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Victim's sister-in-law IDs alleged serial killer
By Sue Miller Wiltz
OLATHE, Kansas (Court TV) -- Before she disappeared forever, Lisa Stasi was homeless. She had split from her husband and moved with her infant daughter into a battered women's shelter called Hope House. Then she met John Osborne. A Johnson County businessman, Osborne wanted to help Stasi find a job and get her GED. He put her up in a hotel, although against her sister-in-law's wishes. "I told her she ought to be cautious because, for one, she didn't know him all that well," the sister-in-law, Kathy Klinginsmith, testified Friday. "She didn't know what his intentions were." His intentions, prosecutors now say, were the worst possible: to kill Stasi and give her baby to his brother for adoption. They allege that the man called Osborne -- who was actually John E. Robinson Sr. -- killed Stasi and five other women, two more in Kansas and three in Missouri. Stasi's body was never found, but the bodies of the other two Kansas women, Izabela Lewicka and Suzette Trouten, were found stuffed into barrels on Robinson's rural Kansas property. The more bodies were found in barrels in a Missouri storage space. Klinginsmith identified Robinson in court Friday, the 10th day of testimony in his trial for the three Kansas murders, as the man who came to pick Stasi up on that snowy afternoon in January 1985, the last day she ever saw her sister-in-law alive. Klinginsmith explained to the jury that she looked after 4-month-old Tiffany when Stasi dropped her off and went out for the day and evening on Jan. 8, 1985. "I fed her, she slept a long time, she took a bubble bath," said Klinginsmith. Stasi had been married to Klinginsmith's brother, Carl Stasi. Returning to fetch Tiffany the next morning, Stasi told Klinginsmith that "Osborne" had put her up in the Rodeway Inn in Overland Park and now he was looking for her, Klinginsmith testified. Stasi called the front desk of the Rodeway and left a message for Osborne to call her at Klinginsmith's house. The phone rang a few minutes later and Klinginsmith gave Osborne directions to her house. "He came to the door about 25 minutes later, rang the doorbell," said Klinginsmith. "I went to the door with my son, who was 5, and Lisa put on her coat." He didn't waste any time on pleasantries, she said. "He didn't say anything to me. He just stood there and looked at me." Then, she said, Lisa carried Tiffany to Osborne's car, which was parked down the street. She left her own yellow Toyota Corolla and many of her belongings behind. The next morning, Klinginsmith phoned the Rodeway Inn, only to discover that Lisa and Tiffany had checked out of Room 131 and that the bill had been settled by John Robinson, not John Osborne. She reported him to the Overland Park Police and the FBI. Prosecutor Paul Morrison asked Klinginsmith if the man who came to pick up Stasi and her baby was in the courtroom. She identified Robinson. Prosecutors say that Robinson later arranged for Tiffany to be adopted by his brother and sister-in-law, Don and Helen Robinson, telling them the baby's mother had committed suicide. He then pocketed $5,500 for arranging the adoption, they allege. Tiffany, who is now almost the age her mother was when she disappeared, is believed to still be living with her adoptive parents in suburban Chicago. Robinson's wife, Nancy, testified earlier in the trial that he brought home an unkempt baby who smelled and had dirt under her fingernails. A former correspondent for Newsweek and People Weekly, Sue Miller Wiltz is currently writing a book about Robinson for Pinnacle Books. She is covering the trial for Courttv.com.
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