Confessed killer says wrong man was convicted for Illinois crime

Confessed serial killer and rapist Timothy Krajcir began admitting his crimes to police several months ago. Now, apparently upset that a different man was wrongfully convicted in a Mount Vernon, Ill., attempted murder case, Krajcir is taking his claims to the media.

The man, Grover Thompson, who was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison, is now dead. But Krajcir says he, not Thompson, stabbed a woman in Mount Vernon in September 1981

On Friday, more than two-and-a-half decades after the crime, Krajcir, in a prison interview with the Southeast Missourian, laid out some of the gruesome specifics of the crime. Krajcir was moved to the Cape Girardeau County Jail this week to face charges of five Cape Girardeau murders in 1977 and 1982. Mount Vernon police have claimed that the right man was convicted of the crime and that Krajcir could have learned about the details while in prison. But Krajcir, after hearing that Mount Vernon police may reopen the case, said he's willing to take a polygraph test to support his confession.

"I hope the truth comes out," he said.

Krajcir said when he committed the crime in 1981, he nearly shoved his fist in the woman's mouth to make her stop screaming.

When her screams persisted, Krajcir said he stabbed her four or five times with a buck knife.

The details Krajcir gave, including the address of the victim, are nearly identical to those of the crime that produced a conviction of Thompson, a Mississippi man described by his lawyer as a transient just passing through the Southern Illinois town for the night.

Krajcir, who has granted interviews to at least three media outlets in the last two days, said he first noticed his victim while "exposing himself" to some women by the post office. He described the woman as being in her 50s.

Krajcir described breaking into the house across the street from the post office through the bathroom window, hiding in the metal shower and hearing the victim talking on the phone before she walked into the bathroom.

He planned on sexually assaulting her but stabbed her in an effort to quell her screams, he said.

When White's neighbor, Barney Bates, responded to her screams and called police. Bates told police and would later testify he grabbed the attacker as he clambered out the basement window, tearing the man's shirt.

That confrontation never happened, Krajcir said.

After learning that Thompson had physical problems with his legs, Krajcir said the man never could have made the jump to get out of the basement window.

Krajcir said after stabbing the woman, she sat down on the floor of the bathroom as he fled, moving quickly to his car, which was parked several blocks away, and bumping another vehicle as he pulled out.

Bates also described a tall, thin black man to police as White's attacker. About 30 minutes later, Thompson was found in the lobby of the post office and taken to the police station, where Bates studied him for 10 to 15 minutes before identifying him as White's attacker. According to Thompson's attorney, Stephen Swofford, Thompson had wanted to escape the light drizzle and had found shelter in the post office lobby while waiting for the next bus home to Mississippi.

Krajcir said he never saw Bates.

When Krajcir learned later from the TV or radio that police arrested a man for the crime, he didn't think the charges would stick.

"I knew they wouldn't have any evidence," Krajcir said. Because of that, he said, he didn't follow the case in the press and only recently became aware that someone was convicted of that crime.

Krajcir said he tossed his blood-stained T-shirt out the window somewhere along Interstate 57 on the way back to his Carbondale, Ill., apartment, he said.

Krajcir, a former emergency medical technician with the Jackson County Ambulance Service in Illinois, arranged to teach at Southeast Junior College in 1979 before he was charged and convicted under Illinois' sexually dangerous person statute.

'I've come a long way'

Krajcir also talked about his administration of justice degree and psychology minor, saying he enrolled in those specialties at Southern Illinois University because he "wanted to figure himself out."

"It didn't work," he said.

"I'm aware that I'm a sexually dangerous person. Though I think I've come a long way, I have decided to keep myself locked up," Krajcir said.

He admitted he stopped participating actively in therapy in 1990 because he wanted to make certain he would never be released.

Thompson made a "convenient victim for police," Krajcir said.

Mount Vernon police chief Chris Mendenall told other media outlets that because Krajcir and Thompson both served time at Menard Psychiatric Center at the same time, they could have discussed the case.

Krajcir said he worked at the commissary in the prison and might have come into contact with Thompson without realizing it, but they would not have been in the same social circle. Krajcir's friends were mostly athletes like himself, he said.

"If I was in collusion with the man, why would I wait till he was dead?" Krajcir said.

Since he made the decision in December to disclose everything he can remember having done, Krajcir said he's come clean as much as his memory will allow. Police have asked him about several crimes that he denied knowing anything about.

Krajcir wants Thompson's family to know the man was innocent, he said.

Still, he probably would not have come forward back then and admitted to the crime, even if he had known an innocent man had been convicted, he said.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245