Krajcir charged with kidnapping, burglary in Paducah Killing

Timothy Krajcir has been charged with kidnapping and burglary in connection with the 1979 killing of Joyce Tharp, a 29-year-old woman discovered dead in an alley near her home in Paducah, Ky, according to the Associated Press.

A McCracken County, Ky. grand jury indicted Krajcir on Friday in the charges, the Associated Press reported.

Last month, Krajcir confessed to the murder of Tharp, along with eight other women in four different states.

According to Paducah police, Krajcir described driving around the city on March 22, 1979, casing Tharp's home in the Forest Hills neighborhood, where he was "looking for a victim."

His work with the Jackson County ambulance service in Carbondale, Il. allowed him to make several trips to Paducah, he allegedly told police.

He broke into Tharp's apartment, and told the woman she would not be harmed if she accompanied him, police said.

He then drove 70 miles to his apartment in Carbondale, Ill., where he forced Tharp to performed a sex act and then allegedly strangled her. He dumped her body in the trunk of his car and waited for nightfall, when he returned to Paducah and stashed Tharp's body in an alley behind a church.

Krajcir pleaded guilty Dec. 10, 2007 to the murder of Deborah Sheppard, an SIU student who was found dead in her apartment in Carbondale in 1982. He has since been charged with six other murders, including five in Cape Girardeau, Brenda and Mary Parsh and Sheila Cole in 1977, Margie Call and Mildred Wallace in 1982, and Virginia Witte in Marion, Ill., in 1978.

Kidnapping can carry the same penalties as murder if the abduction results in the victim's death.