Olathe ? Prosecutors rested their multiple-murder case Thursday against John E. Robinson Sr., and defense attorneys presented three witnesses who testified about the death of a woman from Michigan.

Johnson County Dist. Atty. Paul Morrison and his assistant, Sara Welch, spent 14 days presenting more than 100 witnesses and hundreds more pieces of evidence, including two yellow, 85-gallon barrels in which the bodies of two women were found.

Prosecutors said the barrels were found on Robinson’s property in June 2000.

Morrison is seeking the death penalty, alleging that the murders were part of a scheme that involved financial gain, sadomasochistic sex or both.

Judge John Anderson III dismissed an aggravated sexual battery charge against Robinson involving a clinical psychologist from Texas who was the prosecution’s final witness.

The woman had testified that she was battered during a four-day sadomasochistic encounter with Robinson in April 2000, at an Overland Park hotel.

Anderson had dismissed a similar charge in 2001 after Robinson’s preliminary hearing.

“The evidence, if anything, got thinner,” Anderson said.

Lyla Thompson, Johnson County Sheriff's deputy, is shown in an artist's rendering while testifying during the John E. Robinson Sr. trial at the Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe. Thompson, who testified Wednesday and Thursday, talked about the results of her analysis of fingerprints found on plastic wrapped around 55-gallon barrels.

Robinson, 58, of Olathe, is charged in Kansas with capital murder in the deaths of Suzette Trouten, 27, who moved to Kansas from Michigan in early 2000, and Izabela Lewicka, 21, a Polish immigrant and former Purdue University student. Their bodies were found in barrels on Robinson’s 16.5-acre tract of land in Linn County, about 60 miles south of Kansas City.

He also is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lisa Stasi, 19, who disappeared in 1985 and has never been found.

Robinson is awaiting arraignment on capital murder charges in Cass County, Mo., in the deaths of Beverly Bonner, 49, of Cameron, Mo., and Sheila Faith, 45, and her daughter Debbie, 16, both formerly of California. Those bodies were found on June 5, 2000, three days after Robinson’s arrest in Kansas, in barrels at a storage locker in Raymore, Mo.

Defense attorneys were expected to present only a handful of witnesses, showing that while the circumstantial evidence points to Robinson, the murders were not connected and others had opportunity to commit the crimes.

The first is Marsha Keylon, a housekeeper at the Guest House Suites hotel where Trouten stayed when she arrived in Kansas from Michigan.

Keylon said she saw Trouten only three times during her evening shift at the Lenexa hotel. Twice Trouten was alone. The third meeting was as Trouten entered her suite with a man in his 30s not fitting Robinson’s description.

Sharon LaPrad, owner of a Monroe, Mich., home health care company, testified that Trouten worked for her off and on for nine years before leaving to take a job in Kansas.

LaPrad said she cautioned Trouten about taking the job, presumably to care for Robinson’s elderly father. The job was to involve world travel and a $60,000 salary.

“I just thought it was too good to be true,” LaPrad said.

John Stapleton, who was Trouten’s landlord in Monroe, Mich., testified that Trouten told him she had cancer and was moving to Kansas for treatment.

Trouten was going to apply for welfare assistance, Stapleton said, which Trouten said was easier to obtain in Kansas. She would then send him the $1,200 she owed him for rent and telephone bills.

As had prosecution witnesses, Stapleton testified that Trouten was interested in bondage, discipline and sadomasochistic relations.

“She told me she was going to serve masters,” Stapleton said.