The Voices of Serial Killers

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  That evening, J.R.’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 J.R. 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 J.R. pocketed.

  That was 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 realize their dream of adoption. Several times in the following months, Robinson put Don and Helen on notice that an adoption was imminent, but a child never materialized.

  John’s crooked scheme required locating pregnant, single women, and he knew exactly where to find them. Putting on his civic philanthropist facade, he approached local pregnancy programs and social workers to alert them to the new program—Kansas City Outreach—that he and several fictitious 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. 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 program, 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.

  Talking to his brother, John Robinson explained that a baby’s mother [Lisa] had committed suicide ata woman’s shelter and, for a further cash sum of $3,000, payable to an imaginary lawyer, and their signatures on an adoption certificate (which was bogus, of course), J.R. could hand the baby over to them.

  On Thursday, January 10, 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 bearing 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, and probably brutally raped, and it would be 15 years before Heather’s true identity was revealed under the most shocking circumstances: The man she knew as “Uncle John” would stand trial, accused of killing her mother.

  Several weeks after Lisa vanished, Betty received the first letter J.R. had typed. 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 mailed 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 want 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 realized 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 begun 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 J.R., and they teamed up with his probation officer, Stephen Haymes.

  During this period, information emerged that showed that J.R. 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 J.R. and fellow ex-convict Irvin Blattner (now deceased) were being investigated by the Secret Service for forgery involving a government check. None of this, however, was connected to the disappearance of Paula Godfrey, or Lisa Stasi and baby Tiffany, so the trail in this direction was in danger of going cold.

  Although everything seemed to point to J.R. having abducted and murdered two women and a baby, 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 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 his office on January 10, 1985, with a young man named Bill, and told him 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. J.R. stormed out of the interview, protesting that he was being harangued over the matter. However, a few days later, understanding that his parole could be revoked if he pissed Haymes off, he came up with the details.

  The woman Robinson introduced to Haymes, a hooker called Theresa Williams, made a statement to Haymes claiming that she had indeed hired Lisa Stasi as a babysitter, b
ut 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 J.R.’s activities on a local level connected to the missing Paula Godfrey.

  Haymes, now suspecting that the embezzler had turned to abduction and murder, dug deeper and learned through the prostitute Williams that Robinson was heavily involved in the Kansas City underground sex industry and probably ran a string of hookers specializing 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 J.R. 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 organized a string of prostitutes to service customers who enjoyed S&M. To look after his own carnal appetites, J.R. 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 J.R. 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, traveling 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.

  J.R. 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 enough to continue after hearing about that aspect of the job either.

  J.R. had installed the attractive 21-year-old Theresa Williams in his Troost Avenue apartment in April 1985. She had been introduced to J.R. 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 recruit in a motel room, J.R. 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 supplied 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 became a candidate as J.R.’s next murder victim.

  Haymes’s suspicions that Robinson was running a string of streetwise hookers proved unfounded. In hindsight, although a cunning and devious individual, Robinson wasn’t well enough connected to be able to pull off such an unpredictable enterprise. J.R. liked to be in control of his nefarious schemes. His preference was to be in charge, and a stable of prostitutes, all 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, J.R. began using her to discredit his ex-convict pal, Irvin Blattner, who was cooperating with the authorities over Back Care Systems and a postal scam. J.R. 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.

  Rewinding a little, one night toward the end of April, after being given $1,200 and a new outfit by J.R., Theresa was taken blindfolded in a limousine to a mansion. There she was introduced to a distinguished-looking man of about 60, who led her down to a basement, which was fitted out as a medieval torture chamber. Her host instructed her to remove all her clothes, and moments later she found herself being stretched on a rack. Theresa panicked and demanded to be allowed to leave. Blindfolded again, she was driven back to the Troost Avenue apartment. J.R. reacted angrily to this betrayal, and a few days later she had to refund him the $1,200.

  On another occasion, J.R. took her to task for entertaining a boyfriend at the apartment. However, the worst was yet to come. In late May, he paid her a visit during which he did something that caused her more fear she had ever known in her life. She was asleep when he let himself into the apartment. He burst into the bedroom, dragged her out of bed by her hair, and spanked her until she began to scream. After throwing her onto the floor, J.R. drew a revolver, put it to her head, and pulled the trigger. Instead of an explosion, there was only a click—the chamber was empty. By now, Theresa was whimpering with fear, but she went rigid with terror as J.R. slid the revolver barrel slowly into her vagina. He left it there for several terrifying seconds before withdrawing it, replacing it in its holster and, without another word, storming out of the apartment.

  About a week after the incident with the gun, FBI agents Lavin and Dancer called unannounced at Theresa’s apartment. Having been told that they were investigating the disappearance of two women and a baby, and that J.R. was the prime suspect, Williams decided to reveal the truth. This, of course, involved telling them about the drugs that J.R. was supplying to her as well as the incident with the gun. When the feds learned that Theresa had been asked by J.R. to sign several blank sheets of notepaper, they felt they had reason to believe that her life was in danger and moved her to a secret location.

  Together with Stephen Haymes, the FBI agents filed a report with the Missouri courts to the effect that Robinson had violated his probation conditions by carrying a firearm and supplying drugs to Theresa Williams. They asked a judge to revoke J.R.’s probation and put him where he belonged—behind bars.

  In 1987 Robinson, started a prison term for his parole violation. He was held until the appeals court overturned the probation revocation order on a technicality: His attorney argued successfully that, because he had not been allowed to confront his accuser, Williams, his constitutional rights had been violated. However, his real-estate fraud case in Johnson County then ended with Robinson being sentenced to serve six to nineteen years. He would remain locked up until 1991.

  The effect on J.R.’s family was what one would expect; they lost their expensive suburban home, and Nancy took a job managing a mobile home park to make ends meet.

  Catherine Clampitt

  Around the time that J.R. was about to enter the correctional system for the first time, police were searching for 27-year-old Catherine Clampitt. Born in Korea but adopted and raised by the Bales family in Texas, Catherine was a one-time drug user now seeking rehabilitation. J.R. hired her to work for him at Equi-II in early 1987, but the arrangement fell through. She vanished a few months later. Despite the fact that suspicion of murder once again fell on Robinson, no further action was taken against him.

  Much later, in 2003, it emerged that Catherine had lived at several different locations in Cass County and had started visiting Robinson once or twice a week, usually receiving money in return for sexual favors. In May or June of 1987, she called Robinson and invited him to her apartment. There were two other people at the place when J.R. turned up—including a person identified only as “G.T.” Clampitt. G.T. demanded money from J.R., who started arguing with the young woman. J.R. then grabbed a lead-filled baton known as a “tire thumper” and beat Catherine in the head. Robinson instructed “G.T.” on how to dispose o
f the body, and the deed was done.

  Strangely, like so many so-called “intelligent” serial murderers, such as John Wayne Gacy, J.R. took to the prison regime at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility like a duck takes to water. Like Gacy and Arthur Shawcross, he was a model inmate, making such a good impression on the prison authorities that the parole board set him free in January 1991, after serving just four years.

  However, J.R. still had to go to jail in Missouri for having violated the terms of his probation (resulting from the $40,000 fraud he had perpetrated more than a decade earlier). He was soon back behind bars, serving time at two facilities for a further two years.

  It is interesting to read Stephen Haymes’s assessment of Robinson in a memo that he wrote to a colleague in 1991:I believe him [Robinson] to be a con man out of control. He leaves in his wake many unanswered questions and missing persons . . . I have observed Robinson’s sociopathic tendencies, habitual criminal behavior, inability to tell the truth and scheming to cover his own actions at the expense of others. I was not surprised to see he had a good institution adjustment [settled in well] in Kansas considering that he is personable and friendly to those around him.

  Beverly Jean Bonner

  While in jail at the Western Missouri Correctional Facility, the white-collar con man forged a friendship with the prison doctor, William Bonner. He also developed an extracurricular relationship with Bonner’s vivacious 49-year-old wife, Beverly. She was the prison librarian, and J.R. very soon found that he had a job in the library.

  For her part, Nancy Robinson had found the going tough without her husband’s income. After selling the palatial home at Pleasant Valley Farms, she had taken a job to keep body and soul together, and she was fortunate in getting one that provided accommodation. She became the manager of a mobile-home development in Belton, it was to those modest quarters that J.R. went when he was released from prison early in 1993. The Robinsons’ two older children had grown up and left home, and the twins were at college, so J.R. and Nancy had the place to themselves. They rented storage lockers nearby to house their surplus belongings.