Kansas City prosecutors use DNA to charge man

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Prosecutors using DNA evidence have charged a man already imprisoned for murder with two other killings.

Prosecutors announced Friday they charged Clifton L. Ray Jr., 44, on Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder. The victims were identified by prosecutors as Deborah D. Taylor, 27, who was found strangled in December 1987 in a vacant lot; and Joycie A. Flowers, 41, who was found strangled in May 1990 in a vacant field.

Ray was transferred Thursday to Jackson County from the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, where he was serving a prison sentence for the 1994 strangulation death of Bobby J. Robertson, 68. He was due to be paroled June 27.

"And today he is currently in the Jackson County Jail with two additional charges," Jackson County Prosecutor Mike Sanders said. "I don't think that is something Mr. Ray was anticipating."

Ray made his first court appearance Friday. The judge entered a plea of innocent on his behalf. His next court appearance will be July 12.

John Oldham, a public defender who appeared with Ray at the hearing, declined to comment.

Ray was charged as a result of the same probe into a backlog of unsolved cases that led authorities in April to charge Lorenzo J. Gilyard with strangling a dozen women -- all but one a prostitute -- between 1977 and 1993. Gilyard pleaded innocent last month at his arraignment.

A federal grant allowed authorities at the city's crime lab to test evidence from old cases using the latest DNA technology.

Sanders said testing of semen left at the 1987 and 1990 crime scenes helped police connect Ray to the Taylor killing in December and the Flowers killing in March.

Sanders said there were similarities between Ray and Gilyard and their alleged crimes.

"But," Sanders said, "we are not stating at this time there was a connection between Mr. Ray and Mr. Gilyard."

Sanders said his office planned to announce in the next three to five weeks whether it would seek the death penalty against Gilyard and Ray.