Talking with Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking. Christopher Berry-Dee
the first of the letters that JR had faked. 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 posted 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 wants 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 realised 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 began 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 JR and they teamed up with his probation officer, Stephen Haymes.
During this period, information emerged that showed that JR 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 JR and fellow ex-convict, Irvin Blattner (now deceased), were being investigated by the US Secret Service for forgery involving a government cheque. None of this, however, was connected to the disappearance of Paula Godfrey, Lisa Stasi and baby Tiffany, so the trail in this direction was in danger of going cold.
Although everything seemed to point to JR having abducted and murdered two women, 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, subsequent 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 my office on 10 January 1985 with a young man named Bill and told me 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. JR stormed out of the interview protesting that he was being harangued over the matter; however, a few days later, in the knowledge that his parole could be revoked if he pissed Haymes off, he came up with the details.
The woman, a prostitute called Theresa Williams, made a statement to Haymes claiming that she had, indeed, hired Lisa Stasi as a babysitter, however, 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 JR’s activities on a local level, connected to the disappearance of Paula Godfrey.
With Haymes now suspecting that the embezzler had now turned to abduction and murder, he dug deeper and learned through the prostitute, whom Robinson had photographed naked, that he might be involved in the Kansas City underground sex industry and probably ran a string of hookers specialising 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 JR 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 organised a string of prostitutes to cater for customers who enjoyed S&M. To look after his own carnal appetites, JR 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 JR 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 travelling 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.
JR 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 to continue after hearing about that aspect of the job either.
JR had installed the attractive 21-year-old Theresa Williams in his Troost Avenue apartment in April 1985. She had been introduced to JR 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 acquisition in a motel room, JR 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 provided 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, in doing so, became a candidate for JR’s next murder victim.
Haymes’s