Records: Timothy Krajcir wanted to protect friends, public from his behavior

During an 1989 counseling session, Timothy W. Krajcir told a therapist in prison that he knew he was a dangerous person, and the knowledge they had of his background barely scratched the surface.

He admitted he could try to unearth those problems but that he didn't want to hurt his family, according to a mental health evaluation dated July 9, 1989.

"He says that he has resolved to the fact that he is going to stay here for the rest of his life because as long as he cannot deal with certain issues which have been totally blocked and he has no motivation to deal with them, he probably will remain dangerous to others," said a March 5, 1989, evaluation by S.D. Parwatikar, a psychiatrist.

Eighteen years later, giving details police say only the killer could have known, Krajcir would unveil what a barrage of therapists and psychologists since 1979 had not been aware of when they'd reported he was living a crime-free existence.

Since 1988, Krajcir, now 63, has remained incarcerated in an Illinois state prison, where he was served a warrant Tuesday for the 1977 murders of Brenda and Mary Parsh and Sheila Cole, the 1982 rapes and murders of Mildred Wallace and Margie Call, and another rape from 1982.

Quashed emotions

Krajcir never had a permanent home as a child; his stepfather's job kept his family constantly on the move. He never knew his natural father.

At a young age, he told therapists, he started feeling anger toward his mother but quashed the emotions because he feared rejection if he expressed them, according to an evaluation dated Feb. 26, 1988.

When he was older, he developed some sexual feelings for her because she would walk around the house in lingerie, the evaluation said.

After serving time in prison for rape in 1963, Krajcir worked as an EMT for Jackson County Ambulance Service and spent seven months as a nurse's aide at hospital in Bathe, Pa., reports indicate. Court documents also cite a history of exhibitionism and voyeurism.

In 1979, Krajcir was arrested and charged in the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. A search of his Carbondale, Ill., residence revealed a .38-caliber Charter Arms revolver, the same type of gun police in 1977 determined had been used in the Parsh and Cole homicides.

Cape Girardeau police chief Carl Kinnison declined to comment on whether the revolver was the suspected murder weapon.

The gun had been seized by Carbondale police, but it was disposed of a while ago, said Lt. Paul Echols.

"We don't believe it was the murder weapon," Echols said. Krajcir purchased the gun from a friend in 1978, after the murders occurred, Echols said.

Police believe they know where the gun used in the killings came from, Echols said. Police declined to elaborate.

'The right direction'

Three years after Krajcir allegedly slaughtered Mary and Brenda Parsh and Sheila Cole, Dr. Frank M. Perez evaluated him for potential release and determined he was not especially prone to commit chronic violence.

After Krajcir was committed as a sexually dangerous person in 1979 for the rape, he underwent counseling to understand why he used "hostility and anger to punish those who made him feel inadequate sexually." He began to show improvement, according to one evaluation from 1980.

"He's going in the right direction and doing the best he can to work with his problems," Perez wrote. "He's able to exercise control over his behavior, and if he does let it go, it occurs in the form of exhibitionism."

Krajcir did not exhibit an overwhelming number of risk factors for exhibiting chronic violence and the chances of his committing violent crimes was low, the evaluation concluded.

Before his conditional release in May 1981, Krajcir had been an active and enthusiastic participant in group therapy sessions, reports indicate.

In 1982, Krajcir struck again, killing Deborah Sheppard of Carbondale, Ill., and allegedly slaying Margie Call and Mildred Wallace in Cape Girardeau.

Before Wallace's murder June 21, 1982, Krajcir planned to relocate from Carbondale, where he'd worked toward a degree in psychology and administration of justice as well as regularly reported to his counseling sessions mandated by his parole.

In December 1982, he committed a rape of a mother and daughter in Pennsylvania and was arrested in 1983 on firearms violations when a woman reported a suspicious vehicle with tape wrapped around the license plate to hide the numbers, parked on the outer perimeter of a shopping center. Krajcir was found sitting in the driver's seat, a loaded pistol on his lap. He pleaded guilty to the rape and to weapons charges.

According to court documents, Allentown, Pa., authorities also considered Krajcir a prime suspect in numerous rapes in the south side of the city committed by a perpetrator news articles dubbed the "Southside Rapist."

When Krajcir returned to Illinois Department of Corrections in 1988 after serving his Pennsylvania sentence, he was a changed man.

Gone was the cooperation with group therapy, in fact, he ceased attending sessions altogether, saying it would be easy to say what the counselors wanted to hear and thus create the "illusion of being safe to the community," according to one report.

"He does not want to hurt anybody anymore, and he wants to block out everything for his own sake," wrote Parwatikar in an Aug. 20, 1989, report.

A Nov. 24, 1990, report by Parwatikar said Krajcir exhibited no homicidal inclinations.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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