Trial opens for suspected Mo. killer

[Ban Hammer 13,340]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - DNA evidence links a former trash company supervisor to a series of murdered women whose strangled, shoeless bodies were found in secluded spots around the city, a prosecutor said Monday as the man's trial began.

Lorenzo Gilyard, 56, charged with strangling seven women, had sex with them just before they died, prosecutor Jim Kanatzar said.

Gilyard is suspected of killing 13 women and girls, most of them prostitutes, between 1977 and 1993. The trial covers seven of those killings; prosecutors dropped the other six counts Monday, saying the remaining cases were stronger.

"All were found dead during the same one-and-a-half-year period, all were left in secluded or obstructed locations, all were strangled, all showed signs that they were involved in a struggle, all were missing their shoes and all but one showed distinct signs of sexual intercourse," Kanatzar said.

If convicted on even one count of first-degree murder, Gilyard would face life in prison without parole.

Gilyard's attorney, Tom Jacquinot, noted that police initially suspected other men in some of the killings and pointed out that most of the victims had a history of taking rides with strange men as part of their work as prostitutes.

"My client stands before you facing these accusations telling you the same thing he told police more than three years ago: He did not kill anyone," Jacquinot told the judge.

Prosecutors agreed in January not seek the death penalty as long as Gilyard's attorneys agreed to a trial before a judge without a jury. They said Gilyard's advanced age was also a factor — he probably would die of old age before death penalty appeals would be exhausted.

In telephone conversations with his relatives, Gilyard has consistently contended he is innocent and eager to go to trial.

"I know I couldn't get convicted of something I didn't do," Gilyard told a relative in one call, among more than 200 minutes of recordings The Kansas City Star recently obtained through a Missouri Sunshine Law request.

Gilyard has a history of scrapes with the law and served time for crimes including child molestation. From January 1969 to June 1974, he was a suspect in five rape cases, though he was never convicted, court records show.

Until his April 2004 arrest, Gilyard had lived with his wife of about a decade in a modest home at the end of a quiet dead-end street. His wife divorced him after his arrest.

A crime lab eventually used DNA to link 13 killings to a single attacker. The identity of that assailant remained unknown until the lab analyzed a blood sample taken from Gilyard in 1987, when he was a suspect in the death of one of the women he is now charged with killing.

Court papers filed by the defense list the victims as Catherine M. Barry, 34, the only victim not known to have worked as a prostitute; Naomi Kelly, 23; Ann Barnes, 36; Kellie A. Ford, 20; Angela Mayhew, 19; Sheila Ingold, 36; and Carmeline Hibbs, 30.

The other victims were identified as Stacie L. Swofford, 17; Gwendolyn Kizine, 15; Margaret J. Miller, 17; Debbie Blevins, 32; Helga Kruger, 26; and Connie Luther, 29.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

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so much for rehabilitation, as bolded above.

[almaty 19]

i am glad missouri has the death penalty for this chopf##k murdering pervert

[Ban Hammer 13,340]

i am glad missouri has the death penalty for this chopf##k murdering pervert

seems like that date with destiny has been a long time coming for him.

[dNelson29 0]

Finally, the families of the victims will have some peace and closure.

[almaty 19]

i am glad missouri has the death penalty for this chopf##k murdering pervert

seems like that date with destiny has been a long time coming for him.

I agree...i followed this case..horrific