Anyone You Want Me to Be (6 page)

In July 1985, John Robinson mailed his brother adoption documents bearing the signatures of Johnson County lawyers Doug Wood and Ronald Wood and Magistrate Judge Michael Farley. Judge Farley was a small-claims-court judge who did not handle adoptions. Doug Wood and Ronald Wood, who were unrelated, would one day testify that they never did any adoption work for Robinson or anyone else in his family. All three signatures had been forged. A woman named Evi Greshem was listed as the notary public on the adoption papers. She’d never been a notary public, but in 1985 she was Robinson’s mistress and had engaged in sadomasochistic practices with him—at approximately the same time he was believed to be in the International Council of Masters. Greshem had also signed some blank pieces of paper because he’d asked her to.

W
hile the Robinsons celebrated with pictures and congratulations, the Klinginsmith family had grown frantic with worry for Lisa and her baby. They weren’t the only ones with grave suspicions about what had become of the mother and child. Birthright’s Ann Smith had called Stanley’s First Presbyterian Church to confirm Robinson’s membership there and his connection to the Kansas City Outreach program. The church knew Robinson but had never heard of this adoption program. She then contacted the Olathe bank whose board Robinson claimed to sit on. They knew nothing at all about the man. This prompted Smith to call the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole, where she reached Stephen Haymes and told him about Robinson. Haymes went to work talking with local social workers.

“When I first pulled Robinson’s file,” says Haymes, “and took a look at what we had, I knew that he was a con man, a slick character. My immediate curiosity was, ‘What’s in it for him?’ And I figured it was not something good. But what it was I didn’t know and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out just that question.

“When I’m supervising a probationer or parolee, I’m trying to understand, ‘Who is this person and what kind of danger do they represent to the public? Is it physical danger or theft?’ I took a look at Robinson and knew that he was involved in a number of criminal activities going back to the 1969 conviction for theft from Dr. Graham and then theft in Chicago from a company he was working for there. I knew he was a classic con man and you don’t see really good con men very often. We deal with a lot of pretty poor-quality criminals who do things very impulsively or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. A very sophisticated criminal we don’t see that often, not those who set up businesses, some legitimate and some phony, and then manipulate things and steal by setting up limited partnerships or things like that.

“What really got my attention in 1984 was the initial call from Birthright that said he was trying to do something very suspicious with a young girl and a baby. This doesn’t fit with him. It doesn’t fit with a good con man because they go around the block to avoid hurting people because they’re smart enough to know the penalties when people get hurt are much more significant.”

Haymes tried to make personal contact with Robinson but wasn’t successful. He then sent a letter to Robinson telling him to show up at his probation office on January 17, 1985. Robinson, who’d been busy with Lisa and Tiffany Stasi and with Don and Helen Robinson, ignored the letter. Haymes fired off a second one, sent by registered mail, demanding that Robinson appear at his office a week later, on January 24. Haymes also called the local field office of the FBI and asked if they knew of any baby-selling operations in Kansas City. The FBI responded by saying that they were aware of John Robinson and some of his activities but weren’t currently investigating him, and they didn’t know of any baby-selling rings in the area.

On January 24, Robinson came to Haymes’s modest North Kansas City office in an upbeat, bouncy mood, as he usually was when first presenting himself to people. He seemed confident and cheerful. Haymes had prepared for the meeting by laying out on his desk Robinson’s extensive criminal file, so the visitor could see his past staring him right in the face. Robinson appeared unflappable, indifferent to the file. He was talkative, well-dressed, and forthcoming with certain information. When asked about Lisa and Tiffany, he acknowledged that he and five of his business connections were trying to help the unfortunate in the community and had approached both Birthright and Truman Medical Center looking for mothers with infants. Haymes questioned him about the apartment at 8110 Troost Avenue, which the officer believed he was running as a house of prostitution. Robinson said that he was currently offering living space to two young women there, and Haymes could drop by the address and talk with them himself.

The meeting was charged because Haymes sensed that he wasn’t being told the truth yet he wasn’t sure what the truth was. When he asked Robinson what he was receiving in return for all the good deeds he claimed to be doing, Robinson smiled and replied that he was getting the satisfaction of helping people worse off than himself. This was gratifying to someone of his nature. The answer only made the officer more edgy and frustrated.

“Robinson had a lot of excuses about where Lisa and Tiffany were and what had happened to them,” Haymes says. “He’d set up some phony information out there trying to say that they were okay. With me, he was just indignant that—gosh, here he was trying to be nice and help people and he just couldn’t believe that people would accuse him of doing something. But people were disappearing: Paula Godfrey and then Lisa and Tiffany. Some of what had happened with Paula—the letters and things like that—would also happen with Lisa. I believed that he was going from stealing to harming people now, but we still had pretty much nothing but dead ends on these cases.”

Following the meeting, Haymes spoke to the Truman Medical Center, which had referred two other young women to Robinson, and was told they were doing fine under his supervision. But the center was aware that a third young woman whom it had sent to Robinson, Lisa Stasi, had lately vanished. Both the Truman Medical Center and the Overland Park Police Department had been looking for her but with no results.

When Haymes contacted the Overland Park Police Department about Stasi, he was told that they didn’t believe a crime had been committed because there was no evidence suggesting this. The department did acknowledge that Paula Godfrey, who’d worked with Robinson in 1984, had also disappeared. The police explained that they hadn’t pursued this case because of a letter her family had received, apparently written by Godfrey herself, stating that she was okay.

Haymes’s suspicions deepened when he spoke with Stasi’s relatives and others, learning that they’d just received typed letters supposedly from Lisa. One was addressed to Cathy Stackpole, the Hope House social worker. It contained punctuation errors and read in part:

Another letter was addressed to her mother-in-law, Betty Stasi, and it read in part:

Despite this letter’s personal details, Haymes doubted its authenticity. So did Lisa’s relatives. They told him that Lisa didn’t talk this way or know how to type.

On January 30, 1985, police officer Larry Dixon went to Robinson’s business address and confronted him about Stasi. Robinson calmly told Dixon that a man named Bill had recently come to his office and said that he, Lisa, and Tiffany were all moving to Colorado to start a new life. This was the same story Betty Stasi had earlier heard and relayed to her son, Carl, concerning Lisa’s whereabouts. After learning this, Carl Stasi, like the police, stopped trying to track down Lisa and Tiffany.

Stephen Haymes, however, did not stop looking for the mother and child or stop searching for what role Robinson may have played in their disappearance. The officer was dogged in his efforts but was also surrounded by persistent and troubling questions. Was Robinson as innocent as he portrayed himself to be? Or had he evolved from a con man into a homicidal predator who’d now killed at least two young women? Was he working alone or with a partner? What had Lisa’s last words to Betty meant, when she’d said, “Here they are”? If Robinson was a killer and working by himself, how had he gotten rid of Stasi so quickly, in the middle of a terrible snowstorm, while taking care of a baby at the same time? Both the ground and the nearby rivers and lakes would surely have been frozen.

No bodies had shown up and there was no physical evidence of two murders. There was no evidence of any kind linking the man to the missing women—so how could Haymes persuade a judge that Robinson was dangerous or that his probation should be revoked?

W
ith all these questions in play, Haymes got together with Karen Gaddis and Sharon Jackson Turner, two social workers at the Truman Medical Center’s Obstetrics Department who’d been involved with Lisa and Tiffany being handed over to Robinson. Haymes listened with dismay and then shock as they described how the man had presented himself to them and how he’d managed to gain custody of the mother and daughter. It was becoming clear to the officer that trusting people everywhere had been no match for the skills and cunning of John Robinson. Scamming a doctor was one thing. So was bilking potential investors out of a few thousand dollars. But talking seasoned professionals into letting him gain control of a vulnerable young mother and her child was something else altogether. Robinson had more skills than Haymes had realized. He was astounded at how quickly and easily the man had fooled the social workers.

He contacted Robinson to set up another visit. When they got together, Robinson told him that he had some new and useful information: a local woman had recently informed him that Stasi was back in Kansas City and had done some baby-sitting for her. If the police could track down the woman, they could probably find Lisa.

Haymes doubted this report and began calling Robinson at odd hours and asking him unsettling questions, hoping to catch him off guard, but the probationer seemed to have an answer for everything. At the end of January, the officer dropped by Equi-II to see what the operation looked like. He noticed the array of medical diplomas on the walls and the document that said Equi-II belonged to the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce (it didn’t, as Haymes soon found out).

Robinson bragged about his Kansas City Outreach program and showed the visitor the extensive literature he’d created for Equi-II, which he described as a consulting firm with an emphasis on limited partnerships for cattle investors. Robinson talked with conviction, passion, and knowledge about Equi-II; he acted exactly like a successful financial consultant and would have convinced most people. The probation officer listened carefully, absorbing the information with a growing sense of incredulity and discomfort. He’d never seen anyone labor harder at building an image with elaborate stories and paperwork. Haymes kept looking for a scintilla of shame or a hint of guilt, but there was none. The officer had never encountered anybody like John Robinson. It was as if the man weren’t merely playing a role, but believed everything he was saying—as if he became another person when he was talking.

While Robinson’s crimes and the way he perpetrated them were groundbreaking in the study of serial killers, his overall personality was not unique. Robinson possesses the characteristics of a classic “antisocial personality.” This disorder has nothing to do with having or not having the ability to socialize. Many antisocials are good at presenting themselves to others. They have superficial charm, above average intelligence, and the ability to masquerade. They are also emotionally stunted, unreliable, and insincere. Robinson fit all of these characteristics and then some. One thing he did not have was mental illness. He knew right from wrong and knew the consequences of his heinous acts on others.

In retrospect, Robinson reminded me of other killers whom I’d interviewed or studied. When you speak with these individuals, they have an answer for everything. Unless you thoroughly study their case, they can fool you. They’ll tell you what they think you want to hear and project the blame on others. During one such interview, a convicted rapist told me that he hadn’t raped anyone. He said, “The victim wasn’t wearing any panties and was looking to have sex, so I obliged.” Because Robinson had such superficial charm, he was able to easily manipulate his victims, his family, and early on the law enforcement community. We make the mistake of treating people like Robinson the way we expect to be treated. This doesn’t work because what separates us from him is a conscience. Robinson had no conscience or remorse. He and others like him know and understand they are lying, but they don’t get flushed in the face, shift their body, wet their dry lips, or look away when they lie. They’ll look you right in the eye and tell you what good people they are and that they must be believed.

“The common criminals we deal with may lie,” says Haymes, “but they’re not very good at it. They’ll tell you, ‘I wasn’t at the bar last night and I haven’t been drinking,’ when they reek of alcohol. It’s pretty easy to break that lie down, and usually, when most people are cornered with a lie, they will come around and confess. He would never do that. No matter how tight you had him boxed in, he would just spin off and start a whole new set of lies. We would spend hours or days proving those were all lies and then we would have another set of lies to deal with. His inability to tell the truth, even when the truth might have done him better, was what struck me.

“Plus his demeanor was quite different from the average person we deal with. He was older and more refined as far as his education and skills. He always wore a coat and tie, soft-spoken, with a round, kind of boyish face. Nothing set him off easily as a criminal to the average person who had contact with him. He didn’t meet the stereotype of the guy with tattoos.”

Haymes soon paid another visit to Equi-II, this time with a second probation officer named Bill Neely. Both men questioned Robinson at length about Lisa and Tiffany, and he explained to them how a man named Bill had been waiting for the mother and daughter when he’d transported them to the Rodeway Inn during a snowstorm about a month earlier. The pair had left with Bill and that was the last he’d seen of them. When Haymes and Neely went to the Rodeway Inn to check out this story, the motel clerk recollected that Lisa and Tiffany had left the premises the final time with Robinson.

Haymes contacted the local FBI office and spoke to veteran Special Agent Thomas Lavin and his younger partner, Special Agent Jeffrey Dancer, about the two vanished women (Godfrey and Stasi) and the missing baby. Haymes not only wanted the FBI’s expertise, but there were other legal issues as well. The Missouri-Kansas border ran right through Kansas City, and that made everything in this complicated set of circumstances even more complicated. Robinson used the old criminal trick of moving quickly between jurisdictions, something that other serial killers, such as Ted Bundy, had once done.

“Robinson was jumping back and forth across state lines, which was frustrating to local law enforcement,” says Haymes. “State lines are a pretty big barrier for local city police. Robinson lived in Kansas but had this supposed charitable apartment in Missouri. He was soliciting babies from organizations in Missouri and Kansas. Lisa Stasi was from northeast Kansas City, Missouri, but she technically disappeared out of Overland Park, which is in Kansas. So that creates all sorts of problems.

“I would not be surprised that Robinson didn’t decide that the more he jumped around, the more difficult it would be. I don’t know how much he intentionally chose these locations, but it was effective in making things more difficult for us.”

The FBI agents did some legwork on Robinson and quickly discovered his activities on many criminal fronts. They also connected him with the ex-convict Irvin Blattner, who may have helped Robinson with several moneymaking scams. The U.S. Secret Service was investigating both men for forging a signature on a government check. While Haymes and the FBI were trying to construct a case against the pair, the district attorney’s office in Johnson County was working on a parallel investigation into Equi-II and the apparently fraudulent role Robinson had played in posing as a divorce lawyer for Mildred Amadi. Law enforcement was moving in on Robinson from every side and his arrest seemed imminent, but the closer they got, the more resourceful he became.

One lead the police ran down was a Cora Holmes, who’d met Robinson through a stripper friend of hers. Holmes was looking for work and had called the man to see if he could employ her in any capacity. He explained to her that the cops were harassing him about a missing person and he needed her help. Holmes then lied to the police by telling them that Lisa had recently spent the night at her house and had made plans to go to Arkansas with a man named Bill Summers. While Holmes was misleading the local detectives, Special Agent Lavin and Overland Park detective Cindy Scott contacted the woman whom Robinson claimed had hired Stasi as a baby-sitter. Under their grilling, she admitted that she too had lied for Robinson because she owed him $900 and had posed nude for him in the past. He had pictures of her that she didn’t want shown around, so she’d gone along with his plan.

The FBI now created a sting operation, using one of their agents to go undercover as a prostitute. Her job was to have lunch with Robinson, while wearing a wire, and to tape their conversation. During the meal, he told her that he ran a business employing call girls. His clientele consisted mostly of professional men—doctors, lawyers, and judges—and the work paid extremely well. If the agent was willing to fly to Dallas or Denver for a weekend encounter, she could earn as much as $3,000, but there were conditions. She would not only have sex with the men but engage in sadomasochistic practices. The S&M routines, he explained to the agent in disguise, usually involved a dominant partner and a submissive one, with the former pursuing pleasure through bondage or various ways of inflicting pain on the submissive. The dominant might spank, tie up, or whip the other person. The agent expressed her willingness to work with Robinson, but the FBI quickly backed off from the scheme because they realized just how serious he was and were afraid she might get hurt.

The FBI felt that Robinson was so dangerous that they advised the Truman Medical Center to get the two young women out of his Troost Avenue apartment at once. The center complied.

Despite law enforcement’s fears, making a case against Robinson was proving to be challenging. Both local and federal agencies, including the Secret Service, kept looking for ways to ensnare him, and in mid-March 1985, they got their first break. Irv Blattner turned against his old partner, signing a statement for the Secret Service that connected Robinson to numerous financial crimes. The next day, at a few minutes before noon on March 21, 1985, when Robinson showed up at Haymes’s office for a probation meeting, he was arrested. As Haymes transported him to the Clay County Jail, Robinson told the officer that Tiffany and Lisa had been located and were doing just fine. After being booked, Robinson posted a $50,000 bond and was released within a few hours. He was back on the street and back in the business he was learning to master: finding novel ways of doing to others whatever his imagination could conceive of, while finding other ways of avoiding prison. Nothing quite matched the perverse joy of beating anyone out of anything he could.

“The con game was everything to him,” Haymes says. “He just loved the game.”

A day after Robinson’s arrest, Haymes learned to his extreme concern that Robinson had not merely been trying to lure young mothers and children away from Hope House, but had been working the same scam at another Kansas City maternity home, known as the White House. To Haymes’s knowledge, the man had not been successful in getting any kids out of the White House—so far.

On March 26, Robinson and his attorney, Bruce Houdek, came to Haymes’s office to address the matter of Robinson’s parole violation on three separate counts. Haymes was reviewing the probationer’s recent behavior and putting together a report for Judge John Hutcherson.

“Robinson is continuing to involve himself in criminal activity,” Haymes wrote in the report. “Robinson has been involved in criminal activity for over fifteen years and, to date, has managed to obtain probation when caught, but never required to serve a significant period of incarceration.”

This seemed finally, after years of Robinson’s avoiding any harsh punishment, about to change. The case against him was about to get much stronger, but Robinson was a far more creative and elusive adversary than anyone had yet understood.