On August 12, 1977, Mary Evelyn Alexander Parsh, 58, was killed in her Cape Girardeau, Missouri, home on Koch Street. An intruder entered the house believing a woman lived alone; Mary’s 27-year-old daughter, Brenda Parsh, arrived and surprised the assailant. Both women were overpowered, had their hands bound behind their backs, and were later found side-by-side on a bed, each shot execution-style in the head. The daughter had been sexually assaulted, and the scene suggested a predatory attack that ended in the elimination of witnesses.

For decades the murders remained unsolved until DNA recovered from the scene was matched in 2007 to Timothy Krajcir, a convicted sex offender then incarcerated in Illinois. Krajcir confessed to stalking Mary after seeing her at a shopping center, memorizing her address, and later attacking the women. He was charged with first-degree murder and, as part of a plea to avoid the death penalty, pleaded guilty and received multiple consecutive life terms.