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Woman Opens Up About Being Raised In The Shadow Of The Serial Killer Who Murdered Her Mother
Heather Tiffany Robinson was just 4 months old when John Robinson killed her mom, Lisa Stasi, and gave her to his brother to raise.
A woman who was raised by the brother of the serial killer who murdered her mother is telling her astonishing story.
Heather Tiffany Robinson was just 15 when she realized that her Uncle John, a man who she says completely creeped her out as a kid, was a serial killer and she wasn’t shocked about the revelation.
“It was kind of confirmation. I wasn’t shocked. [...] It was reassurance that I wasn’t crazy, that that off-putting feeling, that horrible vibe and energy around him was very real and I wasn’t making it up in my head,” Robinson said in an interview that will air on ABC News’ “20/20” on Friday at 9 p.m. ET.
Robinson was just 4 months old when she and her mother Lisa Stasi vanished in Kansas City, Missouri in 1985, according to “20/20.” When serial killer John Robinson was arrested 15 years later and charged with killing multiple women, investigators also linked him to Stasi. Fingerprints confirmed that Heather was Stasi’s child.
Investigators soon realized that the killer gave Heather (then named Tiffany) to his brother and his wife, who were desperate for a child but had experienced trouble conceiving, after forging adoption papers. The newly adoptive parents didn’t suspect any foul play and renamed the baby Heather Tiffany Robinson.
The two-hour special will feature an conversation between Heather and her adoptive father, Donald Robinson. It also follows her on her quest to find out exactly what happened to her mother.
"I want to find out where she is. I want to know who she was," Heather says. "She was a scared, abused, 19-year-old girl with a newborn, desperate to keep her child [and] be a mother. That was the whole reason John got her. ... I know I will. I'll find her.”
She believes she may have been present as a baby when her mother was killed.
Stasi's remains have never been found. The bodies of two other missing women were discovered, however, when John Robinson was arrested in 2000 for sexual battery and theft of sex toys. When investigators searched one of his properties, they found two bodies stuffed in barrels. Later, more bodies were found in a storage unit. An investigation into the killer’s crimes revealed that he often used to the internet to lure his victims, according to a 2013 Vanity Fair story.
Robinson was found guilty of three murders in Kansas in 2003 and was sentenced to death, a sentence he's been trying to appeal, according to a 2017 Kansas City Star story. Robinson also pleaded guilty in Missouri two years later to the murders of five additional women. Two other victims in addition to Stasi have never been found.
