Paula Godfrey

In the late summer of 1984, Paula Guylene Godfrey was a promising and ambitious 19-year-old woman living in Overland Park, Kansas. A 1983 graduate of Olathe North High School and an accomplished amateur figure skater, Paula was eager to launch a career in business. Her life seemed to be heading in an exciting new direction when she told her family she had been hired by a man named John Edward Robinson Sr. He offered her a position as a sales representative for his management consulting firm, Equi II, a seemingly legitimate opportunity that included traveling for training.

On September 1, 1984, Robinson arrived at the Godfrey family home to drive Paula to the airport. She believed she was flying to San Antonio, Texas, for a clerical skills course as part of her new job. It was the last time her family would see her alive. When days passed with no word, Paula's concerned father flew to San Antonio to find her. He discovered she had never checked into her hotel. Upon his return to Overland Park, he confronted Robinson, who denied knowing anything about her whereabouts. The family's confusion and fear deepened when they received a typewritten letter with their daughter's signature. The letter claimed she was "OK" and wanted to start a new life, expressing a desire to cut off contact. Her loved ones immediately suspected it was a forgery, noting it contained grammatical errors uncharacteristic of Paula. However, because she was an adult and there was no concrete proof of foul play, the initial police investigation into her disappearance was terminated.

For 16 agonizing years, Paula's case remained cold, a source of unending pain for her family. The break they had long prayed for came in June 2000, not from a direct tip about Paula, but from the arrest of John Edward Robinson Sr. in connection with the disappearances of other women. Investigators searching his property in Linn County, Kansas, and a storage locker in Raymore, Missouri, made a series of horrifying discoveries: the remains of multiple women stuffed into 55-gallon barrels. Robinson, a prolific con man with a criminal record stretching back decades, had been using online chatrooms to lure some of his later victims into sadomasochistic relationships, earning him the moniker "the Internet Slavemaster."

The discoveries prompted authorities to reopen the investigation into Paula Godfrey's 1984 disappearance, along with those of other women who had vanished after associating with Robinson. While he was tried and convicted in Kansas for three murders, receiving two death sentences and a life term, the case of Paula Godfrey was still officially unsolved. Her body had never been found, and Robinson refused to cooperate with investigators about the fates of his missing victims.

Closure for the Godfrey family finally came, not with a trial, but through a plea agreement in a Missouri court in October 2003. To avoid a potential second death sentence for murders committed in that state, John Robinson pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder. Two of those pleas were for the deaths of women whose bodies were never located: Catherine Clampitt and Paula Godfrey. Robinson, then 59, calmly and matter-of-factly admitted in court that he was responsible for Paula's death.

During the hearing, Paula's father, William Godfrey, stood before the court and spoke of his daughter's life and the devastating impact of her loss. He described her as an excellent student and a terrific ice skater whose mother would wake up early to take her to the rink. "After she disappeared, my wife was a changed woman," he said, his voice filled with emotion. "A big part of her was ripped away." The judge accepted the plea deal, citing the importance of bringing closure to the families of Godfrey and Clampitt. Robinson received five additional life sentences without the possibility of parole. As of November 2015, he remained on death row in Kansas. Paula Godfrey's remains have never been recovered.