In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a convicted serial killer who struck during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, pleaded guilty Friday ( April 4) to five murders. Career criminal Timothy Krajcir, 63, entered the pleas in exchange for prison bars instead of the death penalty.
Krajcir received five consecutive life sentences in addition to other lesser prison sentences for lesser counts, according to the Associated Press. Krajcir had already been sentenced to two consecutive 40 year prison terms for two Southern Illinois slayings.
Cape Giradeau Victims
Krajcir was convicted in the deaths of mother and daughter, Mary Parsh, 58, and Brenda Parsh, 27, in 1977; college student Sheila Cole, 21, in 1977; Margie Call, 57, in 1982; and Mildred Wallace, 65, in 1982 according to the Cape Girardeau Police Department news release webpage.
All but Cole were killed at their Cape Girardeau homes. Cole was kidnapped from a Cape Girardeau store parking lot and her body dumped in a McClure, Illinois, rest area. The police report several of the murder victims had been sexually assaulted, but did not indicate if the Parsh women had been similarly assaulted.
Cold Case File
Carbondale, Illinois, Police Lieutenant Paul Echols resurrected the cold case file on the murder of college student Deborah Sheppard and submitted evidence for DNA testing, not available at the time of the murder. Krajcir, imprisoned since 1983 on unrelated sexual crimes, was subsequently charged with the homicide based on the new evidence.
Cape Girardeau Detective Jimmy Smith also began checking the evidence from several unsolved murders in Cape Girardeau and found matches to Krajcir. A palm print left at the Wallace murder scene was also identified as belonging to Krajcir.
In November 2007, Echols and Smith began interviewing Krajcir, currently incarcerated at the Tamms Supermax Prison in Tamms, Illinois. He eventually began admitting his crimes. In all, Krajcir confessed to a total of nine murders, for seven of which he has pleaded guilty, so far.
Guilty Pleas
In exchange for dropping the death penalty, Krajcir pleaded guilty in Jackson County Circuit Court to Sheppard’s 1982 murder then, in neighboring Williamson County, to the 1978 murder of Virginia Witte of Marion.
Charged in Cape Girardeau
Krajcir was extradited from Illinois, taken to Missouri in a prisoner transport van, escorted by patrol units. He appeared before a Cape Girardeau County judge in a video feed from the county jail on the murder charges March 13th. There were additional sodomy and robbery charges also filed at that time.
Police indicate there was another victim, a 34-year-old unnamed woman who was assaulted in her home, but left bound and alive along with her 10-year-old daughter.
Two More Murders
Krajcir still faces prosecution for the 1979 Jackson County murder of abductee Joyce Tharp, 29, of Paducah, Kentucky and in Paducah, he is charged with her kidnapping and with burglary. Pennsylvania State Police said they have connected Krajcir to the Reading rape and strangling murder of Myrtle Rupp, 51, of Reading, through DNA evidence. Court proceedings against him are pending in the 1979 killing.
SOURCES
“Life Sentences Given in 5 Mo. Deaths”, Google News, Christopher Leonard (AP)
Cape Girardeau Police Department, Department News, CityofCapeGiardeau.org
Reference:
- Law Enforcement, Wildlife Smugglers Battle Online www.associatedcontent.com/article/353425/law_enforcement_wildlife_smugglers.html
