The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (79 page)

today. “Green River” victims whose murders remain Upon conviction he was sentenced to a double term of officially unsolved at press time for this work include life imprisonment.

Amina Agisheff, Joanne Hovland, Kase Lee, Keli McGuiness, Patricia Osborn, Kimberly Reames, and Leann Wilcox.

ROBINSON, John Edward, Sr.:
First “Internet serial killer”

A native of Cicero, Illinois, born in 1943, John Robin-RIJKE, Sjef

son was well known in his community by age 13, an Sjef Rijke seemed to have no luck at all with women. In honor student at Quigley Preparatory Seminary and an January 1981, his 18-year-old fiancée, Willy Maas, Eagle Scout who led a troop of 120 other scouts in a experienced a week of racking stomach pains that cli-command performance for Queen Elizabeth II. By maxed in her death. The symptoms seemed to indicate 1961, he was enrolled at a local junior college, studying food poisoning, though friends and relatives could to become an X-ray technician. Three years later, he never be precise about the suspect dish. At Willy’s married Nancy Jo Lynch in Kansas City, Missouri.

funeral in Utrecht, Holland, Sjef was visibly distraught.

Robinson was on the path to a solid middle-class His period of mourning was abbreviated by engage-life, but he somehow went astray. In June 1967, while ment of a female friend of several years, young Mientje working as a lab technician for a Kansas City doctor, he Manders. Near the end of March, Sjef’s second fiancée embezzled $33,000 and was placed on three years’ pro-complained of nagging stomach pains that quickly bation. At his next job, as manager of a television rental proved debilitating. Rijke sat beside her bed and held company, Robinson stole merchandise and was fired, her hand, tears streaming down his face when Manders but his boss declined to prosecute. In 1969, he began died on April 2.

work as a systems analyst for Mobil Oil. On August 27,
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ROBINSON, John Edward, Sr.

$2,500 and placed on three years’ probation—another wrist-slap that taught him precisely nothing.

In 1977, with his wife and four children, Robinson moved to Johnson County, Kansas, and took a fling at hydroponic farming behind the corporate facade of Hydro-Gro, Inc. A community activist who tackled multiple projects, Robinson was voted local “Man of the Year” in 1977 for his work with the handicapped.

By 1980, Robinson had taken on a second job as personnel director for a local branch of Breeden Foods—

where he promptly embezzled $40,000, financing a love nest for kinky liaisons with female bondage enthusiasts.

Arrested in that case, he faced a seven-year prison term but spent only two months in jail, with five years’ probation added to his tab.

Robinson’s first known murder victim, 19-year-old Paula Godfrey, was employed by Robinson when she vanished in 1984. Police later received a letter, purport-edly signed by Godfrey, insisting that she was “O.K.”

and that she did not wish to see her family. She remains among the missing to this day.

In December 1984, Robinson approached a Kansas City hospital and adoption agency, introducing himself as the spokesman for “Kansas City Outreach,”

allegedly a firm created to provide housing and job training for young unwed mothers. The hospital sent John E. Robinson (Corbis Sygma)

Robinson his first client, 19-year-old Linda Stasi, in January 1985. Stasi promptly vanished, leaving behind a typed letter explaining her urge to leave Missouri for 1970, exactly two weeks after his probation officer parts unknown. Robinson’s childless brother and sister-wrote that Robinson was “responding extremely well in-law took custody of Stasi’s newborn daughter, pay-to probation supervision,” Robinson stole 6,200

ing Robinson $5,500 for a set of forged adoption postage stamps from the company. This time, he was papers.

fired and charged with theft.

Robinson’s next brainstorm was the formation of a Moving on to Chicago in September 1970, Robinson sadomasochistic prostitution ring for fun and profit.

embezzled $5,500 from yet another employer. He was FBI agents learned of his venture and sent a female fired again, but the victim waived prosecution when decoy around for a job interview, but the initial conver-Robinson’s father repaid the loss. Drifting back to sation proved so disturbing that G-men backed out, cit-Kansas City, Robinson was jailed for violating his pro-ing fear for their undercover agent’s safety. Robinson’s bation and his term of supervised release was extended first known S&M employee was 21-year-old Theresa another five years, until 1976. A probation report from Williams, for whom he rented an apartment and

April 1973 records his “good prognosis,” unaware that arranged transportation on “dates.” In May 1985, after Robinson had recently swindled an elderly neighbor out less than a month on the job, Williams woke one morn-of $30,000. His probation officer was so impressed ing to find Robinson raging through her apartment with Robinson’s improvement, in fact, that Robinson with a pistol, furious because she had invited a was discharged in 1974, two years ahead of schedule. It boyfriend to her flat. FBI agents relocated Williams, and was not the system’s first mistake with Robinson, nor Robinson was charged with assault. His probation was would it be the last.

revoked for unauthorized firearms possession, but that A free man once more, Robinson promptly created decision was reversed on appeal, a higher court finding the Professional Service Association, ostensibly formed that the FBI had denied Robinson’s constitutional right to provide financial counseling for Kansas City physi-to confront his accuser in court.

cians. More embezzlement followed, prompting a fed-The agents found some consolation in January 1986, eral grand jury to indict Robinson on four counts of when Kansas jurors convicted Robinson of another securities and mail fraud. In June 1976, he was fined investment scam. Sentenced as a habitual offender,
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RODRIGUEZ VEGA, Jose Antonio

Robinson drew a prison term of six to 19 years, but victim. They arrested him on June 2, 2000, and appeals stalled his incarceration until May 1987. In the searched his Olathe home, seizing five computers and a meantime, 27-year-old Catherine Clampitt moved from host of other evidence, including a blank piece of sta-Texas to Kansas, drawn by Robinson’s promise of “a tionery signed by Lisa Stasi 15 years earlier and her last great job, a lot of traveling and a new wardrobe.” She motel receipt, dated January 10, 1985. Searchers visited was never seen again.

a storage facility rented by Robinson and found a cache In prison, Robinson quickly earned a reputation as a of S&M toys, along with various items related to Izabel model inmate, using his time to develop a computer Lewicka and Suzette Trouten: more blank stationery program that saved the Kansas penal system $100,000

with signatures affixed, a birth certificate and Social yearly on administrative tasks. The cooperative attitude Security card, Lewicka’s slave contract, and sundry and a series of mild strokes earned Robinson the sym-photographs (including bondage shots).

pathy of prison psychologists. In November 1990 they On June 3, 2000, police searched Robinson’s 16-acre described him as a “devoted family man” and a “nonvi-farm near La Cygne, Kansas, recovering two 55-gallon olent person [who] does not present a threat to society.”

drums with women’s corpses packed inside. The vic-Kansas paroled Robinson in January 1991, but he still tims, both beaten to death with a hammer, were identi-owed time in Missouri, where he remained incarcerated fied as Lewicka and Trouten. Two days later, another until spring 1993.

raiding party scoured a second storage facility rented by Kansas prison librarian Beverly Bonner admired Robinson, this one in Cass County, Missouri. They Robinson so much that she divorced her husband in found three more oil drums, sealed with duct tape and 1993 and moved to Kansas City as the “president” of planted on mounds of cat litter to mask death’s sickly Hydro-Gro. She vanished in January 1994, after sending odor. Inside the drums lay Betty Bonner, Sheila Faith, her family a letter explaining that her new job required and Sheila’s daughter Debbie. Like the rest, they had extensive travel. Six months later, after prolonged corre-been hammered lifeless and entombed.

spondence, Sheila Faith left Colorado to join Robin-Robinson was charged in Kansas with two counts of son—her “dream man”—in Kansas City. Faith brought capital murder (for victims Lewicka and Trouten), one along her teenage daughter Debbie, who was confined count of first-degree murder (for Lisa Stasi), and vari-to a wheelchair, and both soon disappeared.

ous lesser charges. On October 28, 2003, jurors con-By that time Robinson had discovered the Internet victed him on all counts. The panel recommended and begun trolling for fresh victims in cyberspace. One execution, but formal sentencing was deferred pending who survived told journalist David McClintock that she Robinson’s appeal of the verdict. That appeal was lost $17,000 to Robinson on a fraudulent investment rejected on January 21, 2003, whereupon Judge John scheme, arranged through e-mail correspondence. She Anderson III sentenced Robinson to die by lethal injec-was lucky, compared to Izabel Lewicka, a Polish immi-tion for the Lewicka and Trouten murders, with a life grant and freshman at Indiana’s Purdue University.

prison term for Stasi’s slaying.

Lewicka met Robinson on-line in early 1997, and that Missouri authorities still awaited their turn with the June she left home to serve an “internship” with Robin-defendant journalists dubbed the “Slavemaster” and son in Kansas. Communication with her parents ceased America’s “first Internet serial killer.” On March 13, abruptly, and they went looking for Izabel in August 2003, Kansas authorities approved Robinson’s extradi-1997, leaving Kansas empty-handed, without contact-tion to face trial for murdering Beverly Bonner, Sheila ing police. Unknown to Lewicka’s family, Robinson had Faith, and Debbie Faith. Cass County formerly indicted coerced her into signing a six-page “slave contract,”

Robinson on April 26, 2003, and while he initially convincing her the document was legal while he kept pleaded not guilty on all counts, a plea bargain changed her at an apartment in Olathe, Kansas. Lewicka sur-his mind six months later. On October 16, 2003, vived in Robinson’s clutches until August 1999, then Robinson pleaded guilty as charged and accepted a sen-dropped from sight. He told acquaintances that she had tence of life imprisonment. Waiver of Missouri’s death been deported for smoking marijuana.

penalty was contingent on Robinson’s guilty plea in two Robinson’s last known victim was 27-year-old

additional cases, the murders of Catherine Clampitt Suzette Trouten, a Detroit nurse to whom Robinson and Paula Godfrey.

offered a job in September 1999. The package was attractive: a $60,000 yearly salary, a company car, and wide-ranging travel. Trouten moved to Kansas City on
RODRIGUEZ VEGA, Jose Antonio

February 13, 2000, and was last seen alive on March 1.

Spain’s most prolific serial killer of modern times, brick-Kansas authorities, meanwhile, had been building a layer Jose Rodriguez murdered at least 16 elderly case against Robinson for sexual assault on yet another women between 1986 and 1988 in and around the

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ROSS, Michael B.

northern coastal city of Santander. A paroled rapist, On January 5, 1982, 17-year-old Tammy Williams Rodriguez apparently suffered from impotence after disappeared in Brooklyn, while walking home from her leaving prison. In the new rash crimes, he typically boyfriend’s house in broad daylight. Ross was not sus-charmed his victims into hiring him for some minor pected in the case, but he had reason to be fearful, all household repairs, then found himself “overcome with the same. In February, he found employment at an Ohio excitement” upon entering their homes. At that point, egg farm, living peacefully for nearly three months he swiftly strangled the women, removed their panties, before his next clash with the law.

and raped and molested them.

On April 2, Ross turned up at a rural home in Lick-Rodriguez was fastidious in cleaning up his crime ing County, Ohio, asking to borrow a flashlight. His car scenes—so cautious, in fact, that the first slayings were had broken down, he said, and when Ross came to not recognized as homicides until he confessed. Victims return the light, he also asked to use the telephone.

were normally tucked in their beds when he finished Inside the house, he tried to choke his benefactress—an amusing himself with their corpses, old age and tidy off-duty policewoman—but she fought him off and rooms encouraging authorities to write off any of the gave a clear description to authorities, resulting in his deaths as “natural.” At the same time, Rodriguez habit-swift arrest. Bailed out by his parents on May 11, Ross ually kept TROPHIES to commemorate his crimes, craft-was sent home to Connecticut for 16 days of psychi-ing an elaborate shrine for his mementos in the atric study.

one-room, burgundy-draped apartment he shared with On June 15, 1982, Debra Taylor was riding with her a female roommate. The full extent of his crime spree husband when they ran out of gas near Danielson, Con-was only realized after Spanish police broadcast a necticut. They split up to find a filling station and Debra videotape of Jose’s apartment, prompting telephone disappeared, her skeletal remains found by a jogger on calls from viewers who recognized possessions stolen October 30. In the meantime, Michael Ross pled guilty from their murdered relatives.