TOPEKA — On a split decision, the Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for notorious serial killer John Robinson. Sr. Earlier this year, Robinson appealed his death sentence. The appeal was complicated; his attorneys raised dozens of issues in the appeal, and the state filed its own set of issues. The justices ruled the state made one mistake in the case but that wasn’t enough to overturn the death sentence. The 71-year-old Robinson, also known as the Slavemaster, was sentenced to death in 2003 for the murders of three women, Suzette Trouten, 24, Newport, Mich., Izabela Lewicka, 21, West Lafayette, Ind., and Lisa Stasi, whose body was never found. Detectives found Stasi’s daughter alive in 2000 in Chicago. Robinson’s relatives adopted her, not realizing it was a sham adoption. Robinson stuffed the bodies of several women into barrels in both Missouri and on his Linn County property near LaCygne. Investigators believe that not all of Robinson’s victims were accounted for. He is regarded as among the first Internet serial killesr and he trolled chat-rooms for his victims, saying he was seeking women who wanted to be sex slaves.
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 3 p.m.
