The trip from the rolling Kansas prairie across the Missouri border to the gritty, urban precincts of Troost Avenue took barely half an hour. It was still early on this Saturday morning in late May of Robinson let himself into the brick apartment building—he had his own keys—and then into the apartment itself, a two-bedroom unit on the third floor.
The woman in residence, Theresa Williams, 21, had been asleep but bolted awake when Robinson barged into her bedroom. Theresa, momentarily speechless, started screaming. There was a loud click.
The chamber was empty. Cowering and crying softly now, Theresa stiffened as J. The terrified woman, her sobs slowly ebbing, did not summon help. She felt helpless. One did not cross J. To all appearances, J. Robinson was a doting father and husband. His neighbors knew J. He was also a founding elder of the nearby Presbyterian Church. Neither his neighbors nor his children knew that J. Robinson led a second life—secret and sordid—dating back nearly two decades.
How much his wife knew was unclear, even years later. He was a sexual predator, a deviant, and a pimp. And in the mids in Kansas he was becoming something much more sinister—a murderer of women.
Indeed, J. Robinson is rare in the annals of American crime: a genial con man and a homicidal monster all in one.
