John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943) is an American convicted serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, and forger. He was found guilty and received the death penalty in 2003 for three murders committed in Kansas. Two years later, as part of a plea deal, he admitted responsibility in five other murders committed in Missouri, for which he received multiple life sentences without possibility of parole. Robinson, a prolific con man and embezzler, used online chatrooms to make contact with some of his victims while under the alias "Slavemaster" – this makes him the first known serial killer to have used the internet to lure in victims.

Early life and criminal history

John Edward 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.

Robinson enrolled at Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, a minor seminary, but dropped out after one year due to disciplinary issues. After hearing nothing further from her, Godfrey's parents filed a missing persons report. Police questioned Robinson, who denied any knowledge of her whereabouts. Several days later, her parents received a typewritten letter, with Godfrey's signature at the bottom, thanking Robinson for his help and asserting that she was "OK" and did not want to see her family. The investigation was terminated as Godfrey was of legal age, and there was no evidence of wrongdoing. No trace of Godfrey has ever been found. On January 10, Robinson arrived at Lisa's sister-in-law's house where Lisa and Tiffany entered his vehicle and purportedly returned to the motel. A few days later, Robinson contacted his brother and sister-in-law who had been unable to adopt a baby through traditional channels, informing them that he knew of a baby whose mother had killed herself. For $5,500 in "legal fees", the couple received Tiffany, whose identity was confirmed in 2000 by DNA testing and a set of seemingly authentic adoption papers with the forged signatures of two lawyers and a judge.

Between 1987 and 1993, Robinson was incarcerated, first in Kansas on multiple fraud convictions and later in Missouri for another fraud conviction and parole violations. At the Western Missouri Correctional Facility, he met 49-year-old Beverly Bonner, the prison librarian. Upon his release in January 1994, Bonner left her husband, a prison doctor, and moved to Kansas to work for him. After Robinson arranged for Bonner's alimony checks to be forwarded to a Kansas post office box, her family never heard from her again. For several years, Bonner's mother had been forwarding her alimony checks and Robinson continued cashing them.

After his release, Robinson discovered the Internet and roamed online chatrooms using the name Slavemaster, looking for women who enjoyed playing the submissive partner role during sex. An early online correspondent was Sheila Faith, 45, whose 15-year-old daughter Debbie Faith was a wheelchair user due to spina bifida. Robinson, portraying himself as a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, offered to pay Debbie's medical expenses and give Sheila a job. In 1994, the mother and daughter moved from Fullerton, California to Kansas City and immediately disappeared. Robinson cashed Faith's pension checks for the next seven years.

Arrest and conviction

Over time, Robinson became increasingly careless, and his ability to avoid detection declined. 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. he was convicted on all counts. Robinson received 2 death sentences 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.

When it became clear that the women's remains would never be found without Robinson's cooperation, a compromise was reached. In a carefully scripted plea in October 2003, Robinson acknowledged that Koster had enough evidence to convict him of capital murder for the deaths of Godfrey, Clampitt, Bonner, and the Faiths. Though his statement was technically a guilty plea and was accepted as such by the Missouri court, observers remarked that it was notably devoid of any remorse or specific acceptance of responsibility. The ruling marked the first time Kansas's highest court has upheld a death sentence since the reinstatement of capital punishment there in 1994. Robinson currently remains on death row at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas. In 2006, the body of a young woman was found in a barrel in an area of rural Iowa where Robinson reportedly had a business partner. She was initially considered a possible victim but was later identified and ruled out.

In media

  • A 2001 book by John Glatt, Internet Slave Master (), documented Robinson's life up to the time of his Kansas trial. A second book by Glatt, Depraved (), published in 2005, focused on the lives of Robinson's victims and others affected by his crimes.
  • Anyone You Want Me to Be: A True Story of Sex and Death on the Internet () by John Douglas and Stephen Singular was published in 2003.
  • Sue Wiltz' book Slave Master was published in 2004.
  • Robinson's criminal activities were also profiled on episodes of the A&E series Cold Case Files, Investigation Discovery's FBI: Criminal Pursuit, Very Scary People, Sins & Secrets, Vanity Fair Confidential, It Takes a Killer, and Deadly Doctors, as well as Forensic Files, and The New Detectives on the Discovery Channel.

Adaptation

In 2025, Lifetime aired a television film adaption about John Edward Robinson and his connection with Tiffany Stasi/Heather Robinson called Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story. The television film starred Steve Guttenberg as John Edward Robinson, Jana Kramer as an investigator in the case, and Rachel Stubington as Tiffany Stasi/Heather Robinson.

See also

  • Internet killer
  • John Haigh

General:

  • List of serial killers in the United States

References

  • Slave Master (Pinnacle True Crime) by Sue Wiltz and Maurice Godwin. Kensington Books
  • Kansas Prison Inmate Database - Kansas Department of Corrections
  • Robinson, John E Sr (KDOC# 45690) - current status is incarcerated
  • Complete Court TV coverage of "slave master" serial killer John Robinson
  • Snopes addresses Slavemaster rumours