infamous Pony Express was headquartered in Missouri and began its short-lived run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in 1860.
If you’ve ever walked along Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland, you might be interested to know that it was modeled after Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri.
In 1860, a St. Louis businessman, Eberhard Anheuser, and his son-in-law, Adolphus Busch, recognized an opportunity to make a profit from the country’s growing taste for beer, culminating in the creation of Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest brewery.
A Kansas City, Missouri, resident, Harry S. Truman, guided our country out of the world’s largest and most horrific conflagration of the twentieth century and steered us along the path to postwar prosperity.
If you think about pioneers of the music world, Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis have to be on your greatest list. They all resided in Missouri.
All of the above-mentioned people and an almost endless list of others have led the way in their specific field of expertise without waiting for somebody else to come along to show them how. That is why it is fitting that a resident of this state has many reasons to feel proud. It’s no wonder they want others to prove themselves and “show me” what you’re made of.
Greatness, however, is not reserved solely for those individuals who have become famous for their deeds. It can be found in the lives and actions of ordinary people who offer a kind word, a helping hand, or encouragement to others. Such is the case of nine women whose lives were needlessly cut short at the hand of confessed serial killer Timothy Krajcir. Five of these women were from Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Mary Parsh, Brenda Parsh, Sheila Cole, Margie Call, and Mildred Wallace all lived in this town of about thirty-five thousand people, which is situated along the Mississippi River in the southeast portion of the state. The friends and family members of these women know that they all possessed a sense of greatness, because these ladies had a positive impact on the lives of others.
Ten miles north of Cape Girardeau, on Route 177, is the Trail of Tears State Park. Just across the Mississippi River, in Illinois, is the Trail of Tears State Forest. The Trail of Tears refers to the sad and often fatal journey that the defeated Cherokee Indians were forced to walk after their land in the East was seized by the United States government. The parkland and forest encompass thousands of acres of wooded hills, valleys, and high bluffs that overlook the Mississippi River. This scenic area is home to deer, wild turkeys, hawks, foxes, and bald eagles.
Although the area is beautiful, the Trail of Tears name is fitting for another reason besides that of the suffering of the Cherokee people. The park and the forest are spread out on both sides of the Mississippi between Cape Girardeau and the town of Carbondale, Illinois. Carbondale is the location of another murder committed by Krajcir. It was the home of Deborah Sheppard, a young woman one month away from earning her bachelor’s degree. Her life was just beginning when it was abruptly and brutally cut short. Now the world will never benefit from the potential of this individual.
Also in Illinois, northeast of Carbondale along Interstate 57, just on the edge of Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, is the town of Marion. It was there that David Witte discovered the body of his wife, Virginia, stabbed to death in their Westernaire Estates home.
The trail of tears and fear spread like wildfire throughout the area. A short distance south, just across the Ohio River, is the town of Paducah, Kentucky. A florist was making a delivery when he found the nude body of Joyce Tharp beside some trash cans behind the Park Avenue Baptist Church.
Krajcir’s trail of tears continued to grow. It was not connected until many years later, but that trail extended all the way to Pennsylvania. Just outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, is the town of Temple. It was there that the body of Myrtle Rupp was found strangled to death in her home, where she had been recovering from a recent surgery.
It took twenty-eight years to link all nine women to the same murderer. Family members and friends of the victims anguished for nearly three decades as the case files of unsolved murders swelled in state after state. As the years passed, some of those loved ones passed away themselves without ever finding answers. Who would kill my wife, my daughter, my sister, my niece, my friend? Why? Finally, with advancements in forensic technology, closure came to those who remained alive in 2007. Timothy Krajcir, a murderer who described himself as a “twisted individual,” confessed to the nine murders, and the process of indicting him began.
Suddenly authorities nationwide began to scrutinize files of cold cases as they looked for links to Krajcir in unsolved murders, rapes, and sexual assaults. The quest was on, and the nation’s eyes and ears were all pointed in the direction of one man—Timothy Wayne Krajcir.
1
Deborah Sheppard
August 2007
The rusting wheels of justice were given a shot of oil and slowly began to turn. A statement of probable cause and a motion for arrest warrant was signed August 28, 2007, by Michael L. Wepsiec, state’s attorney for Jackson County, Illinois. There were four counts of murder while committing forcible rape brought against the defendant in connection with the death of Deborah Sheppard.
The next day, the warrant of arrest commanded all peace officers of the state of Illinois to arrest Timothy Wayne Krajcir, and bring him without delay before the presiding judge of the First Judicial Circuit Court in the Jackson County Courthouse, in the city of Murphysboro. The amount of bail was already determined to be set at no less than $1 million.
Adrenaline was stirred. Lieutenant Paul Echols, of the Carbondale Police Department (CPD), couldn’t help but feel alive; to feel like he had made a difference and had a positive impact. He knew that he had played an integral part alongside the coordinated efforts of many others that finally helped to bring the case to a point where it might finally be solved. It was a cold case that had been pursued relentlessly for years without resolution. Echols was confident that Krajcir was guilty, but unless Krajcir confessed, his guilt or innocence would have to be determined by a judge or a jury based on the evidence.
Carbondale, Illinois, is smaller than Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Give or take a couple of thousand people, its population has hovered around the twenty-five thousand mark since 1970. There is one Muslim temple, one Jewish synagogue, two Catholic churches, and forty-seven Protestant churches located within the city limits. Carbondale is the epitome of the stereotypical White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) environment. Carbondale was selected as “Best Small City in Illinois” in 1990, and again in 1997. It was also awarded the Governor’s Hometown Award in 1991 and 1992. There is a central business district in the downtown area. There are several strip mall centers, and the University Mall is the single enclosed shopping area. There are two high schools and there is the nearby John A. Logan Community College in Cartersville. Carbondale is also home to Southern Illinois University (SIU), a comprehensive teaching and research institution with approximately sixty-one graduate programs and professional schools of law, medicine, and engineering. With about 6,800 employees, it is the area’s largest employer.
Being allotted the time to investigate cold cases, Lieutenant Echols had recently been responsible for helping to convict Daniel Woloson for the murder of Susan Schumake. She was a Southern Illinois University student who was murdered August 17, 1981. Her body was found along a trail, commonly referred to as the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” which was frequented by students on their way back to the residence halls. The trail cuts across US 51 where the southernmost overpass walkway currently exists on the campus. Today the walkway contains a plaque that commemorates the current walkway in memory of Susan Schumake. As a communications major, Schumake was walking home at night from a WIDB radio station employee meeting in the Communications Building and was killed. Her
