Dead Men Talking

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  According to the writer David McClintick, JR told both organisations that Kansas City Outreach was likely to receive ‘funding from Xerox, IBM and other major corporations’, which would have been news to them. In any event, the great philanthropist asked the social workers to submit candidates whom they felt would be suitable for the KC Outreach programme and, in early January 1985, he was contacted by the Hope House shelter, and put in touch with Lisa Stasi.

  At this stage it is worth hitting the pause button and briefly examine JR’s modus operandi around this time. Here we have a pathological liar, convicted fraudster, embezzler, and priapic womaniser who cheated on his wife. Here is a man who has no conscience. A person who will stop at nothing to achieve his own ends; if this meant stealing from the mentally ill and deceiving decent members of the public, then so be it. Now we find him, once again, using bogus organisations to make contact with vulnerable women. He could trawl, with impunity, for young females, and any gullible single mother agencies would unwittingly provide him with his prey.

  * * *

  Poor, uneducated and unworldly, nineteen-year-old Lisa Stasi was as pretty as a picture and real cute, with long, dark hair, and trusting eyes. With a four-month daughter called Tiffany Lynn, Lisa was homeless and living at the Hope House shelter for single women. Sadly, her marriage to Carl Stasi had fallen apart and he’d left his wife and baby to rejoin the US Navy, at the Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago.

  Carl later testified that he’d met his wife through a friend. They had married in Huntsville, Alabama, in August 1984, where Lisa had been raised. Lisa was eight months pregnant at the time. ‘We were going to stay there and start our lives there,’ Carl Stasi testified in court, adding, ‘but I didn’t have no insurance and the baby was due and so we came back here [to Kansas].’

  Tiffany Lynn was born a few weeks later at the Truman Medical Center, a hospital well known for its care of the indigent. Nevertheless, broke and without a home, the Stasis’ marriage quickly fell apart. ‘It was shaky,’ Carl explained. ‘I was irresponsible and I wasn’t working at the time. It was going downhill from there.’ He and Lisa separated in mid-December, with him returning to the Navy a few days after Christmas.

  John Robinson, using the alias ‘John Osborne’, now arrived on the scene. Using his phoney credentials, he offered Lisa free accommodation and career training. He explained to her that this involved helping her to gain her High School Equivalency Diploma, after which he would arrange for her to go to Texas to train as a silkscreen printer. When she had completed her training, he said, there would be job opportunities for her in Chicago, Denver or Kansas City. In the meantime, her new mentor told her, he would not only pay for her accommodation and living expenses but also give her a monthly stipend of $800.

  It was an offer she couldn’t refuse. The kindly benefactor took Lisa and Tiffany from the refuge to install them in Room 131, at a Rodeway Inn, a motel in Overland Park, telling her that she and the baby would be travelling to Chicago within a few days.

  When JR left the motel, Lisa went to see her sister-in-law, Betty Klinginsmith, to discuss matters with her; she stayed the night. ‘I fed her [Lisa] and the baby. She slept a long time, she took a bubble bath,’ Klinginsmith recalled at Robinson’s trial. The following morning, Wednesday, 9 January 1985, Lisa telephoned the front desk at the Rodeway Inn to learn that an irate ‘Mr Osborne’ was looking for her. She left a message for Osborne with the clerk asking him to call her at Klinginsmith’s home. A few minutes later the phone rang and Betty gave Osborne directions to her house.

  He [Robinson] came to my door about 25 minutes later, rang the doorbell. I went down to the door with my son, who was five. […] Lisa put on her coat. He didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. He didn’t say anything to me. He just stood there and looked at me.

  After expressing anger that she had checked out of the motel, Robinson insisted that Lisa and her daughter leave with him immediately. There was a heavy snowstorm when Lisa carried Tiffany to his car, which was parked down the street. She left her own damaged yellow Toyota Corolla and many of her belongings behind. Like Paula Godfrey, Lisa Stasi was never seen again by her family.

  Back at the motel, later the same day, Mr Osborne produced four sheets of bank notepaper, which he asked Lisa to sign. He also asked for the addresses of her immediate family, saying that as she would be too busy to write letters when she got to Chicago, he would write them for her, just to let her relatives know her whereabouts. Perhaps she resisted, but we do know that she telephoned Betty Klinginsmith.

  ‘I took it for granted she was at her motel,’ Betty would tell investigators. ‘She was crying real hard, hysterical. She was telling me that “they” said that they was going to take her baby from her, that she was an unfit mom. They wanted her to sign four sheets of blank paper. I said, “Don’t sign nothing, Lisa. Don’t put your name in anything.”’ According to Betty, the last words Lisa said were: ‘Here they come,’ before the phone was disconnected.

  According to testimony given years later by JR’s wife, Nancy, he had brought the baby home that night. She recalled that it was, ‘snowing heavily’ and that, ‘the infant was not very clean and smelt badly. There was dirt under the child’s fingernails. Apart from some spare nappies, the baby had only the clothes she was wearing, and some baby food.’

  The next morning, the 10th, Betty Klinginsmith telephone the Rodeway Inn, only to discover that Lisa and Tiffany had checked out and that the bill had been settled by a John Robinson, not John Osborne. She reported him to the Overland Park PD and the FBI.

  That evening, JR’s brother Don and his wife Helen, who lived in metropolitan Chicago, received an unexpected telephone call from John Robinson. The childless couple had been trying to adopt a baby through traditional placement services for some years, and JR had previously told his brother that he had a contact with a Missouri attorney who handled private adoptions; that for an upfront consultancy fee, of $2,000, he could act as a liaison for Don and Helen. The trusting couple soon handed over the cash, which JR back-pocketed.

  That was way back in 1983 and for the next two years Robinson put into place a plan to procure a child for his brother. If the scam was successful, he probably intended to expand it to ‘help’ other childless families realise their dream of adoption. Nevertheless, several times during the following months, Robinson put Don and Helen on notice that an adoption was imminent, but a child never materialised.

  John’s crooked scheme required locating pregnant, single women and he knew exactly where to find them. Putting on his civic philanthropist façade, he approached local pregnancy programmes and social workers to alert them to a new programme, Kansas City Outreach, that he and several fanciful leading businessmen ‘from the East Coast’ had created to help single mothers.

  Karen Gaddis was a social worker at the Truman Medical Center in the City of Independence, the county seat of Montgomery County, and she had previously met Robinson when he had been seeking referrals in 1984. He was looking for young mothers, preferably white women, who had no close ties to family members. He even showed Gaddis an apartment which he maintained on Troost Avenue, Overland Park. It was a place, he said, where the women would stay.

  Gaddis knew Caucasian babies were valued on the adoption black market and, because Robinson couldn’t provide her with any paperwork about the programme, she didn’t refer any women to him. ‘I think he thought we were a real fertile ground for young women that nobody would be looking for,’ Gaddis told NBC’s Dateline when the Robinson story broke. Within days, however, Robinson was at Hope House, where he picked up Lisa Stasi.

  A day later John Robinson explained to his brother that a new mother had committed suicide at a woman’s shelter and, for a further cash sum of $3,000 (payable to the imaginary lawyer) and their signatures on a adoption certificate (which was bogus), JR could hand the baby over to them.

  On Thursday, 10 January 1985, Don and Helen Robinson flew down to visit Robinson at
his Missouri home, where they handed over the $3,000, and were given extremely convincing adoption papers with the forged signatures of a notary, two lawyers and a judge. They were delighted with their new child, whom they named Heather. By now, of course, Lisa had been murdered, probably brutally raped, and it would be fifteen years before Heather’s true identity was revealed, and then in the most shocking circumstances; the man she knew as ‘Uncle John’ would stand in court accused of killing her mother.

  Several weeks after Lisa vanished, Betty received the first of the letters that JR had faked. It was dated the day of Lisa’s disappearance, and it immediately raised concerns because she knew that Lisa couldn’t type:

  Betty,

  Thank you for all your help I really do appreciate it! I have decided to leave Kansas City and try and make a new life for myself and Tiffany. I wrote to Marty and told him to let the bank take the car back, the payments are so far behind that they either want the money or the car. I don’t have the money to pay the bank all the back payments and the car needs a lot of work. When I wrote to Marty about the car I forgot to tell him about the lock box with all my papers in the trunk. Since the accident I couldn’t get the trunk opened. Please tell him to force the trunk and get that box of papers out before the bank gets the car.

  Thanks for all your help, but I really need to get away and start a new life for me and Tiffany. She deserves a real mother who takes care of her who works. The people at Hope House and Outreach were really helpful, but I couldn’t keep taking charity from them.

  I feel I have to get out on my own and prove that I can handle it myself.

  Marty wanted me to go to Alabama to take care of Aunt Evelyn but I can’t. She is so opinionated and hard to get along with right now. I just can’t deal with her. Marty and I fought about it and I know he will try and force me to go to Alabama. I am just not going there.

  I will let you know from time to time how I am and what I am doing. Tell Carl that I will write him and let him know where he can get in touch with me.

  The second letter typed out by Robinson was posted to Cathy Stackpole at Hope House:

  Dear Cathy,

  I want to thank you for all your help. I have decided to get away from this area and try to make a life for me and Tiffany. Marty my brother wants me to take care of my aunt but I don’t want to. He is trying to take over my life and I just am not going to let him. I borrowed some money from a friend and Tiffany and I are leaving Kansas City. The people you referred me to were really nice and helped me with everything. I am grateful for everyone’s help.

  I wrote to the outreach [sic] people, Carl’s mother and my brother telling them all that I had made the decision to get a fresh start in life. If I stay here they will try and run my life more and more like they are trying to do. I finally realised that I have a baby to take care of and she is my first responsibility. I asked my brother to tell the bank to pick up the car because the tags have expired and I am so far behind with the payments that I could never get them up to date, and with no job the bank wants the car or the money. I will be fine. I know what I want and I am going to go after it. Again thanks for your help and Hope House and thanks for telling me about outreach [sic]. Everyone has been so helpful I owe you a great deal.

  At the time that Lisa and Tiffany disappeared, Ann Smith, an employee of Birthright, had somewhat belatedly began to check up on the details that Robinson had provided concerning Kansas City Outreach. They were false. Deeply concerned, she contacted two FBI agents, Thomas Lavin and Jeffery Dancer, who were assigned to investigate JR and they teamed up with his probation officer, Stephen Haymes.

  During this period, information emerged that showed that JR was being investigated by Johnson County’s district attorney. Under the glass was Equi-II, in connection with strong allegations that the company had defrauded its client, Back Care Systems. Not only that, but JR and fellow ex-convict, Irvin Blattner (now deceased), were being investigated by the US Secret Service for forgery involving a government cheque. None of this, however, was connected to the disappearance of Paula Godfrey, Lisa Stasi and baby Tiffany, so the trail in this direction was in danger of going cold.

  Although everything seemed to point to JR having abducted and murdered two women, despite their own strong suspicions the two FBI investigators and Haymes could do little. Nevertheless, Haymes decided to call Robinson in for a meeting during which the plausible crook confirmed that he was involved in a group called Kansas City Outreach, but as might be expected, he declined to provide Haymes with a list of his ‘colleagues’.

  In a second, subsequent interview, Robinson admitted to Haymes that he knew Lisa Stasi, and that he had put her up at the Rodeway Inn, in Overland Park, with her baby. He also said that, ‘she had come to my office on 10 January 1985 with a young man named Bill and told me that she was going off to Colorado to start a new life’.

  In a third interview, in March 1985, Robinson told yet another story to Haymes. He claimed that Lisa and the baby had been found in the Kansas City area. Lisa had been babysitting for a young woman, and the woman had contacted his office to see if he had an address for Lisa so she could hire her again. Haymes pounced on this information and demanded the woman’s name and address. JR stormed out of the interview protesting that he was being harangued over the matter; however, a few days later, in the knowledge that his parole could be revoked if he pissed Haymes off, he came up with the details.

  The woman, a prostitute called Theresa Williams, made a statement to Haymes claiming that she had, indeed, hired Lisa Stasi as a babysitter, however, when FBI Agent Lavin questioned her more closely, she said that Robinson had made her go along with this false story because she owed him money and he had photographed her nude in order to promote her services as a prostitute.

  With the FBI suspecting a violation of the Federal Mann Act (also known colloquially as the ‘White Slave Act’), for possibly transporting Lisa and Tiffany Stasi across state lines, authorities in Missouri and Kansas started looking into JR’s activities on a local level, connected to the disappearance of Paula Godfrey.

  With Haymes now suspecting that the embezzler had now turned to abduction and murder, he dug deeper and learned through the prostitute, whom Robinson had photographed naked, that he might be involved in the Kansas City underground sex industry and probably ran a string of hookers specialising in domination and submission sex practices.

  With this new angle to pursue, the FBI arranged for a female agent to pose as a prostitute and approach JR on the pretext of looking for work.

  According to author David McClintick it was around this time that Robinson developed a taste for sadomasochistic sex, but he also saw its potential to make a lot of money, and very soon he was running a thriving business exploiting this lucrative sector of the sex market. He organised a string of prostitutes to cater for customers who enjoyed S&M. To look after his own carnal appetites, JR employed a male stripper, nicknamed M&M, to find suitable women for him.

  The female FBI agent was wired to record any conversation and arranged to meet JR at a restaurant in Overland Park. During lunch, he explained to her that, working as a prostitute for him, she could earn up to $3,000 for a weekend travelling to Denver or Dallas to service wealthy clients. She could also make $1,000 a night just working the Kansas City area. His clients, he said, were drawn mainly from the ranks of doctors, lawyers and judges.

  JR went on to explain that, as an S&M prostitute, the young woman would have to allow herself to be subjected to painful treatment, such as having her nipples manipulated with pliers. When they heard this part of the recording of the conversation, the FBI investigation team decided to end the undercover operation out of fear for their agent’s safety, and it is doubtful that the female agent would have been enthusiastic to continue after hearing about that aspect of the job either.

  JR had installed the attractive 21-year-old Theresa Williams in his Troost Avenue apartment in April 1985. She had been introduced to JR by M&M as a
suitable candidate for prostitution, and having worked at various odd jobs around Kansas City, Theresa jumped at the chance. After photographing her nude and ‘test-driving’ his new acquisition in a motel room, JR initially offered her a position as his mistress. This involved her being given an apartment with all her expenses paid, and for her there was an added attraction; he would keep her well provided with amphetamines and marijuana. She would also be expected to provide sexual services for others, for which she would receive prostitution fees. Theresa took the job, moved into the apartment and, in doing so, became a candidate for JR’s next murder victim.

  Haymes’s suspicions that Robinson was running a string of streetwise hookers proved unfounded. And, in hindsight, although a cunning and devious individual, he wasn’t well connected enough to be able to pull off such an unpredictable enterprise. JR liked to be in control of his nefarious schemes. His preference was to be in charge, and a stable of prostitutes, all as equally cunning and more streetwise than the portly ‘businessman’, would have run rings around him. Nevertheless, life for Theresa was not to be a bed of roses.

  To start with, he began using her to discredit ex-convict pal, Irvin Blattner, who was cooperating with the authorities over the Back Care Systems and a postal scam. JR ordered Theresa to begin writing a ‘diary’, which he dictated, implicating Blattner in a number of other schemes. He also had her sign blank papers and a draft letter to his attorney giving the lawyer the authority to recover the diary from a safety deposit box in the event she disappeared. Indeed, the last entry in the diary was meant to be the same day that Robinson and Theresa were leaving for the Bahamas – a trip police suspected he was never going to make with her.