Trial date set for Kansas City-area man accused of torturing, raping and murdering Black women

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An Excelsior Springs man will stand trial late next year on multiple charges, including rape, kidnapping and murder in a case involving Black women who later were reported missing, according to court documents

Clay County Judge David P. Chamberlain ordered 41-year-old Timothy M. Haslett Jr. to appear at 9 a.m. Dec. 1, 2025, for a jury trial expected to last around two weeks.

Haslett was arrested in October 2022 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. She told police she was held as his “Sex Slave,” 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.

Haslett was charged with first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy, first-degree kidnapping, two counts of second-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Murder charge in death of Jaynie Crosdale

Then in July, a grand jury charged Haslett of Excelsior Springs with an additional count of first-degree murder in the killing of Jaynie Crosdale, 36, of Kansas City, who had vanished months before her body was found stuffed into a blue barrel in June 2023.

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.

Evidence from the crime scene and victim statements point to the possibility of a third victim.

The case also has drawn criticism from Black leaders and advocacy groups in Kansas City, who questioned whether police are taking cases of missing Black women seriously.

When announcing the new indictment, Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson called the crimes “brutal and barbaric.” He said the surviving victim lived through physical, psychological and sexual assault that amounted to “torture.”

Haslett remains in Clay County jail on $5 million bond.

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(The Star’s Kendrick Calfee provided some information for this story.)