Predator. Steven Walker
the body that were discernable to the naked eye. It was a clean scene,” Hogan stated.
There were four apartments in the two-story building and Sheppard lived on the ground floor on the east side of the structure. A window to the living room was found open. After Sheppard’s death was ruled to be a homicide, Hogan changed his story and said that he initially suspected that the intruder entered through the open window and then waited for Sheppard to come home. He said that Carbondale police investigators collected all the evidence they could find and spent several days questioning other residents in the building and around the neighborhood.
“We did as extensive of an investigation as possible at the time, but, of course, we didn’t have the expertise or equipment that is available today. No fingerprints were found at the scene, and we kept running into blind alleys with nothing breaking in our favor,” Hogan said.
When asked about Sheppard’s accusation that racism contributed to the hindrance of the investigation, Hogan replied that there was no prejudice on the side of the police department.
“If you know Illinois, you’ll know that there are areas in and around Chicago, and then there is the rest of the state. They are two different worlds. Sheppard comes from one of the ‘colored counties’ and much of what he believes is just a figmentation of his hostility. I have no doubt that it appeared like that to him. He called us a bunch of hick country bumpkins that didn’t know what we were doing. The fact is that we did everything we could. If we would have had the technology that exists today, things might have been different at the time, but we did collect all the evidence we found, and we were able to preserve it well enough to allow it to be used when the technology did finally become available,” Hogan said. Despite Hogan’s insistence that there was no element of racism that played a role, his comment about the “colored counties” might indicate otherwise. The real truth of the matter regarding racism and a possible intentional cover-up of the homicide probably lies somewhere between the perspectives of both Bernie Sheppard and Edward Hogan.
Evidence and leads may or may not have been compromised due to the passage of time between the discovery of Sheppard’s body and the official declaration that it should be dealt with as a homicide, but the end result was that despite the efforts of the CPD, they were left with no suspects and no motive for the crime. A Tribune reporter quoted a Carbondale police officer at the time stating, “If we don’t get a break and make an arrest now, we probably never will.”
Once Krajcir was officially charged, Carbondale police chief Bob Ledbetter released a statement in which he quoted, “I must note that this investigation didn’t sit in a box on the shelf as some might suspect. This case was always assigned to a detective over the years, and new leads would be investigated from time to time, always resulting in another frustrating dead end.”
In 2007, when Echols informed Bernie Sheppard that they had at last found the man responsible for killing his daughter, Bernie said that he might finally get a bit of relief knowing who was responsible. Bernie Sheppard also said, “I want to see him executed. I want to sit right there and watch him take his last breath…. That’s what I want.”
Unfortunately for Sheppard, the state of Illinois didn’t have capital punishment in 1982, so according to the statutes of law at the time the crime was committed, Krajcir would only be able to receive a maximum penalty of forty years if he was convicted.
A preliminary hearing for Krajcir was scheduled for September 28, 2007, and it was ordered that his bond remain at $1 million. The date to enter a plea actually took place on October 1, and the courtroom in the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department (JCSD) fell silent as Timothy Krajcir was escorted into the room in handcuffs. Bernie Sheppard attended the hearing to see the man who had killed his daughter. He admitted that his real purpose for attending was to seek vengeance. He didn’t care if it meant spending the rest of his life in prison—he wanted to kill Krajcir. Sheppard didn’t bring a weapon to the hearing. He wanted to feel Krajcir die between his bare hands. The opportunity never presented itself, and with two bad legs, Bernie Sheppard probably wouldn’t have been much of a match against the fit and athletic Krajcir.
Defense attorney Patricia Gross entered a tentative plea of not guilty to the judge. A pretrial date was set for November 13, when the presiding judge would decide if a bench trial or a jury trial would proceed unless a plea of guilty was entered before then. Plea negotiations could now be pursued by the prosecutor, and if an agreement could not be reached, a trial date of December 10 was scheduled.
Despite the new DNA evidence and Krajcir’s confession during his interview with Echols and Osifcin, in the eyes of the law, his plea of not guilty made him innocent unless a judge or jury decided differently.
2
I’ve been twisted since I was a little kid. I can’t blame it on anything else. The first six or seven years of my life, I was left alone too much. It twisted me. It just got worse when I grew up, I guess.
—Timothy Wayne Krajcir
Life and times of Timothy Krajcir
Despite Carbondale police chief Bob Ledbetter’s efforts to suppress specifics to the media regarding the Deborah Sheppard case, Krajcir’s arrest became headline news on the front page, above the fold, in newspapers across the Heartland. His history came under the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies, as well as the media. After learning of Krajcir’s past, many people wondered how he could have been allowed to be free long enough to commit murder.
He was born in West Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, on November 28, 1944, and was named Timothy Wayne McBride. His father, Charles McBride, was a WWII marine who abandoned his mother, Fern Yost, when Timothy was born. Krajcir had an unstable childhood, according to a 1983 psychological profile sent to Judge James Diefenderfer by Dr. Paul K. Gross, of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Yost moved about a dozen times while Timothy was a young boy, and she eventually gave birth to two half brothers, William and Bernie, by two different fathers.
The earliest record of crime committed by Timothy was on July 1, 1951, when he lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and was charged with petty theft for stealing a bicycle at the age of six. Yost got married again to Bernard Krajcir, who legally adopted Timothy in 1953 and gave him his last name. It was around this time that Timothy Krajcir said that he began engaging in voyeuristic activities, burglaries, fondling women in public, and secretly wearing feminine clothing. The family moved to New Milford, Pennsylvania, and fifteen-year-old Timothy was once again charged with petty theft. He was let go after making restitution for the $20 he stole.
Krajcir described his mother as cold and unaffectionate, but he recalled becoming sexually stimulated by her when she walked around the house in her negligee. During therapy he received in prison, Krajcir was told that he hated his mother, and he came to believe that those feelings were real. After further therapy, he also claimed that he had become shy and introverted during his adolescence.
The Krajcirs moved again to Wescosville, a small town just outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Timothy attended Emmaus High School, but he never made it to graduation. Instead, in 1962, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve at the age of seventeen. He was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois, for basic training.
During his short stint in the navy, Krajcir met Barbara Jean Kos, a seventeen-year-old girl from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When Kos became pregnant, she married Krajcir on February 2, 1963, but continued to live with her parents. In May of that year, Krajcir was arrested in North Chicago for attempted rape. Three weeks later, Krajcir’s daughter was born while he was still in jail. In July, Krajcir pleaded guilty to the rape of Joan Terrill in North Chicago, which took place just several weeks after he got married. He also pleaded guilty to the rape and stabbing of Joyce Erdal in Waukegan, Illinois. He was sentenced to serve twenty-five to fifty years inside Joliet Prison and given an undesirable discharge from the navy. During his 1963 interrogation, Krajcir also admitted to breaking into and robbing at least a half-dozen homes while he was a juvenile living in Wescosville.
Krajcir was transferred to Menard Correctional Center in 1969 and was allowed to take college classes free via a program offered through Southern Illinois University. He was transferred again in 1972 to the Vienna Correctional