Lorenzo Gilyard was a trash company supervisor in Kansas City, Missouri, when police arrested him in April 2004 and charged him with strangling 12 women and girls between 1977 and 1993. A 13th count followed in 2006. Prosecutors said the case rested on DNA. A blood sample that police had taken from him in 1987, while investigating one of the deaths, was finally compared with evidence from old, unsolved cases after a federal grant paid for the work.
He was never tried on all 13. In January 2007 prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty if he gave up a jury and nearly all of his appeal rights. On the first day of trial, March 5, 2007, they dismissed six counts and went forward on the seven cases from 1986 and 1987 that they said were strongest. Jackson County Circuit Judge John O'Malley, deciding the case alone, convicted Gilyard of six murders on March 16, 2007, and acquitted him of the seventh. In April 2007 he received six consecutive life sentences without parole. He has denied killing anyone.
Only an outline of Gilyard's life is known. He was 53 in April 2004 and 56 at his trial. Court records showed that he married in 1968 and again in 1979, and police said he married a third time in the early 1990s, the Associated Press reported in 2004. At the time of his arrest he lived with his wife of about ten years in a modest single-story house on a quiet dead-end street in south Kansas City. She divorced him after the arrest.
He had a long criminal record. According to the AP, he was in and out of jail and prison in the late 1970s and the 1980s on charges that included molestation, sexual abuse, burglary and assault, and he served time for crimes that included child molestation. State probation records showed that between January 1969 and June 1974 he was a suspect in five rape cases, though he was never convicted of rape.
In 1986 he went to work for Deffenbaugh Disposal Service, a trash collection company, as a member of a garbage crew. By 2004 he supervised several crews. A company spokesman, Tom Coffman, described him to reporters after the arrest as reliable, friendly, hardworking and "quick to make a joke." "These allegations just don't square with the Lorenzo we all know," Coffman said. Neighbors said much the same. They described a friendly man who helped out on the street after an ice storm in January 2002 and who drove one of his two Mercedes on weekends. Until the 2004 arrest, the AP wrote, he had been largely off the police radar.
The charges named 13 women and girls. Court papers filed by the defense listed them with their ages: Catherine M. Barry, 34; Naomi Kelly, 23; Ann Barnes, 36; Kellie A. Ford, 20; Angela Mayhew, 19; Sheila Ingold, 36; Carmeline Hibbs, 30; Stacie L. Swofford, 17; Gwendolyn Kizine, 15; Margaret J. Miller, 17; Debbie Blevins, 32; Helga Kruger, 26; and Connie Luther, 29. The first seven were the women in the counts tried in 2007.
When Gilyard was charged in 2004, court records described 11 of the 12 victims then named as sex workers. The 12th, Catherine Barry, was a mentally ill woman who often walked the streets and accepted rides from strangers. The AP later described her as the only one of the women not known to have worked as a prostitute. Police said eight of the 12 had been killed in 1986 and 1987, and only one after that.
Little is known about most of these women beyond their names and ages, and most of what is known comes from the families who spoke after the arrest and in court.
Catherine Barry was 34. Her body was found on March 14, 1986. She was married and had children. Her sister told the court at the sentencing in 2007 that Catherine had been pushed into caring for her younger brothers and sisters when she was still a toddler, because their father was neglectful and often abusive. Later in life she struggled with mental illness. Her sister wore turquoise to the sentencing hearing because it had been Catherine's favorite color. Catherine's eldest child said that a younger brother had struggled after their mother's death and had her initials tattooed over his heart. One of Catherine's sons took his own life three months after Gilyard's arrest in 2004, her husband told the court. "My only comfort is they are together now," her eldest child said.
Naomi Kelly was 23. She was attending business college and caring for her two children. Her sister identified her body in August 1986. One of Naomi's children had died by the time of the 2007 sentencing. "The one thing I hate the most is that Naomi never got to raise her children," her sister said then. When Gilyard was charged in 2004, the same sister called the arrest "a blessing" and said, "Thank God for DNA."
Debbie Blevins was 32. Her body was found in 1986. After the arrest her sister urged families of other unsolved homicide victims to be patient, because DNA testing could bring a break at any time. "You've got to have hope," she said.
Angela Mayhew was 19. Her body was found on September 12, 1987.
Helga Kruger was 26 and was an Austrian national. She was found dead on a Kansas City street in 1989. Her death became the 13th count against Gilyard in 2006.
Ann Barnes, 36, Kellie A. Ford, 20, Sheila Ingold, 36, and Carmeline Hibbs, 30, died between 1986 and December 1987; with Catherine Barry and Naomi Kelly they are the six women whose deaths led to his convictions. Stacie Swofford, 17, Gwendolyn Kizine, 15, Margaret Miller, 17, and Connie Luther, 29, were among the people whose cases were dismissed before trial. The charges as a whole covered deaths from 1977 to 1993.
All 13 were strangled, according to the charges. At trial the prosecutor, Jim Kanatzar, listed what he said tied the seven tried cases together: the women were found dead within the same period of about a year and a half, all were left in secluded or obstructed places, all had been strangled, all showed signs of a struggle, all were missing their shoes, and all but one showed signs of recent sexual contact.
In December 1987 police were investigating the death of Sheila Ingold. On December 22, 1987, they arrested Gilyard at his home in connection with her death and seized two coats, according to testimony at a 2006 pretrial hearing reported by the Daily Record, a Missouri legal newspaper. Three police witnesses testified that a blue coat had three bloodstains on it.
Police also took a sample of his blood in 1987. He was one of several men who gave samples, the AP reported in 2004, and police would not say why his had been taken. Later AP reports said he was a suspect at the time in the death of one of the women he was eventually charged with killing. No charge followed in 1987. Missourinet, a statewide radio news network, reported in 2004 that the sample had been kept on ice for more than 15 years.
The coats did not survive. The police department disposed of them in August 1998. Witnesses at the 2006 hearing said they had known of no link between the coats and the investigation and that the disposal was not meant to harm the defense.
For years no one connected the cases. Police did not link any of the deaths to each other until 1994, when two homicides were tied to a common suspect, the AP reported. They could not connect the others until federal money arrived. According to the AP, the technology needed to make the comparisons did not exist until 2000, and a federal grant in 2003 paid for DNA analysis of evidence from the old cases. Police linked the rest of the deaths in the ten months before the arrest.
The crime lab's work linked 13 killings to one attacker whose identity was unknown. His identity was established when the lab analyzed the blood sample taken from Gilyard in 1987. The probable cause statement filed in Jackson County Circuit Court said investigators made the DNA link on April 12, 2004.
Gilyard was arrested on a Friday in April 2004 and charged the next day with ten counts of first-degree murder and two counts of capital murder, the offense defined by the law in force at the time of two of the killings. He was ordered held without bond at a first court appearance that lasted about a minute. Police said that if he were convicted of all the killings he would be the worst serial killer in Kansas City's history; Missourinet reported that police described it as the worst serial killing case in the state's history.
Prosecutor Mike Sanders said the charges came from DNA evidence, not from new leads or witnesses. "This is another example as to what DNA evidence can do for us in law enforcement and really for the entire community," he said. The police chief, Rick Easley, said detectives would keep working other cases. "We aren't going to stop because we have 12 charges," he said. Prosecutors had not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.
The cold case squad received about two dozen calls in the days after the arrest from people asking whether the death of someone they loved might be linked to Gilyard. Detective Ray Staley said police had expected that people would think he was involved in every unsolved killing of a sex worker, and he called that idea unrealistic. Kristine Olsson, a senior criminalist at the Kansas City crime lab, said she was hopeful about other cases because DNA was such a powerful technology and retained samples could be tested again.
In 2006 prosecutors added a 13th count, for the 1989 death of Helga Kruger. By August 2006, the Daily Record reported, all of the charges rested on DNA evidence.
The pretrial fight in Jackson County Circuit Court was led on the defense side by Thomas Jacquinot, a public defender, and on the state's side by Ted Hunt, an assistant prosecutor with 16 years in the office. Judge John R. O'Malley, on the bench since 1989, presided.
At a hearing in August 2006, Jacquinot asked the court to suppress evidence and to rule out the death penalty as a sanction because the police had destroyed the blue coat. He argued that Gilyard had been arrested in 1987 only for the homicide investigation. He also asked for all of the counts to be tried together, which he said would be more economical. Hunt opposed one combined trial, saying it would be very long and hard for a jury, with about 165 witnesses expected to testify about the 12 killings. Prosecutors also asked the judge to keep the women's sexual history and any drug use out of the trial; Hunt argued that attacking the victims' character was irrelevant.
In September 2006 O'Malley granted the defense request to join the offenses, so that all 12 original counts would be heard in one trial. "There simply is no logical basis to pluck out certain counts and try them later," he wrote. He ruled that the defense could present evidence of the women's sexual history, since they had prostitution arrest records, but barred the defense from attacking their character or offering hearsay about drug use.
Before trial O'Malley also barred the state from using blood from one of the victims that had been found on Gilyard's coat, because the police had mishandled it, and he excluded some of Gilyard's statements to police.
In January 2007 the two sides reached an agreement. Prosecutors would not seek the death penalty. In return, Gilyard's lawyers agreed to a bench trial, in which the judge alone decides guilt, and gave up nearly all of his appeal rights. A first-degree murder conviction on any single count would then carry only one possible sentence: life in prison without parole.
The trial opened on Monday, March 5, 2007, and was expected to last about three weeks. The courthouse had prepared for heavy press interest, running extra power lines to the sixth floor and into the courtroom. At pretrial hearings Gilyard had been quiet and shown little emotion.
That first day prosecutors dismissed six of the 13 counts, saying the seven remaining cases were the strongest. The seven covered Catherine Barry, Naomi Kelly, Ann Barnes, Kellie Ford, Angela Mayhew, Sheila Ingold and Carmeline Hibbs, all killed between March 1986 and December 1987. Among the dismissed counts was the death of Helga Kruger. Prosecutors could refile the dismissed counts, but the death penalty would not apply to them.
In his opening statement Kanatzar told the judge that crime lab experts would show Gilyard had had sex with each of the women close to the time of her death, and he listed the features the deaths shared. Jacquinot answered that police had first suspected other men, and that most of the women had a history of getting into cars with strangers as part of their work. Gilyard had told police the same thing for more than three years, Jacquinot said: "He did not kill anyone."
The state called a Kansas City police detective, Marcus Regan, who testified about the 2004 arrest and interrogation. Regan said he had asked Gilyard whether he had killed women after a romantic relationship ended in the 1980s. Gilyard replied, Regan said, that if he had strangled any of the "12 girls," he would be crazy to do something like that. Regan testified that police had not told Gilyard how the women died, and that when asked why he had said they were strangled, Gilyard said he did not know. On cross-examination Jacquinot asked whether the news media had reported the strangulations. Regan said he did not know, "and apparently he didn't either." Prosecutors also played a video of the interrogation in which Gilyard denied knowing any of the women.
Prosecutors showed that Gilyard had lived less than a mile from where one of the women was found, less than two miles from where four were found and less than five miles from where all seven were found. Regan agreed with Jacquinot that the women police described as sex workers had worked within five miles of his home. The state then rested, and the evidence took seven days in all.
The defense called a forensic pathologist, Dr. Thomas Bennett. He testified that Naomi Kelly and Ann Barnes may have been moved after they died. He also disputed the ruling that Sheila Ingold had died of asphyxiation.
In closing, Kanatzar said Gilyard's DNA had been found on all seven women and that he had been in contact with them shortly before they died. It would be an "astronomical coincidence," he said, for Gilyard to be innocent, and the idea that someone else had followed him and killed each woman after he had sex with her was "ridiculous." He called Gilyard's denial "feeble and fruitless" and said Gilyard had let slip to detectives that the women were strangled. "He's lying because he knows he's guilty," Kanatzar said. Susan Elliott, for the defense, said the state had not proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "It was not only possible but likely that he was not the only man to have contact with these victims before their deaths," she said. The defense also argued that many of the women had lived high-risk lives, that some had confrontations with other men shortly before they were found, and that over 20 years many witnesses had died or disappeared.
On Friday, March 16, 2007, O'Malley found Gilyard guilty of the first-degree murders of Catherine Barry, Naomi Kelly, Ann Barnes, Kellie Ford, Sheila Ingold and Carmeline Hibbs. In each of those six cases, the judge noted, Gilyard's DNA had been found on the body.
He acquitted Gilyard of murdering Angela Mayhew. Hers was the only case in the tried counts without DNA evidence. One of Gilyard's hairs was found on her sweater, the AP reported; the Daily Record reported that two of about 40 hairs on the sweater matched him. The judge said the prosecution had given him suspicions on that count, not convincing proof.
In his written findings of fact, O'Malley wrote, "These crimes have gone unsolved and unpunished for two decades." He called the killings "obscene insults to our sense of justice, security and freedom."
Relatives and friends of the women embraced and wept after the verdict. Elliott declined to comment. Kanatzar said the verdicts brought "closure and justice" to the victims, though he was disappointed by the acquittal. Catherine Barry's eldest child said she was elated.
At the sentencing hearing in April 2007, at the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, family members spoke. Catherine Barry's husband said the trial had given the family a "small measure of justice" and had let them "put a face" on the man responsible. Speaking to Gilyard, he said, "This hasn't been a life of happiness, a life of pleasure. It's been a life we've had to endure." Catherine's sister said she would never forgive him. Naomi Kelly's sister spoke about the children Naomi never got to raise.
O'Malley imposed six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, the only sentence the agreement allowed. "He's forfeited any right to live here among the rest of us," the judge said. He said the women might have turned their lives around, "except he stole it from them." Kanatzar said the sentence brought justice for the victims and the community and that people in Jackson County could sleep "a little safer" with Gilyard in prison.
Jacquinot said Gilyard planned to appeal. "Mr. Gilyard to this day still maintains his innocence," he said, adding that Gilyard sympathized with the families. Under the January agreement Gilyard had given up nearly all of his appeal rights.
Six of the 13 counts were never tried. They covered the deaths of Stacie Swofford, Gwendolyn Kizine, Margaret Miller, Debbie Blevins, Helga Kruger and Connie Luther. No court has heard evidence on them, and Gilyard has not been convicted of any of those deaths. They were charged and then dismissed, and the deaths are attributed to him only by the original charges and by the police and prosecutors who brought them. In April 2007 Kanatzar said his office was still deciding whether to refile them.
The acquittal on the Angela Mayhew count means that, in law, Gilyard did not murder her.
How many deaths. Gilyard stands convicted of six murders. He was charged with 13 and acquitted of one; six were dismissed untried. Police said in 2004 that they were looking at other killings, but no further charges were reported.
What the DNA showed. Throughout, the defense argued that the evidence proved only that Gilyard had sex with the women, most of whom were sex workers, and not that he killed them. The judge accepted the state's case on six counts and rejected it on the one count without DNA evidence.
The cause of Sheila Ingold's death. The defense pathologist disputed the ruling of asphyxiation and said he would have ruled methadone the cause. The judge convicted Gilyard of her murder.
The 1987 coat. The blue coat seized in December 1987, which police witnesses said carried bloodstains, was destroyed by the police department in 1998. The defense asked the judge to rule out the death penalty as a sanction; the death penalty was later removed by agreement, and the judge barred the state from using the blood evidence from the coat.
His own statements. Detective Regan's account that Gilyard mentioned strangulation before police told him was part of the state's case. The defense suggested he could have heard it in the news. Gilyard denied knowing any of the women and has denied killing anyone.
Gilyard was sent to the Missouri prison system to serve six consecutive life terms without parole.
1968: Gilyard marries for the first time, according to court records cited by the AP.
January 1969 to June 1974: He is a suspect in five rape cases, according to state probation records; he is never convicted of rape.
1977: The earliest death later charged against him.
1979: His second marriage, according to court records.
March 14, 1986: Catherine Barry's body is found.
1986: He joins Deffenbaugh Disposal Service as a member of a trash crew.
August 1986: Naomi Kelly's sister identifies her body.
September 12, 1987: Angela Mayhew's body is found.
December 22, 1987: Police arrest Gilyard in connection with Sheila Ingold's death and seize two coats. A blood sample is taken from him in 1987 and stored. No charge follows.
1989: Helga Kruger is found dead in Kansas City.
1993: The latest death later charged against him.
1994: Police link two of the deaths to a common suspect.
August 1998: Police dispose of the coats.
2003: A federal grant pays for DNA analysis of evidence from old cases.
April 12, 2004: The crime lab links Gilyard's 1987 blood sample to the deaths, according to the probable cause statement.
April 2004: He is arrested on a Friday and charged the next day with ten counts of first-degree murder and two of capital murder.
2006: A 13th count is added for the death of Helga Kruger.
September 2006: Judge O'Malley orders the counts tried together.
January 2007: Prosecutors agree not to seek death in exchange for a bench trial and a waiver of nearly all appeal rights.
March 5, 2007: Trial opens; six counts are dismissed.
March 16, 2007: Convicted on six counts of first-degree murder; acquitted of the murder of Angela Mayhew.
April 2007: Sentenced to six consecutive life terms without parole.