John Edward Robinson

John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943), also known as the Slavemaster, is an American serial killer, con man, embezzler, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders committed in and around Kansas City, receiving the death penalty for two of them.

John Robinson was born on December 27, 1943, in Cicero, Illinois, the third of five children to Henry and Alberta Robinson, an abusive alcoholic father and a strict disciplinarian mother.

In 1957, Robinson became an Eagle Scout and travelled to London with a group of Scouts who performed before Queen Elizabeth II; afterwards backstage he received a kiss from actress and singer Judy Garland.

Robinson enrolled at Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, a private boys school for aspiring priests, but dropped out after one year due to disciplinary issues.

School records showed that he was a poor and failing student and frequently got involved in fights with his

classmates and spent much time in school detention.

In 1961, Robinson enrolled at Morton Junior College in Cicero to become a medical radiographer, but dropped out after two years.

In 1964, he moved to Kansas City and married Nancy Jo Lynch, who gave birth to their first child, John Jr., in 1965, followed by daughter Kimberly in 1967, and twins Christopher and Christine in 1971.

In 1969, Robinson was arrested in Kansas City for embezzling $33,000 from the medical practice of Dr. Wallace Graham, where he worked as a radiographer using forged credentials.

He was sentenced to three years of probation.

The following year, he violated his probation by moving to Chicago without his probation officer's permission and gained a job as an insurance salesman at the R.B. Jones Company.

In 1971, he was arrested for embezzling funds and was ordered back to Kansas City, where his probation was extended.

In 1975, Robinson's probation was extended again after an arrest on charges of securities fraud and mail fraud in connection with a phony medical consulting company he had formed.

Robinson became a Scoutmaster, a baseball coach, and a Sunday school teacher.

In 1977, he was named to the board of directors of a local charitable organization where he forged letters from its executive director to the mayor of Kansas City and from the mayor to civic leaders, naming him as the organization's Man of the Year.

Under that guise, he hosted an awards luncheon in his honor.

After completing his probation in 1979, Robinson was arrested for embezzlement and check forgery, for which he served sixty days in jail in 1982.

After his release, he formed a bogus hydroponics business and stole $25,000 from a friend to whom he promised a fast investment return so the friend could pay for his dying wife's medical care.

Robinson is known to be responsible for eight homicides, but his total victim tally remains unknown.

Kansas and Missouri police note that long stretches of Robinson's time remain unaccounted for, and considering how some of Robinson's confirmed victims have never been found or were not reported missing, authorities fear that there are additional undiscovered victims.

"He's maintained the secrets about what he's done with the women. He won't ever tell. It's the last control he's got," said one investigator.

"There are probably other barrels waiting to be opened, other bodies waiting to be found."

Over time, Robinson became increasingly careless, and his ability to avoid detection declined.

Because he made contact with most of his post-1993 victims via online chatrooms, Robinson is sometimes referred to as "the Internet's first serial killer".

By 1999, he had attracted the attention of authorities in Kansas and Missouri as his name frequently came up in missing person investigations.

He was arrested in June 2000 at his farm near La Cygne, Kansas, after a woman filed a sexual battery complaint against him and another charged him with stealing her sex toys.

The theft charge finally gave investigators the probable cause they needed to obtain search warrants.

On the farm, a task force found the decaying bodies of two women, later identified as Lewicka and Trouten, in two 85 lb chemical drums.

Across the state line in Missouri, investigators searched a storage facility where Robinson rented two garages.

They found three similar chemical drums containing corpses subsequently identified as Bonner, Faith, and Faith's daughter.

All five women were killed in the same way, by one or more blows to the head with a blunt instrument.

In 2002, Robinson stood trial in Kansas for the murders of Trouten, Lewicka, and Stasi along with multiple lesser charges.

After the longest criminal trial in Kansas history, he was convicted on all counts.

Robinson received the death penalty for the murders of Trouten and Lewicka, and life imprisonment for Stasi's murder because she was killed before Kansas reinstated the death penalty.

He received a 5-to-20-year prison sentence for interfering with the parental custody of Stasi's baby, 20 years for kidnapping Trouten, and seven months for theft.

After his Kansas convictions, Robinson faced murder charges in Missouri based on the evidence discovered in that state.

Missouri aggressively pursued capital punishment convictions, so Robinson's attorneys wanted to avoid a trial there.

Chris Koster, the Missouri prosecutor, insisted as a condition of any plea bargain that Robinson lead authorities to the bodies of Stasi, Godfrey, and Clampitt.

In 2005, he accepted responsibility for five further homicides in Missouri as part of a plea bargain to receive multiple life sentences without possibility of parole and avoid more death sentences.

Investigators suspect that more victims remain undiscovered.