Serial Killer Studied Law Enforcement to Avoid Detection
A confessed Midwest serial killer avoided detection for decades, apparently utilizing information gleaned from his law enforcement education to do so.
Although Timothy Krajcir had begun murdering women by 1977 and spent years of his life in prison for other sex-related crimes, he was only charged this year with some of the the nine killings he confessed to earlier this month. Authorities finally linked him to one of the murders via DNA testing, and the 63-year-old pleaded guilty Monday in Illinois to one murder and was charged later that day in Cape Girardeau County, Mo., with five others, reports the Associated Press.
Krajcir’s studies at Southern Illinois University, where he earned a degree in law enforcement and also took psychology classes, seem to have alerted him to some key techniques that helped him steer clear of authorities, according to the AP article. Among them: Many of the women he murdered lived in a Missouri town which he used only as a hunting ground, where he would stake out parking lots, target women victims and follow them home. Thus, while Krajcir studied at a school less than 50 miles away, authorities focused on potential suspects who lived in the area.
“If he was studying criminal justice and law enforcement, he definitely would know what police were looking for and how to avoid detection,” says James Smith, a Cape Girardeau police detective.
Public Defender Patricia Gross, who represented Krajcir in Illinois, declined to comment. He apparently doesn’t yet have a lawyer appointed to represent him in Missouri.
