A Missouri man charged with rape, kidnapping and torturing a woman he kept prisoner in his basement dungeon, police said. After her daring escape, investigators say they found evidence of other victims. One was later found dead in a barrel, cops said.
On a warm October morning two years ago, a bleeding, barefoot young woman stumbled into a middle-class housing tract in suburban Missouri, begging for help.
The staggering woman was wearing a trash bag that covered latex lingerie. Around her neck was duct tape and a locked collar that restricted her breathing, neighbors told police after calling 911.
The victim told arriving officers she had been kidnapped from Kansas City, held at gunpoint, drugged and locked in a "dungeon" basement 30 miles away in Excelsior Springs, according to authorities.
She had been repeatedly raped, beaten, whipped and tortured during weeks of captivity by a man named "Timothy," who threatened that if she fought him, she would end up stuffed in a barrel, like the two women he had already killed, she told police.
“The physical, psychological and sexual violence are barbaric,” Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson told reporters at a news conference.
Thus began a massive investigation into Excelsior Springs resident Timothy Haslett, who allegedly took the 22-year-old woman hostage and imprisoned her for nearly a month, with his young son living upstairs, according to probable cause affidavits filed in court.
The house that was her prison was just down the street from the homes where she ran for help, according to those affidavits.
Last month, the troubling case added another alleged victim, 36-year-old Jaynie Crosdale, whose badly decomposed body was found in a blue barrel by kayakers on the Missouri River in June 2023, eight months after the 22-year-old woman escaped.
She, too, had been in the basement, police said. Investigators had been searching for her as a possible witness in their case, they said.
Like the woman who escaped, Crosdale was Black. Also like her, Crosdale was a sex worker who walked the same streets in Kansas City, in an area known for sex trafficking and drug dealing, according to community workers.
Last month, prosecutors charged Haslett with first-degree murder in Crosdale's killing. He already faced nine felony counts including rape, sodomy, assault, kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child, in connection with the woman who escaped.
Investigators have released few details in their ongoing investigation, which is led by a task force including Excelsior police, the Clay County Sheriff's Office and the Clay County prosecutor.
There are more questions than answers surrounding the alleged victims of Haslett.
For example: Are there more dead women?
What the Escaped Woman Told Police
The 22-year-old told police she had been picked up by a man named "Timothy" in Kansas City on Sept. 7, 2022, who offered her $350 to come home with him. Once inside his truck, he pulled a gun and forced her to take pills that knocked her out, she told investigators.
When she woke, she was handcuffed and chained in a basement room equipped with video cameras, red lights and “all types of things that could be used for torture,” according to a probable cause statement.
She was fed once a day, but only if she performed a sexual act on her captor, she told investigators. He boasted that he had killed one woman with a gas mask and that another had been electrocuted as he raped her, authorities said.
"He killed my friends," the survivor, who has not been identified by authorites, told neighbors after her escape.
On Oct. 7, 2022, the woman waited until she heard Haslett leave to take his young son to school, she told police. She was able to slip out of her chains, open the home's front door and hobble toward freedom, according to probable cause affidavits.
On the way to the hospital, she was able to point out the house where she was held as a "sex slave," police said.
The home was rented by Haslett, who was arrested the same day, authorities said.
Armed with search warrants, detectives recovered more than 100,000 media files from the basement they described as a "dungeon." In those files was an image showing another woman in the dungeon, who was later identified as Crosdale, court documents said.
In early 2023, billboards and local media announced Crosdale was being sought as witness in the escaped woman's case. Her family saw Crosdale's photo on the news, and reported her missing.
Crosdale had long struggled with addiction, mental illness, broken dreams and living on the streets, her relatives said.
They checked on her as best they could over the years, including frequent calls to a community group that looked after sex workers on Independence and Prospect avenues in a dangerous part of Kansas City.
"She was loved. She had family who cared for her. I just want people to know that she was a person," Crosdale's cousin, who asked that her name not be used, told Inside Edition Digital. "She didn't deserve what happened to her."
Jayne Crosdale was intelligent, bubbly and a force to be reckoned with when she was sober, Kris Wade of Justice Project Kansas City told Inside Edition Digital.
Wade had known Crosdale for more than 15 years, she said. "She was quirky. She was tiny, a little sprite of a person. But she kept herself alive out there. She could be a street-fighting girl. She didn't take anything from anyone."
Yet Haslett took her life, according to police.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and is currently in the Clay County Jail in lieu of $5 million bail, according to online records. His next scheduled court appearance is Sept. 10.
His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Inside Edition Digital also reached out for comment to the Clay County prosecutor and the Clay County sheriff. Both declined interview requests. A request for comment to the Essex Police Department police chief was not answered.
Meanwhile, some community activists in the Kansas City area where Crosdale and the escaped woman worked have suggested for months that a serial killer is menacing women deemed less worthy by society.
Authorities have vehemently denied that, saying they work to solve all crimes, no matter the victim.
The Troubled Life of Jaynie Crosdale
Jaynie Crosdale grew up in Kansas City, where she excelled at track. "She was really fast," her cousin said. Jaynie dreamed of competing in the Olympics. "She was that good," her cousin recounted.
After graduating high school, she fell into the iron grip of addiction and began to disappear. "Jaynie was on the streets. I don't know exactly what she did, she had been on the streets for a while," her cousin said.
"She would always check in with family members," the cousin said. "Every couple of months, she would turn up."
Wade remembers getting calls from Crosdale's family, asking her to check on Jaynie, which she did.
"We would go by and say 'hey,' Wade recounts. Crosdale was always on the streets, 24/7, Wade said. "We gave out hygiene kits, condoms, basic survival things for people who are considered 'other.' Jaynie fit into that category," Wade said.
She was Black, female and poor, Wade said. "Missouri is beyond conservative," she added, and social services for sex workers is not a public health priority.
Crosdale worked the same 10-block area, where other sex workers, johns and beat cops knew her, Wade said.
"She's a fixture here, like the Naked Cowboy in New York City," Wade said.
So when Kansas City homicide detectives contacted her after the woman escaped, and Crosdale's photo was found in the basement dungeon, she feared the worst.
"They just said they were looking for Jaynie. I said, 'What do you mean you can't find Jaynie Crosdale? She's been arrested like 10 million times. If she's not in jail, if she's not in the hospital or a mental health facility. She's dead. She's dead,'" Wade recounted telling them.
Police didn't tell her much else, she said, and she's doesn't fault them for that. "They were working an investigation," she said. "We have women murdered everywhere here."
She last saw Crosdale in the summer of 2022, just a few months before the other woman escaped.
"It was so hot," Wade remembered. "She was with a known drug dealer and pimp. We don't stop when they're with those old boys. We just kept on moving."
Wade gave it little thought, it was just business as usual, she said.
Then the missing billboards went up for Crosdale early the next year. After her decomposed remains were found in the barrel six months later, investigators tried to establish a timeline, according to authorities.
Autopsy results for Crosdale have not been released, but officers initially said it appeared she had been shot.
They estimated she was killed sometime between September and October 7, 2022, the same period of time in which the other woman was allegedly held captive in Haslett's basement, according to the court documents.
If that timeline is accurate, Crosdale was already dead when investigators started looking for her.
"If there are any other family members out there dealing with this, just remain their loved ones' biggest advocate," advised Crosdale's cousin.
"Make sure they are not silenced," she said.
Her family is committed to finding peace for Jaynie.
"We want to make sure she gets the justice she deserves."
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