Krajcir confesses to Paducah murder

Again providing specific details only the killer would know, Timothy Krajcir convinced Paducah police he committed the murder of Joyce Tharp, a 29-year-old woman kidnaped from her home in 1979.

A flower deliveryman found Tharp's naked body lying beside some garbage cans behind Park Avenue Baptist Church in Paducah on the cool, rainy morning of March 23, 1979.

Krajcir is now the primary suspect in a total of eight unsolved homicides, as a result of investigations sparked by confessions he provided after DNA tied him to the 1982 killing of Deborah Sheppard, a Southern Illinois University student raped and murdered in her Carbondale apartment.

He pled guilty to Shepard's murder on Dec. 10, and was charged later that day with the 1977 murders of Brenda and Mary Parsh, and Sheila Cole, the 1982 rapes and murders of Margie Call and Mildred Wallace, and an additional rape from 1982, all in Cape Girardeau.

At a news conference at the Paducah police department Wednesday, assistant chief Danny Carroll said Krajcir's confession convinced him they had finally caught Tharp's killer.

Carroll was amazed by Krajcir's ability to remember the intricate details of the killing, he said.

"I'm totally confident that he committed this offense," said Carroll.