Read Online The Killer Book of Cold Cases by Tom Philbin - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Philbin
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set every year in the United States, killing more than 700 Americans and making arson the second leading cause of residential fire deaths. The shocker is who sets the fires. Close to 75 percent of firefighters in this country are volunteers, something investigators obviously were not aware of when Orr was active. In an ironic twist, hundreds of convicted arsonists have come from their ranks. In 2000, for example, a volunteer fireman in Tennessee was killed during a blaze at an abandoned home, but he did not die as a result of fighting the fire. He and six other volunteers had set the fire, and he was trapped while spreading gasoline in the attic.
Q. How much property is destroyed by fire, and how many arsonists are convicted?
A. Arson is far and away the leading cause of property loss, costing more than two billion dollars a year. And the perps get away with it: About 16 percent of all arsonists are never arrested, and only 2 percent are tried and convicted, according to the Department of Justice.
Notable Quotable
“We all finally find what we want and need, and I found mine.”
—Suzette Trouten, one of John Robinson’s murder victims
In the early 1980s, over a period of years, women started to disappear near Kansas City in the border area where Kansas and Missouri meet. Police didn’t know why or how these disappearances were occurring, but the cops would come to realize that some of the disappearances were related to the twisted psyches of the women involved. In other words, the person who made them disappear would not have been able to do so if he had not been targeting women whose conditions made them susceptible to being taken advantage of.
The man at the center of the mystery was John E. Robinson, who was into sadism and masochism (S and M) with a twist. At one point, Robinson billed himself as “the Slavemaster” on the Internet, and he no doubt treated his women with profound cruelty.
What strikes me as very curious is why those women couldn’t at least have sensed what he was really like. Perhaps they did, but their overwhelming need to be dominated—and, in a curious way, loved that way—made them look to the side rather than straight at the man to determine what he was really like.
What’s A Sociopath?
When I think about John Robinson, I certainly think of the term “sociopath.” I describe a sociopath as someone who does not care about anyone but himself and has no feelings of guilt, no conscience. New York psychiatrist Martin Weich, MD, used the following story to explain what a sociopath is like.
“Let’s say,” said the doctor, “that there’s a freshly baked, hot apple pie cooling outside on a windowsill that’s easy to get at.
“One person will come up and think like this: ‘Hmm, that’s looks good. I’d love to take it. But it’s not mine, and taking it would be wrong.’ So that person leaves.
“Another person arrives and says: ‘Hmm, a hot apple pie. I’d love to take this, but if I do and I get caught, there will be consequences. Frig it. I don’t care!’ So he takes the pie and runs away.
“The third person comes up, sees the pie, and says to himself, ‘Hmm, a hot apple pie. I love that.’ So he takes it, no guilt, no nothing, and runs away.
“That,” the psychiatrist said, “is the sociopath.”
Of course, that is only part of the story. A sociopath like John Robinson cares only for himself, and can often suffer psychotic breaks and harbor a huge rage that every now and then explodes, and somebody ends up dead.
Frankly, Robinson—and people like him—are difficult to write about in an emotionally understanding way because I am neither a psychopath nor a sociopath. I care about others.
All-American Boy
Perhaps if those women had known a little about Robinson’s background, they would have run for the hills. His life started ordinarily enough. When he was young, John Robinson did not give any indication that anything inside himself was awry. He was born
Q. How much property is destroyed by fire, and how many arsonists are convicted?
A. Arson is far and away the leading cause of property loss, costing more than two billion dollars a year. And the perps get away with it: About 16 percent of all arsonists are never arrested, and only 2 percent are tried and convicted, according to the Department of Justice.
Notable Quotable
“We all finally find what we want and need, and I found mine.”
—Suzette Trouten, one of John Robinson’s murder victims
In the early 1980s, over a period of years, women started to disappear near Kansas City in the border area where Kansas and Missouri meet. Police didn’t know why or how these disappearances were occurring, but the cops would come to realize that some of the disappearances were related to the twisted psyches of the women involved. In other words, the person who made them disappear would not have been able to do so if he had not been targeting women whose conditions made them susceptible to being taken advantage of.
The man at the center of the mystery was John E. Robinson, who was into sadism and masochism (S and M) with a twist. At one point, Robinson billed himself as “the Slavemaster” on the Internet, and he no doubt treated his women with profound cruelty.
What strikes me as very curious is why those women couldn’t at least have sensed what he was really like. Perhaps they did, but their overwhelming need to be dominated—and, in a curious way, loved that way—made them look to the side rather than straight at the man to determine what he was really like.
What’s A Sociopath?
When I think about John Robinson, I certainly think of the term “sociopath.” I describe a sociopath as someone who does not care about anyone but himself and has no feelings of guilt, no conscience. New York psychiatrist Martin Weich, MD, used the following story to explain what a sociopath is like.
“Let’s say,” said the doctor, “that there’s a freshly baked, hot apple pie cooling outside on a windowsill that’s easy to get at.
“One person will come up and think like this: ‘Hmm, that’s looks good. I’d love to take it. But it’s not mine, and taking it would be wrong.’ So that person leaves.
“Another person arrives and says: ‘Hmm, a hot apple pie. I’d love to take this, but if I do and I get caught, there will be consequences. Frig it. I don’t care!’ So he takes the pie and runs away.
“The third person comes up, sees the pie, and says to himself, ‘Hmm, a hot apple pie. I love that.’ So he takes it, no guilt, no nothing, and runs away.
“That,” the psychiatrist said, “is the sociopath.”
Of course, that is only part of the story. A sociopath like John Robinson cares only for himself, and can often suffer psychotic breaks and harbor a huge rage that every now and then explodes, and somebody ends up dead.
Frankly, Robinson—and people like him—are difficult to write about in an emotionally understanding way because I am neither a psychopath nor a sociopath. I care about others.
All-American Boy
Perhaps if those women had known a little about Robinson’s background, they would have run for the hills. His life started ordinarily enough. When he was young, John Robinson did not give any indication that anything inside himself was awry. He was born
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