So if you would like to go, you need to get them right now. Shut up and give me murder.com as well as you should listen to Crime and Sports and your stupid opinions. Our other two shows, Crime and Sports, we're in the middle of a long Evel Knievel series, which is insane. Vince McMahon just entered the picture. So you want to check that out and then you want to get Patreon. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above. You are going to get, first of all, hundreds of back episodes you've never heard and then new ones every other week. One Crime in Sports and one Small Town Murder. This week for Crime in Sports, we are going to do part two of Sports Songs, Athletes singing Songs. We have Chris Weber rapping more of Manny Pacquiao doing whatever the hell he was doing. It's going to be a lot of fun. Then for Small Town Murder we have an amazing crazy con man, a guy from New York city from the 1980s named Louis Carlucci, otherwise known as Khan Juan or the con man Casanova, who had like multiple wives. And like he had all this crazy stuff going on in the 80s and no one knew who he really was. He had like aliases and he was like this weird phantom ghost who just extracted money from people. It's hilarious. We'll talk about that and more. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. That said, disclaimer. This is a comedy show, everybody. It is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Now, that doesn't mean the story isn't true. Sadly, every detail of the stories are insanely true. That's the crazy thing about these murders is there's no need to make anything up. It's all insane. And you might go, well, how does that make it? How's that funny? Well, there's a lot of stuff that's funny. Obviously the murder itself isn't funny. There's nothing funny about dismembering somebody and stuffing them into your crawl space. That's not really funny. But to sit and go, well, if I buy enough air fresheners, nobody will smell the body that I stuffed into my small spit, that's funny. You know, that's undeniably funny. So that's where that comes from. What we don't do is we never make fun of the victims or the victim's families.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why, James?

[James Petragallo]

Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. See how that works? It's very good. So if you think that if true crime. True crime and comedy should never go together, maybe we're not for you. But if you, you know, want to hear a crazy story, I think we are for you. And I think you want to hear this. And either way, no complaining later. That was that said, I think it's time to sit back, everybody. Let's all clear the lungs here and let's all shout. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do this. We are going to Lenexa, Kansas. Lenexa. L E N E X A Lenexa, which sounds like a brand of a printer from the 90s. Oh, I got a Lenexa bubble jet. Lenexa. It's real good. Yeah, like a dandruff shampoo. Got some flakes there, Jimmy. You should really try some Lenexa.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It reseeds where the hair fell out.

[James Petragallo]

I think it's good for you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It encourages growth.

[James Petragallo]

It encourages. It promotes growth. It's in northeastern Kansas. It's about 20 minutes to Kansas City. It's a suburb outside of KC about three and a half hours to Kingman, Kansas, which is our last Kansas episode, which was called Dead with no Head, which, I don't know, I usually don't rhyme in the titles, but apparently I went with a rhyme that time. Not a good way to be no good episode, though. I know that this is in Johnson county area code 913 and their motto, I really hope they didn't pay a company to come up with this when they were branding. I hope not. Quote, I like Lenexa. That's it. I like Lenexa. Is it because Eisenhower is from Kansas and I like Ike was the his slow. Is that why they're doing it, you think? Probably. Maybe a little bit of history of this town here 12 years before it was even platted. James Butler Hickok, you might know him as Wild Bill. While Bill Hickok staked a claim on 160 acres what is now the corner of 83rd street and Clare Road.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No shit.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Wild Bill, that was. Wild Bill found this. Yeah. The claim was filed in 1857 and it was not far from the Kansas river and was 20 miles southwest of Westport, Missouri, which was the start of the Santa fe Trail. In 1858, Hickok was elected as one of the first four constables of nearby Monticello Township. So here's reviews. Five stars. I like Lenexa. Okay. We've been told that this may be the city's motto, but it holds true for everyone I've spoken to that lives in Lenexa. She's doing a door to door survey on this, canvassing. From the food to the beautiful nature, Lenexa is a place no one will ever forget.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Lenexa gets the credit for food, huh?

[James Petragallo]

I guess so. Two stars. I hate the weather here. It's always either too hot or too cold. Humid and always very windy. The temperature always fluctuates during the seasons and the day. It could be snowing one day in May and the next day it'll be 70 degrees. That sounds like the Midwest in the spring. Colorado is the same way. It's the same shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Sounds like anywhere where it snows.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it happens. People in this town. 56,755. It's grown a good amount in the last 20 years. A lot. Which is after our story took place. Male. There's more males than females here, which is odd. It's strange things slightly, but more. The median age here, it's so average. The Median age is 38.3. In the nation it's 38.4. So they're right on. It's a very kind of. A lot of married families and shit here, 58% married, it's 50, 50 in the rest of the country. Race in this town, 79.7% white, 5.3% black, 3.8% Asian and 8.4% Hispanic. Religious. 56% religious in this area too. And the most are Catholics. Somehow. I don't know how. 19.5 we snuck in there, I guess. Yeah, that's odd. Catholics are the Baptists of, I don't even know, Missouri, Kansas, the Midwest, the wheat belt, I guess we'll say. Unemployment rate is very low here. 3.2%, which is even lower than the national average, which is pretty low. Median household income very high here too. $96,477 a year.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, what is that about?

[James Petragallo]

That's a lot. It's just a wealthy little suburb. Yeah, it's 20 minutes to Kansas City. If you don't want to live in Kansas City, I guess. I'm sure there's more crime, probably smaller properties, stuff like that. You want to avoid him at all Costs usually you want to avoid. Joe Buck shampoos with Lenexa. Absolutely. Cost of living. That's how he got all his hair back. The cost of living here it is 106 out of 100. So a little bit higher than the average. The median home cost is actually higher than the national average, which you wouldn't expect for suburban Kansas. But median home cost here, 400. 4300 bucks, which seems a little bit steep, but let's find out what they have here with the Lenexa Kansas real estate report. Average two bedroom rental here goes for $1,400 a month, which is above the average. Yeah. Here's a three bedroom, two bath, 1100 square foot house. So not that big of a house really at all. It's a standard little ranch house. Inside, pretty dull. Everything's about 10, 15 years old. It's, you know, it's fine. 285,000 bucks though, for that. Which seems. It seems a little high to live in Kansas. I don't know. Here's a five bedroom, five bath. So T bowl for each and every B hole right here. 3406 square feet. So good size house. It's really weird though. They've done the inside, like, you know, redid it and all, and it's very strange. Let me show you a picture of the kitchen. Look at the back. It's got the black countertops with that weird.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, it's that little subway.

[James Petragallo]

It's little. Little black subway tiles.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, little tiny ones, round. You got to break that up, dude.

[James Petragallo]

It's weird, man. It's a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It looks like static. It looks like tv. TV snow.

[James Petragallo]

Cuz it's. I can see they have like so small. They have like one black subway tile and the next to it is like one that's black and gray and they mix them all together. That's why.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why it does that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So. Yeah, it looks like. No, there's like snow. Looks like there's no channel coming in here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, no good.

[James Petragallo]

No good. So 600,000 bucks for that though.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, no land. Just a small plot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

3,500 square feet of house.

[James Petragallo]

It's a good house. Good amount of house, but that's expensive. Here's a four bedroom, five bath. So t bowl for all your b holes. Again, 4,150 square feet. So big old house. It's pretty nice actually. Inside. I mean, it's a. It's an expensive, nice house. It has a golf simulator in there. Like a big golf simulator thing. Like at one of those Bars, you know, where douchebags go drill balls into the screen. Yeah, yeah. And pretend like you're golfing while you're drunk. So, I mean, it's got a lot of nice touches, a lot of, like, clearly, like, expensive touches. And that's a good thing because it's $2,500,000 for that house. So you have to play like, on the. You have to play like on the Royals or like on the Chiefs offensive line or something. Afford that $2 million. $2 million things.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The taxes here have to be goddamn rock bottom.

[James Petragallo]

I would imagine it's. And I can't imagine there'd be much of a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Property taxes through the roof.

[James Petragallo]

No, no, no. People would leave there. Yeah, there's. There's not a lot holding people to Kansas, I would think, because you could just move to Missouri or. There's a lot of states to move around to also.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right here.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

On the river and flow down downstream.

[James Petragallo]

I'll just. Just float to Louisiana if I have to. Things to do here. The great Lenexa Barbecue Battle. We're going to have a fucking throwdown right now. Who's in? Hundreds of pitmasters compete in the great Lenexa Barbecue Battle each year. The battle is the state's largest barbecue competition, which pitmasters. In 1984, Governor John Carlin declared it the official Kansas State Championship. This is the official here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is the big one.

[James Petragallo]

This tells you you can have the best ribs in the state. Governor decreed, so they hosted it. Sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Masterpiece themselves.

[James Petragallo]

They have a lot of power. You have no idea. They can have you thrown in jail for nothing, really. They have the power to ticket vehicles. In Kansas City, the barbecue really rules the roost. I mean, anything. Anything could happen. So it started in 82 with 12 teams and 12 judges and no prize money. Now it attracts 200 teams of grill people. And the grand champion wins $3,000, which doesn't seem like a lot for 200 teams competing for.

[Jimmy Wisman]

If you took $20 per team.

[James Petragallo]

Well, think about what it costs to go there with all your stuff.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

To make, like a bunch of barbecue, you got to buy all the meat, which is expensive. All the sauce you got to make that. You got the fucking. You're going to smoke it or whatever. You got to get all that shit and you got to carry it there, get a trailer. Three grand. Doesn't seem. You're barely breaking even. Probably even if you win.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Depends on how far you came from, too. Because if you've got a truck dragging A trailer with your pit boss on the back.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's a lot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, it's a lot of gas to get there and back.

[James Petragallo]

Fuck yeah. The Judging begins at 11:30 and the results shared around 4:30pm Competition day is focused on the contest. Activities for kids will be available, it says, so they won't be able to handle the pure competition that's happening here. We'll have a bouncy house, honey.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And mesquite and applewood. You better get your kid out of here.

[James Petragallo]

Now. Let's say barbecue isn't your thing. No, maybe you're not. Maybe you're on a diet or you got some health problems. Well, then you want to go to the spinach festival instead, which. Oh yeah, you can't get. Two more opposite festivals than the spinach festival. The barbecue and right out of the canned Popeye style. And squeeze the can into your mouth.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Can.

[James Petragallo]

Squeeze. Can. Squeeze spinach. So they say the family oriented Lenexa spinach festival. Because you know the kids, there's nothing more they like than spinach.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's their favorite.

[James Petragallo]

Can't get them to stop eating it. You gotta hide the spinach in the house when the kids are around. Packed with food, music, entertainment, hands on activities and craft vendors. Experience the world's largest spinach salad. Oh, boy. That's an excuse. See? Not see it, experience it. You experience a spinach salad. You don't fucking see it. Holy shit. You can also submit your favorite dish to our recipe contest. There's plenty to do for everyone in the family. It says here. So your recipe contest. You can either do an appetizer, salad, entree or dessert. There's four categories. You prepare your best spinach recipe and turn it into. At the lion's shelter. Turn it out, Turn it in and turn it out. Local restaurants and food establishments are invited to provide a spinach dip for the event.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay. Oh, there's dip too. I forgot about that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, there's the idea. There's definitely a dip here. They may. Festival patrons may sample the dips and vote for their favorite. A winner will be chosen for the cold spinach dip and hot spinach dip categories.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Cold is gross. Hot is good. Hot has cheese in it.

[James Petragallo]

That's good. Just like sour cream, congealed, grilled shit. Yeah, that's not as good. So winners receive a green ribbon, of course, the blue ribbon. You know, you know, crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here is it's not, it's not bad here. Property Crime is about 1/4 below the national average. So a little bit low. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about half the national average.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

So a pretty damn safe little town going on here, I would say. That said, let's talk about some absolute horrors that happened around here and all around the area. Wow. Okay, let's talk about it. Let's talk about a guy here and this case. A lot of other shows have covered this. It's one of those. It's. He's a serial killer. So a lot of people have covered his stuff, but. And I've had this guy on the list since about 2017 when we started this fucking thing. He was one of the first people I put on the list and somehow haven't done it. I don't know how. It never happened. It was always like, oh, we'll get to that guy. We'll get to that guy. And then a lot of other people did it, but we're going to do it because we're going to put our spin on it. And also, you know, not only that, there's no spin to put on it. We're just going to talk about it in a different way than other people do. So let's talk about John Edward Robinson, the Third. He is. He'll go by senior later on, but he's the third.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, because he'll have a kid and name him after himself, and then he's a junior and now he's a senior, even though he was a third before. Very confusing quad.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

Nope. He's junior now. We're starting over. Starting over. He's born December 27, 1943. He is from Cicero, Illinois. So that's a colorful town, Cicero. It's, you know, especially back then. It's known for its mob ties and everything like that. He is the third of five children. So right smack in the middle. Middle child who. Probably the quiet one. And he's going to turn into this. His parents are Alberta and Henry Robinson. So he wasn't named after his dad. The third came from somewhere else. Dad was drunk, like, all the time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Which a drunk and drunk. Both. A drunk drunk, which. I mean, back then, who the fuck knows if he was in World War II or he was from the Depression or if he worked in a field or something. I mean, you know, anything could have happened here. Mom was not around a lot. She was absent, from what I heard. But she was the one who doled out the discipline. But then she wasn't there a lot, so it's kind of feast or famine when it comes to that. Mom's home, she's in charge of everything. If mom's not home, you run wild. So it's either lock down completely or do whatever the fuck you want. Which is a weird, real weird thing for a kid to have, I would imagine. Here now in 1955, when he's, you know, what, eight years old or. I'm sorry, shit, seven, 13 years old, he joins the Boy Scouts and he joined the Boy Scouts. He was sponsored by the Holy Name Society of Mary, Queen of Heaven, Roman Catholic Church. That's a long lot of name. Quite the handle you got there. Doesn't really roll off the tongue. So the fall of 1957, he was accepted into the Quigley Preparatory Seminary. This is a five year course for young men who plan to become priests later. So he gets into this when he's 14 and he's supposed to be 19, come out of it and go into the priesthood.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He picked that at 14 years old.

[James Petragallo]

14. It's a weird thing. There's a lot of people like this that start there and end up murderers for some reason. We cover this all the time. And it's a certain age. Like if they have this, like I want to be a priest or a pastor or something at like 14 or 15, it seems to me that they turn out weird later. They seem to turn out weird later. Then the religion isn't a part of them later either. That's the other thing. They're not even religious.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're just going against it.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, real weird. So November 1957, he was named an Eagle Scout. Oh. So yeah, that's a big deal. The Eagle Scout by. By my house. The fire department puts up the names of the new Eagle Scouts as they happen on the sign the marquee. Congrats to. It'll just be like, you know little Billy Johnson for he's our newest Eagle Scout.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay, way to go, you non pussy getting master.

[James Petragallo]

Way to go. You're gonna learn how to tie knots, but not around anybody because there won't be anybody else around chick repellent knots. Oh God. So he was. Everybody said he was very pompous. After the ceremony he turned into a real douchebag. Like really? Yeah, a little bit of something, a little bit of recognition. He was like, you're all beneath me. I'm an Eagle Scout. I'll never get laid. So late November 1957, as an Eagle Scout, he travels to London to sing for the Queen of England.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She wants to hear Eagle Scouts.

[James Petragallo]

It's a big Boy scout thing. There's 120 Boy Scouts they send over. Judy Garland is there with him as well, hanging out with Dorothy, about to be dead. Oh shit. She lived for another 30 fucking years.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Did she?

[James Petragallo]

The 50s? Yeah. She was around for till the 80s, I think. Shouldn't she die in the 80s or something? I thought maybe not. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't know. She's Michael Jackson's favorite person's mom, right? Liza.

[James Petragallo]

Liza's mom? Yeah. Yeah. She was a mess. Judy Garland, she had a. That's a harrowing fucking childhood. When you hear what happened to her, you're like, she was basically just given to a studio. They're like, here you go. Just drug her and make her diet and drug her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Do whatever you want to her and don't tell anybody.

[James Petragallo]

Don't send her back to the farm, please.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So he was the youngest American ever to appear at the home of London vaudeville. He led 120 Boy Scouts onto the stage of the Palladium Theater for a royal command performance. Then Judy Garland came up and gave him a kiss. Got a kiss from Dorothy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the hell?

[James Petragallo]

Then Britain's Gracie Fields, who was a very famous lady, came and hugged him and talked to him and then he bowed to Queen Elizabeth.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What a day.

[James Petragallo]

He met Judy Garland in her dressing room before the show and said, we Americans got to stick together. And she said, you're right about that. And he said, I wasn't scared, but I was surprised, all right, of how much circumstance there is to the whole thing. He also told the actress Gracie Fields that he planned to study for the priesthood in Chicago. So he's over there hanging out with. I mean, this is a quite the thing. No one, when I was a teenager ever sent me to another country to sing for royalty. Like it just never happened. So apparently he can sing too. He's a member during high school, a member of the Cardinals Cathedral Choristers, which is a group that sang at Sunday Mass at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Beautiful. That's a big one.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, so I mean he's, he's one of the top child church singers in the country.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, this kid praises like nobody.

[James Petragallo]

He's crushing it. Yeah, he can. And it's Catholic shit. So he can sing Latin hymns like nobody. Like he really busted out at the Quigley Preparatory Seminary. He's a shit student though, so he wants to be a priest. And he looks all perfect from the outside, but he can carry a tune.

[Jimmy Wisman]

In that smoky bucket, but nothing else.

[James Petragallo]

He'S like an apple that like looks fine. And then you go to touch it and the skin is there, but it's just liquid inside. And you touch it, it's just turns to shit. That's what he is. That's what he is. But the skin looks fine. That's. That's John here. He'll go by Junior a lot, by the way. John Robinson Jr. Yeah. And then that could be Junior either, but not Junior. Junior. He got it was also a discipline problem at the preparatory seminary. As most as you know, priests are known to be brawlers first. That's what they do.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Real rule breakers.

[James Petragallo]

You get in there, you go. You love God. Yeah. You want to serve him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

How's your right hand? It's not bad. All right, come on in. You're good. Priest Fight Club is something I want to watch.

[Jimmy Wisman]

See you throw them.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I'll watch that movie. Priest Fight Club. He got into squabbles and shoving matches with classmates and spent a lot of time in detention. He ends up leaving Quigley after his freshman year. So so much for that. Apparently he finishes high school at a regular high school. And then in 1961, he enrolled at Morton Junior College in Cicero to train to become a medical X ray tech. So that's a good job. It's a good steady job. And people need X rays.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Couldn't be more different than the priesthood.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, yeah, totally different. He. He wanted to become a doctor. Now he decided, I'm going to do this, then I'll be a doctor.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He wants to be God.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. I don't know, should I talk to God or be God? Which one? Yeah, which one should I be? So he ends up dropping out after two years though, because, you know. And this guy said he was going to be a doctor. You're going to go to medical school, then residency.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He couldn't remember Job, the book of Job. You're going to remember how to treat fucking emphysema.

[James Petragallo]

He couldn't fucking finish X ray tech school, which I'm sure is hard, but it's probably not as hard as becoming a full fledged doctor. That's probably a lot of work, I would think. So he drops out of there and we'll talk about what he does with that. But in 1964, he moves to Kansas City from Chicago area and marries a girl named Nancy Joe Lynch. Nancy will be his wife for a shocking amount of time. A shocking amount of time. Like when I finally say what happens in their marriage, you're gonna go, she was still around. What the fuck? Holy shit. What took her so long? So 1965, he gets his first job as an X ray tech, but the problem is he never finished training in tech school.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So how'd he get the job?

[James Petragallo]

He didn't say he didn't finish. He said he finished. Yeah, he just lied. He was hired by Children's Mercy and General Hospital. Which is what? At least it's. Nobody important is going to get fucked up by this. It's just injured children, that's all. This is terrible, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

With their whole lives ahead of them.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, no problem. He displayed fake diplomas and fake recommendation letters from Morton.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the fuck?

[James Petragallo]

From the school. He told them he needed a night job while he attended medical school during the day because he's gonna become a doctor. So. Wow. He was fired after they figured out that not only did he not have a diploma or anything, he had no fucking idea what he was doing. It's not like he knew how to do it and was like, I just don't want to go to school. He didn't know how to do it. He wasn't good at it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he's wanted a paycheck for being a quote unquote doctor.

[James Petragallo]

That's it. So around this time, Nancy gives birth to their first child. And of course he's John Jr. You gotta. This ego is gonna say that kid's named after me during this time. He's totally unfaithful to Nancy this entire time, by the way. Every job he has, he's fucking every woman in it. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure he was fucking half the hospital staff and everything else. He would go out to bars after work and hang out all night while Nancy took care of the kids. Which was semi normal actually back then for guys to do that. But known to have many girlfriends, not just like one night stands here, there. He's got like girlfriends on the side. Like he thinks he's a gangster or something. This guy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Relationships.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He's a failed X ray tech and he thinks he's a gangster. So in 1966, he's hired by Dr. Wallace Graham as an X ray tech at the Fountain Plaza X ray lab. Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit about our safest sponsors. Simplisafe. And everyone has routines that you go through, make you feel good, make you feel secure, like you have control over the world. And a lot of times you don't, but you do if you're us and it's on your routine includes arming your SimpliSafe home security system, you know that's gonna do well for you. So when we're heading out, both of us, we both have them in our houses, our studios. You lock up for the night. Yeah, these. This simple step does more than just protect you. Gives you peace of mind. You're going to feel good about leaving, and then you're going to know it's going to be the same when you get back. You'll sleep more soundly. I can leave the house with confidence, and it's amazing how a push of a button can give you that kind of confidence. And with Simplisafe, we love it. Like I said, it's in our studios, in our homes. It's really easy to install, too. You can get professional installation also. But if we can put it up, you can put it up. Put it that way. Visit simplisafe.comsmall to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com/s I m p l I safe.com small there's no safe like simplisafe.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And now back to the show.

[James Petragallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about Chime. Life is full of extra fees. Boy, oh, boy, they're everywhere. Everything you buy, there's fees. Buy a concert ticket or an airline ticket or anything like that. Fees, fees, fees, games, you name it. We're trying to make progress in life and we're trying to go forward. And then these fees hit you and you go backwards. You need Chime. Chime is a checking account that makes financial progress easier. You can move forward with this with features like no maintenance, fees, fee free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Can't beat it. You can learn [e-mail] Smalltown Murder this Chime is great stuff. You always need a little help. Somebody's. You're always coming up a little short every once in a while. It happens to people. Unexpected things come up. Not only fees that Chime won't charge you, but you never know. You blow a tire out, your car breaks down. You never know when you need a few extra bucks and you might need it early. Make progress toward a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in 2 minutes at chime.com smalltown murder that's chime.com smaller/small town Murder Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit Card provided by the Bank Corp. NA or Stride Bank NA members, fdic, Spot ME eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in Spot Me and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file fees. Apply at out of network ATMs. Okay, Robinson again. Still doesn't know how to do X rays, but. But he's very good at stealing. He's really good at that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is he hot?

[James Petragallo]

No, he's a charmer, boy. He's a salesman and a fucking charmer. That's what he's. That's what he is. That's what I mean. He's the opposite of Haddon Clark from a couple weeks ago who was, you know, like a, you know, weird like recluse homeless man. This guy is the opposite of that. This is who BTK would dream to be. Just dream about it. So he, what he does, he steals and embezzles from this man. Drains the practice's bank account within six months. Just takes everything. Also engaged in several sexual encounters with not only the entire office staff, but several patients as well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Dude? Yeah, this guy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That would get us all in trouble.

[James Petragallo]

You can't do that, man. He is plowing every beehive hairdo in this joint. It's 66. This is crazy shit. He even bragged to the doctor's 15 year old son that he had was leading a double life and he had sex with all these women. He told the son that he liked to go to a club that what he called male transvestites went to. That's a cool club. He likes to go to that club. 1969, he's arrested and that is for embezzling $33,000 from the practice.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What year?

[James Petragallo]

1960, he did that in 67. 66. So that's a shitload of money back then. Yeah, that's a lot of fucking money. That's like 300 grand now. Like, yeah, you're getting, you're going to jail for that shit or you're at least getting arrested. He was convicted of theft and was sentenced to. You, sir, may certainly fuck off. Three years of probation because it's his first offense. He hasn't done anything. So you know, he said, oh man, I got carried away. So 1970, he gets a job with Mobil Oil Corp. So mobile. Yeah, yeah. He's arrested again for his work on this job after he stole 6200 stamps. Stamps are non traceable. Something you can sell. Yeah, I mean granted they were like 8 cents apiece back then. But still, if you have enough of them, 6200 of them is a lot. So he made a deal with the court to pay restitution and the charge was dropped to a misdemeanor. He's very good at getting out of shit, too, because he seems very upstanding. And people who don't spend a lot of time with him or look that deep into him just go, well, I mean, he's got a tie on, it's tied well. And, you know, he seems fine. Seems like a good guy. So then he starts selling insurance, which is perfect for this guy, perfect gig for him. He finds work with R.B. jones Co. Selling insurance, moves his family back to Chicago for this, which, of course, breaches the conditions of his three year probation. He just doesn't tell his probation officer. So it's fine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That solves it.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, you know how it goes. But a probation officer's gonna find out about it soon because in 1971, he. First of all, he's crushing the insurance game.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Does great.

[James Petragallo]

Does great. He's full of shit, this guy. He's a great salesman and he's really good. Really good scammer and things like that. So he's great at selling insurance, much like Evel Knievel was great at selling insurance. He was great at it because he's full of shit. He's a salesman. But he, of course, couldn't stop himself from stealing here. He embezzled $5,586.36 from the company.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's a lot of money.

[James Petragallo]

That's plenty. Yeah. He, of course, was given a break by the court again when he agreed to. There's a pattern forming, I would say.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's gotta be hot.

[James Petragallo]

He's not hot at all. He's later on referred to as a Pillsbury Doughboy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Not hot.

[James Petragallo]

Not hot. No. Looks have nothing to do with this. He looks upstanding. He knows how to be like, I was gonna be a priest. And I'm. You know. And he's full of shit. The case was dropped and the Jackson County Court was reported to and ordered Robinson back to Kansas, where the judge really gave it to him good. Extended his three year probation for some time. Take that more probation that you won't want. Some time that you won't pay attention to. Right around this time, Nancy gives birth to twins.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Terrific. Yeah. These are not fraternal twins. Christopher and Christine. Really? Really? No, not Chris and Chris, the twins. That's horrible.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's a dick way to do things.

[James Petragallo]

It feels like, that's like a. You're just. Oh, God, what a shitty thing to do to people. Chris and Chris. Ugh. Poor kids, man. Not just for their names, for the rest of what happens, but the. They move into a bigger house in Missouri at that time as well. He'll end up having four kids with his wife. Altogether here. Yeah. He then starts a new business. God damn it, let's get this going. Why not, if you're full of shit, be all the way full of shit. Be an entrepreneur. So he decides to start his own medical consulting business.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, he's gonna consult. He doesn't have a degree in anything.

[James Petragallo]

He has half of X ray school completed. He's gonna be a medical consultant. He calls the business Professional Services Association, Inc. Might as well be called generic company Name Corp. Professional Services Association Inc. He gets a job here at the University of Kansas. He is hired by the U. Of Kansas Medical center as a business consultant for its family practice department. He has no. He doesn't know shit about medical business.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But he's gonna consult, so it's not a big deal.

[James Petragallo]

Two groups of doctors at the University of Kansas Medical School hired him to manage their financial affairs. The doctor who talked to him, talked to Robinson later, said, quote, he made a very good impression. Well dressed, nice looking, seemed to know a lot. Very glib, good speaker.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Seemed to know a lot.

[James Petragallo]

Hair in place, clean tie. Back then you could rule the fucking world. If you combed your hair, tied a tie and could speak half decent, you could rule the fucking world in the 70s and 60s and really every up until the Internet. Yeah. Now you can be an awkward, stammering 12 year old and have fucking 700 million followers. So it's a different thing now. And get booked where we can then get booked? Well, we get booked where we want, but they'll fucking sell more tickets.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Probably get booked where we can't.

[James Petragallo]

Where we can have like. Oh, you mean like a basketball arena? Yeah, yeah. Not where we can't get booked. Where we can't sell out. That's what. Yeah. Where we can't sell. That would be a tough one. So the doctors dismissed him after only a few months because of irregularities in his handling of their finances. Because he doesn't know how to do that at all.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's not his thing.

[James Petragallo]

He doesn't have a thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He doesn't even have a degree doing that.

[James Petragallo]

No. No. So he was sending letters to potential investors in his company, portraying a growing, healthy company, even though there's nothing. One letter suggested that Marion Laboratories founded By Ewing M. Kaufman, the guy who owns the Royals baseball team Kaufman Stadium's named after. Was negotiating to purchase his company from him. Never happened, obviously, because it has nothing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The guy wasn't negotiating anything.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. The doctors said they ended up letting him go because they were suspicious of him. After he requested the corporation's checkbook, they were like, let's not give him our checkbook. So December 10, 1975, a federal grand jury in Missouri returns a four count indictment for securities fraud, mail fraud, and falsely misrepresenting his company, psa. One thing that's illegal to do is mislead investors. You're not allowed to fucking do that at all.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Like, yeah, that's bad.

[James Petragallo]

That is fraud. If you do that because it's money and that includes people, potential investors or people who've already invested, you're not allowed to lie to them. That's an instant crime there. So May of 1976, he pleads no contest to interstate securities fraud and he is given. Oh, let's see how harsh this sentence is. You, sir, may fuck off. Fined $2,500 and three more years probation.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's never been punished for a single thing he's done wrong.

[James Petragallo]

And he keeps doing the same thing over and fucking over again and getting.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Worse and worse and worse.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's not even like I could see if it was different shit that he was doing. You go, well, I don't know. He never did that before. But this is the same thing over and over. It's obviously what he does. He's a thief more than anything. So over the next few years, they're gonna move into a new house that we'll talk about. He is going to become a scoutmaster. He's an Eagle Scout, so why not? Coaches a T ball team. Jesus, that's terrifying when you find out later what he's all about. Refereed school volleyball games between the girls, bought two horses, became a Sunday school teacher at the Presbyterian church, even though he's Catholic, I guess it's the same story. And dressed up. He was the neighborhood Santa Claus as well.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

So, yeah, at this point, they have the dog. Have a dog, kids, a couple of horses. They got all sorts of shit going on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he's Santa Claus.

[James Petragallo]

He's Santa Claus. He has all the trappings of an upstanding. A Sunday school teacher, Sports youth, sports referee of an upstanding, orange slices in hand kind of a guy right here. He forms a new company after that since his old one was, you know, got him a federal indictment. It's called Hydro Grow G R O. Okay. He gets a family, he knows to invest $25,000 in it, which they're never going to fucking see again. Obviously this company is supposed to produce hydroponic vegetables. That's what they're trying to do here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Tomatoes underwater.

[James Petragallo]

Think about. And that is back in the 70s, like they do that now, but in the 70s that was a can you do.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They were doing hydroponic vegetables.

[James Petragallo]

I mean they were, I guess back then. He's trying. At least it's an idea anyway, a theory. He produced a 64 page booklet. Fun with Home Hobby. Hydroponics, it's called. In the book it says, we hope that as you read this book you will form an acquaintance with John Robinson as a sensitive and stimulating human being through a pamphlet. That's going to be hard. They said that he's one of the nation's pioneers in indoor home hydroponics and a sought after lecturer, consultant and author. None of those things are true. He doesn't produce carrot one from this fucking venture. Nothing. This is just full of shit. To get money from people, he needs a company. Yeah, he needs a company to be able to get people to invest in a company. He can't just say, give me money. He has to say, I got an idea.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You say, I need seed money.

[James Petragallo]

No, no. Yeah, well, he would need. That's perfect for that, I guess. Seed money. So in 1977, that's when they buy this new house. It's a nine room house on four acres. It's a big house, a nice neighborhood called Pleasant Valley Farms. It's very nice. It stretches west into the. Into Kansas. From the Missouri border. It was one of the richest counties in the United States. This was somehow at the time, at the time they called it, the magazine called it 480 square miles of sleek suburban affluence. Look at that. This is Lenexa and Olathe is there and all that shit. So the people of Johnson county felt like they were better than the people on the trash Missouri side. These fucking Missourians over there. Yeah, they said it's. They said that when you crossed over to Kansas, the light seemed brighter, the landscape less dingy. The Kansans were richer, smarter, nicer and gentler. That's what everybody thought. So they called. They said it has vistas across rolling hills, this neighborhood, which they found the only hills in Kansas we've been through. It's not much there. You can see pretty much the whole state from wherever you are in the state. They say strands Stands of elm and maple trees, bridal path and lake stocked with fish. Oh, boy, that sounds nice. It's only an hour away from Kansas City, too. Their new home is four levels. They have two big stone fireplaces. They have a horse stable and corral. Not bad, man. New neighbors thought he was intelligent and conversed knowledgeably about international finance and business matters. At local picnics, he'd be telling people about shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

World affairs.

[James Petragallo]

World affairs. A very worldly, intelligent guy. They look at him. So he also helps run the neighborhood, the hoa. You feeling kinship to him now, Jimmy?

[Jimmy Wisman]

A little bit.

[James Petragallo]

I love when I'm on the phone with you or I'm at your fucking house and you get phone calls from HOA people about HOA problems. I'm like, what are you doing?

[Jimmy Wisman]

My man stepped down.

[James Petragallo]

James, why are you listening to these people? Tell them to fuck yourselves, put up a fucking fence around your house and don't worry about their bullshit. The guy that you were talking to last time. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. I don't blame him. That sounded like a crazy problem he was having over the speakerphone. So he worked in his yard a lot. He installed a rail fence and a pond. His children. John at this point, was about 14 years old. Kimberly, 12, is the second kid. And then the twins, who were 8, are all very well behaved, good looking, you know, clean, polished kids here. Yeah, all American. John Jr. Would help his father with work around the property. Chris and Chrissy took care of the dog. Jesus. Chris and Chrissy, come on, man. Took care of the dogs and cats and of their neighbors. When their neighbors would go out of town, there was like, they get hired to go feed the dog. So it's very nice here. Also, he charged. Somehow he bullshits his way onto the board of directors of a local handicapped services organization.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just do it, man.

[James Petragallo]

You just. If you're full of shit enough back then and no one could Google you, they just had to believe you back then. That's all it was.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, it's. Man, Google saved a lot, hasn't it?

[James Petragallo]

I mean, yeah, but it's so funny. We have the most information ever, but yet people are the dumbest they've ever been. They know the least amount of history, they know the least amount of everything, even though they have all that information there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Casey Anthony's out there, clothes, claiming to be in law, a legal advocate.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You were arrested.

[James Petragallo]

I mean, at the same time, she got off on that obvious fucking bullshit. Yeah, that's crazy. So maybe she's the greatest legal advocate in the world. You never know. No, fuck her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She was the first one that she exonerated.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Yeah, I did. Well, if I got off, I can get anybody off, because, wow, was I guilty. Allegedly. So his first act on the board was to order stationary for the group, which with he forged letters from the executive director to the mayor and from the mayor to other civic leaders, inviting them to an awards luncheon honoring an anonymous recipient of the man of the Year award that didn't even exist.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

Okay. The winner turns out to be. Surprise, surprise, Robinson jr. Here, he won his own award. Absolutely. This is from the Kansas City Times newspaper on December 8, 1977. Group for Disabled Honors Area man. The article reported that John Robinson, president of Hydro Grow Inc. Has been named man of the Year for his work with the handicap. He just started. All he did was order stationary. He headed the board of a, quote, sheltered workshop which employed disabled people. The newspaper said the award, a proclamation signed by the mayor of Kansas City. The whole deal. So two weeks later, after this grand triumph, the newspaper reported that it was revealed that Robinson had orchestrated the award himself through a complex sequence of fake letters of recommendation that he had sent to City Hall. Wow. The Kansas City Star that afternoon here revealed the ruse in a story headlined man of the Year Ploy Backfires on quote, unquote, honoree. That is fucking hilarious.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he's found out, and everybody knows now.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. That he made himself the non existent man of the Year and orchestrated this whole horseshit. And as the neighbors got to know him, they noticed that he's kind of a twat. I don't really like this guy. He's kind of a dick. Yeah. One of the neighbors here, Margaret Adams, who's a gardener all the time, like big into her garden, recalls that she once asked him to demonstrate his hydroponic system. She said, yeah, show me what you got. I'm into it. He said, sure. And he was pleasant until she told him that she felt his price for the system was a little too high. Seems like you're charging a little too much. He told her. You've wasted my time. Your small potatoes. And then walked away.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You're ugly. Leave me alone.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I don't need you. Your ass is too fat. Go away. I don't like you. It's fat and lumpy. Leave me alone. He got into almost a fist fight that had to be broken up by other neighbors over a dog that was barking.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

He also didn't want to be a part of the neighborhood association anymore, accusing it in a formal Letter of being, quote, invalid, because in his opinion, it failed to enforce some of its rules. Yeah, yeah. Invalid. It's a bullshit. If you're not going to enforce all the rules, it invalidates. The whole organization doesn't exist. So he also, another neighbor said he was cocky and arrogant and you needed to walk on eggs around him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Eggshells.

[James Petragallo]

You felt like you were not. You needed to walk on eggs. You felt like you were walking on eggshells is how that goes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. You needed to walk on some eggs.

[James Petragallo]

Needed to walk on eggs. I've never heard it put that way. So meanwhile, he is terrible. He takes shit care of his animals. His horses are half starved to death all the time. His dog's in bad shape, and he's beating the shit out of Nancy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Everybody's walking around on eggs.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He's fucking throwing them at people. So he's beating the crap out of his wife. Neighbors occasionally heard him yelling at his wife and children and ordering them around like. Like he was in the military. The children would follow his orders. And the children, though, later on they'll become all good kids, by the way.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So that's helpful. Nancy must have been a decent mother here. Nancy ends up beginning divorce proceedings at this point. Don't worry, it's not over. They have some counseling and then she's back in.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

March 1979. He is discharged from federal probation with an excellent report from his probation officer. Obviously. He became the employee relations manager at Guy's Food, which is a subsidiary of Borden. From what I understand what I found out here, it's a grocery store or a food distributor type of deal. He had an affair with a secretary, and then she helped him embezzle thousands of dollars by inventing fake employees and cashing their checks.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. This secretary was in charge of adding new people to payroll and stuff like that. So he fucked her and had her add new non existent people to payroll so he could steal.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You can't do that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He must fuck amazing, by the way.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. To get somebody to do that.

[James Petragallo]

Incredible. Like, man, he's slinging some fucking sword here. So the losses total more than 4,40,000, part of which he spent on an apartment where he conducted sexual liaisons with two women who worked for Borden. The other, the company, too.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm gonna steal money to use it for a fuck dungeon.

[James Petragallo]

To fuck more women in the company to hopefully be able to steal more money.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the fuck?

[James Petragallo]

This guy. One of the women here in her interrogation said John kind of swept Me off my feet. He treated me like a queen. He always had money to take me to nice restaurants and hotels. So I figured I would get involved with a criminal enterprise with him. That's what I mean. Slinging dick.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Has to be.

[James Petragallo]

Has to be. December 30, 1980, he's fired from Guy's Food and charged with felony theft, submitting false vouchers and forged checks. He has to pay back over $41,000 in restitution. Oh, Jesus Christ, dude. He's just one scam after another. Fall of 1981, he pleads guilty to a Class C felony of stealing a $6,000 check and spent 60 days in jail starting in May of 82. The first fucking time anybody's put this guy in jail at all.

[Jimmy Wisman]

60 days, though.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. And it's been 15 years of constant scamming. 60 days. Jesus. So, summer of 1982, he's got a new company. He's back, baby. It's called Equa plus, it's a consulting company. In other words, bullshit. Just bullshit. He also begins sexually propositioning many of the women in the neighborhood, which gets him into several physical fights with some of their husbands in the neighborhood.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, they're not gonna like that. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Someone tries to fuck your wife and they live three houses away, you're gonna go knock on the goddamn door, hey, my wife said you grabbed her ass. What are we doing here?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Heard you tried to fuck my wife.

[James Petragallo]

You heard that's a problem. Yeah. How'd you like to step out in the front yard and talk about this? So. Wow. Fall of 1982. Irv Blatner enters the picture. He becomes a partner in not only crime, but Equi. Fucking. What is it? Equa. Whatever the hell it is. Equifax. Equa. Bullshit. It doesn't matter. Equiplus is what it's called. They start a sister company called Equa two. The number two.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The second one.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. It's a sequel. The well really fucking fond. After sequel, everyone wanted it. So. May, 1984, Irv Blatner leads Robinson here to a woman who wants a divorce. Not from anyone they know, just she wants a divorce. Robinson poses as an attorney. He hears this lady wants a divorce. So his thing is, I'll pretend to be the attorney and get her to pay me money. So he promised to get her a divorce if she paid him $200 and gave him her car. Because she didn't have a lot of money. She said, okay, gave him $200 and her car, and obviously he did nothing. For her, because he's not a fucking lawyer. He didn't even go get the papers from the courthouse and at least try to get the ball. He did nothing. He just took her car and her money. So 1984, Paula Godfrey enters the picture here. She's 19 years old, and John hires her to work as a sales rep for his company, Equa plus, or Equa two. He picked her up from her parents home in September to go to the airport, and she was never seen again.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

The last that her parents saw, she was getting in the car with him. And then, poof. Thin air. Okay, now, summer 1984. Think about it. Summer of 84, everybody. That's the. It's like season one of stranger things. You got the Olympics are going on. You got Gary Coleman and Punky Brewster have a hold on a whole nation's hearts. And this happens at the same time. Robinson rents a duplex in the name of the company Equa2 and turns it into a brothel. Okay, yeah, we gotta talk about all of this now. Let's get into what his sexual proclivities are, because they are fucking wild. I didn't want this to be about his sexual proclivities completely because he's also a scam artist and a criminal like that. But he hires Linda Stevens Jones to run the brothel and find other girls to join. Okay. The brothel specializes in rough S and M sex. That's what this is about. You come there to get the shit kicked out of you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Yes. That's what he's into. Big time. Into BDSM stuff. And I'm talking hardcore, though. He's really into it. He'd become. He also became a leading member of a secret S and M cult called the International Council of Masters. Now we've met dudes like this, and they're fucking weird. They're fucking weird.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I mean, yeah, if you need to dominate people all the time, you're a weird guy. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

And we've met some of the. Some of the young ladies who were. We had a listener that was a. You know, she'd come to our shows and, like, she'd be on a leash and shit. And we were just very uncomfortable with the whole thing. It's very weird because it seemed she was very young and he was older, and it seemed abuse. It just seemed abusive to me. It seemed. But. But it's voluntary and she was an adult, so it's like my circuits were all crossed as far as help this girl and none of my fucking business because, you know, hey, this is America. You can fuck with what you want, the way you want. You're an adult. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So you wander around looking how you want to look.

[James Petragallo]

You know what I'm saying? But you just want to go. Come. Please. I'll help you. We'll help you. We'll get you in, like, an Uber, and you can just drive away.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We'll find your father.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Where's your God? Please. So anyway, he was the cult's slave master. And that'll be, by the way, his screen name for everything later will be Slave Master. Oh, yeah, that's his nickname, the Slave Master. And, wow, he was them. And it was his job to bring people, to bring a victim to meetings, to be beaten and tortured and who knows what else. So, January 9, 1985, Lisa Stassi enters the picture. S T A S I or Stacy. She used to be Lisa Eldridge, but she got married here. She began dating Carl Stasi in June of 83, married Carl in June of 80. In August of 84, while she was pregnant, she gave birth to a child named Tiffany in September of 1984 at Truman Medical center in Kansas City. After Tiffany's birth, the marriage fell apart. Carl, her husband, and the kid's dad reenlisted in the Navy. That's a real. I'm getting the fuck out of here. He reported for duty at Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago in early January 1985. So it's around this time that she begins dating. Around the time she began dating. She's not dating Robinson now. We'll get into that. But at the time where she started dating her husband, who's now in the Navy, Robinson was doing something, too. He was trying to figure out an opportunity for adoption for his younger brother. Donald. And Donald's wife Helen, who lived in Chicago, I guess they had medical problems. They couldn't conceive. So at a family reunion in 1983, Donald and Helen, his brother and his wife told John that they were pursuing private adoption. John, I'm sure seeing some form of scam here, said he knew an adoption attorney and he would handle the process for his brother. I'll take care of everything for you. Don't worry about it. So in the fall of 84, Robinson told Donald and Helen that a baby would be available in October. Baby coming up. We got an opening for a baby popping up here. So Robinson here. John told his brother to send him a $2,500 cashier's check payable to Robinson's business equit to allegedly 200 bucks, 2500 to cover adoption related fees he said he needed because he has to shell it out. Then later on John just tells his brother that, that the birth mother decided not to put the kid up for adoption after all. So nevermind, that's all gone. So November of 84, Robinson contacted Karen Gaddis, who is a social worker at Truman Medical center and told her that he and several Johnson county businessmen had developed a program to provide housing, transportation, daycare and job training for young mothers and their babies. Babies need job training, number one, first and foremost.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You gotta show them how to, how to be a baby.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. They don't even know how to do an X ray. You know what I mean? It doesn't work. Teach you how to shit your pants. This show, Small Town Murder is sponsored by BetterHelp. We're huge proponents of therapy because boy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Do I love it.

[James Petragallo]

Everybody needs it too. And independence is very glorified. It's easy to forget. And we're all better when we have a little support system behind us. And therapy could be a great source of support, support for any area of your life. When it's time to shift the focus here from doing it all on your own to maybe it's a little better if we ask for some help here or there. It doesn't hurt and there's nothing wrong with it. And we've benefited greatly from therapy. Just talking to Jimmy about something he wanted to talk to his therapist about this week. So I mean, if you can't beat it, makes therapy affordable and convenient, actually, which is a big barrier to a lot of people. Serves over 5 million people worldwide. You access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com smalltownmurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelphelp.com smalltownmurder now back to the show. Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about our stylish and fashionable friends over at Quint. Elevating your style, that used to be a real expensive thing. You want to change your look, it's expensive. But with Quint's, this is the way you can do it the right way. You can get high end, versatile pieces at a price that we can all actually afford and actually want to pay. And now I can upgrade my style Getting nice, real good luxury items and essentials that sync up with what I want and what I want to pay. It's perfect. And Quints has all the must haves like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50. Come on, that's ridiculous. Iconic. 100% leather jackets and comfortable pants for every occasion, which I got a leather jacket and Jimmy got comfortable pants. That's exactly what we did. It's great stuff. So you too should do this. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quints.comsmalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.comsmalltown murder and now back to the show. Hey everybody, Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about a delicious sponsor, Thrive Market. We have both been trying to eat healthy. Thrive Market is where you go and that's why we like Thrive Market. You see these ingredients and you're like, I don't know what that is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, it's hard to figure out what's good for you and what's not. But Thrive has it all in one convenient spot.

[James Petragallo]

They have everything. They're a no junk online grocery store that bans over 1,000 harmful ingredients. And their team of product researchers like, I love a cookie. Okay. I like a cookie. I like a chocolate chip cookie. I like almonds, baby in it. They have a delicious alternative I found here that is a gluten free almond chocolate cookie and it's delicious. And I'm like a cookie snob too. I will. I usually don't like anything that's off. Oh, I don't know. I want sugar and all that. But no, these are delicious and they're gluten free and they're really good. Try them out. You can find better options way easily with Thrive Market's Healthy swap scanner. You can scan a product and it instantly recommends cleaner alternatives. That's great. So if you know you like this, but this isn't good for you, let's find a better alternative. Are you ready to make the switch? Go to thrivemarket.com Smalltown Murder for 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T H R I V E market.com SmalltownMurder thrivemarket.com Smalltown Murder so Robinson said he needed referrals of Caucasian women, the way he put it, because the program already had African American participants and it needed. Racial balance is what he said, too many, too many black people. Where are some white ladies? So he said he was looking for a white woman in her teens or early 20s who had a newborn child and was struggling or disadvantaged and had no family support or ties. You know, somebody that could disappear and nobody would miss, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Somebody like that take your baby.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. So that is fucking wild. January 1985, he tells Gaddis another organization, Hope House, had referred a young lady to his program and he had placed her at a motel in Kansas. Okay, that is Lisa Stassi and her then 4 month old baby Tiffany. He told her his name was John Osborne, different name, and that's one of his aliases, and promised her a job in Chicago. And after picking Lisa and Tiffany up at the home of Lisa's sister, actually put her up in a local hotel. Oh yeah. So family members saw her, saw Lisa and Tiffany. In early January 1985, Carl's sister Kathy babysat Tiffany all the time. So on January 8th, Stasi dropped Tiffany off at her sister in law's house here and told her that she had met a man named John Osborne who was going to help her get a job and finish her ged. She said she might even get to travel as part of the job training program.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What a deal.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So then January 9, she returned to her sister in law's house to pick up Tiffany. And when Lisa arrived, when she arrived, she told her sister in law that John Osborne had paid for her to stay in a room at the Roadway Inn in Overland Park. Class roadway in. Come on. At about 2pm that day, Stassi called the front desk at the Roadway Inn and gave the hotel receptionist her sister in law's phone number. In case this guy calls. Said, hey, if John Osborne calls, tell him I'm at this number, all right? Osborne, quote, unquote, then called the sister in law's number soon after and got directions to her home. I guess it was a big snowstorm going on, but he showed up anyway at about 3pm and Lisa and Tiffany went with him, leaving her car parked outside her sister in law's home. Less than an hour later, Lisa called her sister in law to tell her that she had arrived safely at the motel. And you know, I'll pick up my car tomorrow or something, everything's fine. Never heard from either one of them again, Tiffany or Lisa. And the she never returned for a car or anything. And later on, the sister in law would identify the man she knew as John Osborne to be obviously John Robinson. So the next day after that, because she had called. She calls her mother in law. Lisa does. So she drove away. That's the last time they saw her. But they heard from her the next day, 4:30pm she called her mother in law, Betty Stassi in a panic, crying and hysterical. She was saying, Lisa was saying to her mother in law that quote, they, they are claiming that you, Betty, plan to take Tiffany away from me because I'm an unfit mother. And she's crying and hysterical. Yeah, Betty told her. I don't know what they are saying. It's not, first of all, it's not true. And who the fuck are they?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Who is it?

[James Petragallo]

Who are you talking about? Yeah, so then Lisa said they wanted her to sign four blank sheets of paper.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Don't do that.

[James Petragallo]

I would say not. Betty Stassi told her, do not sign anything. And right after she said that, Lisa said, oh, here they come. And then hung up. And that's the last anyone ever heard of her. Disappeared off the face of the earth.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No clue of who they are.

[James Petragallo]

No clue. Here they come, the phone disconnected. A few days later, Betty, the mother in law receives a letter supposedly written by Lisa. And it was typewritten and signed Lisa at the bottom and said that Lisa had left town to start a new life with Tiffany. Don't look for me, Goodbye.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well do to her wishes.

[James Petragallo]

By the way, it's a typewritten letter and Betty said that Lisa quote didn't know how to type.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, she figured it out today.

[James Petragallo]

I mean it's not, you know, maybe not fast, but if you press a J, a J will pop up. It's not that hard to figure out.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's pretty, you don't press the J and it turns into a Q.

[James Petragallo]

It's. That would be. You'd have to know how to do that. Yeah, yeah. So obviously out of complete coincidence, John then calls his brother, the one looking for a baby at around this same time, and says to come to can. This is the same day that Lisa saying they stuff, he says, hey, come to Kansas City because I found your baby girl. Oh, got you covered, bro.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Done?

[James Petragallo]

Yep. This is crazy, man. So I guess Nancy, who is his wife here, John's wife said in early January 95, this day, the day of the terrible snowstorm, John brought a baby to their home. John said the baby's name was Tiffany and he received her through a private adoption for his brother. A private. So they were just like, here, pass this baby on to your brother, please.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Middleman this.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's a private adoption. We don't even want to meet the people. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

One point on getting this child anywhere.

[James Petragallo]

Matter of fact, just take the baby. Yeah, yeah, take it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just go give it to somebody else.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. We don't care who. Yeah, yeah. So Robinson called Donald and Helen and told them a baby's available right now, she said. He said the birth mother had decided against adoption after delivery, but the family didn't support her decision. So she left the baby at a shelter and killed herself. So this was the original baby they were supposed to get but didn't work out. But now dead mother, here's your baby. So Donald and Helen flew to Kansas on Kansas City on January 10th. Robinson picked them up at the airport in the late afternoon and drove them to the offices of Equa2 and they signed legal paperwork, including a petition for adoption. After signing the documents, Donald gave John a $3,000 cashier's check payable to Doug Wood, the lawyer he told him about, allegedly for further adoption expenses. Donald and Helen named the baby Heather Tiffany Robinson. So now she's kept her with that but gave her Heather. So they returned. Next day, they went back to Chicago with their new baby girl. Might as well. That same morning, the sister in law, the Lisa Stasi sister in law, called the roadway in and learned that Lisa's room had been reserved under a name other than John osborne. So on January 11, the sister in law files a missing persons report with the Overland police department. Robinson's name obviously comes up in the investigation. And on February 1, 1985, detectives interview him. And he told them he was starting a charitable organization to provide young mothers job training, food and housing. He admitted that yes, he did place Lisa at the roadway in as part of that program, he said. However, he said Lisa had recently come to his office to give him the motel key. He said, she thanked me for the assistance and said she had made other arrangements. That's all she said. Robinson said that Lisa and Tiffany left with a young white man in an older model green car. That's all she. That's all he knows. One week later, he tells a similar story to his Missouri parole and probation officer Steve Hames. He'll come up now and then, by the way, Hames. Robinson told Hames he placed Ozzy at the roadway in but they lease on came to his business on January 10 with a man named Bill and said they plan to start a new life together in Colorado. To corroborate his story, he paid someone he knows named Cora Holmes $800 in exchange for her false statement to police, too. At Robinson's direction. Holmes told the police that she had recently babysat Tiffany and learned Lisa had left for Arkansas with a man named Bill Summers. In July 1985, Donald and Helen, his brother and wife, and his brother's wife, received a package from Robinson containing final adoption paperwork, including a petition for adoption, decree of adoption, birth certificate, and documents. The petition appeared to be signed by attorney Douglas Wood, who had handled over 100 adoptions in his career. Problem is, when asked about it, Wood will later testify that he did not prepare that document, it deviated from his standard form, and his signature is forged. Obviously, he said he never represented Robinson or any member of his family in any adoption proceeding, nor received payment from Robinson for any legal work. The decree appeared to contain the signature, though, so that's it was fine. He had represented Robinson in other matters, and Robinson had access to other examples of Wood signature. The decree also appeared to be signed by Judge Michael H. Farley, but Judge Farley said the decree was fraudulent and his signature was forged.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wasn't his either.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Also, the petition and decree appeared to be notarized by EV Gresham, who had been in a BDSM relationship with Robinson for years now. She never saw the documents, her name was misspelled, and she was never a notary public. He just picked someone's name out of his ass and said, they're the notary. Done.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She's never been a notary.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Never. Nope. He also had directed her to sign numerous blank papers during their relationship as well. Okay. Now, his probation officer, Stephen Hames, he took a call in Missouri. He had never heard someone, I guess someone called him. And he was being supervised by a Kansas probation officer as well. He pulled Robinson's file and perused his criminal record. He checked with the Kansas probation officer, who had no problems with him with Robinson. So Haim sent a letter to Robinson ordering him to report to the Missouri probation office on 1-17-85. He didn't show up. So he sent him another. Later, another letter registered, this time ordering his appearance on the 24th. He also contacted Hames does by telephone here. Kansas City Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A supervisor who he had worked with in the past asked them, are you investigating Robinson or were you aware of any baby selling rings operating in the Kansas City area? They said no and no, but they said they. The supervisor of the office said that the bureau was, quote, aware of John Robinson, but they weren't investigating actively. So Robinson comes to Haim's office and promptly at 1pm 5 foot 9, 200 pounds. Haim said he reminded him of the Pillsbury Doughboy. Dressed nicely. He said he was friendly and deferential and had an answer for about everything and had met with. He said, yes, he met with Birthright, which is a organization that places people as part of an effort by several of his business associates to, quote, help the community. No, he had not told Birthright that the Presbyterian Church was behind the effort. He said, the Birthright people just misunderstood me. They had asked him what church he attended, and he told them that's all. He didn't say they were backing me. Robinson volunteers. He also met with social workers from the Truman Medical center, and they had placed two young women in an apartment that he had rented on Troost Avenue. Hames was welcome to visit the apartment and speak with the residents. And he said, you know, I'm not. I'm not doing anything shady.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Uh, so Haims called an Overland park detective who said they had found no evidence of wrongdoing in the Stasi case and they weren't pursuing it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We're done with this.

[James Petragallo]

We're done with it. Yeah, there's. People came in, and she said she left, and I don't know, so. The detective did mention, however, that a second young woman who had worked for Robinson, Paula Godfrey, remember her? Had been reported missing a few months earlier. The detective recounted the letter the police had received, purportedly from Godfrey, saying she was okay and didn't want to see her family.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Everybody leave me alone.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Which is what the Amazon Review killer did. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The police, every letter about when somebody.

[James Petragallo]

Goes missing or I don't want to be found. Yeah, they're probably murdered, right?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Leave me alone. They're dead.

[James Petragallo]

Any leave me alone letter, they're probably murdered. Unless you had beef with them to begin with. Right. So the police said, we're not pursuing that case either. We have no evidence of anything. So Steve Hames, though, was like, I don't know. This guy's shady. The probation officer is thinking here. He said he learned from Lisa Stasi's relatives that he learned that Robinson had had her sign four blank sheets of stationery. Two letters arriving shortly after she disappeared. Look suspicious. They didn't sound like Lisa, and they were typed. We know that she can't type. So the probation officer asked John Robinson where Lisa Stassi was. Robinson claimed she had run off to Colorado with a guy named Bill again. So Hames is like, I don't know about this. He said, this guy's a con man. It's very possible that he turned into a murderer of vulnerable young women here. So he called the FBI supervisor again and he said, you might have to take a look at this. Said, we've got two women and a baby missing. We've got Robinson crossing state lines. So the supervisor said, all right, let's assign two agents to it and take a look. So over the next few weeks, a couple of agents who here began looking at her, looking at him, and looking at everything here, they discovered Robinson was involved in a shitload of ongoing criminal activities in the Kansas City underworld. Here. They said Robinson and fellow ex convict Irv Blattner, remember him, were under investigation by the U.S. secret Service for forging the signature on and cashing a government check. Jesus Hames. And the FBI learned as well that the investigation in Johnson County, Kansas, where the district attorney was building a case that Robinson Co. Equa 2 had defrauded back Care Systems, another company. So the thing is, he looks so upstanding. They said he's a doting.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Meanwhile, he's running schemes constantly.

[James Petragallo]

Constantly. But he's just like this middle aged, you know, got a tie on, his hair's combed neatly. It's all what it's all about. And they said he seemed to be a good father and husband. He built a soccer goal for his family in the yard so his son could practice at home. Yeah, like, he's a good guy. He goes to his daughter's flute recitals and band concerts. He referees school volleyball games. He's a successful businessman. He's always talking about new ventures. He's a great guy. He's also, not that this doesn't make you a great guy, but he's also hardcore into this BDSM underworld.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rip roaring spank.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. It's not just. He's like, him and his wife got some toys. This is like he's finding strange young women and taking them in. And there's a whole different thing going on here. He saw BDSM as a way to make money.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

Which most people think just coming hard is enough. But he's like, no, no, no, I need to make money off this too. Isn't coming enough for people.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I got a feeling the coming part isn't even a thing for him.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know about that. I think.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You think?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I think he likes. He likes inflicting pain. That's what turns him on. That's his thing. From what we'll find out later on, apparently he was organizing a ring of prostitutes for customers interested in S and M and using a male stripper known as Eminem to find women for him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Not Eminem from S and M. Yep.

[James Petragallo]

Em and M. He's just Eminem. He's just masochism. Masochism and masochism. That's Em. Everybody calls him J.R. none of the investigative trails led to Lisa Stassi or Paula Godfrey, though. But they were like, he's definitely doing some shady shit, though. So Hames orders him to come in for another visit. And he says, why is everyone making such a big deal when I'm only trying to help people? Robinson says. He says, by the way, Lisa Stassi has been found. She's okay. Tiffany, the baby, everybody's fine, so quit breaking fucking balls there. He claimed he had heard from a local woman for whom Stassi recently had babysat. And she said that she and Tiffany were definitely in the Kansas City area. But an FBI agent and an Overland park detective spoke to the woman in question, who he said told him the story, and she admitted the story of Stassi babysitting for her was false. And. Yeah. So Robinson had asked her to tell the lie if police asked her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, so it's his story that he gave her?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He said, if they ask you tell you this, they said, why are you doing this for him? And she said, because she owed him money and he had photographed her nude as a prospective prostitute. So the FBI decides to send out a female agent to contact him and pose as a prostitute looking for work. She was wired up, and the agent met Robinson for lunch at a restaurant. He told her his clients were mainly lawyers, doctors, and judges, and that she could earn $2,000 to $3,000 a week or a weekend traveling to Denver or Dallas to service them. Or $1,000 a night in the Kansas City area if you stick around here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

A grand. Go to Denver, too.

[James Petragallo]

You gotta go there. He did tell her, though, as you know, as this job entails, you're gonna have to undergo a lot of pain. You know, this isn't just a regular prostitution gig. This is. These people don't want to have sex with you, they're gonna want to fuck with you. Such as having, you know, your nipples crunched with pliers. You gotta like that, he's telling her. So the FBI hears a recording of the conversation and decided against proceeding with the undercover effort for the time out of fear for this woman's safety. The agent, they were like, we don't trust this fucking guy. He's gonna kill this fucking lady.

[Jimmy Wisman]

We crush your fucking nipples, lady.

[James Petragallo]

Fuck. So she's gonna come Back with mashed nipples to the FBI. March 19, 1985. Irv Blatner, the partner, cooperates with the Secret Service. Yeah, he's in deep shit and he's an ex con and he didn't want to go back to prison. So he cooperates with the Secret Service to sign a statement implicating John Robinson's position in a number of illegal activities to get him arrested for probation violations. So, yeah, this is an exchange for lenient treatment in the government check forgery investigation. The FBI advised Truman Medical center to remove its two young women from Robinson's Troost Avenue apartment. But to give Robinson a plausible excuse. So these women are in danger. Get him the fuck out. They don't exist, these women. But he told them that. So they're like, if that's true, do that. So March 21, 1985. He is. He comes in for his probation officer meeting and arrested in his probation officer's office there. But he's out on bail pretty quick.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Oh, absolutely. It's just check shit. And they don't have anything on. He's under suspicion of women disappearing, but they don't have anything that. So, April 1985. Teresa Williams, 21 years old. He meets her and lets her move into the brothel and becomes his personal prostitute. This is his gal here. She's attractive, 21 years old. She's from Boise, Idaho. She's been working odd jobs around Kansas City and looking for a main job here. Robinson took her to a hotel room where he photographed her nude and offered her a position as his, quote, mistress. This is a job. A job that would involve sexual services not only for him, but for others as well. He would put her up in apartment and pay all her expenses, plus prostitution fees. And he would supply her with weed and amphetamines.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, what a deal.

[James Petragallo]

And she said, wow, no other fucking job offer is going to be like that. So sure. So on the night of.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I was gonna take that receptionist job over the car dealership, but they said, no weed.

[James Petragallo]

They said, no amp. They wouldn't give me amphetamines is the problem.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dug their heels in.

[James Petragallo]

They said, no meth. You can. You can show up, Stone, but don't. We're not giving you meth. And we were like, oh, okay. So the night of April 30, 1985, JR here gives Williams twelve hundred dollars in cash. Got her a fancy dress, all, you know, tits out and everything. Told her to wait in a park across the street from the Troost Avenue apartment. A limousine Picked her up, the driver blindfolded her and took her to a mansion somewhere in the Kansas City area. This fucking happened. This is like some weird Eyes Wide Shut shit going on now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Great day.

[James Petragallo]

She was given to a distinguished looking, 60ish, gray haired man who was called the Judge.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The Judge.

[James Petragallo]

You know, he was a judge too, probably.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's a judge.

[James Petragallo]

He escorted her to the basement, which was a sex dungeon. That's what it was down there. It was, you know, all sorts of shit. She put it as, quote, brutality and other unnatural sex acts.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Good lord.

[James Petragallo]

He had her disrobe and then started stretching her on a medieval torture rack.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is the Judge.

[James Petragallo]

This is the Judge, yeah. She screamed and told him to let her leave. And she was blindfolded again and returned to the apartment. So the guy said, okay. A few days later, she was forced to return the $1,200. John said, Give me that fucking money back.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She shouldn't earn it. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Yes. Then at the same time he found out that not only is she not doing her gigs, whatever, she's also entertaining a boyfriend over at the apartment. She's got a man that Robinson isn't even getting any money for. So he's pissed off, very pissed off. So he comes over one day and early on a Saturday morning in late May of 85, let himself in, had his own keys, went into the apartment, a two bedroom unit on the third floor. Teresa Williams is there. She was asleep, but he barged into the bedroom and this is fucking wild. Grabbed her by the hair, pulled her over a knee and started spanking her. He said, you've been a real bad girl. You need to learn a lesson, okay? She was like, what the fuck? She started screaming. So he threw her on the floor and pulled a revolver out of a shoulder holster and pointed.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petragallo]

He said, if you don't shut up, I'll blow your brains out. He put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger and it was empty. He's fucking with her. No bullets. So she's now cowering and crying, obviously, and that's ridiculous. He then, this is crazy shit here. He then slid the gun down her torso and put it inside of her and said, I bet you've never had a blowout.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yikes, dude.

[James Petragallo]

She's pleaded, don't do that, please, please. So he took the gun out, put it back in the holster and left the apartment. That was it. He was there for five fucking minutes, did that. She didn't know what the fuck to do. So she just sat there. That's it? He went home because he had to be home in time to attend his teenage son's soccer game that Saturday afternoon.

[Jimmy Wisman]

After raping a woman with a gun.

[James Petragallo]

With a gun and threatening to murder her. Yeah. He went from that to the soccer game. Come on, buddy. Good job, good effort.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You can do better than that.

[James Petragallo]

So they made up, though she forgave him, and he promised to take her on a trip to the Virgin Islands in mid June. We're gonna go on a trip. So the FBI gets involved here again. They two agents talk to her. This. We talked to Teresa about this whole thing. And at first she told the agents a cover story saying she worked for Equitoo and was being trained in data processing. It's one way to put it. They said, listen, we have reason to believe that Robinson had been involved in the disappearance of at least two young women. So now she started to cry, and they were like, come on, get it out. So she said, okay, he, you know, assaulted me with his gun and he's going to take me to the Virgin Islands. And the other thing she said was, at his insistence, she's been fabricating a diary accusing his friend Irv Blatner of committing various crimes and of threatening her life. So she's writing a regular diary, like, went to McDonald's, saw my. You know, talked to my mom, did that. And then, like, the next page is like, irv Blatner is doing all this stuff and threatening my life because he wants Irv to get in trouble. So that means he's in less trouble because Irv can't be believed about what he says about John. So John seemed to have sensed that the police were going to use Blattner to implicate him, and he wanted this fake diary. So they're questioning Williams as they're questioning her in her fucking apartment. They hear a key in the door. Two FBI agents. Front door opens. There's Robinson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

There he is.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, shit. So the agents said, who the. They identify themselves, and they hold up the diary and ask if it's his handwriting, and he says it is. So the agents frisk him for weapons. He has none. He said he was in a hurry and then just left the apartment. There's nothing they could do to hold him there. They have no reason to hold him or anything like that, but that's even more suspect. So after he left, they insisted on moving this young lady, Williams, to another location to be kept secret from Robinson because they thought maybe her life was in danger, because she had also been asked to sign Blank sheets of stationery, like that's a bad sign. So they also the FBI agents talked to the probation officer, Hames, who helped interrogate Robinson, then filed a formal report with Missouri courts that had jurisdiction over his probation. Hames alleged that Robinson had violated the terms of his probation by carrying a gun, supplying drugs to Teresa Williams, and lying to his probation officer. He asked that the court revoke the probation and jail Robinson. He does that. But then there's a hearing and he's released on bail pending an appeal. So the FBI keeps Williams hidden, gives her money, and finally buys her a one way ticket out of town. Get the fuck out of here. He's gonna kill you. The Missouri court of Appeals overturned the district judge's ruling on the grounds that Robinson's constitutional rights had been viol because he had not been allowed to adequately confront his accuser, Theresa Williams. Because they had to hide her so he didn't kill her. So July 1985, he hires a private detective to find Theresa Williams. Is that illegal? He doesn't know because he doesn't know that they didn't tell him we're hiding her. So you can fire a private detective to find anybody. So at that point the FBI found out about that and then moves her to like three more times for her safety to try to like, you know, wash the trail really full.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What is that, the shell game?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, follow the queen. That's what it is. August 21, 1985, his probation is revoked and he is sentenced to serve seven years at the Missouri Department of Corrections. But he wins an appeal and doesn't have to serve the time. It's fucking crazy, dude.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What's the point in sentencing people?

[James Petragallo]

Put a tie on, have money for a lawyer, Comb your hair nice in the 80s, golden, you're great. He then appears in Farm Journal magazine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

For what?

[James Petragallo]

He made the COVID of Farm Journal magazine. The editors were unaware of his criminal record. The article was promoting people to invest in his equitoo company.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Two ranchers did just that and lost $10,000 each. 1986, after a long investigation, the district attorney in Johnson county charges him with fraud in bilking back care systems with his company here. A jury's going to convict him. In January of 1986, he was then convicted of a second fraud against an Overland park man in connection with an Arizona real estate deal. Because of his of his shit criminal record, the judge sentences him to serve between user may fuck off. Between 6 and 19 years in prison as a habitual criminal. Whoa, That's a lot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

But he remains free on bail for his appeal.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Habitual criminal. I'm sure he'll be fine out there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Everything's all right.

[James Petragallo]

So this right after this. Katherine Clampett, clam Pitt with two P's. Like Pittsburgh Pitt. Yep. Clam Pitt. 27 years old. She is of Overland Park, Kansas. I guess she moved from Kansas to Kansas from Wichita Falls, Texas, after answering a newspaper ad in which Robinson promised a great job, lots of traveling and a new wardrobe. Okay. Now, Clampett. She is described by her family as intelligent and a bit wild. Often stayed at local hotels for several nights at a time. And then in 1987, right after this ad, she inexplicably disappears for weeks and they call the cops finally. And she is reported officially missing on June 15, 1987. Okay, now, 87, he goes to prison. His appeals fail, so he actually goes to fucking prison. He began serving a four year sentence at Kansas Hutchinson. Hutchinson Correctional Facility. Uh, he does very well in jail also because he's full of shit and he has a couple of bucks and it helps. So after psychological and mental testing showed his intelligence to be well above average, he was put to work as the coordinator of the prison's maintenance operations office. Okay. There he developed. He developed computer programs that saved the Kansas prison system over $100,000 a year.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petragallo]

Yes, he actually did something. And that goes in his record. Makes him look good.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, that's positive.

[James Petragallo]

June 1989, his father dies. John's father dies. He. And then John suffers a series of strokes, small strokes that left permanent neurological damage. And the right side of his face partially paralyzed and looks a little, kind of droopy. A little droopy, yeah. In a nine page report of clinical and medical evaluation dated November 1, 1992, ranking doctors here and a supervising psychiatrist was one of them. The director of medical services and the supervising psychiatrist of the prison wrote that John Robinson was a model inmate who made the best of his incarceration. He's a non violent person and does not present a threat to society. He's a devoted family man who has taught his children a strong value system. Yeah, so that's what they're saying. He is good at being full of shit. 1991, he gets out of Canvas Kansas prison, but he's transferred to two prisons in Missouri for violating probation and an old fraud charge as well. So they're passing him around. Hames writes in his official memorandum to a colleague in 1991. I believe him to be a con man. Out of control. He leaves in his wake many unanswered questions and missing persons. I have observed Robinson's sociopathic tendencies, habitual criminal behavior, inability to tell the truth and scheming to cover his own actions at the expense of others. I was not surprised to see he had a good institutional adjustment in Kansas, considering that he's quite bright and a white collar con man. Capable of being quite personable and friendly to those around him, especially staff, because they're not used to having people that can treat them like that, educated people, that kind of thing. So Hames predicted that Robinson would use his medical problems to his advantage, which he does because two of the people he promptly befriends at the penitentiary in Missouri are the prison doctor, William Bonner, and mostly his 47 year old wife, Beverly, the prison librarian. She gave Robinson a job in the library, which is an easy job.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, it's a bad guy to be giving dude good free jobs to.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, there's I'm sure, hopefully somebody, but I mean he's smart and might know the books. That's the only difference. So Beverly Bonner here, she becomes friends with him and she lived the couple, her and her husband lived in Cameron, Missouri and they have two sons and. Yeah, so he's an inmate there. William Bonner, like we said, is the doctor, the prison physician. So 1993, John's released from prison and fucking Beverly Bonner divorces her husband and moves to Kansas.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Oh yeah. The library lady, the librarian, divorces her doctor husband.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She fell in love with him.

[James Petragallo]

She told her family she had a job with his company and that included foreign travel and she was taken off. She told her ex husband that she was going to be traveling abroad and gave him an address at the post office box that he could use to mail her her alimony. She disappeared. Yep, send my checks, I'll be off doing shit. Wow. She disappeared immediately upon saying she was going. And John places all her belongings in a storage locker in a Kansas City suburb. She's not seen by her family. After her final divorce proceeding In February of 94, her brother invited her to his September 1995 wedding, but she didn't show up. And her oldest son died in October 1995, but she didn't attend his funeral or pay any attention to it. So she's gone is what that means. Yeah, they tried to make it that she disappeared to travel, but all those things happening means that probably she's dead. So his income since he was in prison had stopped. So his wife Nancy had been forced to sell their big house with the horses and all that. She took a job as the manager of a mobile home development in Belton, Missouri, which is a suburb south of Kansas City. The development was called South Fork after a large family home on the Dallas television series. And all the streets were named after Dallas characters. What, Sue Ellen Avenue, Cliff Barnes Lane and so forth. And He's. And he's J.R. how perfect is that? So they said they could make do with this because the twins were in college, so they didn't need as much room. They just rented some storage units at a facility for their overflow. Shit. At this point, he starts a magazine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Everything I tell you is like, at this point. It might as well be at this point. He orbited Pluto. You'd be like, okay, why not? Sure, yeah. He has a company called Specialty Productions or Publications where he put out a trade magazine called Manufactured Modular Home Living. What?

[Jimmy Wisman]

They got their own. They got. They can't afford a house, not even afford publications.

[James Petragallo]

And who wants to read about how others are living inside their trailers? Oh, let's see.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Reminded. No, pretend this is a house.

[James Petragallo]

That's the opposite of aspirational. So early 1994, Beverly Bonner, never seen again. But her mother continued to send her alimony checks to the mailbox in Olathe at a business called the mailroom. In December 1993, Robinson, posing as Jim Turner, applied for a mailbox under Bonner's name at the Mailroom. By the way, the owner, Colleen Davis, identified Robinson later on as the person she knew as Turner. That's another one of his aliases. Robinson executed a lease for Box 182 under Bonner's name on January 1, 1994, presented Bonner's identification and told Davis he was collecting Bonner's mail while she worked in Australia. This person at the store never met Bonner and only saw Robinson access the mailbox. This William Bonner paid his ex wife $1,000 in monthly alimony for 18 months. He mailed them every. Every time. Every alimony check was deposited into Robinson's Hydro Grow Inc. Business account. Oh, yup. That is fucking wild. It's at the Community bank of Raymore. He opened that on February 1, 1994, with James A. Turner and Beverly J. Bonner as the authorized signatories. So. Wow. Three latent fingerprints lifted from the original alimony checks match Robinson's prints, by the way. Later on, he attempted to conceal Bonner's disappearance with fraudulent communications to her family. In January 94, her brother Larry Heath received a handwritten letter purportedly from Bonner, that said she was starting a new career with an international corporation in Chicago and that she would be training extensively domestically and abroad. A few months. Super busy. Leave me alone. Few months later, Larry Heath, the brother, received a typewritten letter purportedly from Bonner, which was unusual because she always wrote letters by hand. And the letter said that Bonner was working for Jim Redmond in the human resources department of a large international corporation. Larry Heath continued to receive similar typewritten letters every three to four months. Really think about how to keep track of all this shit. Oh, shit, it's been three months. It's been three months. I gotta fucking write a letter to this. Like, this is crazy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's a lot of places I send my quarterlies out.

[James Petragallo]

Wow, that's a lot of plates to keep spinning. Imagine having to think of all that shit. That sounds so stressful.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's how you don't have. He doesn't have a day job, James. This is.

[James Petragallo]

This is. Yes. Scamming.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Most people think about their thing about their day job all the time. This guy just thinks about this all the time.

[James Petragallo]

This is more work than a day job, though.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, just get a job.

[James Petragallo]

Easier to get a fucking job, man. It would have been easier just to go to medical school. This would have been way easier. So the brother would. Would respond now and then, mailing the correspondence to the mailbox. During the same period, another relative received about half dozen letters which arrived in envelopes postmarked Australia, France, the Netherlands, and Kansas City, Missouri.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How did he do that?

[James Petragallo]

The letters were typewritten, often discussed Bonner's travel overseas, and were signed with what Bonner believed to be inner handwriting. I think it's part of the SNM and BDSM thing. He's got a lot of friends overseas. He's got a lot of weirdos. So, yeah, he could send them two.

[Jimmy Wisman]

In an envelope there and then be like, just take this envelope and throw it in the mail for me.

[James Petragallo]

That's it. Just throw it in the mail. Summer of 1994. Sheila Dale faith, like the word faith. She's 45 years old and she has a daughter named Debbie lynn Faith, who's 15 years old here. Debbie Lynn was born in 1978. Debbie is born with a bunch of birth defects. She's got a lot of problems. She has cerebral palsy, which is. Oh, my God, really difficult. And I knew somebody who had a relative. It's a terrible fucking thing to happen to somebody.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Palsy.

[James Petragallo]

Palsy's Bad? Yeah, it's awful. Which limited her ability to walk anything. Like controlling her bladder was difficult. She had to wear adult diapers as a 15 year old. Poor kid. Poor fucking child, man. Now, as if things weren't hard enough for Sheila, taking care of her child and everything else, her husband died in 1993. Died. So Sheila moved with Debbie from California to Pueblo, Colorado, to be closer to a close friend of hers who was going to help out. So Sheila and Debbie lived on Social Security and obviously struggled financially to meet things like doctor bills and stuff. So Sheila, according to her friend, was lonely and would respond to personal ads in hopes of meeting somebody. What, her husband died, she's lonely, you know what I mean? So on several occasions, Sheila talked to this Guerrero person, her friend, about her interest in bdsm, but didn't share details because Guerrero was uncomfortable with the subject. Someone's got to be into that subject to really talk about it with him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So she's a bit of a little bit of a freak.

[James Petragallo]

She's this one, yeah. Sheila's sister also believed that Sheila was interested in BDSM. So in spring of 1994, Sheila told her friend that she had met a man named John from Missouri. She said John was a wealthy executive who promised to take her on a cruise and put Debbie in a private school. John promised her the world, the friend recalled. He told her he was going to take her on a cruise, that he would take care of her daughter, that she'd never have to work, that money was no problem. Sheila told her sister Kathy that she met a man with a good job, they planned to travel together, and that he planned to buy Debbie a new wheelchair and an accessible van.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Nice.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. The sister said that Sheila called him Jim Turner, either in a letter or during a phone conversation she couldn't remember. Sheila told her friend that she and Debbie were going to visit John. They planned to be gone for about a month, spending a couple weeks with John in Missouri and then traveling to Texas to deliver to visit family. So this friend expected Sheila to return within a few weeks because they had purchased tickets to the Colorado State Fair. And Sheila planned to enter a cross stitched angel into the fair competition. She's going to win the cross stitching prize here at the Colorado State Fair. While Sheila pack, Guerrero noticed she did not take furniture, bedding, or other items that you need to move. She's just taken shit to go on a vacation. So, yeah, so they packed up their belongings, they moved to Kansas City, where they fucking disappeared. Mom and daughter gone. They vanished. But their mail, including their disability checks, was being forwarded to a mailbox at the mailroom. Yep, neither the friend or Sheila's sister spoke to Sheila or Debbie ever again after they left Colorado to visit him. Additionally, in 1995, Robinson gave one of his other girlfriends, Sandra Shields, a cross stitched angel as a gift. Yep. That is fucking horrifying. Yep. The friend Guerrero, the missing woman's friend, later identified the item as the piece Sheila had made to enter into the state fair competition.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yuck.

[James Petragallo]

Hey, everybody, Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about something awesome. Fast Growing Trees. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants your yard needs, like fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and so much more. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard order online and get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days without ever leaving home. This is awesome. This is very awesome. I love putting trees in the yard. You know that and I know you have planted a bunch in your yard. And I've done so much with my trees in my yard.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's fun to watch them actually thrive.

[James Petragallo]

I love it. And I'm telling you, we have hired people to do stuff and I've complained about it on the show before, how expensive these people are. They turn you upside down and shake you, these tree people and landscapers. This is a great way to do it and save so much money. So much money. It is awesome.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Absolutely.

[James Petragallo]

This spring they have the best deals for your yard, up to half off on selecting plants and other deals. And listeners of our show get 15% off their purchase when using the code Small Town Murder at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growing trees.com using the code Small Town Murder at checkout fast growing trees.com code small town murder. Now's the perfect time to plant. Use Small Town Murder to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petragallo]

Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about some delicious stuff here. Hero bread. Oh, get in there and get this stuff because it is delicious and the hero bread is great because it's a healthier alternative to all. A healthier bagel and a healthier Hawaiian roll. Which. God, those are so good. They're Hawaiian rolls. Oh, those are good too. The tortillas, the Hawaiian roll. There's so much. So you don't have to give up goodness and taste just to live a little bit healthier. You can get with Hero and do that. Be a hero. The taste and the texture is everything. I'm a bread guy. I'm an Italian. I love bread. And the taste and the texture is really good in this bread. And that is what makes the difference. They have so many things. That's the other thing. The bagels, the tortillas, like you were saying, the rolls, the bread, the Hawaiian rolls. It's. There's a full. Yeah, get on. Hero brand is offering 10% off your order. Go to Hero Co and use the code. Small Town Murder at checkout. That's Small Town Murder at H E R O Co. Now back to the show. That is fucked up. Now, after Sheila and Debbie left, Sheila's sisters received letters written by Sheila Thunder Type Machine. A typewritten letter purportedly from Sheila in a postmark envelope postmarked Canada.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

The letter said that Sheila had met a wonderful man named Jim and all this shit. Now, the sister was convinced the letter was a fraud because Sheila always wrote letters by hand and Sheila's signature didn't appear to be her signature. So they reviewed another. She received another letter the following December. Again, she was convinced Sheila didn't write it. It was typed out and all that kind of shit. But they're all postmarked from outside the country, so. But for years since, they haven't been. They're not like nothing. We don't know what happened to them. Their checks keep coming.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

And he keeps collecting them.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. In June 1990, four months after setting up the private mailbox under Bonner's name, posing as Jim Turner, he set up another private mailbox at the same place under the name Sheila and Debbie Faith. And the owner saw Robinson come to the mailbox at least once a month to collect two government checks mailed to Sheila and Debbie. Holy. He is pure. This is a disabled child. Yeah. Pure garbage, dude. It's one thing to scam adults and be like, yeah, I'm gonna get you here for sex and then I'm gonna kill you. That's normal. People expect that when you answer a BDSM ad in a newspaper back then you go, this could be really fun. Or I could be murdered. One of the two.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's going to be really fun. Or he's going to murder me and my child that has disabilities and then keep our chest.

[James Petragallo]

That's disgust. I mean, obviously wrong to murder any of these people, but a 15 year old fucking disabled child, that's about as disgusting of a move as you could possibly do.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And you got to kill that girl, too. If you're killing your mom, what are you going to do? That's.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, what are you gonna do? Push her into the woods in her wheelchair and leave her there? Yeah. You gotta kill her somehow. So from July 94 to September 95, the checks were deposited into Robinson's Hydro Grow Inc. Business account. The same one. Same one he used to deposit the alimony checks. Wow. In fall of 1995, Community bank of Raymore notified Robinson, aka James Turner, that the Social Security checks could not be deposited into a business account. Thereafter, he deposited the checks into his specialty publications accounts at other financial institutions. He also. That's. Jesus Christ. Wow. Attached to the disability form here. He completed a disability form for. Disability review form for Debbie and signed by Sheila. So the report appeared to be signed by Dr. William Bonner. Beverly, like Beverly's husband. Oh, yeah, That's William Bonner. That's the doctor from the prison.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Guy she divorced. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

But he never treated Debbie. Faith had not prepared the report and had. And had never had an address at office. At the address listed December 95th. He's collecting enough money from other people's alimony and Social Security that this is wild. He puts $95,000 down for a house for his son and grandchildren in Big Pine Key, Florida.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

Weird. So around the neighborhood now, he's starting to be known as a dirty old man who made sexual advances on many of his female neighbors again. Now, though, by the time you're 50, you can't do that shit. When you're 32, you might be able to bang some of your wives. Neighbors. By the time you're 50, you're just a dirty old man then.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And you wake up one day and that day has arrived.

[James Petragallo]

It's there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It sneaks up on you fast. Fast where you start saying gross things. Then people go, ew.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's mid-30s is when that happens. At some point. That's when it happens. That's when it happens. So.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, I want to suck on your tits. And they go, gross.

[James Petragallo]

Ew. Oh, my bad. Gross. You're like, oh, well, I guess I shouldn't. I guess I shouldn't have said that to you. Right outside the jungle gym. I suppose it's as much the environment as what I said. You know what I mean? I guess so. You know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Can you count that change back one more time?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Yeah. No, the rainbow snow cone is the one I wanted. Yeah, Sorry. Sorry about that, kids. It's Your turn. I'm sorry, I tried. Line of kids behind you. So he even crept around the trailer park, driving slowly by their trailers on his golf cart when he knew their husbands weren't home, peering in somehow. He is still married. Nancy's still hanging around here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus.

[James Petragallo]

Now, this is in Santa Barbara Estates in Olathe. He spends a lot of time here. This is in his mobile home in front of his five computers at this point. And this is 1990s.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So this is like 95 compact Presarios.

[James Petragallo]

But you know how expensive five fucking computers was in the 90s?

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's 15 grand, dude.

[James Petragallo]

That's so much money. And he's sitting there and he's on the Internet this time too. 95 on the Internet, searching BDSM shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Damn.

[James Petragallo]

The early Internet adopters were either wrestling fans, like code dorks who were code dorks who were trading like hacking shit and code stuff, or really horny people that were into shit that was too weird to tell people in person. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And people are like, now I can put a script. Now I don't. Now I can say anything I want because nobody can see me.

[James Petragallo]

Now I can go by slave master. That's what he's going by. That's his handle here. So he's searching all the BDSM shit on the Internet. Here he began placing and monitoring ads in the Pitch Weekly, a so called alternative newspaper in Kansas City whose back pages feature personal columns called Romance, the Dating Connection for people seeking conventional relationships, and the Wild side for people who prefer the unconventional. It's like the LA Weekly ads we read in the personal ads.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's backpage for real.

[James Petragallo]

So now that the Internet's here, though, now it really expands. He was doing all this from magazine ads and weird newspaper ads. Now there's the Internet. Now he's connected to everybody. So way beyond the Pitch Weekly. It's ridiculous. So he had three desktops, two laptop computers going trolling BDSM websites for hours under the Slave Master handle. Here he's living with his wife in a three bedroom trailer. It's wild. He's also got a cell phone, a pager, he's emailing everybody already. And Nancy's working at the office manager at the Santa Barbara Estates. Around September 1, 1995, he spotted an ad which read, masterful, successful, entrepreneurial, Single white male, 35 to 50, sought by successful Rubenesque beauty. So it's a for a guy, a woman looking for a man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What does Ruben esque mean? Like Stoddard?

[James Petragallo]

No, no, it means Curvy means you got tits and ass. Rubenesque means tits and ass. It used to mean fat. Now it means tits and ass.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Okay, we've changed it now to that. So she left. He left a voicemail and she called him back. She went by the name Chloe Elizabeth to conceal her identity as a successful, well known, college educated businesswoman in Topeka, Kansas. Yeah, she's a career, you know, minded person. Never got married. She was accustomed to dominating in her business life and had decided she was time to seek what she truly wanted in her personal life. Wow. Yeah. Which is a dominant who could quote a dominant with whom I can give up control of the personal side of my life and obey a worthy man who would advance my sexual and personal journey beyond what I was willing to admit wanting on my own.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's crazy because they'll accept that from somebody that is a horrifying human being.

[James Petragallo]

Horrifying person. Yeah, horrifying.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She could be a smoking hot woman and she will allow an absolute bridge troll to whack her with a cat of nine tails.

[James Petragallo]

Our fucking brains are weird, aren't they? How that works.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the fuck is that?

[James Petragallo]

The psychology of that shit. Wow. So she said, I was looking for someone who was in business for himself because I believe that provides a dynamic and a personality that I'm seeking, one that I understand, one that I'm like. Junior made me feel like he was pretty close to the type of man I like to date. We had many phone conversations before we actually met for the first time. She asked Robinson to send her documents to prove that he was the one. He was who he says he was. She said, I'm not at all a paranoid person. But in a relationship of DNS where you're sincere about what you're doing, you really need to know the person you're going to give the control up is someone who will take good care of. Yeah. You need to trust them. Jesus. So he sent her. Now she's using a real name and address. An array of material designed to portray him in the best possible light. Chicago newspapers, accounts of his appearance before the Queen in London, what we told you about his hydroponics booklet. Just to show, look, I'm a real person. I'm all filled out. Yeah. Kansas University brochure picturing his attractive children, his appearance on the COVID of Farm Journal and his proclamation naming him man of the Year.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. No indication of his criminal past or anything like that. But anyway, two months after their first conversation, she and JR had discussed their sexual preferences Extensively by phone. She knew what he, as the dominant, was expected of her. She said I was to meet him at the door wearing only a sheer robe, a black mesh thong, panty matching demi cup bra, thigh high stockings and black heels. My eyes were to be made up dark and lips red and I was to kneel before him. He was wearing a dark navy single breasted business suit, a starched light blue shirt with gold cufflinks, burgundy striped tie and polished shoes. Once inside the door, he took a leather studded collar from his jacket and placed it around my neck and attached a long leash to the collar. I took him first to the library and a large king chair in front of the fire. Next to it I had put his drink of choice, scotch on the rocks. He drew me to him and we kissed for the first time. After some relaxed small talk, I led him through the rest of the house, ending up in my bedroom on the third floor. There, he asked me to remove the few items of clothing I was wearing one at a time, except for the stockings. He then took from his pocket a contract for slavery, giving my consent to use me as a sexual toy in any way he wished and to punish me in any way he saw fit. I read the contract and signed it. He asked if I was sure. I said yes, very sure. She is horny. He put the contract back in his pocket and asked me to remove all of his clothes except his pants. He then asked me to lie face down on the bed and spread my arms and legs as wide as I could using a rope that he had brought. He tied my wrist to the head of the bed and my ankles to the foot of the bed. Once he had me tied up, he asked me to try to move. I couldn't. He then removed his belt. Yeah, he's. Remember, he's got knots. He's got a fucking badge for that. This is his BDSM badge from the Eagle Scouts.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's real good at this.

[James Petragallo]

I earned my S and M badge when I was a young man of England. Man, she was impressed. Once he had me tied, he asked me if I could move. I couldn't. He then removed his belt and began to whip me across my bottom slowly and lightly. I could feel excitement flowing across my skin. Is this a Penthouse letter? I don't know what this is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is crazy.

[James Petragallo]

Then the blows got harder and closer together. It was painful and I cried. He then lay down beside me and cuddled me and comforted me and told me he loved me. He untied the ropes around my wrists and ankles and instructed me to kneel on the bed in front of him. Him. My punishment training for the day was not over. He took a spool of smaller rope as he talked about training my large breasts. Even my large breasts, my heaving breasts. I wanted to. I wanted to please him. He said that the breasts, to be pleasing and well trained, must be able to endure pain and wear marks. He began to wrap the rope tightly around the base of the breast. He wrapped it so tightly that it bulged and turned reddish purple. He crossed the rope in the middle of my chest and began wrapping the other breast. Now both my breasts were like large ripe tomatoes, red and ready to burst. The nipples were erect and brown. He took clamps and put on one on each nipple. The pain was severe. He thrust the solid leather strap of his belt down on top of. On the top side of my breast.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, Jesus. He's whipping her tits now.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he's whipping her tits while she's clamped up. The pain caused the nipples to expand and become unimaginably restricted by the clamps. Engorged to about three times their normal size, the nipples turned purple and blue. He strapped my breasts again. Only those swats. There would be no more today. To show my gratefulness to his attention, he required one more duty. He stood before the bed and removed his pants. He required that I perform oral sex. This was the first date. It was sensational. She loved it. He had an ability to command, to control, to corral someone as strong and aggressive and spirited as I am. So they fuck yeah. She said that they asked this woman later on, is this always part of your relationships? Is pain always part of this? She said it depends on what you consider pain. Which means, yes, I came.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That doesn't hurt.

[James Petragallo]

Means fuck. Yeah, it does. I wasn't interested in being beaten. I don't love pain. Some women in this lifestyle love pain. For me, there comes a physical state that you're in where what one might consider pain on your body isn't painful. Before he left, he told her that she had been stupid for allowing him to do all that he had done. I could have killed you, he said, though he hadn't told him. She said that she didn't tell him this, but she never felt threatened by him, even when she was tied because she had stationed a male friend in the house. She has a guy hiding in the house to be on alert for some signal she gives to come in and help her. Nope, doesn't know it at all. He, though, made notes of JR's license plate number while they were upstairs. So she's fucking smart, this one. That's why she's alive to be interviewed later, because she thought of all this shit he had told her he was divorced. This is the problem here, okay? They became. They started seeing each other a couple times a week. But she became suspicious of him through a contact in state government. She ran his license plates and found out his car was registered in his wife's name as well as his. He told her he was divorced. So, yeah, they, at this point, she said that they had exchanged, you know, declarations of love. He suggested to her they should exchange lists of all their assets. Let's just write down all the stuff we have that's worth something. What do you say?

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's love.

[James Petragallo]

Let's just write it down and look at it. She said, no, I don't think so. So, yeah, she was supposed to, you know, she's supposed to. This is fucking crazy. So that she figured out what he was about and that was that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So she broke it off and didn't see anymore.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, she didn't see him anymore because he was lying to her and shit like that. So early 1997, now Beverly Bonner's officially missing. The letters stopped coming and her family grew concerned and contacted authorities to report her disappearance. The detective here examined nine of the envelopes mailed to Larry Heath. Eight of the envelopes had sufficient, sufficient something fluid on him to create a full DNA profile. And each profile matched Robinson DNA. So late 1997, Isabella Lewicka, 19 years old. Born in Poland. Here she moved to West Lafayette, Indiana with her family at age 11. She was started to study at Purdue University. In the fall of 96. She was a draw big into painting and shit like that, into the arts. She also had a big interest in several things like, well, paganism, goth shit and bdsm she's into. In 97, spring, she told her friend Jennifer that an international book agent in Kansas City had offered her a job doing secretarial work and had commissioned her to illustrate BDSM manuscripts. Lewicka said she was going to move to Kansas City to be with this older married man who had agreed to train her to become a dominant in bdsm. So she's going to be his little protege. Luicka told her friend that he wanted her to call him Master and to maintain strict confidentiality. Luicka seemed concerned when she inadvertently told her friend that the master's name was John. She was like, oh, shit, I wasn't supposed to say that. So in late 97, she told her parents she was dropping out of school to move to Kansas City, where a rich entrepreneur had offered her an internship. She also signed the slave contract. It's a 115 item contract, by the way.

[Jimmy Wisman]

115 agreements.

[James Petragallo]

A lot of initialing going on there. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And initial here and here.

[James Petragallo]

And initial here. If you'll allow this, initial here for boob fucking pain, initial here. Wow. A fact that she didn't tell her parents, though, obviously she never comes home again and communicates with her parents strictly through email. So, yeah, she keeps saying it's a publishing company internship. If it led to a job, she might stay longer, but maybe she'd be back to Purdue for 97. You don't know. So she would be living, as she told them, at 9280 Metcalf in Overland park and could be reached by email. So 6-8-97, she left for Kansas with her car filled full of shit. And all of her friends knew that she moved to Kansas for both work and BDSM training. So 1998, she registers @ a local community college as Isabella Lewicka Robinson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Last name his.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah, no, they are. They're married. He says at this point, yeah, they're married. Even though they're not married. They leased a private mailbox at Mailboxes, et cetera, at the same address that she gave her parents for there. So it's not a physical address, it's just a mailboxes store. Both Lewicka and Robinson were authorized to access the box. October 1997, Robinson had his insurance agent write a two year auto policy on Lewicka's vehicle, except explaining she was an employee. On November 14, Lewicka opened up an account at bank of America, where Robinson also had an account for specialty publications. February 1998, Robinson contacted Jennifer Bonadow Bonedot, a property manager for the Deerfield apartment complex in Olave. He said he needed a corporate apartment for employees he would train before they were transferred to positions out of state. In the rental application, he identified himself and Lewicka as prospective occupants. He told that he told this woman that he met Lueka at a graphics trade show and that she had been abused by her parents and that he had adopted her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's an adoption, not a marriage.

[James Petragallo]

That's what he tells some people. And some people they tell they're married. And some people they say that he's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

His daughter, depending on the acceptability of the situation.

[James Petragallo]

Yep, this sounds nice to these people. So he paid the rent. He Signed a one year rental agreement and paid the rent with a specialty publication check. And Lewicka occupied the apartment for the next year in the there. So July 1998, he buys 16 acres of land. Some, I guess he had bought this land sometime a couple years ago maybe or whatever. It's in La Signe, La Singe, Kansas, La separate word. Cygne, Lassigne, Kangel, Kyengagen, I don't fucking know. Either way, it's gonna be a bad one to pronounce. So he buys 16 acres of old farmland there. He stores a 1999 trailer on the property as well in 1998. Here he installs two phone lines and one for his landline, one for his computer. Gotta have the fucking dedicated Internet phone line back then. January 99, just before the lease expired at the apartment, he contacted Julie Brown, a manager for AJ Lang Property Management downtown. Julie Brown, she's back to find an apartment. Robinson said he was in the publication business and needed a corporate apartment again for female employees. Same shit. So Luicka then moves to that apartment and he pays the rent there. Now while here, she works for specialty publications handling advertising and graphics for his magazine. She actually does that. In 1998, Robinson told his publishing broker, Karen Scott, he had hired his adopted daughter as a graphic designer.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Nice work.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Lewicka told a woman named Pam Sadewhite, who owns a graphic arts company that did work for Robinson, that Robinson was her uncle. But this woman saw them flirting and touching one another in a manner that suggested this would be a pretty weird uncle niece relationship. She often told people she was Robinson's wife. She registered for an introductory drafting class at Johnson Community College under the name of Robinson and told an instructor she was married to an older man. And she also identified herself as Isabella Robinson to several employees of local businesses, but they never had a license. He did give her a ring and paid for a marriage license, but never picked it up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Didn't get it.

[James Petragallo]

Didn't get it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's expensive. Isn't that like a couple hundred dollars?

[James Petragallo]

It's like in Arizona was $78. So yeah, yeah, not much so. Because whenever, whenever Sarah's doing something and I go like, she goes, you paid $78 for this? And I go, okay, fine. Fair enough. So Nancy gets a surprise here. Wife Nancy. She did not know that he's been doing any of this stuff. She thought he's just with anybody. She doesn't even know what he's into sexually.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She doesn't know about the 115 things.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, in 1998. That's when she learned he was into fucking BDSM. Yeah, that's when she listened. Figured it out. After discovering fetish websites saved in his Internet browser history. See, he got. But he was the first guy to get busted like that, I think.

[Jimmy Wisman]

For sure.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So she found out how to do it, how to look.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, she figured it out. Motherfucker.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm gonna check it at home. Shit.

[James Petragallo]

She tried to go to some, like, you know, fucking crafting site she was on, and she's looking through the history, she's like, wait a second. So Robinson shared stories of his BDSM stuff with a guy named Carlos Ibarra, a maintenance employee at the trailer park. Tell the guy. The guy trailer for a janitor.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Come here.

[James Petragallo]

Come here for a minute. Hey, turn that fucking hedge clipper off for a minute. I gotta tell you something. Showed him nude photographs also.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You ever box knot a titty?

[James Petragallo]

It's pretty good. You seem to be pretty good at tying up those bushes to keep them off the road. Do you think you could tie up a titty? He showed this guy nude photographs of a girlfriend depicted in BDSM poses. So Nancy Robinson also learned about the relationship with Isabella Lewicka. She believed the relationship was different from any other affairs he might have had in the past. Because when Nancy had learned of an affair in the past, Robinson had always ended it immediately. If she had ever found out about something, it was like, oh, just. But here. This time, the relationship continued, and Nancy thought that he was going to leave her for Luicka.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

And he was just doing it in the open. Fuck you. I'm doing it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I just like it.

[James Petragallo]

So Lwica disappears in the late summer or fall of 1999. People stop hearing from her. So earlier that summer, Robinson convinced another woman, Barbara Sandri, to move from Canada to Kansas. On August 18, they executed a lease for an unfurnished duplex at Hunter's Point, located on Grant street in Overland Park. Sandra needed this. Barbara. I'm sorry, Barbara. Sandra needed furnishings for the duplex, and Robinson agreed to provide them. On August 23, he hired a moving company to deliver household items from Lewica's apartment to this woman's apartment.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God. That's so creepy.

[James Petragallo]

That is up. Over the next few two weeks, he bought additional furnishings, including bedding and pillows, blankets, kitchen utensils, artwork, and hundreds of books. Many of these items were later identified as belonging to Licca.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That is fucked, man.

[James Petragallo]

That's so fucked up, man. Jesus Christ. So he also rekindles his relationship with a woman named Alicia Cox from earlier in 1999. Later that year, Cox was unemployed and didn't have permanent housing, so Robinson invited her to stay at Lewicka's apartment. This woman said that the apartment was mostly vacant, but there were some boxes containing clothing and household items. Robinson told Cox that the girl who had been living there quit her job and ran off with her boyfriend, leaving the clothes behind. Salisha Cox took some of the clothing, which was later identified as Lewicka's. Cox declined the offer to stay in the apartment. So, yeah, anyway, he ends up getting rid of that apartment. They inspected the unit later on and found it to be mostly unkempt, but noticed two bedrooms had been cleaned meticulously. But the rest of it was shitty. Fall 1999. Suzette Troughton. T R O U T E N 27 years old, youngest of five children. She lived near her mother in the Monroe, Michigan area. She's a home care nurse and she talks to her mother daily. Now, one thing she doesn't tell her mother in these daily talks is that she's super into fucking bdsm. She goes to websites, chat rooms, created her own BDSM webpage and traveled out of state for BDSM hookups.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Real.

[James Petragallo]

This is her hobby. Yeah, she would also. She's into collecting teapots, hanging out with her two Pekingese dogs, and also bdsm. She was so deeply involved in the scene that she carried on relationships with four dominance at once.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Wow each other. That's a lot of masters, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

She had pierced her nipples to her nave. Her nipples, her navel. And five places in and around her genitalia. I don't know, five? Yeah. I'm thinking one, two, three.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Side, top, top.

[James Petragallo]

That's four, six. That's what I'm saying. Five top.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That could be six.

[James Petragallo]

Side, side, top, top is four. You just said four and then said six.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right, but if you. If you double them up on each one, that's. I guess.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, if you double them up. Otherwise, what are we talking about?

[Jimmy Wisman]

You could pierce the taint. You could pierce.

[James Petragallo]

I mean, I'm trying to think of exactly where. Where she's putting five that it's probably right behind.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right. Because you can pierce that. The taint that I'm sure.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, sure. Why not? Who doesn't have a pierced taint?

[Jimmy Wisman]

So I think that's what.

[James Petragallo]

Maybe. I'm not sure. We don't know. But she's got all of this shit. And these are used to accommodate Rings and other devices used in bdsm. Shit. That's why she's. So they can grab her down there. A photograph of Suzette with nails driven through her breasts circulated on the Internet. Why she's one of these people, I don't know, man. She likes the real painful shit. I just got creeped out.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Through the nips, right? Not through the breasts.

[James Petragallo]

It says through her breasts. I'm not sure. So in the mid-90s, she met Lore Remington, a Canadian resident who shared her interests in all this shit. Remington trained her as a slave, the submissive partner here. Remington introduced Trouton to her friend Tammy Taylor, who also lived in Canada and became another friend. Trouton placed ads on BDSM websites seeking a position as a slave. And they started her and Robinson started communicating by email. In the summer of 99, Trouton told her mother that this Robinson offered her a job as a caring for his elderly father, Papa John, Quote, unquote. He's elderly and dumb as fuck and his pizza's terrible. Trouton said Robinson and his father were selling off several companies and that Papa John needed nursing care as they traveled to various locations to close deals. Trouton said the job would pay $60,000 a year and extensive and require extensive travel to places such as Switzerland and Belgium and. Yeah. So February 2000, Suzette moves to him. She moves to Kansas City to work for jr. She left Robinson's name and phone number with her mother, with whom she's very close with. So she said she had an interview with Robinson in October 1999. She came back a few days later, told her mother that she did not like the idea of being away from home, but had decided to take the job for a year to earn enough money to go to school. So she had to go back again, sign an employment contract. We know what that is. And find a place to live. And she told everybody she got a job working for a guy named John who needed someone to care for the elderly father and all this type of shit. So just before Troughton left, her aunt helped her create a list of her friends and family's contact information so she could stay in touch. February 12, 2000, Troughton left for Kansas, bringing along her two Pekingese dogs, Peka, Pika and Harry, in the moving truck that Robinson rented for her. So she drove in her. In her truck were her clothes, books, dogs, and teapot collection. That's pretty much what she's got. Also her BDSM stuff. Whips, paddles, canes, collars, all that shit. So she arrived here February 14th. Very romantic. And checked into room 216 at the guest House Suites in Lenexa. He reserved the room for seven nights under his company's name, Specialty Publications, and then it was extended for another week. She checked into the room, hotel staff informed informed her of their no pet policy. So what they did was they board them at the Ridgeview Animal Hospital. He said that the dogs belonged to his employees and indicated the dogs would be boarded through the end of February. So while she's in Kansas, Troughton calls her mom every day. Told her mom she decided to put her belongings in storage rather than find an apartment immediately because they're going to be leaving on their trip. Then she said their itinerary had changed. Rather than traveling to Switzerland as originally planned, they decide to go to California, pick up Robinson's new yacht and sail to Hawaii first. Wow. So Robinson could relax before resuming his meeting. Yeah, this got much better. Holy shit. So Trouton. Trouton and her mom communicate daily on an instant messaging program on Yahoo. And in these conversations she discusses that she was in a sexual relationship with Robinson with one of her friends and she was. So anyway, Robinson's concealment of she ends up disappearing, obviously. So on February 25, 2000, he sent Trouton an email message requesting login and password information for all of her email accounts. And she provided that information to him in a reply email. And so then he uses this to be able to use her email. The last time Carolyn Trouton heard from her daughter Suzette was around 1am on March 1, 2000. She called her mother at work and said that she and Robinson were leaving on the trip that morning. And that's it. Never saw her again. That is fucking Interesting. At 11:43am A long distance call was placed from Robinson's Linn county trailer to Nancy Robinson's work phone. So that's where he is. John. At 2:13 Robinson. At 2:13pm Robinson picked up Trouton's dogs at the animal clinic. Employees said Robinson appeared to be agitated and in a hurry. He told one employee he was in a rush to get to the airport. Robinson placed the dogs in a small kennel and left. And Trouton was not seen with Robinson in his truck at the clinic as well. So yeah, at 235 here, this is now 224. That was 213 to 24. His at PM his access code was used to gain entry through the security gates at his Olaf Storage Olay storage unit. And the code was used to exit the facility six minutes later. 2:35pm, Animal Control Officer Rodney E. McClain was dispatched to the Santa Barbara estates after Robinson instructed the officer, the office assistant, to report two dogs on the loose.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, dogs. Pekingese.

[James Petragallo]

McClain arrived 10 minutes later and saw two Pekingese dogs inside a small, medium sized carrying kennel located just outside the office and transported them to the local shelter. So, yeah, this is around 3pm A housekeeper at the Guest House Suites observed a man matching Robinson's physical description loading Troughton's belongings from room 216 into a truck matching the description of Robinson's vehicle in the hotel parking lot. When she cleaned the room, she noticed that the linens and towels were stained with blood. Oh.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. However, she observed similar bloodstains when she cleaned the room throughout Troughton's stay. Troughton had an irregular menstrual cycle and would bleed heavily onto the towels. Doesn't she have things for that? Just onto the towel. Jesus. Fuck, man. We got to change the carpeting when she leaves. What's going on? How much is she bleeding?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Maybe you need a doctor.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Around 3:30pm, a hotel security camera captured Robinson checking out of Trouton's room. Hotel staff confirmed Robinson was the person who checked out of the room and paid the bill. He was not with Robinson. She wasn't with them at the time, and the hotel employees did not see her at all on March 1st. Then the family starts receiving letters from her. Oh, yeah, all sorts of letters. Return address. It only said Suzette Trouton, though there was no return address, saying she had plans to leave for California March 2, 2000, the day of her disappearance. People are receiving emails from her Hotmail account. Yeah. Saying that her and her dogs had left on the adventure of a lifetime and all this type of shit. Her friend received a reply from Troughton's Hotmail account referencing him to a new [e-mail]. okay, say it again. I didn't know that was a dot com.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You could get email.com, but okay.

[James Petragallo]

So letters and emails keep coming. They go to her family, including her aunt, her sister, her brother, her father's girlfriend. All these people that she normally. He looked through her shit, sees who she normally communicates with, and communicates with him with them. April 9, 2000, just before her birthday, Trouton's grandmother received a birthday card written by her green envelope Postmark San Jose, CA on March 27th when it came in. So that's interesting. So they keep getting all this shit, but everyone's like, this is very odd here. And at One point, Robinson asked a friend of his, a former employee of Nancy Robinson here, to mail some letters for him from California as a favor. And all of these things had a San Jose postmark that Everybody was getting. April 9, 2000. He's also like, oh, let me keep track of Lewica too. I forgot about her. So he sends suspicious correspondence after that too. Lueka's father exchanged 25 to 30 emails with his daughter after she moved to Kansas. Oh yeah. And then at one point, the wicker responded to emails. Her tone was consistently abrasive and short. Out of nowhere and said, what the hell do you want? And telling her to telling her dad to leave her alone. On April 14, Lilica's father received an email from his daughter's account. The message said she and another person had spent the last two weeks traveling the countryside in China. And they said unlike the previous emails, the tone of this message was respectful and polite. Okay, April, having a great time, loving China. Got the. Traveled the whole wall. April 27, 2000. He's posing as Jim Turner and discusses Trouton's disappearance in an email to a friend of Trout and claiming that Trout and had stolen his credit cards and that he had hired a private investigator to look into it. He after this guy. Then he asked the friend, who's a former. This is the guy who taught her the. The BDSM shit, the Remington guy. So Robinson asks Remington for information on all of Trouton's previous BDSM partners. This Remington guy contacts law enforcement, then provides the requested information via email. Law enforcement officers found a printed copy of the email chain in Robinson's possession later on. So Robinson used the email to conceal Trouton's disappearance, but also to lure Trouton's friends into new BDSM relationships. That's what he wants. He got a mailing list. Basically he got her Rolodex. He got her Rolodex and was like, cool, let's fucking do this shit. So this is wild. In March 17, 2000, Robinson, posing as Tom, responded to an email describing describing himself as very aggressive and hardworking businessman and outlining his ground rules for a BDSM relationship. Taylor and Robinson, posing as Tom, continued to communicate and discuss BDSM relationships via email. Okay, then Trouton's family receives a bunch of letters in May postmarked from Veracruz, Mexico, and they're signed, love you, Suzette. So yeah, once again, the Robinson made arrangements for several letters to be mailed from Mexico. In May of 2000, a woman named Lydia Ponce lived in Veracruz, Mexico. Her Son Carlos Ibarra was the maintenance man that he was showing BDSM pictures to. That's how he knows these people.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

That is so this guy, he said, hey, you're Mexican, right? And he went, yeah. And he goes, you got any family there? And he goes, yeah, my mother was. Make your mom mail these for me, will you?

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'll show you some crazy tied up titties.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Spring 2000. Vicki Newfield lives in Texas. She lost her job as a geriatric therapist in March of 2000, and her financial situation was not good. Newfield placed personal ads on BDSM websites and began emailing Robinson. They discussed potential relationships and he sent her a slave contract to review. On April 23, 2000, Robinson asked Newfield to visit him in Kansas. Robinson said he was a wealthy businessman with a history of helping other professional women get established in the area. He promised to support her and said that he they could possibly pursue a relationship. He arranged for Newfield to stay at the Extended Stay America in Overland park. She arrived April 23, 2000. As Robinson requested, she brought her own sex toys along for the trip. They engaged in sexual activity at various times during her stay. On the morning of April 26, Robinson told Neufeld he was leaving for a business trip in Israel and wanted to discuss a plan for her to move to Kansas. Robinson said his business would pay movers to bring her belongings to Kansas that weekend. Robinson asked Newfield to leave her sex toys with him, explaining it would give her extra incentive to return. Newfield left behind her rattan type canes and a mesh bag full of sex toys she valued at $700.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's two things.

[James Petragallo]

That's. Yeah, there's a lie. We've talked about plenty of these on your stupid opinion.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Some that could be $10 or something. Could be $500.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. She then went to Texas, back to Texas again to wait for the movers who never arrived.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What? Did he give up?

[James Petragallo]

No, he just stole her sex toys.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He just.

[James Petragallo]

He just. He said, ma'am, that's my dildo and I'm taking it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Ma'am, I'll take it. Why did he do that?

[James Petragallo]

Yep. Wow. On May 22, 2000, she asked him to please return her sex toys, but he said, no, no, these are not mine. She filed a police report. What? For a bag full of sex toys? Which is. I admire, I admire that. The fact that she's like, I don't give a fuck. I'll tell the cops every dildo I had in that fucking thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, $700 worth of dildos, man. I want them back.

[James Petragallo]

Or what?

[Jimmy Wisman]

You can talk to the cops about it.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit. So law enforcement found the sex toys several days later during a search of his storage locker. That we'll talk about later on. Robinson sent money to Vicki. This Vicki I recently laid off. Psychologist from Texas who is suffering from depression and lack of meaningful relationships. This is Vicki Newfield here. Police had tapped his phone and were aware of his contacts with Vicki. He's being watched all the time now. Yeah, when she visits him over Easter weekend, the police listened in the next room of the hotel while they engaged in very rough sex.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

Robinson forced her into sex acts she did not want to do. Took photos when she was tied up despite her explicit instructions not to, and slapped her much harder than she expected. These acts constituted sexual battery. And in addition, Robinson left her without any money and alone in a strange city for several days before returning. When he came back, he told her to go back to Texas and await further instructions, but kept all of her sex toys. Yeah, so 2000 here. This is Gene, or I've seen it in multiple places as Gene or Gina. Like Gea nna or Gea Nne. She's 34, divorced, unemployed accountant from Texas. Came to Kansas City to begin working at Robins as Robinson's executive assistant for his hydroponics business. He put her in the hotel where he robbed Vicki sex toys. So, yeah, she's divorced, 34, looking for a relationship. She wants a BDSM relationship and a job at the same time. She's like, I'm looking for someone who can hire me in a job and beat the shit out of me at.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Night, make me come out of these titties.

[James Petragallo]

What do you think happens here? So they explored their likes and dislikes of BDSM shit extensively via phone and Internet. Invited her to Kansas for a long weekend, put her up in a hotel where they engaged in various types of sexual things. Toward the end of her stay, they agreed that she would move to Kansas and work for one of his companies. Man, his dick must be magic. When she returned to Kansas in mid May, Robinson installed her in the guest house suites in Lenexa, where he had kept Suzette, Trotten or Trouton. They had sex on the afternoon of May 16th. One day that week, he didn't show up when they were supposed to do shit. On Friday, May 19, Robinson telephoned her, told her he was on his way, and instructed her when he arrived, she should be nude and kneeling in a corner of the Room with her hair pulled back. When he entered the room, he grabbed her by the hair and began flogging her across her breasts and back. He insisted she posed for photographs, even though she told him she didn't want him to take pictures. He was particularly interested in photographing the marks his floggings had left on her body. He told her that he didn't like her attitude and if she didn't change, she would have to move back home. Listen, you're gonna go to HR in a minute here. This is ridiculous.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Hey, why don't you take the day off and think about it? You're suspended with no pay. Go for it.

[James Petragallo]

No pay. Christ. You're docked. He left the room. That's a bad thing to say because that could happen. He left the hotel room saying he would return. She became hysterical. She went to Kansas and all this type of shit. And he only seemed interested in punishing her and pleasing himself. She's gotten the shit beaten out of her. She went to the front desk of the hotel, sobbing uncontrollably. She insisted on seeing the registration card for her room. She discovered the man she had been seeing was named John Robinson, not James Turner. She tried to call the police, but was too upset to complete the call. Luckily, the desk attendant was not upset at all and they completed it for her within minutes. Detective David Brown arrives there this. He's already two months deep into his investigation of Robinson. So he's like, couldn't be any better than this. He. He knew exactly what happened. He heard a brief version of her story and he collected her belongings and moved her to another hotel. She explained how Robinson had beat her far beyond her desires. She said she didn't like pain or punishment or marks on her skin. She said, I'm a submissive, not a masochist. Okay, that makes sense.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So on May 31 or March 31, 2000, the Lenexa Police Department began searching trash left at curbside for collection at Robinson's residence. On April 4, they found an invoice for a package Robinson sent to Glines in California. That's the woman who mailed letters postmarked from San Jose at his request. Wow. On April 25, investigators used a trash truck with the company's permission, the trash company and collected three bags of his trash. They recovered a telephone bill for service at his Linn county property, which documented a long distance call placed from Robinson's trailer. On the morning of Troughton's disappearance, June 2, a convoy of nine police vehicles enter the grounds of the Santa Barbara Estates. The trailer park is being overrun by cops.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Santa Barbara Estates.

[James Petragallo]

Estates with fucking Dallas names on it. Estates. And surrounded his residence. Police detectives placed a dumbstruck John Robinson under arrest. Charged him with sexual assault and took him in handcuffs. So they then began executing a warrant authorizing them to search his home. They seize all of his computers. They also found a blank sheet of stationery signed by Lisa stasi more than 15 years earlier.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, why would he keep that?

[James Petragallo]

In January 1985, receipts from the roadway in and Overland park showing that Robinson had checked Stasi out of the hotel on January 10 that year. The day after she disappeared with him into the snow. So they also have warrants for his mobile home and his desk. His ranch too. They search his storage facility where he rented two garages. Okay. Also there they found two 55 gallon drums inside the drum. Inside the drums were the bodies of Sheila and Debbie Faith and Beverly Bonner. Three bodies, two drums.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He kept them.

[James Petragallo]

He kept them for fucking years. Jimmy. This is horrifying. Wow. The second search warrant here they bulk cutted through his lock here of a 10 by 15 foot locker at the nearby storage facility in Olathe. Inside they found a trove of items linking Robinson to Suzette Trouton. Who's now missing for two months. Isabella Lewicka, who'd not been seen since the previous August. There was Isabella's Kansas driver's license. Photographs of Lewicka nude and bondage. 6 page slave contract listing 115 rules, sexual and otherwise she had to obey. And a pillowcase and several BDSM sex implements. They searched his storage unit. There they found all this type of shit. They found Trouton's contact list with all their mailing addresses. They also found 31. They found 42 envelopes pre addressed to members of Trouton's family.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Along with 31 pieces of pastel colored stationery with Love you Suzette signed at the bottom.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's fucked up.

[James Petragallo]

For years he was going to keep doing this. Yeah, that's wild. The envelopes were pre addressed which is crazy with S. Trout and as the written as the return address.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Still getting checks at this point too?

[James Petragallo]

I don't think so. No, I think they stopped. There were also several because she went missing. So. There were also several letters with generic readings such as hi dad or hi mom handwritten at the top of the stationary. Oh my God. Also the pictures. The slave contracts. Like we talked about at his ranch. Remember his ranch he bought there. The 16 acres with the help of a cadaver Dog. They found more 55 gallon chemical drums. They find two of them. And inside of them are Suzette Trouton and Isabella Lewicka. They are two yellow 55 gallon metal barrels near a tool shed across from his house. Right there. Sitting right there. They're just out in the open. Just to the south of a wooden shed located several yards to the southwest of the trailer on the property. They opened the barrels and confirmed each contained the remains of a human body. They said inside one was a female body, nude, with its head down, immersed in about 14 inches of liquid. The result of decomposition. This is just seep. They opened a second barrel and saw first a pillow and a red and green pillowcase. Pulled that out and found another female body. This one clothed, also soaked in the fluids of its own decaying. Photographed and fingerprinted both barrels and left the contents inside. Using a black magic marker, they labeled the barrels Unknown 1 and Unknown 2. Now the probation officer. Remember Hames? A detective telephoned Steve at home that day to say, holy shit. What we found at your boy's place here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

This is crazy.

[James Petragallo]

He wanted Hames to know before it was in the newspapers. Hames said it confirmed what I had always believed. But the move from theory to reality was chilling. Yeah. So the bodies here they go to the medical examiner's office. A deputy coroner here looks at the barrel marked Unknown 1 across the face of the body. In there he found a large swatch of clothes secured by a rope of cloth. Secured by a rope around the head. A blindfold. The hair was tied up in an 18 inch ponytail. There were several rings on the body. One on a little finger, one on a ring finger. One through piercings on each nipple and five rings through piercings in and around the genitalia.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's a trout and chick.

[James Petragallo]

That's very specific. Yeah. They pointed out the woman had received a massive blow, probably with a large hammer, to the left side of the head, between the forehead and the temple. The skull was fractured and a circular section of it was actually driven into the brain. The woman could have died from any of the causes of bleeding damage to the brain tissue or swelling of the brain following the blow. Unknown too is Lewicka. She also died from a blow to the left side of the head that fractured her skull. They said it appeared to be two blows, overlapping, forming an oval indentation. The left side of her jaw had also been fractured. No signs she'd been able to defend herself. So they're either tied up or he's a monster. That's suzette and Isabella. The other one here. Wow. This is fucking crazy. They found the barrels. The other place. The first one we talked about here after this is at the store More for Less in Raymore, the back of the locker, they saw barrels. First one was black and sealed with a gray lid. They opened it and discovered a body. The two other barrels were located in the front of the black barrel. They were covered in a large plastic sheet and cat litter had been sprinkled around the outside of the barrels. Inside the plastic, some of the litter appeared to have absorbed a dark fluid. The barrels were wrapped together with two additional pieces of plastic sheeting, held up with pieces of duct tape. They developed four latent fingerprints of value from that sheeting. They matched Robinson. Yeah. The officers did not open the second and third barrels, suspecting they too contained obviously probably human remains. They said there, there are barrels and there's going to be bodies in them. You've got to come back, he told them. So they bring those people, they empty the locker of everything else but the barrels. A crime lab technician opened them, opened the barrel. The first thing he saw was a light brown sheet, a pair of glasses, and a shoe. He removed the sheet and grasped the shoe, only to find it was attached to a leg. It just came off. It was decided to reseal the barrel and take all this shit to the medical examiner's office. All this content's not shit, it's people. One of the barrels was leaking fluid and it was feared that the bottom might have corroded and would give way when lifted.

[Jimmy Wisman]

No.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. A police officer was sent to a nearby Walmart to purchase three children's plastic wading pools.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petragallo]

They were slipped on. There's a Dora the Explorer fucking kiddie pool with corpses in it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus Christ. But the maker of that never expected this thing to be used to hold a human suit together.

[James Petragallo]

The chief medical examiner in Kansas City, A veteran of 3,800 autopsies, he opened it and said, quote, when they opened those barrels, this is one of the cops that was there. I've been around a lot of homicide scenes and I've smelled pretty old decaying bodies, but they've been exposed to the open air. These had been in the barrels, and, man, it was an extraordinarily strong smell and very uncomfortable. Yeah. The first body, fully clothed. Second body was a T shirt reading California State of Mind. In the mouth was a denture broken in half. The third was the body of a teenager wearing green pants and a silver beret. No defensive wounds, none of the victims able to defend themselves. So that is Beverly Bonner, Sheila and Debbie Faith. So now we found five people bodies. All had multiple injuries to the head caused by blunt force trauma consistent with infliction by a hammer. Any number of the blows could have been fatal. They said, wow, Debbie Faith here. They said the body was fully clothed and the subject was wearing an adult disposable diaper. So we know it's her. They believe the teenager. The victim was a teenager because X rays revealed that several growth discs had not closed.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit. His family supports him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah. A few days after his arrest, a spokesman for his family issued a written statement saying, and I quote, we have never seen any behavior that would have led us to believe that anything we are now hearing could be possible. While we do not discount the information that has and continues to come to light, we do not know the person whom we have read and heard about on tv. John Robinson is a loving and caring father and husband. We wait with each of you for the cloud of allegations and innuendo to clear, revealing at last the facts.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Innuendo.

[James Petragallo]

Innuendo. His lawyer. His lawyer said, I resent the fact that people are now claiming that Mr. Robinson, either directly or indirectly, is a serial killer. They found five bodies, five drums. There you go. You're already past serial killer. Yeah. He complained that Robinson's being held on $5 million bond and maximum security. His family, he's got a wife and at least two grown children. Issue a statement saying they're horrified. As each day has passed, the surreal events have built into a narrative that is almost beyond comprehension. While we do not discount the information, all that shit they're saying, this is bullshit. Now. Baby Tiffany.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What about her? Remember baby Tiffany?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. It's now 2000. She's, you know, 17 years old.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fuck.

[James Petragallo]

Donald and Helen begin to question the identity of Helen's birth mother, which Heather's birth mother. Was she really someone who killed herself? Law enforcement compared her footprints to known footprints of Tiffany and found the prints matched.

[Jimmy Wisman]

God damn it. June 21st, murder victims. He. I mean, if there's a silver lining, he couldn't kill a child.

[James Petragallo]

He did. At least a baby. He swelled because he could get money for that baby. That's why if he. If no one wanted the baby, he'd have just killed the baby throwing it in a barrel. But he had. That was five, six grand. He was getting there. June 21, 2000. A former acquaintance of John says that John may have been a member of a cult involving bondage, rape, and torture. According to this, it was Robinson's job in their cult, in their cult to recruit women. These women were raped and tortured. The witness, who remains unnamed, saw Robinson participate in three Kansas City area rituals where no one was killed. But the women were tortured extensively, sometimes even carving the face and abdomen of the victims and cutting off body parts. June 26th. Here they have kind of all the bodies ID at this point. September or October 12th, 2000. Search of the apartment fuck pad that he rented there at Edgebrook Apartments that Lewicka lived in. They found hundreds of small reddish brown spots on the wall of one bedroom that are blood. That would be smashing someone's skull and having their. Yeah, that's a lot. The blood spots were roughly circular, less than 1 millimeter in diameter. That spatter, the pattern of stains ran from the floor to the ceiling at approximately 4 to 5ft in width from the middle of the south wall all the way to the east wall with the highest concentration at waist to chest level. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Gross.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. That's insane. He had by the way, told his publishing broker that he needed a new graphic designer because he had to fire Lewica because she had been caught smoking marijuana and deported.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, so I don't even know where she is. She's deported.

[James Petragallo]

Deported. February 5, 2001, the preliminary hearing of charges which include two capital murder charges for Suzette and Isabella, two counts of fraud, 54 forgery charges, aggravated kidnapping of Suzette and all other charges brought back and for brought forth back in 2000. Probation officer said I've dealt with a wide variety of characters, but never anyone like Robinson. He's just chilling. There are so many sides to him. There's the con man after money. There's the murderer, there's the sexual deviant, there's the COVID up artist. The lies, the endless lies.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The body collector.

[James Petragallo]

The body collector. Tell me BTK didn't fantasy about, fantasize about being this guy. This is exactly what he wanted. Exactly.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really gross things. But he's like, that's what he wanted. To the bodies is crazy.

[James Petragallo]

That's crazy. But this is exactly what BTK fantasized about doing. He tried it with his wife. She wasn't into it. So January 2003 got a speed through this here. The state's capital murder theory and counts two and three was that Robinson killed Suzette Trouton and Isabella Lewick along with Sheila and Debbie Faith, Beverly Bonner and Lisa Stasi. And these killings were all connected, constituting parts of a common scheme or course of conduct. Characterized by lowering women with offers of employment, exploiting them financially, sexually or otherwise, killing them and disposing of their bodies in a similar manner, and concealing the cross crimes through the act of deception and fraud. So they said that also there's tons of other crimes along the way. Obviously we just gave you all the evidence in this episode here. The letters too. They examined the envelopes that Troughton's family had received and said they're consistent with the ones that were mailed from Veracruz. Okay. Verdict comes in. Guilty of lots of murder. Yeah. Incredibly, judge comes up here. This is Judge John Anderson iii. He's like from a John III to a John iii. I'm about to f. He said, you sir, may fuck off. Two death penalties.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

And a life sentence for Lisa Stasi additionally sentenced him to another 246 months in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Trouton, seven months for the theft of the sex toys, a life sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years for the first degree premeditated murder of Stasi and a pre sentencing guideline sentence sentence of five to 20 years. Or a post sentencing guideline sentence of 13 months for the aggravated interference with Stasi's parental custody death penalty.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Don't you dare think we thought we forgot about the theft of the dildos. You'll be doing that first.

[James Petragallo]

He's got how many bodies more are out there that we haven't found? Yeah. So he also faced a legal dilemma in Missouri where prosecutors were actively pursuing additional murder charges based on the evidence discovered in that state as well. His attorneys opposed his extradition because Missouri is far more aggressive in the actual doling out of capital punishment. Like Kansas, you'll get sentenced to death, but they won't kill you. Whereas Missouri, they kill people. So they said. Kansas has yet to execute anyone since reinstating the death penalty statute. At the time, however, the Missouri prosecutor insisted a condition of any plea bargain that Robinson lead authorities to the bodies of Lisa Stasi, Paula Godfrey and Catherine Clampett. It since doing so would have constituted a tacit admission of guilt which could have been used against him in Kansas, he said no. So. But the prosecutor faced pressure to make a deal because his case was not really that airtight. So they were like just, we don't even have bodies. So among the issues, there's no unequivocal evidence that any of the murders had actually been committed within the jurisdiction. Which is number one. What you have to prove is was it corpus delicti or whatever the fuck. So when it came, when and where that they're dead and they're here. When it became clear that the woman's remains would never be found without Robinson's cooperation, a compromise was reached. In a scripted, carefully scripted plea deal in October 2003, he acknowledged that Coster had enough evidence to convict him of capital murder for the deaths of Godfrey Clampett, Bonner and the Fates. Though his statement was technically a guilty plea, it was accepted as such by the Missouri court. It was notably devoid of any contrition or specific acceptance of responsibility. So there's that. 2005. 2005, Nancy finally files for divorce.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

Remember when I said, when I tell you when it's over, you're going, holy shit, she's still around. 2005, lady five. You know what she cited? Incompatibility and irreconcilable differences. My husband's a serial killer. Cause that should be a fucking sluts.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And I don't like it.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit. 2006, Lisa Stassi's daughter, Heather Robinson. Heather Tiffany. Filed a civil suit against Truman Medical center in Kansas City and social worker Karen Gattis, contending that Gaddis told John Robinson about Stasi and her newborn daughter in 1984 after he told her he was looking for women for a fictional home for unwed mothers and of quote, white babies. In 2007, Heather and the hospital reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum, which Robinson said she would split with her biological grandmother, Patricia Sylvester. Holy shit. So she ended up getting paid for that anyway. But I mean, she grew up. They. Undisclosed amount. Tons of books and shows about this guy. Tons of books and shows. I mean, he's obviously a creepy sex person, so. Creepy sex killer.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You put bdsm? Why? Yeah, I mean it's because it's, it's weird.

[James Petragallo]

Obviously people are interested, they're curious about what's going on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Getting tied up, getting levitated.

[James Petragallo]

What's going on there?

[Jimmy Wisman]

What? How do you. That hurts. How do you either. That's great.

[James Petragallo]

Either get hard or get fascinated. How other people get hard doing this? Either one.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

2014, Windows on Death Row, which is a cartoon thing where they're basically publishing like cartoons that people on death row draw. Oh, he writes a letter. It's fucking ridiculous, man. He said 2,500 plus cartoons drawn over the past 12 years included his information about two books, Journey of Hope, a 302 page book of articles, poems, short stories and humor that takes the reader into death row and allows them to feel the full scale of loss and emotion of those on death row. The second book, Common Sense Thoughts on the Christian Lifestyle. 160 page book which contains 24 lessons written specifically for prisoners at the request of a prison ministry. Is he out of his fucking mind? Here are his cartoons that he drew. They're not bad, unfortunately.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, no, that's great.

[James Petragallo]

It says 71 years old. 11 years in this. In this 10 by 7 foot cell in solitary confinement. No human contact. Delay after delay of my appeal. I think that might just justify a little depression. And there's a rat down there that goes, hey, I'm still your buddy. Got anything to eat? So that's what's going on here. There's all of them. God shows his sense of humor in the end. That's him. He drew a picture. He makes himself like a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just a golf guy. Just a guy that's got a tee time.

[James Petragallo]

Here's him. Political statements. America's prison industrial fucking complex with the dollar on there. A judge. Yeah. The judge found he's got a fair trial. A rat and a weasel. Lowlife Scams Inc. It says rat and a weasel.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Very nice.

[James Petragallo]

They're complaining about people that write to prisoners and then sell the letters they get back. That's what they're doing. The rat says, that's pretty disgusting even by my standards. Never forget, I was a death row prisoner too.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jesus.

[James Petragallo]

How many women did Jesus stuff in fucking metal barrels? Jimmy, do you remember what that said in the Bible about how many? I don't remember exact. The exact number. Then he's Rush Limbaugh here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, okay.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, yeah. He's got a Rush Limbaugh thing and he's apparently doesn't like Rush Limbaugh. So he appeals in 2015 on a bunch of bullshit. It's mainly legal maneuverings, but they're like, get the fuck out of here. People wore roll out the barrels of evidence T shirts outside the courtroom. He was complaining about that. So he's currently in El Dorado Correctional facility. He's over 80 years old. He's almost 82 years old. And he's still alive sitting on death row.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's still doing it.

[James Petragallo]

He's still there. He's still alive, still on death row.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What the fuck? How? Why?

[James Petragallo]

That's crazy. By the way. A lot of information, and this is very specific information came from. Because a lot of it is in a lot of locations. But some came from serial killer JR Robinson, sinister alter ego. An article in Vanity Fair by David McClintock. I want to give that author credit because he did interviews and did a lot of work on that shit. So thank you for that. Yep, he's there. Gonna be 82 in December on the 27th. That is Lenexa, Kansas. Everybody gotta buzz through the end here. Please, please. I hope you, if you hope you liked it, if you did, tell everyone about it. Get on whatever app you're on. Give us five stars, shut up and give me murder.com tickets to everything. Virtual Live Show 419. It's the 4:20 virtual live show. They're doing it on the 19th. You can watch it anytime for two weeks after that. Watch it a hundred times, buy it, whatever costumes this, that, anywhere in the world with Internet. Also get your tickets for regular live shows. Chicago in May. You're up Next, baby. Well, St. Louis is up next, but they've already sold out. You got to catch up to St. Louis, Chicago. Let's do this shit. Do that for the rest of the year. They're selling out. Quick, shut up and give me murder.com follow on social media Smalltown Murder on Facebook or on Instagram at Smalltown Pot on Facebook. Follow us on either of those. Hang out with us there. Patreon.com crime and sports. All your bonus material. Anybody. $5 a month or above. You get everything, including old stuff. New stuff. New ones every other week. This week for crime, what you're going to get for crime and sports, more sports songs for that bonus, which is hilarious. Then for small town murder, a scheme and scamming New York guinea from the 80s, Louis Carlucci, known as Con Juan. We're going to talk about him. Big time con man going around altered egos and different fucking names and everything else. He's crazy. Patreon.com CrimeInSports and you get a shout out call.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You bet.

[James Petragallo]

Which is right fucking now. Jimmy. Hit me with the names of the people who would never ever, ever, ever tie our tits and box knots and stuff us into metal barrels. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So executive producer Dixie Wrecked James. Oh, obviously that's a real person.

[James Petragallo]

Clear. Clearly.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Samantha and Cindy Wilson's husband Ken. Happy birthday.

[James Petragallo]

Thank you. Or happy birthday to Ken.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I think it's salute. I hope, I hope I got that right.

[James Petragallo]

Well, salute Ken.

[Jimmy Wisman]

She just said her husband Ken. She didn't give a last. Last last name of Ken. She may not have taken his last name. I don't know.

[James Petragallo]

Well, Ken, happy birthday either way.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Birthday to all those Kens out there. Other producers, Peyton Meadows, Paul Shornak, Janice Hill, Jeff with no last name. Bronwyn. Touche or touch it, I don't know.

[James Petragallo]

Or Touch it. That could be it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Chrissy Tatro. Nick Baldrige. Dan with no last name. Chelsea Liswell. David Ick. Your last name?

[James Petragallo]

His dad. Yeah, his mother. Well, his mother, her name was Donna. Gross. So she changed it anyway. She was like, I'll take it over. Gross.

[Jimmy Wisman]

His name. Spike Adelica. John. As John Ezell. Ezel. Rachel Bruthauer Breathauer. Brad Hour. Maybe. I don't know. Kyle Jacobs. Kevin Almond. Nicole with no last name. Elizabeth Olivia Coffin Kaufman. Alan Parker. Ashley Ortiz. Eric McDowell. Linda with no last name. Donna Richards. Mary. Mary Charles. Kyle Garner. Kate Blodgett. Sam. Oh. Mastro chiolo. Mr. Hey, Master Colo.

[James Petragallo]

Something Italian.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Sounds delicious. Caitlin Hardy. David Spear. Jody Timmons. Abby Newton. Tana Smith. Rachel Mc. Xavier Taggart. Elena Osterbar. Madison Duncan, Bethany with no last name. Anna Bors. Neil Shabazzi. Valuru. Valro. Val Rue with no last name. Dr. Laura Dolly. PMP, MBA E, A. I don't know. What?

[James Petragallo]

Wow. A lot of letters.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Business Management 1.

[James Petragallo]

That's a lot of letters.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, administration. It's not even management.

[James Petragallo]

Right.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I don't know what that means.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know what it is either. We didn't go to college, remember? We're idiots.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Michelle Wagner, Taylor M. Ted Dougherty, Camille Jones, Christine Nita Nida. Anastasia Chambers. Jimmy Bombardo. Matt with no last name. Cameron Kovacs, Simone Andronaco, Kevin Hartsock.

[James Petragallo]

The kids are coming out of the woodwork for you today, Jim. Jimmy. They're real nightmare. They're burning you up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Carol. Cheyenne Gray, Crystal Barber Comb Hefferman. Heffernan Comb. C, O, L, M. That's a first name first. Good for you. Michael Deloach, Pauline Crane, Jenny McGuire. Corgi mom. Ash with no last name. Candace Harris, Nixie Nimbus, Christy Oja. Oh, hi. I don't know. Caitlin Brigman, Mandy Lee, Cody Reichert, Caitlin Hartman. Hartman. Rachel Smith, Kathleen with no last name. Helene Jackson. Jen with no last name. James Taylor Beefy with no last name. That's a real person, I'm sure. Amy Light, Lady. Late Latay Christian with no last name. Kim Nichols. Sam Penner, Jenna Cornette. Probably Jim's daughter. Jeff Severson. The better Trollka. I don't know. James loves Perkins. Oh, that's very funny.

[James Petragallo]

James loves Perkins. You know my love of Perkins? Absolutely. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rob Wagner. Prva Perva. Per. Is that a disease? I don't know. Rachel Mays, Amanda Pack, Danielle K. Scott Hazell. Hazel. Possibly Robin with no last name. Aaron Ferguson, Anthony Bernardo. Barn. What is that? Bernabo. All right. Barnabo. Dang. With no last name. Don't be a. Hobart. Lee Carter. Devin Rice. Dustin Lumley. Sarah Chamberlain. Tammy Calloway. Also, if you see out there in the. In the wild one, Mandy Malone, give her our best. She's not in a good way. Haley Whalen. God damn it, Mandy, get it together. We're rooting on you every day.

[James Petragallo]

We love you, man.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Nathan Woolrab. T Dong James. That's probably a real person. Cody Peruzzi. Peter Jones. Rachel Olson. Melissa Johnson. Daniel Padlevsky. Ped La Podlevsky. Crystal Cox. Yvette Ivy. Taney. Taney Hibbler. Amy.

[James Petragallo]

Amy B.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Justice with no last name. Maria Theresa Beal. That feels like a nun somewhere.

[James Petragallo]

It really does. Sister Maria Theresa Beal.

[Jimmy Wisman]

John Stretch. Jay Turnbull. Sabat Sabatino. Asia Burns. Natasha Nisbaum. Ashton with no last name. Molly with no last name. Dolores with no last name. T.J. swain. Stacy Cox. Paul Gorman. Teresa with no last name. Charles Herman. Kathy. What is this? Ek and Ekin. Regina Elliott. Dakota Banks. Ashley Leffler. Leffler. Samuel McJunkins. All right. Kenneth Anderson. Amanda Pung. Russell Padlick. Padlick. Oh, Paddock. All right. Sorry about that. Heather McAff. McAfee. Devin Acevedo. Amy Wellendorf. Carol Reinheimer. AMPR. That sounds like a radio station. Brandy Hensler. Sarah Minga Burrell. Phil Thompson. John Calamia. Calalamia. Tara Brennan. Kelly Fawcett. And all of our patrons. You guys are the best.

[James Petragallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. All that you do for us, we can't tell you how much we appreciate it. Keep joining us week after week. You want to follow us on social media, shut up. @gimmemurder.com Drop down menus. You can follow us there. Keep hanging out with us, and until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Bye.

[James Petragallo]

If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey. Are you captivated by the dark and mysterious world of true crime? Wondery offers you the ultimate true crime experience with early access to new episodes, exclusive content and a seamless ad free listening journey with Onery. Plus, you'll get access to hundreds of podcasts, including more than 50 true crime series like Dr. Death, the shocking true story of a trusted surgeon who brought unimaginable pain and suffering to his patients. This was not an operation that was performed. This was attempted murder. And there's Morbid, the hit podcast that's a lighthearted nightmare. With Wondery, you get access to exclusive bonus content, too, allowing you to dive deeper into the cases you love. Like in Suspect, where an ordinary Halloween party turned into a terrifying murder mystery that left its mark on the community. This case is one of those roller coaster rides where it's like, no, he did it for sure. No, he for sure he did it. Each story is crafted to keep you enthralled, revealing the complexities and motivations behind every crime. Subscribe to Wondery on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify Today. Unlock the door to a world of true crime like never before with Wondery. The best true crime stories are always at your fingertips.