By Bridget Heath
John Edward Robinson, Born December 27, 1943 grew up in a working-class family. As a child he showed early signs of being a sociopath: deceit and manipulation and kleptomania. He stole from his parents and his school friends and lied about class achievements. He eventually married Nancy Jo Lynch and they had four children. His marriage was rocky due to his finical problems, bizarre sex needs and frequent infidelity.
is an American serial killer, He used chat rooms and digital personas to lure his victims. Robinson is con man, embezzler, kidnapper and forger was found guilty in 2003 for three murdered committed in and around Kansas City, he received the death penalty for two of them.
The internet completely transformed the way we do business, learn, and entertain ourselves. It also introduced and entirely new way for criminal threats from cyberstalking to identity theft to happen. So in some instances, the nature of online activity has made it possible for violent predators to both expand and conceal their activities.
John Edward Robinson, whose devious use of chat rooms and digital fraud and catfishing earned him the label of the Internet's first serial killer. Robinson's theft and murder spree went on for several decades and the exact number of his victims is unknown. The internet can be used for good and evil. Robinson used it to deceive, exploit, and destroy vulnerable people.
Robinson was arrested in 1969 at age 26, he had forged documents and certificates so he could secure a job as an X-Ray Technician. While working in a Dr's office he stole $33,000, so he was arrested. Once released from jail, Robinson continued making fake documents and stealing from companies and individuals. Robinson wasn't just a con-man starting in 1993, he met several victims online while pretending to run different businesses. He would offer them secretary positions, and once each woman moved to Kansas for her new job, he would murder her.
One of the women that Robinson met had a 4 month old daughter. Robinson killed the woman and knowing his brother and sister-in-law were trying to adopt a child, he forged adoption papers for the infant and for a fee gave the child to his brother. The child was 15 before she and her adoptive parents learned about her biological mother's murder and her own illegal adoption.
Robinson also used the online name "The Slave Master" in order to ask for sexual favors to his neighbors's wives. Robinson had a secret society called BDSM whose sole purpose was to allegedly torture and rape. But behind the curtain was a carefully crafted appearance on the outside portraying to be a church going family man, but in realty he was a master Manipulator.
Robinson's crafty operation involved him creating fraudulent shell companies and creative stories that attracted vulnerable women to whom he made promises and fabricated high-paying jobs and tailor made lies to lure women to his hometown and isolate them so that he could control, exploit and eventually kill them.
Robinson's murder spree finally ended in 2000 when he was arrested for sexual battery in addition to theft. Authorities searched his property and found decaying bodies in giant barrels. Robinson confessed to 8 murders, but authorities believe the number of murders is higher. Robinson was sentenced to death and is on death row in Kansas.
Investigators would find the bodies of three more women in storage units, and the sick world of Robinson collapsed as police learned about his crimes. He wasn't just a con man and embezzler, he was a sadomasochistic killer who used bondage chat rooms to cull his victims.
The case of John Robinson highlights the dark side of the Internet and online interactions. People need to be vigilant when they meet strangers and always be wary of possible predatory behavior.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written, including the broken opening of its second paragraph, which begins mid-sentence in the original. The archive already holds a separate Robinson piece, JOHN ROBINSON: NET OF DECEPTION, and this is a different and shorter treatment. The record: John Edward Robinson is carried here at eight deaths. He was convicted in Kansas in 2002 of three murders, receiving two death sentences and one life term, and in 2003 he pleaded guilty in Missouri to five more, which is where the figure of eight comes from and why this article's dates and counts read oddly. He remains on death row. Two details need correcting. The article describes a secret society “called BDSM”; BDSM is a term for a set of practices, not the name of an organisation, and Robinson used those subcultures as hunting ground rather than running a society. And the claim that his victim total is higher than eight is a police suspicion, never charged. The infant he handed to his brother through forged adoption papers was Tiffany Stasi, whose mother Lisa Stasi he killed; she was fifteen when she learned it, as the article says.