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The dangers associated
with the internet have been a hot topic
since its usage went mainstream in the 1990s.
And the scale
of the problem has become increasingly apparent since then
thanks to high profile crimes
like Japan's infamous Twitter killer
and the broad reach of media covering the subject.
The focus of today's video is considered
by many to be the root
of it all the Internet's first serial killer.
This is the story of John Edward Robinson also known
as the Slavemaster.
(suspendful music)
1991 is believed to be the year
that Robinson was first introduced to the internet
while serving time at Western Missouri Correctional Facility
for a fraud conviction and subsequent parole violations.
While there he'd show a knack for dealing with computers.
And as a result was set to work in the prisons computer lab.
After release, he created an online presence for himself.
One note with a particular fixation, Robinson became active
on several BDSM sites, which functioned
as a primitive form of social media.
There, he would adopt the name Slavemaster
and publish ads seeking out submissive female partners.
Despite the fact that he was a married man
and had been for several decades at that point.
In 1993, 45year-old Sheila Faith replied
to one of these ads lured
in by Robinson's claims of being a successful businessman.
He'd make grand promises about providing
for Sheila and her 15 year old daughter
Debbie who suffered from cerebral palsy.
In truth the wealth Robinson claimed to have was a far cry
from the reality of his trailer park lifestyle.
In 1994, Sheila gave in
and moved from California all the way
to Kansas City to be with her new master.
And that's the last anyone ever saw her or Debbie alive.
After the two went missing, it was seemingly a few years
before the Slavemaster snared his next victim.
But it was clear he hadn't given up on the hunt.
In 1998 Robinson moved a trailer on to seventeen acres
of remote Lynn county land
and had two phone lines installed there,
one for a landline and one for his computer.
This space would later be dubbed "The Farm"
and it was completely Robinson's own private domain removed
from his married life at the trailer park.
It would also serve
as his base of operations moving forward.
In 1999, he offered a job to 21 year old Izabela Lweicka
a Polish immigrant who lived in Indiana.
Izabela had recently finished university and
at the time was exploring her interest in paganism and BDSM.
She too would move
to Kansas where Robinson allegedly presented her
with an engagement ring
and even paid for a marriage license though
this license was never picked up.
Lewicka would tell her parents she'd gotten married
but for whatever reason, never named her spouse like Sheila
she would never be heard from again.
Around the same time Lewicka went missing
Suzette Trouten a 28 year old nurse from Michigan moved
to Kansas, Suzette frequented BDSM chatrooms
and had been contacted by Robinson
after placing her own ad, seeking the dominant.
This wasn't her first time traveling out
of state to meet an online acquaintance in person though
it would be her last.
Like those before her Suzette was manipulated
via promises of money and opportunity.
In this case, the Slavemaster had offered her employment
as elderly father's care.
He said the work would pay around $60,000 a year
and involve regular international travel.
In actuality, however Robinson's father
had died several years prior.
Unlike previous online victims, Suzette was
in frequent contact with her mother, Carolyn.
This would be at least in part the Slavemasters
undoing Carolyn received correspondence allegedly
from her daughter in the form of emails
and typewritten letters with handwritten signatures
their content was a red flag.
Things weren't worded the way she would word them.
The mother would later tell a news reporter.
Everything was spelled right.
Due to her suspicions she contacted the police
and instructed them to look for her daughters
beloved Pekingese dogs, Harry and Peeka.
Suzette never went anywhere without them.
And while the uncharacteristically accurate spelling
in the messages was odd.
The misspelling of one
of the dogs names was an equally troubling sign
in the year 2000 investigators would find
that Harry and Peeka had been abandoned
at the same trailer park where Robinson lived
and given what they'd heard
about Suzette's attachment to her pets.
They also surmised that she was most likely dead.
Fortunately, she told her mother about her suppose employer
and even left his number.
From here the focus on Robinson intensified
with Carolyn once again playing her part
and confronting him head on.
- [Robinson] No don't, don't.
You know, I wouldn't get nervous.
- [Carolyn] I'm nervous. Susie always calls me so.
- [Robinson] Well from what I understand
they're about time where it's kind of hard to call.
- [Carolyn] Am really getting very nervous about this.
I don't know if I should maybe call the police or something.
- [Robinson] Why?
- [Carolyn] Because I haven't heard from her-
- [Robinson] (indistinct) she's a big girl.
I wouldn't, you know, I really wouldn't worry
about it too much.
I'm sure that when, when they hit the next place, they'll
they'll send us a card or call us or email us or something
- [Narrator] From here police would constantly
monitor Robinson's movements
and track him on several occasions
to his Lynn County property.
They dig through his trash, find shredded documents
and managed to piece some of them back together.
One connected the suspect
to a storage facility in Raymore, Missouri
and this finding would soon prove meaningful.
During surveillance, the Slavemaster was still bringing
in women from all over the US and hosting them in hotels.
Officers, meanwhile were renting adjoining rooms
and listening in.
Though these encounters were not fatal.
Don layman and investigator who worked
on the case was suggest
to ABC that Robinson's intent was evident.
Towards the end of the investigation.
We learned there was a young female.
He was trying to lure down to the farm
and that's when we decided that we have enough
and we're not gonna let it go any further.
In a turn of events, it appeared
that stepping in here wasn't necessary
as two women would report John Robinson
for aggravated sexual battery
before he had the chance to take any more lives.
One would also report him
for the theft of over $500 worth of sex toys.
She brought to their meeting.
She too had been fed stories
of the Slavemasters wealth and success.
These assaults combined with a theft gave law
enforcement all they needed to arrest Robinson
hold him in custody.
And most importantly, to search his belongings.
In June of 2000, the Slavemaster was incarcerated
and he searched began in earnest in no time at all.
The team working
at Robinson's farm would make a grizzly discovery.
Their cadaver dogs picked up a scent
outside of the suspect's trailer, which would lead them
to 285 pound chemical drums.
In each they found a decaying body that of Izabela Lewicka
and Suzette Trouten both had died as a result
of blunt force trauma later determined
to have been caused by a hammer.
In neighboring Missouri a second task force investigated
the storage facility
they discovered by via the farm shredded documents.
There they found three similar barrels.
Two of them contained Sheila Faith.
Who'd been wrapped in plastic and her daughter Debbie,
who had been left fully clothed.
The third is so far
unaccounted for in this telling of events.
And that's for a reason you see
in spite of Robinson's reputation as an internet boogeyman
and the focus on BDSM sub-culture the prominence
of these elements is somewhat misleading.
So now let's take a step back
and get the full picture, before he was a killer.
John Edward Robinson was a con man
throughout the sixties and onward.
He was imprisoned on numerous occasions
for embezzling money from employers, such as
in the case of the medical practice he worked for in 1969
there he misappropriated $33,000
while working as an x-ray technician
a job he'd secured using forged documents.
He'd also start numerous bogus companies commit securities
and mail fraud, scam friends, and associates
out of thousands of dollars over the years,
and all while attempting to carefully manufacture an
image that would make his Griffs all the more
convincing Robinson also seemed to lean towards narcissism.
In 1977, he falsified messages
from local government figures to paint himself
as a generous contributor to charitable causes.
And in turn, gain a seat on the board
of a local nonprofit, he'd even go
on to use forgeries to name himself the organization's man
of the year, then throw a celebration in his own honor.
The several instances of jail time
didn't seem to be a deterrent maybe because his family stuck
by him throughout his career as a white collar criminal
or perhaps because of the punishments
for such crimes were too lenient to faze him either way.
In 1984, the man who would become
a Slavemaster started two shell companies.
And this is where things will start
to sound familiar to you.
Robinson hired 19 year old Paula Godfrey to work
as one of his sales representatives.
Paula would tell family she was being sent away
for job training only to then cease all contact.
Fearing for her safety Godfrey's parents filed
a missing persons report
which led cops to John Robinson's door.
When questioned he would claim to have no knowledge of her
whereabouts then a few days later Godfrey's relatives
would receive a typewritten letter
with her daughter's signature at its base.
This letter would thank Robinson for his help
and assure her folks that she was okay
but didn't wanna see them again
because Paula was a legal adult.
And because of the contents
of the signed letter, the investigation was closed.
No trace of her has ever been found.
Later that year Robinson would enact
his most sinister scheme.
Robinson would fabricate an assistance program
for young mothers
which he claimed would offer women housing
transportation, daycare, and even training programs.
He tell a social worker at the Truman Medical Center
that the initiative was a joint effort between himself
and several other Johnson county businessmen.
And go on to specify the need for referrals
of Caucasian women, suggesting they were trying to
balance the racial makeup of participants.
More specifically, he wanted a disadvantaged young mother
with no family ties.
He'd later informed the social worker
that another organization
the Hope House had referred a fitting candidate.
This candidate was 19 year old, Lisa Stacey
along with her four-month-old daughter Tiffany
in January of 1985, Robinson using the alias
John Osborne would meet Lisa
at a women's shelter in Kansas City
and promise her employment and apartment and daycare.
The last time anyone heard from Lisa was in a phone call.
She made to her mother-in-law.
During the conversation Lisa sounded distressed talking
about someone who was trying to make her sign a blank piece
of stationary before abruptly hanging up.
Lisa Stacy is another unfortunate case where
her remains have never been found, though once again
family members would receive letters,
purporting to be from her.
And in the search a decade and a half later
the killer would be connected to her
via the discovery of the receipt
for a hotel where Lisa had stayed.
where Lisa's tragic part in all this takes a twist
for the bizarre though is with her daughter Tiffany.
It turns out that John Robinson specific requirements
for a victim were the result
of his equally specific intentions.
As it turns out his brother, Don and his wife
Helen had been trying to conceive a child
for five or so years.
But when it became clear that it wasn't going to work out
they turned their eye towards adoption.
Since the typical process is slow, John suggested to
use his connection to facilitate a private adoption.
He charged his brother a total of 5,500 in adoption fees
falsify the paperwork
and deliver Tiffany Stacy just a few days
after killing her mother.
True to form he'd bring along with her a tale
of an abandoned baby and a mother's suicide.
Tiffany would be renamed Heather Tiffany Robinson
and grew up knowing her mother's murderer as uncle John.
The truth would come out after the Slavemasters arrest.
When Don and Helen Robinson began to doubt
the credibility of his story
law enforcement would confirm Heather's true identity
via the footprint and fingerprints taken
at the hospital shortly after her birth.
But even prior to this bombshell
she'd found her uncle to be disconcerting.
A couple of years later another mother would disappear.
27 year old Catherine Clampitt
was a former drug user seeking rehab.
Catherine moved to Kansas and was hired
by Robinson before vanishing in June of 1987.
She too was never found.
This brings us full circle to that 1991, prison
stent wherein the slave master first discover the internet
which is significant for more than just that.
While serving his sentence
he met 49 year old prison librarian, Beverly Bonner.
She had two children
and a husband who happened to be the prison's physician
and even treated Robinson during his time as an inmate.
Robinson would convince Beverly to break
up her family and to come work for him.
She filed for divorce
in 1993 and told her husband, she was in Kansas
helping Robinson find property for a business venture.
And after that, she was planning to take a job
in Chicago during this brief period
between going to Kansas and Beverly's disappearance
Robinson would arrange to have her alimony checks forwarded
to a Kansas postbox.
He'd continue cashing them
for several years after she'd vanished.
Beverly's body was found in that third chemical drum
and the Missouri storage facility still dressed
in winter clothing.
It's clear that even prior to creating his online persona
John Edward Robinson was a murderer
and a persistent manipulator.
Not only was he killing before he utilized the internet
as a tool, but he was using many of the same tactics,
such as faking correspondence with the victim's families
offering victims opportunities and diverting their finances
to himself where possible.
After an extended Kansas trial
thanks to the overwhelming evidence against the perpetrator.
On October 29th of 2002, it took the jury less
than a day to reach a guilty verdict.
In 2003, he'd received the death penalty for the murders
Trouten and Lewicka and a life sentence
for the murder of Lisa Stacey.
He also received five to 20 years for interfering
with parental custody, 20 years for kidnapping Trouten
and seven months for the affirmation theft.
Robinson also faced five more murder charges in Missouri
but due to several technicalities
the result was a plea deal that led
to a strangely non-committal guilty plea
and avoidance of a Missouri death sentence.
As of now, the Slavemaster is still
on death row at the El Dorado Correctional Facility
in Butler County, Kansas.
There he's been creating some
of the worst art you could ever imagine
and generally feeling sorry for himself.
And as recently as 2020, he was still appealing
his death sentence.
(suspensful music)
This video was researched by Jonathan Watson, Lux Noctis.
Written by Lux Noctis edited by Dark Fire Productions
with additional writing that by yours truly.
Before I go, I just wanted to say thank you
for watching and a huge thank you to the following people
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Thank you all so much for watching.
And if you're still listening, you're crazy
but I love you and I'll see you next time.