Accused serial killer's Missouri trial to move forward

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. -- A judge has granted accused serial killer John E. Robinson's request to speed up the murder case against him in Missouri.

Cass County Associate Circuit Judge Williams Collins on Monday allowed Robinson's attorneys to begin working with court officials there and in Johnson County, Kan. They plan to set up a two-way video system so Robinson could be arraigned in Cass County and remain in the Johnson County jail.

Prosecutors had expressed concerns that Robinson's request to speed up the Missouri trial was part of an effort to complicate his prosecution in Kansas.

Collins denied Robinson's request for a gag order that would prevent attorneys and law-enforcement officials from commenting on the case, though a gag order is in effect in the Kansas court.

Robinson, 58, is scheduled to go to trial in September in Johnson County District Court on charges that he killed three women. He faces three other murder charges in Cass County.

Cass County Prosecutor Chris Koster, who said Robinson had made several attempts to delay his trial in Kansas, argued that Robinson may have other motives for asserting constitutional speedy-trial rights in Missouri.

Robinson's motive, Koster said, "has less to do with his Sixth Amendment rights and more to do with taking the legal systems of both states and trying to run them into each other."