[10], In the years following his 1988 convictions and incarceration, Berdella granted an interview to the Missouri-based television station KCPT, and corresponded with numerous individuals. [4]:285286 Despite the brutality to which he had subjected his first three victims, Berdella claimed that Ferris was the first victim upon whom he intentionally inflicted torture. All rights reserved. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. [4] He learned about cooking and art and developed showmanship. Berdella was largely unathletic, whereas his younger brother, Daniel seven years his junior displayed an aptitude for various sports from an early age. I never thought it out to the level of: 'What if one of these bodies ever gets loose? Rader was married and had two children, and was a leader in his community through the Christ Lutheran Church and Cub Scouts. In 1999, he offered a job and a bondage relationship to Izabela Lewicka, a 21-year-old Polish immigrant living in Indiana. Robinson, portraying himself as a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, offered to pay Debbie's medical expenses and give Sheila a job. There, he enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI), with aspirations of becoming a college professor. [4]:307,309, On the afternoon of June 23, Berdella and Pearson watched the movie Creepshow 2 together before eating lunch. 7920 NW Tiffany Springs Pkwy., I-29 & Tiffany Springs Pkwy., Kansas City, MO, 64153-2310. [4]:259261 The following day, he dismembered Howell's body using a chainsaw and boning knives, before wrapping the sections in newspaper and trash bags. The plot of the film revolves around a disturbed man who stalks and then abducts a young woman whom he finds attractive, holding her captive in his windowless stone basement, and viewing her as little more than an attractive specimen. "[32] He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [10], To several of his neighbors, Berdella stated he gradually almost felt like a foster parent to many of these youths. [48][12], Berdella's house was purchased by a local businessman for an undisclosed sum in December 1988. Woman Wins Lawsuit to Halt Profit Sought by Man Who Killed Her Mother. [4]:151. [4]:17, Questioned at the scene by four officers, Bryson initially claimed he had been hitchhiking when abducted by Berdella, who had kidnapped, raped, and tortured him for four days before he escaped by jumping from a window on the second floor of the property. For weeks, Kansas City police denied rumors of a serial killer He enrolled at Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, a private boys school for aspiring priests, but dropped out after one year due to disciplinary issues.[3][4]. He was 43 years old. By 1999, he had attracted the attention of authorities in Kansas and Missouri as his name frequently came up in missing person investigations. [45] Moreover, despite his claims to journalists whom he had contacted in the years of his incarceration, Berdella never expressed any degree of remorse for his actions and tersely referred to his victims as "play toys" in an interview he granted shortly before his death. [6], In 2005, Nancy Robinson filed for divorce after forty-one years of marriage, citing incompatibility and irreconcilable differences. [30], On December 19, 1988, Berdella formally waived his rights to be tried for any of the outstanding murder charges, upon the understanding he was to be convicted of one further count of first-degree murder (that of Robert Sheldon), and four counts of second-degree murder. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a convicted serial killer on Friday who trolled the Internet for female victims, sometimes using promises of work or sex, and stuffed. [10], Shortly after the death of Berdella's father, his mother remarried; an action which was met with resentment by Berdella, who viewed the move as a form of betrayal against his father. Serial Killer J. R. Robinson's Sinister Alter Ego | Vanity Fair In arguments before the state Supreme Court earlier this year, Robinson's attorney said it was improper for prosecutors in Kansas to bring killings in Missouri into their case, so that Robinson would be eligible for a death sentence for multiple murders occurring in a single course of conduct. [24] The meter reader led Bryson to the house he had been approaching, whereupon the occupants promptly called the police, who arrived minutes later. [4]:166 The same day a dental identification was made upon Sheldon's skull, two men separately phoned the Kansas City Police Department to state one of seven unidentified young men depicted in a photographic array released to the media on April 27 was a former high school acquaintance of theirs named Mark Wallace. Robinson raised more than 100 issues in appealing his Kansas convictions and death sentence, including the ability of a juror in his 2002 trial to bring a Bible into deliberations. [11] Corroborating Bryson's claims of having been restrained and tortured in a second floor bedroom, investigators discovered the bedroom on the second floor was found to have burnt ropes attached to the posts at the foot of the bed. [15] This store was named Bob's Bazaar Bizarre,[16][10] and primarily sold and traded primitive art, jewelry, and antiques. [2]:8, Around the time of Lewicka's disappearance, a licensed practical nurse named Suzette Trouten moved from Michigan to Kansas to travel the world with Robinson as his submissive sex slave. [n 11] In addition, he vehemently denied media rumors that he had been engaged in any form of satanism, or that he had sold sections of his victims' bodies at his flea market booth. He was sentenced to three years' probation. [11], As would be the case with all Berdella's murders, he kept a detailed log in which he documented each act of sexual and physical torture inflicted upon his victim. [4]:289[10], Todd Stoops was a 23-year-old drug addict and occasional prostitute who, alongside his wife, had twice lived briefly at Berdella's house in 1984. The suit accused Gaddis of putting Robinson in contact with Stasi and her newborn daughter in 1984 after he told Gaddis that he ran a charitable organization assisting "unwed mothers of white babies." [29] Prosecutors had gathered sufficient circumstantial evidence to accompany the physical evidence retrieved. )[4]:180, Initially, Berdella was formally charged with one count of felonious restraint, one count of assault, and seven counts of forcible sodomy,[21] as investigators continued their investigations into the discoveries at his property. The Bloody Benders - Serial Killers of Kansas On the farm, a task force found the decaying bodies of two women, later identified as Lewicka and Trouten, in two 85-pound (39kg) chemical drums. Robinson cashed Faith's pension checks for the next seven years. [6], Berdella became known as the Kansas City Butcher due to his practice of extensively dissecting his victims' bodies, which he would then dispose of in garbage bags, and The Collector due to both the movie which he stated was the basis of the fantasies behind the modus operandi of his crimes, and much of the evidence subsequently uncovered by investigators.[4][7]. He also engaged in acts of animal torture on at least two occasions; during one of these instances, he decapitated a duck in the presence of his peers, and in the second instance, he experimented with sedatives and tranquilizers on a dog. Three days after Berdella had begun holding Sheldon captive, on April15, a workman came to perform some scheduled work on the roof of his home, leading Berdella to choose to fatally suffocate Sheldon by placing a sack over his head, which he then tightened with a piece of rope. Consequently, their bodies were never recovered. [3], After completing his probation in 1979, Robinson was arrested for embezzlement and check forgery, for which he served sixty days in jail in 1982. It has been almost 15 years since a stream of crimson liquid, oozing from a metal barrel, revealed a serial killer's grisly handiwork. On each victim's capture, Berdella described in graphic detail the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse to which he had subjected each victim, and which he had recorded within his torture logs. [n 9], On July 22, 1988, a grand jury formally indicted Berdella for the murder of Larry Wayne Pearson. At the age of 14, in a rather . "[6], According to published reports, although Berdella had a depressive personality disorder,[4]:202 he was also a diagnosed sexual sadist[44] who gained extreme sexual excitation from the humiliation, pain, and torture to which he had subjected his victims. [18], Shortly after, the judge at his trial, Alvin Randall, was informed of Berdella's death. Furthermore, Berdella confessed that the level of abuse he inflicted had increased with each successive victim, and he had viewed the Polaroid images he had taken of his victims as being a "trophy or record of the event". As a result, Berdella would occasionally steal or scavenge for items to sell at his booth or take lodgers at his home as a means of gaining additional income. Nonetheless, he did claim that he had tried to prevent any of his victims from developing any form of malnutrition or infection by occasionally administering antibiotics, or nutrients intravenously as his abuse and torture escalated. Sheldon was drugged with sedatives and held captive in the second floor bedroom for three days, enduring forms of torture such as the swabbing of drain cleaner in his left eye,[4]:266 the insertion of needles beneath his fingertips,[4]:268 the binding of his wrists with piano wire with the intention of permanently damaging the nerves in his hands,[4]:271 and filling his ears with caulking to reduce his hearing capacity. Nonetheless, in his early teens he briefly had a girlfriend. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. [4]:57, At his work premises, Berdella became acquainted with a fellow merchant named Paul Howell, who operated a booth adjacent to his own. Searching the house and grounds of 4315 Charlotte Street, investigators uncovered a human skull inside a closet on the second floor of his property,[26] and a partially decomposed human head in the backyard. Berdella accepted with the specific intention of kidnapping Ferris, whom he arranged to meet at a bar that evening. Three hundred and thirty four Polaroid pictures and 34 snapshot prints of various men were also found in Berdella's house. [20] According to Berdella, although Sheldon was responsible in paying rent, he considered him "an inconvenience" and, although he was not physically attracted to this victim, chose to drug and hold him captive on April 12 when he returned home from work to find Sheldon intoxicated in his home. He formally pleaded guilty to each of these charges before Judge Robert Meyers in the Jackson County Circuit Court. He chose to remain in Kansas City and in September of that year, he moved into an address within the Hyde Park[13] district: 4315 Charlotte Street. In 1975, Robinson's probation was extended again after an arrest on charges of securities fraud and mail fraud in connection with a phony medical consulting company he had formed. No trace of Godfrey has ever been found. In his subsequent confessions to investigators, Berdella stated he had dismembered the bodies of Sheldon, Wallace, Ferris, and Stoops in the bathtub in his third floor bathroom, whereas the bodies of Howell and Pearson had been dismembered in his basement. Suspected serial killer arrested for series of slayings within weeks in Beginning in the late 1970s, Berdella worked with the South Hyde Park Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Association, becoming their chairman in the early 1980s and encouraging neighborhood watch patrols. [2]:15 Robinson received a life sentence without possibility of parole for each of the five murders. When Berdella refused, Stoops burst into tears. Also in the room was an electrical transformer, plugged into a wall, and with wires leading to the bed. [6] These pictures showed Christopher Bryson and several other men both in life and in death, and many of the images had been taken as the subjects had been tortured. [32] In this plea bargain, Berdella agreed to confess in graphic detail as to whom he had killed, what indignities he had subjected each victim, how he had killed each victim, and what he had done with their bodies. [4]:260, Although police extensively searched for the remains of Berdella's victims throughout their initial investigation into his crimes, the confession he provided to investigators in the autumn of 1988 confirmed the dismembered bodies of all six of his victims had been stowed in trash bags and subsequently taken to unknown landfill sites. "[4]:323 Berdella removed the teeth from this skull and stowed them inside envelopes in the same room. When a detective contacted Wallace's sister, she stated her brother had been missing since mid-1985. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. [2], John Robinson was born in Cicero, Illinois, the third of five children of an alcoholic father and a disciplinarian mother. [21] According to Berdella, he did not initially intend to capture Pearson, but began forming the plan to do so on June 23, two weeks after having bailed Pearson out of jail and noting Pearsonin the weeks prior to his captivitydisplayed little interest in finding a job. The discovery of a woman's body stuffed inside that. Despite these later claims to investigators, Berdella would often engage in sexual relations with the men he befriended, and would establish a degree of control over them in part to engage in these sexual relations via methods such as loaning them money and allowing them to live rent free at his house for periods of time. The house belonged to Robert Berdella, the man who would soon become known as Kansas City's most notorious serial killer. In 1971, he was arrested for embezzling funds and was ordered back to Kansas City, where his probation was extended. [27] The search also uncovered several human vertebrae scarred by both hacksaw and knife marks stowed in a hallway,[4]:44 and several human teeth stowed in two envelopes. On Oct. 7, a Black woman escaped from a home in Excelsior Springs a city just north-east of Kansas City. Berdella had first began socializing in gay bars in, Berdella held a brief relationship with a bisexual. [4]:281, On September 26, 1985, Berdella answered a phone call from an acquaintance named James Ferris,[n 3] who asked to stay at Berdella's home for a short time. [4]:233, By the time of Berdella's arrest, he had abducted, tortured, and murdered at least six young men (although the KCPD suspect Berdella of involvement in two other disappearances). Serial Killer John Edward Robinson's Victims List | Heavy.com [25] Berdella had kept him bound to a bed on the second floor of the house throughout much of the time he had been held against his will, repeatedly sodomizing him, drugging him, and injecting his throat with drain cleaner to diminish his ability to speak loudly. He declined to allow officers inside his home,[4]:26 and the search warrant earlier requested was drafted to search his property. [2], In 1985, using the name John Osborne, Robinson met Lisa Stasi and her four-month-old daughter, Tiffany, at a women's shelter in Kansas City. [4]:46 In his first year at the KCAI, Berdella was considered an attentive and talented student, although by his second year, Berdella became vocally anti-authoritarian. Simultaneously, he began to devote more of his attention to his own business as opposed to his work as a chef. In response to these guilty pleas, Judge Meyers imposed five further concurrent life sentences, with an additional condition barring any future prospect of parole in the sole case of first-degree murder to which he pleaded guilty. Two officers were told to maintain a discreet surveillance of the property, as Bryson was driven to the Menorah Medical Center, accompanied by a third officer, for treatment as the fourth officer radioed the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) to request a formal search warrant of the property be drafted. By the summer of 1984, Jerry Howell had turned 19. Among other issues, there was no unequivocal evidence that any of the murders had been committed within his jurisdiction. Trouten's mother received several typed letters signed by her daughter and purportedly mailed while the couple was abroad, although the envelopes all bore Kansas City postmarks. [33], A second guilty plea submitted before the Jackson County Court on August 24 earned Berdella a further life term without parole for one charge of forcible sodomy against Christopher Bryson (six counts of sodomy and one charge of assault being dropped as part of a plea bargain); he would also receive a further term of seven years pertaining to one count of felonious restraint against Bryson on this date. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a convicted serial killer on Friday who trolled the Internet for female victims, sometimes using promises of work or sex, and stuffed some of their bodies into barrels on his rural property. His family had also moved into an apartment above the shop. [4]:277, Wallace was carried to the second floor bedroom where he endured almost a day of captivity and torture including the application of alligator clips to his nipples to facilitate electrical shocks to his body at any point at which Wallace began regressing into a state of unconsciousness. [4]:307 That evening, Berdella ensured Pearson became intoxicated before injecting him with chlorpromazine and moving him down to his basement, where he bound Pearson's hands above his head, then linked the rope he had used for this purpose to a brick column, before injecting Pearson's larynx with drain cleaner. Godfrey told friends and family that Robinson was sending her away for training. John Robinson, one of the most infamous serial killers of recent times, is the subject of the episode titled "Sole Survivor," on ABC's journalistic and true crime show '20/20'. The same afternoon he was ordered to pose for the series of nude photographs for comparison with the Polaroid images he had taken, investigators attempted to conduct their first formal investigation with him, although Berdella simply invoked his right to silence in this setting. [4]:4647, When Berdella reached puberty he discovered that he was homosexual; initially, he kept this fact a closely guarded secret, and he did not become open about his sexuality for several years. Stasi was never heard from again. Rader was a serial killer active in Kansas from 1974 to 1991. [11], Despite initially pleading not guilty to the remaining five murder charges on September 13, 1988,[34][35] with the agreement of his two defense attorneys, Berdella ultimately conducted a plea bargain with the prosecutors to avoid the death penalty in these remaining charges. Lorenzo Gilyard - Wikipedia For you to survive being here, and for you to, you know, make it, it could either be rough or it could be easy. Because of this he seldom socialized with his peers. Throughout his studies in high school, he had earned such excellent grades and displayed such potential that in 1966, one teacher had placed him in an independent study program. close carousel In June 1967, Graham reported to the Kansas City police that Robinson had embezzled about $33,000 from him by manipulating checks and deposits. [4]:300 On June 27, he ruptured Stoops's anal wall with his fist, causing bleeding and discharge. In addition to these disclosures, Kellogg was able to name three of the men depicted in the Polaroids as being Todd Stoops, Robert Sheldon, and Larry Wayne Pearson. The rumor . The Bloody Benders - Serial Killers of Kansas. HuffPost writes of how Berdella was a trusted figure who started a neighborhood watch program but mostly kept to himself.On the day before Easter in 1988, neighbors called the police . This task force extensively researched Berdella's history, discovering that he was well-known among Kansas City's male hustlers, having earned a reputation for preying on transient young men. The prosecution team assigned to the case accepted the plea, with assistant prosecutor Pat Hall later explaining this decision as being "in the best interest of our client, the people of the state of Missouri". Who Were John Robinson's Victims? - The Cinemaholic A total of nine men are on Kansas' death row. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, In the 19th century, Kansas was a bloody place, especially before the Civil War, as " Free-Soilers " and slavery advocates "duked" it out for control of the new territory. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. John E. Robinson Sr. in 2002. [6] Berdella had promised to drive the youth to attend a dancing contest in Merriam. At 37 years old, Diamond Blair . [4]:33[n 7]. Berdella used electrical shocks through Stoops's closed eyes in an attempt to blind him and injected drain cleaner into his larynx to try to silence his screaming. He then brought an electrical transformer to the basement. All five women were killed in the same way, by one or more blows to the head with a blunt instrument. Berdella further claimed he had not seen him since. [4]:16 The following day, he managed to break free of his restraints by burning through them using a book of matches Berdella had inadvertently left in the room and within his reach when he had left the house to go to his place of work. The Kansas Homestead Where America's First Serial Killer Family Committed Its Crimes Is Up for Sale. Her Mom Was Murdered. She Was Adopted by Killer's Brother - Peoplemag He later dissected Sheldon's body in the third floor bathroom. At the Western Missouri Correctional Facility, he met 49-year-old Beverly Bonner, the prison librarian. All rights reserved. Several of these male prostitutes were also reluctant to accept him as a client both because of his penchant for drugging, injecting, and torturing his sexual partners and acquaintances, and also because he had long been considered a suspect in the disappearance of the two men whose personal possessions had been found in his house (Jerry Howell and James Ferris).[28]. She did sign a 115-item slave contract that gave Robinson almost total control over every aspect of her life, including her bank accounts. Shortly before Berdella moved into his Charlotte Street address, he began working as a short-order cook in various restaurants around Kansas City in part to help pay lawyer fees and fines accrued from his previous drug arrests. John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943) is an American serial killer, con man, embezzler, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders committed in and around Kansas City, receiving the death penalty for two of them. [6], By the early 1980s, Paul Howell had relocated his business to a store close to the intersection of 39th and Main Street. Robinson hired her, reportedly with the promise of extensive travel and a new wardrobe. Don't try to fight me, or you'll just get more of what you had earlier. [1], Bryson then managed to escape from the house by jumping from a second floor window, wearing nothing besides a dog collar around his neck, breaking a bone in his foot in the process; he then ran toward a meter reader walking across the other side of the street, shouting for them to call the police. [11] In spite of this condition of his living with Berdella, Kellogg further stated that numerous male prostitutes and addicts had been reluctant to engage in any form of contact with Berdella because of rumors regarding his links to the 1984 disappearance of Jerry Howell. The family regularly attended Mass, and both sons regularly attended religious education courses. Prior to his arrest, Berdella was that serial killer clich, someone neighbors described as a nice man who kept to himself. Pick your location. Upon his release, Bonner left her husband, a prison doctor, and moved to Kansas to work for him. He tersely explained his successive actions to investigators on December 14 with the statement that he was "capturing them first, and what developed, developed." Berdella was able to name all of his victims to investigators. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! [4]:307,309, According to Berdella, Pearson was by far the most cooperative of his six murder victims. The Kansas Homestead Where America's First Serial Killer Family [n 6], On the afternoon of Bryson's escape, Berdella was arrested on charges pertaining to the sexual assault of Christopher Bryson. In a video that went viral on TikTok and other platforms, a man claimed that four Black girls . "He's maintained the secrets about what he's done with the women. [14] He remained active in the association until the mid-1980s, when he relinquished his position. In response, Randall sarcastically remarked: "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Robert Berdella - Wikipedia [39] Investigators consulted a specialist in toxicology in their investigation into Berdella following his arrest who stated that, judging by the notes he had written about victim Robert Sheldon, the accumulation of chlorpromazine injected into this victim had been toxic. John Robinson was born in 1943 in Cicero, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood. Hours. In 1994, the mother and daughter moved from Fullerton, California, to Kansas City and immediately disappeared. He noted this victim's time of death as being 7:00p.m. on June 23. [6] Chris Koster, the Missouri prosecutor, insisted as a condition of any plea bargain that Robinson lead authorities to the bodies of Stasi, Godfrey, and Clampitt. At the age of 72, serial killer Robinson currently remains on death row and could become the first convict executed by lethal injection in that state in Kansas. Michael H. Stone & Gary Brucato. Occasionally, Berdella's father physically and emotionally abused his children, and beat them with a leather strap. He further claimed he had been demonized unfairly by the media before, during, and after his arraignments and plea bargains, and that police ineptitude had resulted in his being allowed to remain at liberty following his first murder. [1] The theft charge finally gave investigators the probable cause they needed to obtain search warrants. Officers also discovered a stenographer's pad containing the detailed torture logs he had maintained for each victim above a chest of drawers,[4]:37 several newspaper clippings from The Kansas City Star regarding a missing young man named Jerry Howell, and both a wallet and a driving license belonging to a missing person named James Ferris was discovered in a closet on the second floor of the property. Pearson's body was later dismembered in the basement, and his head initially stored in a plastic bag inside Berdella's freezer before being buried in the backyard. [4]:3637 He further claimed to have intended to retrieve Pearson's skull once sufficient time had elapsed for it to skeletonize, although he was adamant there had been no rational or sinister reason for his doing so. Bender Mounds, Kansas by Kathy Alexander. December 13, 1988. [4]:258, Berdella would later state that he briefly attempted to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation upon Howell after he had died before dragging his body to the basement. [n 8][12], In late April, the skull found inside Berdella's closet was identified via dental X-rays obtained via subpoena from the University of Kansas Medical Center as that of Robert Sheldon. The Blair family is a well-known crime family in Kansas City. [4]:300, Berdella brought Ferris home and drugged him with crushed tranquilizers he had concealed in a meal, then tied him to his bed before torturing him almost constantly for approximately 27hours. [4]:247 By this stage, Berdella had been openly gay for several years. The ruling in the case of John E. Robinson Sr. -- accused of killing seven women and a teenage girl in Kansas and Missouri -- marked the first time that Kansas' high court has upheld a death sentence since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1994. In 2005, he admitted responsibility for five homicides in Missouri as part of a plea bargain to receive multiple life sentences without possibility of parole and avoid more death sentences. 'Mindhunter': ADT Serial Killer in Kansas Explained - Insider Over the course of those years, he killed eight women and two men via strangulation, suffocation, stabbing, or hanging. Berdella also volunteered at fundraising events for a local public television station until the mid-1980s.[14]. Throughout the latter part of his six weeks of captivity, Pearson trained himself to sleep without moving, in order that he did not antagonize Berdella and thus invite further torture or being returned to the basement. The following June, Berdella found Mark Wallace (whom he vaguely knew via Wallace having previously helped him with yard work) hiding in his tool shed to seek shelter from a severe thunderstorm.