Dead Men Talking

This book is dedicated my late mother, Mary Dee

W
riting non-fiction is not possible without a collective effort by many people and the study of violent crime on a first-hand basis can be at once rewarding, exciting and distressing; conversely, it also has its lighter moments. But at the end of the road, the time comes to reflect on that journey and to remember all those individuals and organisations who, in their various capacities, helped to make the realisation of a book possible and, hopefully, worthwhile. Now is this time.

First and foremost, I am indebted to my countless readers from around the world. I receive dozens of letters and emails every month from you guys thanking me for my books and how you appreciate the work that I do. Often you are students, studying criminal justice; sometimes police officers, who take on board my no-nonsense approach, at the same time appreciating my black humour when the mood takes me. From whatever walk of life you hail from, you should not thank me,
for I thank you all
. Without you the support would be gone and I would not have the reason, nor the means, to pen another word. An author’s public is an author’s lifeblood and as we enter the most difficult of financial times, I sincerely appreciate your contribution towards understanding the most evil and twisted minds living within our societies: the serial killers.

Secondly, to my very close friend and publisher, John Blake. John has been supporting me since 2001 and a more generous and fine fellow one could not wish to meet. Also to John’s entire team at John Blake Publishing Limited, who have worked tirelessly on all of my publishing projects, to include my commissioning editor, Lucian Randall, John Wordsworth (who wishes to remain nameless), Rosie Ries, Michelle Signore and Joanna Kennedy.

On the bookstore front, thanks to the countless bookstores – whether they be in the UK, USA or otherwise – for promoting and selling my books, especially to Alison Darby at Waterstones. Also a big thank you to the media, from both sides of the pond, for promoting my work where possible.

Although this may seem inappropriate to many readers, I am obliged to thank the principal contributors to this book: LeRoy Nash (the old rascal that he is), Keith Hunter Jesperson, and the other killers featured throughout these pages. They all contributed to the book for their own, oft-times perverse reasons, and without their input the book would have been impossible to write. Oh, I must not forget JR Robinson, who thanks me for exposing him, I don’t think. I am also most grateful to Keith Jesperson’s daughter, Melissa – a remarkable woman.

Good can come from bad, and my relationship, built up with Mr Jesperson over months and months, has, and will continue to bear fruit in the understanding of how a serial murderer’s mind ticks. If he had been executed, which he probably should have been, we would have been denied his ‘knowledge’. His writings and thoughts I have passed onto the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit, for further study. They are very grateful.

With the hard core acknowledgments come thanks to very special people.

Unequivocally, and without reservation, the frontrunner has to be Kirstie ‘Kiwi’ McCallum. Kiwi has selflessly supported me in this writing of this book through very troubled times – because even popular writers feel the pinch sometimes – and it is true to say that no stronger friend can be found.

Then there my friends, ‘The Oddball Club’, driving me to distraction when a veritable party of serial killers could not: I thank Richard, Craig and Mr Lee; also to Wilf for his devoted friendship and his thoughts on a ‘new world order’; Martin ‘The Shrink’ Balaam, who will one day get weaving and write a book; also to Lizzie, Jim, Dan, Laura, Blake and Tom Stoddard.

Years back my mentor was Robin Odell, one of the finest true crime writers and crime historians of our decade. Under his guidance I was taught ‘the trade’, so to speak. God bless you Robin.

Then there is Tony, Joyce and Russell Mercier. I have known them since time began. How can one repay a couple who epitomises such selfless kinship for their fellows, who give the world a son whom they must be so proud of? Hey, Tony! You
are
the man; your oil paintings
are
class (with an ‘A’); and thank you, all three, for being
you
.

Finally, there is a very, very special debt of gratitude to young Ben Burton, for being himself, and for the ‘Green Light Lady’ – a should-be-shareholder in Aldo, who, like John Wordsworth, must also remain incognito.

And that’s it. ‘Period,’ as our American friends will say, leaving these Acknowledgments with you desperate to get on with reading what follows - and no nightmares, please!

Christopher Berry-Dee
2009

I
have interviewed, face to face, some 30 of the world’s most heinous serial killers, spree killers and mass murderers. I have sat with them on death rows throughout the United States, where the stench of cheap disinfectant, human sweat and evil permeates every brick of these correctional cathedrals, the human warehouses that incarcerate those from the legion of the damned.

I have listened to their sickening tales of murder most foul and their boasts of having caused such suffering, which are often beyond the comprehension of normal souls like you and me.

These sexual psychopaths love to play mind games and often are as cunning as hyenas. They are control freaks who attempt to manipulate even a seasoned criminologist like me, prompting the chilling question: what chance did their vulnerable prey have against such twisted characters, who can appear as innocent as the man or woman next door?

With a new millennium, a new generation of monsters has emerged. Long gone are the likes of Ted Bundy, although his story remains morbidly fascinating. Indeed, books are still being written, and TV documentaries are still produced which dredge up the ‘oldies’ of yesteryear. It seems that not a month goes by without another screening of a programme on Bundy, Arthur Shawcross, Ken Bianchi or Aileen Wuornos. And Ronald DeFeo, a.k.a. ‘The Amityville Horror’, is still ‘hot property’ despite the fact that in the big league of mass-murderers he is relatively small potatoes (this continued interest is mainly due to the horror films based very loosely on his case).

This book delves deep into the dysfunctional minds of some of these social outcasts. This time the gloves are off and I have allowed these monsters to say just what they wanted to… and in doing so, they give away more than they intended. In that respect, this book is what newspapers might call a ‘worldwide exclusive’.

Over the years, the interviews I have conducted have always been a play off between the two parties – me and the killer in question. The killers do their best to control you and this is frequently on-the-edge-of-the-abyss time. You are so close to them, breathing in the foul air they expel from their often diseased lungs. And, although it may not be quite as direct, the same can be said of spending hundreds of hours corresponding with them. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that, more often than not, what these murderers write in their correspondence is more important to understanding their psychopathology than what they say in the relatively brief face-to-face interviews. In these interviews, you must remember, the killer is on his own ground, you are there at his behest and it is in surroundings that he or she is familiar with.

To truly get inside the heads of these devious social misfits – where is exactly where we need to be if we are understand the true nature of evil – long periods of correspondence are the key. Every word, sentence, paragraph and page of their letters are a clue to the reason behind their homicidal behaviour, making this book a must-read for all professionals and aficionados with an interest in the causation of the unlawful and wanton destruction of human life.

Some of these social strays can read and write, while others struggle with the simplest words. Some have a brain, others half a brain, and still others obviously have a ‘To Let’ sign planted firmly inside their skulls. A minority are remarkably lucid. And there they sit, in the depths of the prison system, writing away, often reliving their perverted crimes over and over again… in ink this time, not blood.

Each serial murderer and killer is as different as chalk and cheese. There is no common denominator that puts them on the same plate, with the exception of them now peering through cold bars, many of them awaiting execution, or a life term behind razor wire and grim, weather-stained prison walls.

They will never kill again.

Some say a lot, perhaps too much. Others say very little. Some are honest; others indulge themselves in their sickening fantasies. Some deny their crimes, while others admit the whole shebang. But from their words we can all learn something those who commit the ultimate social crime: serial homicide.

Christopher Berry-Dee
2009

T
he following account of John ‘JR’ Robinson’s career of crime and murder offers the reader, and student of criminology, a unique and remarkable insight into the warped and perverted mind of a true, blue-chip sociopath and sado-sexual serial killer.

This chapter should also provide psychologists, psychiatrists and law enforcement with food for thought for it clearly illustrates how even the most intransigent of mentally entrenched psychopaths can be easily manipulated into exposing the deepest workings of their clearly dysfunctional minds. And as this chapter draws to a close, you might consider how Robinson will react when he reads this book and discovers that it is he, the master manipulator, who has been hoodwinked. My bet is that he’ll hit the roof.

*    *    *

Those unfortunate enough to be invited into John Robinson’s world soon found out that it was not one of refined elegance and gentle self-indulgence, as he would have us believe. Instead its epicentre was administered by a liar, scrounger and a cheat on the run for misrepresentation and commercially ritualised fraud. His was a world that deliberately surrounded itself with an impenetrable, pretentious and often plain misleading hypocrisy; his words churned out by a misleading snake-oil salesman who delighted in the obscure and the shadowy, the indistinct and the imprecise.

In search of metaphors even more elaborate, the two faces that this man displayed – the respectable businessman and sado-sexual serial killer – were so close together that they could be accurately described as twin cheeks of the same fat backside. This is a description which will do nothing to endear me to JR at all, for he will view me destroying his gilt-laced reputation as wicked as slaughtering a sacred cow.

Mr Robinson’s over-inflated ego always had, and still does have, a front larger than any major high street department store. At face value, the façade is impressive, hinting at an honest deal to be had within. ‘Integrity’ shouts at one peering through the glass windows, but it is not until one steps through the door, and walks around the displays inside, that the penny drops. John Robinson, the persuasive owner of the store, is the ultimate con-artist. He is the ‘quack’ of old, peddling phoney medicines and selling goods at over-inflated prices. He is the purveyor of Mickey Mouse, bamboo-spring, ‘Rolex’ watches, passing them off as the real thing. And if you purchased an item from the JR Robinson store, and complained afterwards, would you get a refund? No way, José!

And, in a kind of warped sort of way, this is why I was attracted to JR, the ultimate I-don’t-give-a-fuck merchant, a sort of homicidal Del Boy, whose history, and character, no imaginative screenplay writer could ever invent.

For me, however, the first challenge was to open up a dialogue with this heinous serial killer. He had never cooperated with an author before, or pretty well anyone else for that matter, so realistically I didn’t expect him to admit to a single wrongdoing to me either. You see, JR is ‘innocent’, or so he now says after already admitting to five of at least eight murders that he’s committed. If the truth be known, I did not even expect a reply to my initial letter either.

My second task, assuming the first mission was successful, was to discover whether there was any substance to his deep-seated claims supporting his integrity as a decent and honest man. He says he is totally innocent of all of the crimes for which he is incarcerated. He says he has been ‘framed’ by a crooked prosecutor and a bent judge. He says he never once used the internet to trawl for potential victims, moreover, he categorically states that he was most certainly not into BDSM, or master/slave contracts… God forbid!

Nevertheless, I baited my hook with a cocktail of goodies that this particularly nasty little man might find attractive, then, like the ever-optimistic fisherman, I pulled back my old beachcaster and cast out the line. Then I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I guess that JR sniffed at my lure, swam around it a few times – for a few weeks to be precise – and then sniffed again. The rod tip twitched, the temptation too much for this murderous con man; they say that the easiest person to con is the con man himself. JR took the bait and ran with it… and he ran hard. Then, like any fighting fish, once hooked, he tried to spit the barb from his mouth. The shiny lure was not all that it appeared… all that glittered was not gold.

For a short while, I had landed one of the most twisted serial killers in criminal history. But then, like so many of these cowardly individuals faced with a difficult question or two, he flipped and flopped about, slithering back to the murky water. However, in doing so, he fell into a net from which there could be no escape, and the fascinating results of what happened are published here.

*    *    *

Robinson sweats hatred, the copious secretions dripping out of every pore of his ageing skin. Having pleaded guilty to a number of shocking murders to escape the death penalty, John E Robinson is now demanding $400,000 to prove his innocence. His letters, featured in this chapter, explain that if he is not funded he will use college students to publish his poetry – well, actually other people’s poetry which he claims is his - to raise some of the money. The entity that is JR is a damning indictment of a sado-sexual sociopath, a social parasite who exhibits not one iota of remorse for his crimes, insulting his dead victims and their next-of-kin.   

The bespectacled inmate squinting into the Olathe Police Department booking camera lens is that of a flabby faced, real estate wheeler-dealer lookalike who mortgaged his soul to the Devil. This is John Edward Robinson, a depraved sado-sex sadist who tortured and murdered women then stuffed their corpses into steel drums to rot in their own bodily juices until they were discovered by sick-to-the-stomach police.

An outwardly honest businessman, whose shady dealings and rip-offs took him to prison several times previously, John Robinson has since admitted five murders to escape the death penalty. More recently he has been charged by federal authorities for committing murder across state lines. And, my first question to him was simplicity itself:

He replied:

*    *    *

With several aliases, including ‘Anthony Thomas’ and ‘James Turner’, JR (as he was known to the few friends he had) was born on Monday, 27 December 1943 in Cicero, Illinois, a working-class suburb of Chicago. Today, standing 5ft 9in tall, weighing 167lb, with green eyes, he is balding with partially grey hair.

Refusing to discuss even his childhood without receiving large sums of money in return (the aforementioned $400,000 to be precise), we know from official sources that he was one of five children to devout Roman Catholic parents who raised him at 4916 West 32nd Street, two blocks north of Cicero’s Sportsman’s Park Race Track. His father, Henry, worked as a machinist for nearby Western Electric’s ‘Hawthorne Works’ manufacturing complex, and, although a nice enough chap, was given to more than the occasional bout of heavy drinking. John’s disciplinarian mother, Alberta, was the backbone of the family and ensured that the couple’s offspring had a decent upbringing. Little else of her is known.

At the age of 13, John became an ‘Eagle Scout’, the highest rank attainable in the programme of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1957, he was chosen as the leader of 120 Scouts who flew to London to appear before Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, at a Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium on 18 November. Therefore, I asked JR if he could tell me a little more about this memorable experience. His reply was:

Three days later I downloaded a press cutting of this Royal Command Performance from the internet, posted it to JR and politely declined his generous offer. I already knew that backstage JR had chatted to Judy Garland and had told British actress Gracie Fields that he planned to study for the priesthood.

With that bit of trivia out of the way, it is known that Robinson was a motivated youngster whose ability didn’t match his drive. He told his peers that he was planning to become a priest and to someday work in Rome, but no one, probably not even John himself, knows whether this was what he truly wanted to do with his life or this was just his way of getting attention. Anyway, maybe the facts speak for themselves: as a freshman at Quigley Preparatory Seminary, in downtown Chicago, he was a lacklustre student and a discipline problem. He did not return to Quigley for his second year of study and it is believed that he was denied admission as a sophomore, due either to his academic or behavioural shortcomings.

After high school, in 1961, Robinson went to the Morton Junior College, in Cicero. He met Nancy Jo Lynch and they married in 1964. After 41 years of domestic purgatory, they divorced on 25 February 2005, this Latter-Day Saint Monica now aware of her philandering husband’s many notable shortcomings, one of which was that he had never done an honest day’s work in his life.

Initially, the Robinsons moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he attended a trade school to learn the radiology profession. True to form, JR never finished his training but this did not prevent him from getting a job at a children’s hospital where he papered the walls of his office with fake diplomas and certificates. From his lack of skills with the infant patients his colleagues suspected that he was either a fake or one of the most incompetent technicians ever to practise his craft. Although hospital staff remembered him as being a nice enough young man they knew that no way was he a certified technician. Josephine Bermel, who worked with Robinson, said that he simply couldn’t cope with young patients: ‘We had to teach him how to do things properly,’ she said. This downright incompetence cost him his first job. He was just 21 at the time and his wife had recently given birth to their first child.

Undaunted by this setback, and using his phoney diplomas and certificates, JR soon found work as an X-ray technician at a medical practice in Kansas City. Here, he was employed by retired Brigadier General Dr Wallace Harry Graham, who for many years had been the personal White House physician to no less eminent patients than the former US President Harry S Truman and his wife, Elizabeth. Although, as Dr Graham himself told the
New York Times Magazine
in 1964, ‘The Trumans were healthy. I felt like the country’s most disemployed doctor.’

In the spring of 1944, as a member of the First Hospital Unit of the First Army, Captain (later Colonel) Wallace Graham had waded ashore at ‘Easy Red’ Omaha Beach, four days after D-Day. With the battle raging just a few miles ahead, he treated the wounded in the thick of battle and, by nightfall, his tents, with 400 beds, had taken in close to 900 of the wounded. Moving across France and Belgium, then into Germany, his unit saw some of the war’s bitterest engagements, including the Battle of the Bulge, where he was wounded. He was awarded the Bronze Star, and other decorations, as well as medals from France, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

While in the White House, where he had a ground floor suite of offices filled with the latest in medical technology, he also treated some of the senior staffers, and later became a temporary Major General of the Air Force. He continued to look after the Trumans in their hometown of Independence, Missouri. When the 70-year-old President was rushed to Kansas City Hospital for emergency surgery in 1954, it was Dr Graham who removed his gallbladder and appendix. He had earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He developed a lifelong interest in botany and also boxed. It seems that the doctor’s only misjudgement throughout his entire, distinguished life was taking on John Robinson.

Quite how Robinson managed to con his way into working for Dr Graham as a lab technician and officer manager is a question for another day, but the doctor was patently no fool. Dr Graham later recalled that he had been impressed with Robinson’s achievements as an Eagle Scout and his ‘extensive credentials’ in radiology. Nevertheless, highly regarded in the community, Dr Graham was a trusting man so he turned out to be an easy mark for a pathological and plausible liar like Robinson.

Soon after taking up his new appointment with Dr Graham, John made a somewhat astute discovery, which developed into an abiding, lifelong attachment to the buoyant pleasures to be had from fleecing almost everyone he came across. The upshot was that he developed the disagreeable technique of making himself wealthy at the expense of others whom he made extremely poor – something the banks have been trying to do for decades. From then on, and to this day, dishonest thoughts occupied every space in John’s head; he pushed honesty completely to the back of his mind.

Robinson started his criminal activities in 1967, but he soon came unstuck when he was placed on probation for three years for embezzling $33,000 from 57-year-old Dr Graham. JR started by stealing and taking liberties in the practice’s medical office. He boasted to friends and colleagues about a house he had bought. In addition, he engaged in sexual liaisons with both office staff and patients – having sex with one patient in the X-ray lab by pretending his wife was terminally ill and unable to satisfy him sexually.