Cape detective who helped solve Krajcir case is retiring

The Timothy Wayne Krajcir investigation remains the career pinnacle for retiring Cape Girardeau Police Department detective Jimmy Smith.

Eight years later, he still thinks about parts of that case daily.

“I feel very fortunate I was the investigating detective,” Smith said. “It was the case of a lifetime.”

On Dec. 3, 2007, Krajcir, 71, of Carbondale, Illinois, confessed to Smith and Carbondale Police Department detective Paul Echols to nine killings in Missouri, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Krajcir described killing Mary Parsh, Brenda Parsh and Sheila Cole in 1977 and Margie Call and Mildred Wallace in 1982, all in Cape Girardeau.

He gave details of eight other crimes in Cape Girardeau, including rapes and robberies.

Krajcir told Smith if he had been out of jail that night, he would have been picking out new victims in grocery-store parking lots, just as he did with Cole and Wallace.

“‘This is where I need to be (in prison),’” Smith said, repeating Krajcir’s words. “It was chill-inducing, to say the least.”

When Smith began investigating Krajcir’s crimes in 2003, he contacted many of the victims’ relatives.

He was looking for any new information that might be available.

But over the course of the conversations, the victims’ families told him they pretty much had given up on receiving any type of closure in the case.

Smith went through unsolved rape cases and began interviewing Krajcir’s surviving victims. Rehashing those events was painful for women trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Smith’s greatest triumph as an investigator was being able to call those victims and family members after Krajcir confessed and tell them the man responsible for those crimes was in prison, incarcerated for another crime.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Smith said of the feeling he had when he made those calls.

Mildred Wallace was Teresa Haubold’s aunt.

Haubold said Smith gave her a picture of Krajcir after he confessed to the crimes.

“I just broke down,” she said. “At least we had a name and a face. ... It’s that closure. ... It helps you not keep asking the same questions over and over again.”

Smith, 69, is retiring from the Cape Girardeau Police department on Friday. He said he feels mixed emotions about the decision.

On the one hand, he’s proud of the work he’s done in Cape Girardeau. Being a detective is all he wanted to do, he said.

Smith has a list of cold cases he doesn’t want to let go until they’re solved, however.

“It’s hard to walk away from cases,” he said. “Surely, I’m not expected to work forever.”

At the top of the list is Elizabeth Gill.

The 2-year-old was playing in her front yard June 13, 1965, when she disappeared. She has been missing ever since.

The Gill case predates Smith’s time as a detective, but he’s been investigating it for decades.

Smith said he believes Gill, 51, is alive, and she most likely was abducted.

Since 2003, several women have come forward, thinking they may be Gill. But DNA tests have proven those beliefs false.

Gill’s sister, Martha Hamilton, said Smith has been keeping her and her family in the loop on the case. She said she worked with Smith to reconstruct the original case file.

“There has to be mutual trust there,” Hamilton said of working with an investigator. “I would trust him with anything.”

Smith also is looking to solve his first cold case.

Smith was instrumental in opening the investigation into Gail King’s death when he was chief deputy in the Stoddard County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Department.

King’s death in 1987 originally was ruled a drowning, but Smith talked to a pathologist who provided evidence King was killed.

Smith said he believes something in that case led to him being let go by the Stoddard County Sheriff’s Department in 1990.

“I was told I stepped on the wrong toes,” he said.

He rejoined the Cape Girardeau Police Department in 1991, but he did not let go of the King case.

King was abducted by a man in Cape Girardeau in the mall parking lot and raped several times before he released her near Springfield, Missouri.

King was killed in Stoddard County later that year. Smith said he thinks the cases might be related.

“I’m going to let God take these from now on,” Smith said of cold cases. “I was used as God’s helper.”

Smith’s 35-year career was filled with more successes than regrets.

He solved his first murder case shortly after joining the Cape Girardeau Police Department in 1969.

He arrested Marlon Vernon Evans for vagrancy, and he took Evans to the hospital to see stabbing victim Lonnie Midget, who said Evans was his attacker.

Midget died after the stab wound became infected.

Smith briefly left law enforcement in 1972, working for two years for Ford Motor Credit Co.

At the time, police officers in Cape Girardeau worked three weeks straight, then had one week off.

Smith was an investigator for a prosecuting attorney from 1974 through 1976, then went to Stoddard County.

“Jimmy has been an invaluable asset to the department,” Cape Girardeau police chief Wes Blair said in a text message to the Southeast Missourian. “He is tenacious in his pursuit of solving crimes. I have often said I wish I had known him when I was a young detective learning the ropes. I could have learned a lot from him.”

Smith said he’s not sure what he’s going to do now. He has a vacation planned in mid-July.

Then he is going on a mission trip to Haiti with his 17-year-old son and other members of New McKendree United Methodist Church in Jackson. They are building a church outside Port-au-Prince.

“It’s a very rewarding experience, spiritually and emotionally,” he said. “People there are very grateful for our help.”

Haubold and Hamilton said Cape Girardeau police are going to lose a determined detective.

“I think all our families owe him so much that we could never say ‘thank you’ enough,” Haubold said. “I think the police force is going to lose an amazing individual.”

bkleine@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3644

Pertinent address: 40 S. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, MO