OLATHE, Kansas — The parents of Izabela Lewicka took the stand Tuesday afternoon, describing their daughter as an independent young woman who insisted upon moving to Kansas in 1997 for what she called a summer "internship."

Lewicka is one of two women whose bodies were found stuffed into barrels on rural property belonging to John E. Robinson Sr., now on trial for murdering them and one other woman in Kansas. When the trial is completed, he faces charges of killing three more women in Missouri.

Andrew Lewicki, who works at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, couldn’t get much information from his daughter about her new job.

"She was very vague," admitted Lewicki, when asked if knew any details about her summer job. "All she told us was it was advertising for a small publisher. If she could find a good job after that, she might stay even longer."(Lewicki’s last name is spelled differently than the women in his family because the suffixes of Polish last names depend on gender.)

Lewicki told the court that his daughter then packed up her 1987 Pontiac Bonneville with books, clothes and several of her paintings and drove to Kansas City in early June.

But a friend of Izabela Lewicka's told a very different story. Jennifer Hayes said Lewicka had confided that she was going to do secretarial work for an international publishing agent named John who was also going to train her to be an S & M dominatrix. However, Hayes said, she was going to start her education as a slave.

"She wouldn't tell me anything other than he wanted her to call him master," testified Hayes, who met Lewicka through mutual friends at Purdue University. "She did call him John once." Hayes said that Lewicka also told her she was working on artwork for some BDSM (bondage discipline sadomasochism) manuscripts for the publishing agent. She identified two of the pencil drawings, which Lewicka hadn't completed when Hayes last saw her with the sketches in the spring of 1997.

Lewicki and his wife testified that they attempted to talk their daughter, who had just finished her freshman year, out of leaving home. "She was past 18," explained Danuta Lewicka. "She's protected by law. We cannot stop her." Lewicka left her parents an address in Overland Park, Kansas, as well as an e-mail address where they could write to her. When they did, they received no reply.

In August, when it was time for school to start and they still hadn't heard from her, they drove to Kansas City and discovered the address was that of a mailbox company. The manager refused to give them Lewicka's real address or telephone number and they drove home after a day without contacting police. Shortly after that, Andrew Lewicki testified that he began to receive email from his daughter.

"What the hell do you want?" began the e-mail. "I will not tolerate your harassment." The e-mail said to contact her in the future at another address, izabela..@usa.net. "We exchanged email messages every couple of weeks," Lewicki testified. "In most cases, it was her response to my email messages."

Around Thanksgiving of 1997, he e-mailed in Polish. "I write in Polish because I'm not 100 percent positive that your letters are coming from you," he said, translating the note as he read. "As you know anyone could create an e-mail account and sign it as you. If you would telephone, I would feel much, much better." Lewicka purportedly replied, insisting that all further contact be in English.

"I have told you I'm happy," she wrote. "I’m well. I have a wonderful job and a wonderful man in my life who loves me. I want to be left alone. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer."

Though authorities believe she disappeared in August 1999, her parents continued to receive e-mails purportedly from their daughter up until Robinson's arrest. In the final months, he said, it seemed she was always traveling in some exotic land. Writing one of her last e-mails in the spring of 2000, she claimed to have just returned from China.

A former correspondent for Newsweek and People Weekly, Sue Miller Wiltz is currently writing a book about Robinson for Pinnacle Books. She is covering the trial for Courttv.com.