Timothy M. Haslett Jr., a Clay County man accused of kidnapping and rape, appeared in court Friday morning and pleaded not guilty to a new charge of murder of a woman found in a barrel on the Missouri River.
Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson announced earlier this week that a grand jury had charged the 41-year-old Haslett of Excelsior Spring with an additional count of first-degree murder in a superseding indictment.
Haslett is accused of killing Jaynie Crosdale, 36, of Kansas City , who had vanished months before her body was found stuffed into a blue barrel in June 2023.
In addition to the murder charge, Haslett faces one count of first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy, two counts of second-degree assault, one count of first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
Haslett, who is being held on $5 million bond, appeared for an arraignment hearing Friday morning at the Clay County Courthouse in downtown Liberty. He was handed the indictment containing the new charges. Haslett waived the reading of the charges and pleaded not guilty, according to court documents.
Haslett was arrested on Oct. 7, 2022, outside his home after a young woman said she escaped a torture chamber in the basement of his Excelsior Springs home.
The malnourished woman, wearing a collar locked around her neck, ran to a neighbor’s house and said she had been restrained in a man’s basement in Excelsior Springs. She told police she was held as his “Sex Salve,” according to court documents.
The woman told police that Haslett kept two other women captive in a chamber in the basement who did not “make it,” court documents said.
The case garnered national headlines as details of the woman’s account became public, and again when Crosdale’s body was found. Police had long suspected Haslett of being involved in Crosdale’s death.
Authorities had described her as a potential witness. The case also struck a chord among Black Kansas Citians as advocacy groups questioned whether police are taking cases of missing Black women seriously.
When announcing the new indictment this week, Thompson called the crimes Haslett is accused of as “brutal and barbaric.” He said the surviving victim lived through physical, psychological and sexual assault that amounted to “torture.”
The Star’s Bill Lukitsch and Kendrick Calfee provided information for this story.
Most Popular
Comments / 0