Robert Yale Shulman was born on March 28, 1954, in upstate New York. He was one of four children born to Jules and Mildred Shulman. He grew up in a Jewish family with three brothers in the cities of Long Beach and Westbury on Long Island, which were considered good, middle-class neighborhoods.

There are different stories about Shulman's childhood. His parents were law-abiding and didn't have any bad habits that affected the family, but they were described as indifferent towards their children. This caused some of the brothers to develop anti-social behavior. However, the oldest brother, Shelly, did not show such behavior and had a successful career in education.

During his teenage years, Shulman's father, Jules, got sick with Hodgkin lymphoma and died in 1967. This greatly affected Robert and his older brother, Steven. Robert sometimes threatened to kill himself. He graduated from W. T. Clarke High School in 1972. He was shy, withdrawn, and unpopular in school and the neighborhood.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, both Robert and Steven started abusing drugs and having outbursts of anger over small matters. At Shelly's request, they went for counseling in the early-to-mid 1970s, but it didn’t help much. After her husband died, Mildred met a man from the "Parents Without Partners" organization and married him five days later. People who knew the family said that Mildred preferred social events and parties over taking care of her children or the house. The house was in bad shape, with cobwebs, dirty dishes, and uncooked food. One of Shulman's attorneys claimed that Mildred had always wanted a daughter and dressed up Robert's younger brother Barry in girl's clothing, but this was never proven.

After high school, Shulman went to Hofstra University but dropped out after two years. He started working for USPS in 1974. His mother died of a heart attack two years later, and the year after that, Steven committed suicide.

In the mid-1980s, Robert and his younger brother Barry moved to Hicksville. They rented two apartments in the same building on 10 Glow Lane and worked at the local postal service on West John Street on different shifts. Neighbors and acquaintances had mixed opinions about Robert. Many described him as very introverted and said he never interacted with anyone. Shulman was not popular with women and never married. He spent most of his time in the local red-light district.

Between August 1991 and December 1995, Robert Shulman killed at least five prostitutes. He picked up his victims from a street corner in Hollis, Queens, and took them to his apartment, where they smoked crack cocaine and had sex. Afterward, he beat them to death with barbells, a hammer, or a baseball bat, and dismembered their bodies in his bathroom. He put the remains in plastic garbage bags and dumped them in various nearby cities. To prevent identification, Shulman always cut off the victims' hands and buried them separately from the rest of the remains.

Lori Vasquez, a 24-year-old from Brooklyn, was found in a dumpster in Yonkers on August 31, 1991. Shulman's brother, Barry, was convicted of disposing of her body. Meresa Hammonds, a 31-year-old from New Jersey, was born in Kentucky. Her body was found in a dumpster in Yonkers on June 27, 1992, and she was called "Yonkers Jane Doe" until identified in December 2021.

On December 7, 1994, an unidentified woman known as Medford Jane Doe was found on Long Island Avenue. She had a tattoo of a red heart with a banner named "Adrian" and had been beaten and dismembered. Lisa Ann Warner, an 18-year-old from Jamaica, Queens, was found at a recycling plant in Brooklyn on April 6, 1995. She had been beaten and dismembered. Kelly Sue Bunting, also known as "Melani," was a 28-year-old from Hollis. She was last seen alive on December 8, 1995, and her body was found in Melville wrapped in a sleeping bag with her hands removed. She was identified through her tattoos in March 1996.

A detective learned about a man driving a blue Cadillac in the area where the bodies were found, leading them to Shulman's brother, who owned a blue Cadillac. Detectives found out that Shulman had a Sears credit card, which led them to suspect him. Women identified Shulman as the man in the Cadillac, and cadaver dogs found traces of remains in his car. Shulman was arrested near his home on April 6, 1996, and after interrogation, he confessed to three murders. Barry Shulman admitted to helping his brother dispose of the remains but denied involvement in the murders and was later indicted for aiding and abetting.

In Suffolk County, Shulman was charged with three murders and then transported to Westchester County for two more murders. The court denied a motion to combine the trials. Shulman was found guilty of three murders and sentenced to death, which was later changed to life imprisonment after New York's death penalty was ruled unconstitutional. In Westchester County, Shulman pleaded guilty to two murders and was sentenced to 25 years to life. Barry Shulman was convicted of aiding his brother and sentenced to two years in prison, which many felt was too lenient.

Shulman's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was moved to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. In April 2006, he fell ill and died at Albany Medical Center on April 13 at the age of 52 from natural causes.