The Internet’s First Serial Killer: John Edward Robinson and the Bodies in Barrels
Terror Bites: Bite Sized True Crime
Audio Cowboy
5 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this chilling episode of Terror Bites, we unmask the horrifying double life of John Edward Robinson—widely regarded as the internet’s first documented serial killer. Long before online safety was even a concept, Robinson used early BDSM chatrooms and online classifieds to lure vulnerable women into deadly traps. Promising jobs, romance, and security, he manipulated his victims before silencing them forever and storing their bodies in industrial barrels across Kansas and Missouri.
But his crimes didn’t stop at murder. Robinson forged identities, cashed checks of the dead, and even stole a baby to raise as his own niece. With victims dating back to the 1980s and a string of cold cases still surrounding his name, Robinson turned digital trust into a murder weapon.
Tune in to hear how a seemingly ordinary man used the early internet to become one of the most terrifying predators in modern true crime history.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Terrorbytes, the True Crime Podcast, where the stories are dark, the laughs are twisted, and the terror, well, it's real. |
| 0:18.6 | I'm your host, and this where we dive into the most bizarre, chilling and |
| 0:23.5 | downright weird true crime stories you've never heard. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't |
| 0:29.1 | miss a single second of the madness. Before we swiped, matched, liked or double tapped, there were chat rooms. |
| 0:43.3 | Clunky, text-based, filled with dial-up screeches and strangers who could be anyone. |
| 0:51.3 | In the early 2000s, the internet was the Wild West. |
| 0:57.0 | No rules, no filters, just anonymous screens and fake names. |
| 1:03.7 | And one of those names was John Edward Robinson. |
| 1:08.4 | He was charming, intelligent, called himself a businessman, a family man, a mentor. |
| 1:17.7 | But behind the keyboard, behind the smiles, was a predator, a manipulator, and eventually |
| 1:27.3 | a killer. |
| 1:30.3 | John Edward Robinson wasn't just a murderer. |
| 1:33.3 | He was the internet's first documented serial killer, |
| 1:37.3 | the man who turned chat rooms into hunting grounds |
| 1:41.3 | and barrels into coffins. |
| 1:46.5 | It started decades earlier. |
| 1:52.4 | Robinson had always been a liar, a con man. |
| 2:00.4 | He forged documents, stole from companies, even faked being a lawyer. But it wasn't until the internet arrived that |
| 2:04.4 | his darkness truly thrived. He began frequenting BDSM chat rooms in the mid-1990s, under the alias |
| 2:13.7 | slave master. He offered women jobs, money, relationships, a place to belong. Some were |
| 2:23.9 | vulnerable. Some just looking for connection. All of them were walking into a trap. He lowered |
| 2:32.5 | them to Kansas City, promised them work, love, stability. |
... |
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