In June 1967, Graham reported to the Kansas City police that Robinson had embezzled about $33,000 from him by manipulating checks and deposits. Shortly after his release from hospital and further questioning by the KCPD, Christopher Bryson lapsed into cocaine abuse. They found three similar chemical drums containing corpses subsequently identified as Bonner, Faith, and Faith's daughter. 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." [4]:80 According to Berdella, he plied Howell with alcohol, Valium and acepromazine both in his car and at his house until the youth became unconscious. [4]:247 By this stage, Berdella had been openly gay for several years. [3], By then, Robinson had discovered the Internet and roamed online chatrooms using the name "Slavemaster," looking for women who enjoyed playing the submissive partner role during sex. [4]:307,309, According to Berdella, Pearson was by far the most cooperative of his six murder victims. Shortly thereafter, Pearson temporarily lodged with Berdella, and willingly performed chores around his home as a means of paying rent. Born in 1943, Robinson quickly turned to a life of crime, becoming involved in embezzlement and fraud. In 1964, he moved to Kansas City and married Nancy Jo Lynch, who gave birth to their first child, John Jr., in 1965, followed by daughter Kimberly in 1967, and twins Christopher and Christine in 1971. [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. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Sometime during the summer of 1999, Lewicka disappeared. In 2007, Heather and the hospital reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum, which Heather said she would split with her biological grandmother, Patricia Sylvester. 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. [4]:121122, As numerous male names had been found scrawled upon various stenographer's pads at Berdella's address, the detectives began attempting to trace each of them. It has been almost 15 years since a stream of crimson liquid, oozing from a metal barrel, revealed a serial killer's grisly handiwork. The house belonged to Robert Berdella, the man who would soon become known as Kansas City's most notorious serial killer. She was initially considered a possible victim but was later identified as Lois Tomich, who police believe was killed by her ex-husband. In response, Randall sarcastically remarked: "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Legal Statement. [6], In 2005, Nancy Robinson filed for divorce after forty-one years of marriage, citing incompatibility and irreconcilable differences. Stasi was never heard from again. [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. A metal tray containing syringes, small bottles apparently containing prescription drugs, swabs, and eye drops were also close to the bed. He formally pleaded guilty to each of these charges before Judge Robert Meyers in the Jackson County Circuit Court. On September 25, the Kansas City Defender, a non-profit newsroom, posted a TikTok of Bishop Tony Caldwell, a local community leader, claiming "there is a serial killer currently on the loose in Kansas City" and that four Black women had been murdered and three others went missing from Prospect Avenue in the last week. 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. [4]:316317 An interview with Robert Sheldon's employers at a Kansas City manufacturing plant had confirmed the young man had been a reliable employee of theirs, but that he had suddenly ceased attending work in April 1985. As a form of reward, Pearson was moved to the second floor, with Berdella first informing Pearson that if he continued to cooperate, he would not continue to inflict as much pain upon him as he had done so while he had been held captive in the basement. Bob Berdella, the Kansas City Butcher, might have been viewed as an odd man by neighbors, but no one ever suspected that he was responsible for raping, torturing, and murdering seven men in 1980s Kansas City. In 1965, Berdella saw the film adaptation of the John Fowles novel The Collector. After Stoops and his wife moved out of Berdella's home the second time, Berdella did not see him again until a chance encounter at KansasCity's Liberty Memorial Park on June 17, 1986. The unnamed victim still had a collar with a padlock around her neck that was later removed by police. CA$250.00 Attention international customers. [4]:299300, During the second week of his capture, Stoops asked Berdella for a soft drink and sandwich. When Berdella refused, Stoops burst into tears. After hearing nothing further from her, Godfrey's parents filed a missing persons report. For several years, Bonner's mother continued forwarding her alimony checks and Robinson continued cashing them. Robinson hired her, reportedly with the promise of extensive travel and a new wardrobe. Pick your location. [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). In 1994, the mother and daughter moved from Fullerton, California, to Kansas City and immediately disappeared. The rumor . In this testimony, Berdella claimed the movie he had first seen in 1965, The Collector, had left a major impression on him. As a means of obtaining additional income, he also sold items of art and antiques he had accrued and collected from contacts he had established in Africa, Asia, South America, and various Pacific Rim countries. [n 9], On July 22, 1988, a grand jury formally indicted Berdella for the murder of Larry Wayne Pearson. [2]:9, Over time, Robinson became increasingly careless, and his ability to avoid detection declined. [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. By his mid-teens, Berdella had begun to display a degree of self-confidence, becoming rude and condescending to others, particularly women. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. 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. 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". 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. At the age of 14, in a rather . [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. By the summer of 1984, Jerry Howell had turned 19. Right now John E. Robinson is in his 70s, sitting on death row in Kansas. We're happy to ship internationally, please contact us prior to order for an accurate shipping quote. [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. Before Friday's ruling, the court had faced criticism over the number of death sentences it had overturned. [18], Later questioned by officers investigating Howell's disappearance, Berdella claimed to have driven the youth to Merriam as promised, and that the two had parted company close to Howell's intended destination. Robert Berdella was born on January 31, 1949, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio,[4]:45 the first of two sons born to Robert Andrew Berdella Sr., a die setter for the Ford Motor Company, and Mary Louise (ne Huffman) Berdella. [24] The meter reader led Bryson to the house he had been approaching, whereupon the occupants promptly called the police, who arrived minutes later. [29] Prosecutors had gathered sufficient circumstantial evidence to accompany the physical evidence retrieved. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! [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. 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. The Blair family is a well-known crime family in Kansas City. He also wrote several letters to a local minister claiming that prison officials knew of his high blood pressure, yet were not providing him with his prescribed heart medication. 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. [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. [18], Shortly after, the judge at his trial, Alvin Randall, was informed of Berdella's death. 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. [n 4], "You did not choose to be here, but you are. Market data provided by Factset. [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. [2]:4, In 1984, having established two more fraudulent shell companies, Robinson hired Paula Godfrey, aged 19, ostensibly to work as a sales representative. [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. His third, noncapital conviction in Kansas was in connection with the 1985 death of Lisa Stasi, a 19-year-old who was last seen by her family with Robinson in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. Missouri aggressively pursued capital punishment convictions, so Robinson's attorneys wanted to avoid a trial there. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Hours. Robert Andrew Berdella Jr. (January 31, 1949 - October 8, 1992) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered at least six young men after having forced his victims to endure periods of up to six weeks of captivity. The frightened 22-year-old told Kansas City police that she's been locked in a basement for a month and identified 39-year-old . Simultaneously, he began to devote more of his attention to his own business as opposed to his work as a chef. Alarming social media posts warning of a Kansas City serial killer are untrue, according to police. [30][n 10] The plea was entered following a late-morning recess in the arraignment hearing into this particular murder, and came as a surprise to both the judge, and prosecuting attorneys. Berdella was taken to a hospital in Columbia, Missouri, where he was pronounced dead from a heart attack at 3:55p.m. For example, at one point in relation to victim James Ferris, Berdella had written an entry reading: "2 1/2 ket nk + shoulder" to indicate he had injected 2.2 cubic centimeters of ketamine into his victim's neck and shoulder. He then injected Howell with a heavy tranquilizer before binding the youth to his bed. Born Robert Andrew Berdella Jr. on January 31, 1949, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, the man who would become this terrifying killer grew up in a deeply religious Roman Catholic family in the early 1950s. She did sign a 115-item slave contract that gave Robinson almost total control over every aspect of her life, including her bank accounts. [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. As a child Berdella was intelligent, but a loner who rarely played outside his home and seldom had friends visit to socialize. Convicted serial killer John E. Robinson's death penalty was upheld in a 415-page ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday. He received a 5-to-20-year prison sentence for interfering with the parental custody of Stasi's baby, 20.5 years for kidnapping Trouten, and seven months for theft. 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. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering appeals in three such cases, including those of brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr, who were convicted of dozens of crimes leading up to the murders of four people in a snow-covered soccer field in Wichita in December 2000. [17], Howell was restrained to Berdella's bed for a period of approximately 28 hours. According to evidence during his trial, Robinson used the Internet to lure Trouten and Lewicka to Kansas, and their bodies were found in June 2000 in large barrels on Robinson's rural property 60 miles south of Kansas City. He won't ever tell. Nonetheless, investigators did discover that, in August 1987, Berdella had filed an assault report from a hospital room in which he alleged a man named "Larry Person" had deeply bitten his penis during oral sex, causing a serious laceration. 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. In 1977, he was named to the board of directors of a local charitable organization where he forged letters from its executive director to the mayor of Kansas City and from the mayor to civic leaders, naming him as the organization's Man of the Year. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. 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. According to Berdella, one hour after his "experimenting" with hypodermic needles by inserting them into various muscles upon his victim's back, Mark Wallace died through a combination of "the drugs, the gag, and the lack of oxygen". [n 6], On the afternoon of Bryson's escape, Berdella was arrested on charges pertaining to the sexual assault of Christopher Bryson. Investigators suspect that more victims remain undiscovered. [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. At the Western Missouri Correctional Facility, he met 49-year-old Beverly Bonner, the prison librarian. For the first time, we're hearing from the daughter of one of his victims, and it's an unbelievable story you'll . On Christmas Day 1965, the Berdella family drove to Canton, Ohio to visit relatives. 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. Berdella further claimed he had not seen him since. [2] His crimes took place in Kansas City, Missouri, between 1984 and 1987. All five women were killed in the same way, by one or more blows to the head with a blunt instrument. Mon 7am-4pm. [4]:302 On July 1, 1986, Stoops died; a forensic pathologist later testified that the ruptured anal wall caused septic shock which proved fatal. He had a speech impediment and wore thick glasses from the age of five because he was severely nearsighted. Unfortunately for those of us who have lived here all our lives, there has been more than one serial killer in Kansas - including one of the most terrifying serial killers of all time: Dennis Rader, also known as BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill). The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2019), pp. In addition, he began regularly abusing alcohol. However, he would later state to investigators that he had thought almost constantly about escaping. In both instances, he had denied having anything to do with the disappearance. Paul Howell formally identified one picture of a young man hanging upside down in Berdella's basement as depicting his son. Wallace willingly accepted the offer and, 30 minutes later, Berdella decided to render him captive. [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. File photo The Kansas City Star John E. Robinson Sr., the. Robinson, who has never cooperated with investigators, refused. [4]:103, In 1969, Berdella voluntarily withdrew from KCAI after receiving harsh criticism from college administrators for killing and cooking a duck for the sake of art. Following the senses of shock and disgust he claimed to have initially experienced after killing his first victim,[4]:270 the movie had resurfaced in his memory and subsequently became a motivating psychological force in the actions he exhibited against his victims in his subsequent murders. [11] Also found in the room were a long iron pipe, various lengths of rope, and leather belts. [8]:271, In the spring of 1987, Berdella became friendly with a 20-year-old named Larry Wayne Pearson. [4]:269, Berdella confessed that many of the abbreviated entries within his torture logs were simply shorthand terms for methods of abuse he had inflicted upon his victims, whereas others would describe either their reactions to these ongoing acts of abuse and torture, or his initial observations upon viewing them when he entered the room where he had kept them restrained. [7] Heather won a second judgment in 2007 preventing Robinson from profiting from any future potential book sales or film rights. (AP Photo/Matthew S. Hicks, Pool). KANSAS CITY, Mo. 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.