Dead Men Talking

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  John the sadist, abducted, used and horrifically sexually abused women.

  John the serial killer, bludgeoned these terrified women to death.

  John the garbage man, disposed of the bodies, leaving them to decompose and rot in their own bodily fluids.

  That’s how this lowlife disposed of his victims. Some of the deceased have never been found, while other intended victims escaped by the skin of their teeth, their lives mercifully intact. If the truth were known, if law enforcement had not been on their toes when JR first appeared on their radar as a potential homicidal maniac, many more women would have been murdered as a result.

  Despite his pathetic protests that he didn’t use the internet to entrap prey, JR was the first serial killer in criminal history to use the internet. He hung out in S&M chatrooms, like a deadly spider waiting to ensnare a victim.

  But where did all this start?

  Unlike the majority of those who graduate into the serial taking of human life, John did not suffer from an abusive childhood. His folks were decent, hard-working and of strong Catholic faith. There is no evidence whatsoever that he was inclined towards criminal activity during his teens. Then one day, in his twenties, he embarked on a series of frauds, becoming a plausible liar and a serial swindler who embezzled his employers and friends, even his own brother, out of considerable sums of money. He had suddenly metamorphosed into a real life Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and it was all about money, and lots of it.

  Simply put, John mutated. But it wasn’t just a sudden change in a single gene, the whole genetic package of his makeup underwent a complete deviation into evil personified. The motive for his first murder was not sexual deviancy. JR needed cash, even if it meant deceiving his own brother, Don, over the adoption of baby Tiffany. Here was a quick way to earn $5,000, and the disposal of the baby’s mother, Lisa, was merely a side issue. But there can be no doubt that having this young, attractive mother begging him for mercy turned him on. I think that the very act of control over Lisa gave him sexual pleasure. This control freak was then, psychologically, pressed on to commit the most violent sexual acts on any woman who fell into his clutches. And, as most psychiatrists and psychologists might agree, once the pleasure/reward switch for certain actions has been flicked on in the human brain, it is almost impossible to switch off. This state of mind is called addiction. Combine sexual addiction with a sociopathic mind and disaster is as sure to follow as night does day.

  Whatever the case, to satisfy his perverted cravings, JR soon graduated into trawling for sex by exploiting women who were lonely and dissatisfied with the hum-drum dreariness of their day-to-day existence. He could smell them a mile off, and was able to hone in on them with unerring accuracy.

  Your unwarranted accusation of attempted manipulation and flim-flam pretty much says it all.

  John Robinson, letter to the author, 4 March 2008.

  John Robinson portrayed himself as a respectable businessman, a high achiever, the well-dressed ‘man of the year’. Using blatantly false credentials, he even fooled the distinguished former physician to President Truman. What chance did vulnerable women have when confronted with the philanthropic generosity and charms of a man like John E Robinson, a pillar of the community? The answer is, of course, none.

  John’s history is adequately covered throughout the previous pages, and the reader may look into his psychopathology as they see fit, but where do we go from here, bearing in mind that John is now locked up and will remain so until he dies?

  One might have thought that this man could, one day, tell us the whole truth of what happened and how he managed to earn himself the accolade of one of the most heinous serial killers in recent history. God only knows how JR feels about having deceived his loving wife of so many years. Regarding his doting children, is there any sorrow and regret? No.

  Does this man feel any remorse for his homicidal activities? I think not, and it is at this point that we return, once again, to his correspondence with the author.

  ‘Don’t blow smoke!’ JR demands in one of his letters. ‘I don’t have time for meaningless delays. I don’t have the time or the funds to play games,’ he rants, while at once stating that it will take at least a year before he could even discuss his childhood, and that is after his attorney – no name or address given in his letters – is placed in funds to the not-insubstantial tune of almost half a million dollars.

  While demanding that the author and a TV production company digs deep to follow his every whim (and bear in mind he has already pleaded guilty to each murder), he adds:

  Next we will proceed to the expert phase. First to examine and evaluate documents, photos and testing. Then to complete the necessary testing that has never been done. Each step of the way, we will evaluate and adjust our investigation or approach as required. The proposed budget is fairly simple at this point but may have to be adjusted depending on need:

  Database: $100,000

  Investigator: $150,000

  Travel: $20,000

  Experts: $60,000

  Attorney: $50,000

  Communication, copies, supplies: $10,000

  Equipment: $8,000

  Misc. $2,000

  Total: $400,000

  My attorney would control all information and distribution of funds. Nothing will begin until there is a firm written agreement in place!

  My first letter was clear about the possibilities available to you. Yet you responded with a request for information about my formative years, assuming it would be no threat to my present or future legal status. Unfortunately, that is not the case. When I win a new trial, it will be necessary to prepare a “mitigation case” containing the very information you now seek. My attorneys did not investigate or provide any mitigation evidence at my first trial.

  I did offer you a smidgen of palpable researchable material right there in England. In November of 1957, I was a 13-year-old Boy Scout who traveled to London to appear in the Command Performance for the Queen. No one has of yet recovered the newspaper articles of that trip. As you see, everything is tied together.

  John goes on to say:

  I offered you the opportunity to do a real life true crime book and documentary. One that would expose blatant police and prosecutorial misconduct, fairly present the real evidence including complete details of the lives of the victims, and perhaps unveil the real killer. You could of course simply go for titillating, sensationalized products based on the fiction already out there. That decision, of course, is yours.

  The titillating and sensationalised products John refers to are the official trial records!

  John E. Robinson is very much like John Wayne Gacy – another businessman/sado-sexual serial killer who also had all the apparent trappings of integrity. Both men used their human hunting skills to trawl and entrap their prey, but whereas bisexual Gacy tortured and murdered young lads, in many instances male prostitutes, only JR actively searched for prey in the S&M internet chatrooms.

  I would use the analogy of JR being very similar to one of the Cornish wreckers of old who used lanterns to lure ships on to the rocks, and then plundered the cargoes that spilled from the wrecks. This predator and human parasite, Robinson, sent out attractive signals that were intended to lure the vulnerable toward him… like an insect where one genus fools another into approaching using a flashing code. This, the intended prey does; it approaches and is summarily eaten. So it was with John Edward Robinson.

  If anything, John is a determined man, and he says that for the past five years he has been ‘tireless [in his] attempts to locate individuals, companies, or organizations willing to assist in the completion of the necessary investigation, testing, etc., required to fully disclose the real story’. Blah, blah, blah.

  Determined to either prove my innocence or die trying I began writing letters to anyone and everyone I could think of for both the UK portion of my case as well as those who might possibly help on this side of the pond. I wrote to Alan Hayling – head of producin
g documentaries at the BBC, in March 2007, and received not even a courtesy reply. I recently wrote to Mr Felix Dennis, owner of Maxim magazine who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, and have no word yet.

  My basic offer has been very simple. If they would provide funding [the $400,000] for the investigation and testing, along with some equipment necessary, I would give them access to the results no matter the outcome as long as everyone agreed that nothing would be made public until my attorney authorized release.

  John E Robertson, letter to the author.

  No doubt that the BBC and Maxim were bowled over by the generosity and business opportunity offered them by JR, and the reason they haven’t replied is because they haven’t, as yet, recovered their composure!

  Moving up a gear, JR gets into full swing. Working up quite a lather, he wrote to me, saying:

  The cost of putting all discovery information onto a searchable interactive data base, investigating, testing, travel and equipment will be about $400K and will require at least twelve months to complete. The investigator will need some specialized equipment – video and digital recorders capable of two concurrent recordings. All funds would be disbursed by an attorney. I would receive nothing but an allocation to cover supplies and postage.

  But now, and completely carried away, JR almost bursts into song:

  We are starting from scratch with a thorough methodical investigation of everything. Every document, every photo, every video, every witness, testing every item and utilizing acknowledged experts to evaluate to calculate every person or object.

  ‘Ah, yes, John, that sounds fine,’ I replied, ‘but what about the five decomposing bodies found in barrels on your property and in your unit at the storage depot?’

  To facilitate this investigation we have obtained every page of material connected to my case, some 300,000 more or less. Here is how we anticipate proceedings:

  A) A data base will be designed with unlimited search capabilities. All documents will be scanned, cross-referenced with new documents added as developed.

  B) A full time investigator will be hired under the supervision of my attorney. He/she will complete the legwork required to secure records and documents previously ignored, and conduct video interviews with all witnesses.

  ‘John…’

  I may be able to up the ante for you. For several years I have been in contact with a person who befriended Dennis Rader, the confessed BTK serial killer of 10. This person visited him in jail and corresponded with him regularly. This individual claims to have details and information never before revealed and has been working on a book. This person has the information, wants to do a book but has no industry name. The two of you should be able to do a great ‘insider’ true crime book and a documentary about BTK. You and your publisher could end up getting two for the price of one. I will await word from you.

  ‘For God’s sake JR, what about the bodies!’

  I was embezzled out of over two hundred thousand pounds over a three-year period. To that end I have received preliminary word that a non-profit organization – Reprieve – operated by an attorney Clive Stafford-Smith OBE has agreed to help. My attorney has replied to a letter I received from them, by email, and we are still awaiting a reply… Finally I must tell you that I am working with a group of college students to publish a book of my poetry and short stories. An attempt to raise the money for the required investigation. No credit would be given – no author named. The book will, if published, simply be written by A Condemned on Kansas Death Row. I will receive nothing.

  ‘John… the five bodies in barrels…’

  For the record, I will explain exactly how the Kansas Department of Corrections mail system works. When a letter is received it is automatically date stamped on the outside of the envelope. Then the letter is opened by the censors, date and time stamped, read and all the letters to the inmates in segregation copied…

  And so he goes on, and on, and on for ten pages of excruciating drivel, so it was at this point in our relationship that JR told me never to write to him again: ‘You, Berry-Dee, have wasted my valuable time,’ he spouted from his Special Housing Unit cell, where he lives in solitary confinement because the other inmates would kill him. ‘I have never asked you for $400,000. I have never asked anyone for $400,000. I didn’t say that I was going to use students, and if you print this I might sue you. I fucking told you that I never used the internet, and I was never into BDSM and I was never into kinky sex. FUCK OFF!’

  And, that was it: end of story. Clearly, I’d pissed him off. If John Robinson wasn’t such a deadly serious man, one could read his letters and have a rib-tickling good laugh.

  But was this really the end of my work with JR? Has this sick psychopath learned any lessons from his previous behaviour? I’m afraid not. You see, while I am truly and genuinely sympathetic towards this nut ball who lives in a world where elephants fly, lead balls bounce and fairies reign supreme, I am also mindful that JR, when he can afford the stamps, is trawling for gullible people to send him donations so that he can start up yet another nefarious scheme. He is asking people to send in their poetry so he can claim it as his own, and then get the stuff printed and sold, through a friend, to raise funds. I am mindful, too, that this scumbag still hasn’t revealed the locations of several of his victims’ bodies, thereby denying closure to their families. So, I designed a honey trap by entering into the equation a woman who has been writing to scores of serial killers for over a decade. If anyone could get inside the head of John Edward Robinson it would be Annabel Leigh. With her degree in Criminal Justice, I asked her to study his life and crimes, and she presented him with bait which he could never have resisted. Together, we set John Robinson up. We turned the tables on this man who has, for decades, been turning the tables on just about everyone he came into contact with. The results were disturbing yet electrifying. And, when JR reads this book, he will flip.

  In trying to get inside the heads of serial killers, any attempt to appeal to the better side of a psychopath’s better nature will be judged by these master manipulators as a sign of weakness, for conscience is something they do not possess, and one’s efforts will fail. While every case is different, in some instances the only key to success is recognising their own perversions and needs, for these people never learn from their own mistakes.

  Christopher, you should be using their own ‘victimology’ against them. It is the strongest weapon of all. You would have achieved much greater success with the serial sex-killer, homosexual John Wayne Gacy, had you presented yourself as an attractive young man when you wrote to him - falsify a ‘pretty’ photo if needed be – so that Gacy could have sexually identified with you; in his subconscious you becoming a possible victim, and a photographic image that he could masturbate over while locked up in his prison cell.

  You, like so many criminologists and psychologists, miss the obvious. With respect, you guys fail to think outside of the box. If you are writing to a female killer, you should use a multi-sensory approach: the written word which has to appeal to the inmate’s way of thinking; photographic visual stimuli that will conform to their victim type and, finally smell - the latter being most important. A spray of expensive cologne will linger in her cell long after the written word has been absorbed, making your letter stand out, and bring back memories of better days long past. The same approach works even better with men. A sexy photo, a splash of perfume, and they have to reply, and this is why I adopted this approach with JR Robinson.

  While this may seem very unprofessional from me, I think that your thousands of dedicated readers will appreciate my no-nonsense statement, being: Mr Robinson’s thought-processing system seems, for the better part of his life, to have been hung between his legs. For my part, I see no reason why nothing much would have changed today. Therefore, I hope that you, and your readers, will find the results of my correspondence with JR of some interest.

  Annabel Leigh, to the author.

  Annabel’s plan was simplicit
y itself. She would write to John Robinson posing as someone interested in him as a person, saying that she was not interested in his criminal offences, and she enclosed, with her first letter, a photograph. She also told him that she was fascinated by BDSM. Considering that JR had blown me out, one would have thought that he would have been very careful about who he wrote to next. He wasn’t:

  Annabel,

  I received your letter. First of all let me explain that I have some simple rules for anyone that I write. You must realize that all kinds of people write. It usually happens when some story is run on TV. All claim to want to ‘be my friend’ when actually all they want is to receive a letter from a death row inmate. My attorney even located a blog that tells people how to write me to receive a response. If that was your goal, here you are…

  I laughed when you said you were into true crime, if you have read either of the books written about me, you just read a media created fairytale. 85% of the material is false, but people like to read crap so that’s what they write. The DA who prosecuted me had his wife, who owns a media company; create quite an evil persona of me.

  OK, the rules – first, if you really want to communicate with me you MUST sent me a photocopy of your driver’s license and a photo ID that shows who you are, your birth date, address. Second, don’t ask me about my case. I have maintained my innocence from the beginning. My case is on appeal and I don’t need to discuss it. Third, if I detect any phony BS I won’t respond again. Fourth, you must guarantee me that anything we write will remain completely confidential!

  If you write to me here is a way to do it. On the front of each page write a very normal letter. If you want to write other information about your experiences, fantasies, etc, write them on the back of the page like a separate letter.

  Your list of lifestyle interests looks like you copied it from the alt.com website questionnaire [the web site where he found Suzette Trouten]. If you are seeking, tell me but understand I am very demanding!