Talking with Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking. Christopher Berry-Dee
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in 1997, Andrew emailed his daughter in Polish saying, ‘I write in Polish because I’m not 100 per cent positive that your letters are coming from you. […] As you know anyone could create an email account and sign it as you. If you would telephone, I would feel much, much better.’
Izabela purportedly replied, insisting that all further contact be in English.’ I have told you I’m happy,’ she wrote. ‘I’m well. I have a wonderful job and a wonderful man in my life who loves me. I want to be left alone. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.’
At JR’s subsequent trial for Izabela’s murder, a friend of the dead girl testified that Izabela had confided in her that she was going to do secretarial work for an international publishing agent named ‘John’, who was also going to train her to be an S&M dominatrix. Jennifer Hayes also told the court that Izabela was going to begin her sex education as a slave.
In January 1999, JR moved Izabela into another apartment, this one in Olathe. It was closer to his own home, which may account for his sometimes describing her as a graphic designer employed by his new internet company ‘Speciality Publications’. On occasion, however, he is known to have referred to her as his adopted daughter, while at other times he described her as his niece.
Then in August, Izabela Lewicka disappeared and was never heard from again. Police believe that she was killed and disposed of around that time. However, her parents continued to receive emails purportedly from their daughter up until Robinson’s arrest. In the final months, John said that she was always travelling in some exotic land. In one of her last ever emails, she claimed to have just returned from China.
We all finally find what we want and need and I found mine.
Suzette Trouten’s last email to her friend, 2000.
* * *
‘The Slavemaster’ soon returned to the world of sadomasochistic chatrooms. He made contact with Suzette Trouten, a bored 27- year-old licensed nurse from Newport, Michigan, who lived a double life; nurse by day, submissive slave by night. A substantially built young woman with a mass of bubbly brown hair, Suzette, whose non-sexual interests were collecting teapots and doting on her two Pekinese, pursued a highly active BDSM lifestyle, carrying on relationships with as many as four dominants at once.
Suzette had pierced not only her nipples and navel but also five places in and around her genitalia, all to accommodate rings and over devices used in BDSM rituals. A photograph of Suzette, with nails driven through her breasts, had been circulated on the internet and it must have acted like a magnet to JR. Quite understandably, a relationship soon developed. In fact, JR was so enamoured of his new submissive friend that he concocted a very attractive job offer to entice her to fly down from Michigan for an interview. He paid for her flight and when she arrived in Kansas City there was a limousine waiting at the airport to meet her.
The job, JR told her, involved being a companion and nurse to his very rich, elderly father, who travelled a lot but needed constant care. He went on to say that his father did most of his travelling on a yacht and that her duties would involve her sailing with them between California and Hawaii. For this, she would be paid a salary of $60,000 and be provided with an apartment and a car. JR neglected, however, to mention that the only way to have contact with his father would be through the use of an Ouija board or a medium, as the old man had been dead for some ten years. But as we have already established, JR was not a man to let such trivial details inhibit his grand design, so he gave Suzette to understand that the interview had gone well and the job was hers. She returned to Michigan and began putting her affairs in order before relocating to Kansas.
While she was making ready to move, Suzette spoke to her mother, Carolyn, to whom she was very close, telling her all about her new job. In fact she also gave her mother JR’s telephone numbers – giving police a lead to follow when she later disappeared in March. She also discussed the job offer with Lore Remington, an eastern Canadian friend. The two women had met in a chatroom and shared an interest in BDSM. Later Suzette introduced Lore to JR on the internet, and they too developed a long-distance, dominant-submissive, cyber-sex relationship.
In February 2000, Suzette rented a truck, loaded it with her belongings and headed off to her new life in Kansas City. Along with her clothes, books, a collection of teapots, and the two Pekinese, she took with her an array of BDSM accessories, including whips, paddles, handcuffs, various lengths of chains, numerous items made from rubber, and just about anything else that a self-respecting, bona-fide BDSM enthusiast might care to invent. And, on John’s insistence, and although he had no interest in the game, she also purchased two golf balls (brand name undetermined) and a length of elastic, but more this later.
Lenexa is a busy suburb of Kansas City, lying west of Overland Park and north of Olathe, and it was there that Robinson took Suzette when she arrived on Monday, 14 February 2000. He had reserved accommodation for her, specifically Room 216 at the Guesthouse Suites, an extended stay hotel. Claiming that they didn’t allow pets at the hotel, he told her that he had generously arranged for her dogs, Peka and Harry, to be boarded at the kennels of the Ridgeview Animal Hospital in Olathe.
As soon as Suzette had settled in, JR told her to get herself a passport as they would be leaving in a fortnight. He also produced a master/slave contract covering their BDSM activities, which she duly signed. Then, ominously, he got her to attach her signature to 30 sheets of blank paper and to address more than 40 envelopes to relatives and some of her friends. Just as he had done with other women, he told Suzette that he would take care of her correspondence while they were travelling, as she would be too busy to do so herself.
Suzette was the youngest of a family of five children and, according to her mother, Carolyn, ‘was a kind of mama’s girl’. While she was in Kansas, she phoned her mother every day, keeping her informed of how things were going and, although Mom had at first worried that she would be homesick, she seemed to be in good spirits and was certainly happy with her employer, John Robinson. Evidently, he was happy with her too.
On 1 March, Carolyn spoke to her daughter, who was looking forward to her impending yacht cruise with her wealthy boss and his father, and Suzette promised to phone Carolyn regularly before she disappeared. After not having spoken with her daughter for some time, Carolyn made a few discreet enquiries, then she picked up the telephone and called the police.
Detective David Brown began an immediate and thorough investigation of the man he saw as the prime suspect, John Robinson. He obtained JR’s criminal antecedents then contacted the Overland Park Police. The ‘rap sheet’ acquainted him with the reports of other missing women and soon he saw a potential connection. After he had spoken to two other detectives and Stephen Haymes, Robinson’s probation officer in Missouri, it became clear that he could possibly be investigating a serial killer, and a somewhat clumsy one at that.
David Brown instructed the Trouten family and a few of JR’s acquaintances to tape their telephone conversations with him and to give the police copies of any emails that they received from him.
For several weeks after 1 March, Robinson spent time contacting Suzette’s submissive friends and some of her relatives by email, pretending to be her. Most weren’t fooled by the subterfuge. He soon dropped the act and set his sights on Suzette’s Canadian friend, Lore.
Lore and another Canadian woman began their own amateur investigation of the man they believed was named ‘JR Turner’. Robinson moved quickly after Lore told him she was interested in finding a dominant master for a friend. The emails and chat sessions turned to telephone calls, which were picked up by the police wire taps now in place. The Lenexa PD contacted Lore and told her they were investigating Robinson. They did not explain the extent of the probe, but asked her to continue the relationship.
‘The police didn’t tell me to get John Robinson to lure me to Kansas City,’ Lore said later at Robinson’s trial. ‘I was willing to help.’
Robinson made vague offers to Lore about meeting in her person. ‘He offered nothing other than I would be financially taken care of and never have to work,’ she said.
At the time that Suzette had been preparing to move to Kansas, the sexually insatiable