The Associated Press

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — Timothy Krajcir was an apt student.

At the age of 30, freshly released from prison on rape charges, Krajcir enrolled in college in the late 1970s to study psychology and the criminal justice system. At the same, authorities said, Krajcir murdered six women in two states, hiding his crimes from dozens of investigators by using the tactics he learned in school.

Authorities say Krajcir is a rare specimen — smart enough to elude police during his crime spree, and apparently private enough to keep his deeds secret during the ensuing years. He eventually graduated from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill., with a degree in law enforcement.

“If he was studying criminal justice and law enforcement, he definitely would know what police were looking for and how to avoid detection,” said James Smith, a Cape Girardeau police detective who helped link Krajcir to five homicides here dating back 30 years.

Krajcir admitted this month to nine homicides in all, according to Cape Girardeau County Prosecutor Morley Swingle.

Krajcir was charged Monday with five counts of murder and three counts of rape in Cape Girardeau, after pleading guilty the same day in Illinois to the 1982 murder of fellow Southern Illinois student Deborah Sheppard.

Prosecutors are building cases in the other three homicides, which Krajcir has admitted to in states outside Missouri and Illinois, Swingle said. Police have released no details about those murders.

Public Defender Patricia Gross represented Krajcir in Sheppard’s killing but would not comment Tuesday, according to her assistant. Krajcir doesn’t have an attorney in Missouri, according to court filings.

For decades, Krajcir sat in Illinois prison on a rape charge, telling no one about the murders while detectives in different states struggled to close the cases, Smith said.

It appears one of the most important strategic decisions Krajcir made was to murder women in a city where he did not live. While Krajcir attended class just 45 miles northwest of town, detectives in Cape Girardeau focused on local suspects when investigating the killings of five local women, said former detective M.C. Hughs.

“Our thinking was that (the killer) set back and they watched these women and got down kind of a routine,” Hughs recalled.

In fact, Krajcir drove to Cape Girardeau and waited in shopping center parking lots, stalking women until he found one he liked and then following her home, said Carbondale Police Lt. Paul Echols, who has interviewed Krajcir several times.

Krajcir had no connection with the city beyond using it as a hunting ground, Echols said.

Cape Girardeau police found Krajcir’s first victims on Aug. 15, 1977. Mary Parsh, 58, and her daughter, Brenda, 27, were found in their home, nude, lying side by side on the bed, their hands tied behind their backs. Each was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.