THE woman who was kidnapped by a serial killer and sold to his family is having her story retold in a new movie.
At just five months old, Tiffany Stasi was snatched from her mother Lisa, by killer John Robinson in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1985.
She wouldn’t discover the chilling reality of her past and her unwell uncle until fifteen years later, when it was unveiled that he was a serial murderer, with her mother among his victims.
It is the focus of a new film Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story that airs tonight.
Tiffany was brought up as Heather Robinson by her adoptive parents Don and Frieda Robinson.
By the year 2000, her uncle John Robinson, the brother of Don, was apprehended following the examination of disappearances, leading to the finding of numerous women’s remains in barrels on his land.
At the age of fifteen, Heather finally came to know that Robinson had kidnapped her and consigned her to his relatives for an unlawful adoption in exchange for $5,500.
Her biological mother, Lisa, met Robinson after she went to a woman’s shelter following a split with Heather’s dad.
Robinson said he would help the pair find a home but instead he brutally killed her mother and sold the baby to his brother and sister-in-law who thought they were legally adopting her.
He had claimed 19-year-old Lisa committed suicide in a hotel room.
By the time of his arrest in 2000, the then 56-year-old had been linked to the murders of eight women.
He had a lengthy criminal record that included fraud and embezzlement and had tricked people with the alias of John Osbourne.
The depths of his depravity were not uncovered until a woman came forward accusing him of sexual assault and theft which led to a police search at his home near La Cygne, Kansas.
He had already been named as a person of interest in a number of cases across Missouri and Kansas of missing women.
HOUSE OF HORRORS
When cops scoured his farmland, they found barrels containing the decomposing bodies of Izabela Lewicka and Suzette Trouten.
Lewicka was reported missing in 1999 and Trouten in 2000.
The bodies of Beverly Bonner, Sheila Faith, and her daughter, Debbie Faith were later found at two storage units he rented in Missouri.
After his arrest, Heather’s DNA was tested which confirmed the truth about her adoption and the forged certificates.
In 2002, Robinson went on trial for the murders of Trouten, Lewicka, and Lisa Stasi, though her body was never recovered.
He was found guilty of all counts and handed two death sentences and a life sentence as well as convicted for the kidnap and false adoption of Heather.
A year later, he received more life sentences after pleading guilty to the murders of Paula Godfrey, Catherine Clampitt, Beverly Bonner, and Sheila and Debbie Faith.
Despite two life sentences being overturned in 2015, Robinson remains on death row at the age of 81.
He was found to have been one of the first killers to use the internet to lure in victims, speaking to women in online chat rooms under the username “slavemaster”.
I’d be dead. I would be in that barrel.
Heather Robinson
Authorities discovered that with some of his victims, Robinson engaged in sadomasochistic sex and master-slave relationships before killing them, per Biography.
In a rare interview with ABC News in 2019, Heather said she believes she witnessed her mother’s murder but does not remember it.
She said that while she was growing up, Uncle John “gave me this really weird, off-putting feeling in the pit of my stomach.”
“It’s like walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night while you know someone is behind you, approaching you closer and closer.”
Heather also claimed that just months before Robinson’s arrest, she nearly ended up as one of his murder victims.
At a wedding in Florida, she said he asked her sexual questions and offered to pay for a plane ticket so she could stay with him.
Had she said yes, Heather said: “I’d be dead. I would be in that barrel”.
Lisa’s remains have still not been recovered with Heather continuing efforts to try to find her biological mother to have her buried on a family plot.
Heather Tiffany Robinson was eventually legally adopted by Don and Frieda at the age of 18.
Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story airs on June 7 on Lifetime at 8/7c.
