Some of Krajcir's victims survived

ST. LOUIS -- An accused serial killer who confessed to killing nine women in four states and about a dozen rapes, murdered some of his victims, but did not try to kill others.

Timothy Krajcir, 63, was brought to Cape Girardeau, last week to face 13 charges, including the murders of five women between 1977 and 1982. He has been in prison since 1983, but recently told authorities about more of his attacks.

Four women who survived attacks by Krajcir told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about their experiences in Sunday's edition. They hope to encourage other crime victims to speak out.

It is only recently that authorities realized Krajcir sexually assaulted both a mother and a daughter in separate attacks.

Robelian Carter, now deceased, awoke after gardening July 14, 1979, to see Krajcir standing over her with a garden rake she had left on the porch. He had a blue bandanna over his face.

He asked Carter, then 49, where her 16-year-old daughter was. The teen was baby-sitting at the house of another daughter, Marcia.

"You'll do," Krajcir told Carter. He made her choose how she would be assaulted. He slammed her to the floor when she tried to escape.

After the assault, he told Carter to stay put for a while. When he left, she immediately locked the door. Her phone cord was cut, so she called police from a nearby relative's house.

Later at her son's house, "She asked her grandchildren to get her a cup of bleach," Marcia Carter recalled. "She gargled with it." She never spoke of the attack again, her daughter said.

Marcia Carter and her three children moved in with her mother shortly after the attack to bring her comfort. On Dec. 28, 1981, Marcia Carter was changing a diaper when she felt cold air from the door. She saw a man wearing a blue bandanna standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at the family.

He asked where her sister was, and again the teen wasn't home. Marcia planned to fight him, but Krajcir turned the gun on her 5-year-old nephew. He ordered her to make the boy leave. There were six children in the house that night, so she did not fight back. He sexually assaulted her at gunpoint and cut the phone cords.

Marcia and her mother never connected their attackers. But her mother understood Marcia's coping mechanisms, such as refusing to use the family's silverware and plates.

"I didn't know if he had a disease," she said, tears filling her eyes. "You just feel so dirty."

She wouldn't walk alone. She drank more frequently.

"It's a slow suicide," she said. "It's like feeding you arsenic until you die. All you do is get sicker and sicker if you let it."

Cape Girardeau Detective Jim Smith contacted Marcia in January after Krajcir's confession. Together, they realized Krajcir also was responsible for her mother's assault. He cannot be charged in that crime because Robelian Carter died of cancer in 1999.

On April 25, 1982, three women in their 20s, Mary Lacey, Ethel Smith-Watson and a third woman who did not want to be identified, got together to socialize, sipping drinks and laughing as they sat on a living room floor while the children of Smith-Watson and the third woman played in the back.

Suddenly, the children filed into the room. Behind them was a man wearing a blue bandanna and pointing a gun at them.

Three weeks earlier, he had killed his eighth victim.

"He told us if we moved, he would kill the kids," Lacey said. He put the children into a closet. He told the women to line up, strip and dance. While he assaulted one, he held his gun to the head of another.

During the attack, the women cried and prayed and tried to think of a way to escape. Krajcir occasionally drank from their margarita glasses. He emptied their purses, stole money and jewelry.

Smith-Watson didn't have a phone, so Lacey drove home to call police. They viewed a lineup days later. No one matched their memory.

Smith-Watson still sleeps with a meat cleaver in her bed and a hammer underneath it. Lacey sleeps with a bat. Learning that Krajcir was their attacker hasn't helped.

The women later learned that Krajcir saw Smith-Watson at a store and followed her home, returning about a week later.

Smith, the detective, in December brought the women a letter he found in their case files, written in 1982 by a rape victim from Marion, Ill. Smith believes the woman heard news reports of their attacks and wanted to comfort them. It took 26 years to reach them. Detectives now know the author's attacker also was Krajcir.

On May 17, 1982, Elza Seabaugh dozed in his living room recliner the night of his 79th birthday. His wife of 40 years, Eunice Seabaugh, sat on the floor nearby, listening to a gospel record.

When she saw the man in a blue bandanna with a gun, she screamed, waking her husband. Krajcir told her to shut up, or he would shoot her.

Krajcir demanded Elza's wallet. With a gun pointed at him, Elza refused and threatened to slash Krajcir's throat with his pocket knife. Eunice threw Elza's wallet to Krajcir. He told them to lie down and cut their phone cords before he left.

"At that moment, I thanked the Lord he wasn't a killer or a rapist," she told the Post-Dispatch.

About a month later, and a few blocks away, Krajcir raped and shot his ninth victim.

The Seabaughs built a 6-foot fence around their house and bought big dogs as a security measure. Eunice's husband died in 1991, and she doesn't think he ever recovered his self-esteem after being overpowered in his home.

Eunice Seabaugh gave Smith a Bible booklet to give to Krajcir in prison. "I don't know if he's ever been exposed to God or not," Seabaugh said. "If he hasn't, it won't be because I haven't tried."