Men From Missouri Are Being Charged With Murder After a Black Woman Was Found in Their Basement
A man in Missouri is charged with murdering a woman whose body parts were found in a barrel in a river last year. He is also accused of taking a woman and holding her hostage in his basement until she escaped in October 2022.
Lawyers for the government said at a news conference on Tuesday that 41-year-old Timothy Haslett Jr. has also been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jaynie Crosdale.
Haslett was charged with rape in the first degree, sodomy, kidnapping, assault, and harming a child after the woman he was holding hostage escaped from his basement. Haslett is still in jail, and a $5 million bond was set for him.
A charge says that between June 6, 2022, and October 7, 2022, Crosdale, who is Black like the woman who has not been named, was killed. Zachary Thompson, the prosecutor for Clay County, said that photos taken from Haslett’s device showed Crosdale in the basement of his Excelsior Springs house.
The lawyer said that the blue barrel where Crosdale’s body was found was the same as other barrels at Haslett’s house.
In January 2023, Excelsior Springs police wrote on Facebook that they needed help finding Crosdale and thought she might be able to help them with the kidnapping probe as a witness. They also linked Crosdale to the case of the escapee. Crosdale’s body was found in a barrel in the Missouri River by kayakers in July of last year.
A probable cause statement says Haslett told the woman who got out of his basement in October 2022 that two other people “didn’t make it.” The 22-year-old woman who was still alive called for help from neighbors and said she had been raped and held captive.
Probable cause says Haslett told the victim who was still alive that one woman had been killed with a gas mask and the other had “died by electrocution” during a sex act.
According to the statement, the victim who lived said Haslett told her he would smother her and put her in a barrel “like the rest of them” if she didn’t listen to him.
Thompson wouldn’t say right now if Haslett is thought to be responsible for other deaths.
“The charges we have right now for the murder of Jaynie Crosdale represent all available charges that are possible considering the facts and evidence that we have,” he added.
Since October 2022, Haslett has been locked up. When asked for comment on Wednesday, his lawyer did not answer right away.
Haslett, a white man, wrote on Facebook in 2014 and 2020 that he wanted to bring back “severe” punishments for criminals, like chain gangs, and that he backed “racist, oppressive” police treatment of Black people.
The July 3, 2024, likely case statement gives more information about what Thompson called the “brutal and barbaric” torture of the victim who is still alive.
The woman was found with duct tape on her body, a trash bag around her waist, rubber underwear, and a metal dog collar with a padlock around her neck. As she walked along the street in Kansas City, Missouri, in September 2022, Haslett stopped her and gave her $350 to go to his house.
The probable cause statement says the woman said Haslett pulled a gun on her, took her phones, and made her take drugs that made her fall asleep in the car race.
It says she told him he kept her bound with chains around her wrists and legs and locked her up in a “dungeon” in his basement. The paper says there were cameras and “things that could be used for torture” in the prison.
The probable cause statement says that the woman told police that she was beaten, choked, and sexually attacked every day. One sandwich a day was either peanut butter and jelly or ham, the report says.
For the attacks, Haslett reportedly wore women’s underwear and called the woman his “sex slave,” the document says.
Based on the likely cause, she was able to get away after Haslett left to take his young son to school. The woman said she got her arms free of the chains, took a keypad off the wall, and heard the basement door open.