New details revealed in case of bodies stored in barrels

OLATHE, Kan. -- A search of the property of serial murder suspect John E. Robinson Sr. turned up blood on everything from duct tape to a door threshold.

Those and other details about the evidence seized in the investigation emerged Friday in court documents filed by both sides in Robinson's trial. The motion did not mention the results of later testing on those items.

Among the motions that attorneys for Robinson filed were more challenges to the legality of police searches of Robinson's property.

Robinson is scheduled for trial in September on capital murder charges in the deaths of two women whose bodies were found in June 2000 in metal barrels on property he owned in Linn County. He also is charged with first-degree murder in the death of another woman who disappeared in 1985 and whose body has not been found.

After the Kansas case is completed, Missouri prosecutors plan to try Robinson on charges of killing three women whose bodies were found in barrels in Cass County.

The defense argues that investigator Dawn Layman did not have a warrant to be on Robinson's property on March 30, 2000, when she took photographs and peered into a window of the trailer.

That day's surveillance later was used to support later search warrants. The defense argues that all the evidence obtained in those searches should be thrown out.

In their motion, prosecutors defended the search that found two bodies in barrels in June 2000. The affidavit supporting the search warrant was 10 pages long and contained 15 pages of attachments.

The prosecution argued it provided more than adequate probable cause for the search.

The defense also challenges the use of blood, hair and saliva samples taken from Robinson after his arrest.

Monitored phone calls

Other previously undisclosed evidence and details of the investigation were revealed in the motions filed by Robinson's attorneys. That includes the fact that police received court permission to monitor Robinson's home telephone calls.

The defense said Friday that it plans to challenge that activity in a future motion.

Defense motions also show that police were searching for "blunt objects including but not limited to hammers and a two-wheeled dolly." The victims died from blows to the head.

Prosecutors responded to earlier arguments that the Johnson County judge did not have the right to issue the warrant in Linn County. Kansas law, the prosecution said, does not bar district judges from issuing warrants outside their own counties.

A hearing on the motions has been set for April 1.