Seniors and Lawmen Together organization honors three area law enforcement officers at SEMO event

The night of April 8, 1982, Paul Echols was working as a rookie patrol officer for the Carbondale Police Department when a call came through that a 23-year-old Southern Illinois University student had been found dead in her off-campus apartment.

Echols wasn't called to assist with the homicide of Deborah Sheppard, he told a small crowd Thursday night at the Glenn Auditorium of Southeast Missouri State University, but he would never forget the call reporting Sheppard's death.

"I had no idea that some day I'd be involved in that investigation," Echols said.

Echols was guest speaker at the Seniors and Lawmen Together 2009 Service Awards, which honored three area officers this year.

Cape Girardeau County Detective Travis Sikes received a service award for his aggressive approach to burglary investigations in nine years in the criminal investigation division at the sheriff's department.

Cape Girardeau patrol officer Joey Hann was given a service award for outstanding service in the community, and police chief Carl Kinnison read a letter from Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle praising Hann's efforts recently at apprehending a fleeing prisoner.

Also receiving a service award was Jackson officer Justin Kemp, recently chosen to attend the nationally accredited Evidentiary School for training as evidence technician.

After the awards were presented, Echols took his audience through an illustrated narrative of his career in law enforcement and the trail that led to the arrest of convicted serial killer Timothy W. Krajcir.

Krajcir was convicted last April of murdering five women in Cape Girardeau, cases that went unsolved for nearly three decades. He has confessed to nine murders in all, two in Illinois, including Sheppard's, one in Pennsylvania and one in Kentucky.

Now investigations commander at the Carbondale Police Department, Echols said he's always felt a deep connection to Cape Girar­deau, having met his wife, Sheila, there and made frequent trips over the river to visit family.

"I actually think it was meant to be that it was me that would take this case," Echols said.

When he was promoted to lieutenent at Carbondale, the first thing he did was ask permission to reopen the investigation into Sheppard's death, he said.

Sheppard's family fought to have her death investigated as a murder.

Echols used a trace amount of DNA from a shirt worn by Sheppard to link the killing to Krajcir, who was already serving time in prison at Big Muddy Correctional Center.

"It was a happy moment, but I had no clue what lay ahead," Echols said.

Cape Girardeau Detective Jim Smith, assigned to working the then-unsolved 1977 murders of Brenda and Mary Parsh, and the 1982 slayings of Margie Call and Mildred Wallace, contacted Echols when he learned of Krajcir's arrest.

Together, Echols and Smith interviewed Krajcir about the five Cape Girardeau murders, and he eventually admitted to them, sharing details with the detectives after an agreement with prosecutors to waive the death penalty.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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