Authorities seek other possible victims of KC man accused of kidnap and rape

Jackson County authorities are looking for more possible victims of a Kansas City man accused of robbing a woman at knife point and kidnapping and raping another woman he had forced to drive to ATMs and withdraw money.

D’Maryon D. Odums, 23, was charged Wednesday with 17 felony counts that included rape, burglary, robbery, sodomy, sexual assault and armed criminal action. He was arraigned Thursday and remains in custody on a $500,000 cash-only bond.

The alleged crimes occurred near the Hyde Park area, and authorities are asking other victims to come forward.

Investigators noticed a pattern connecting two incidents, the knife-point robbery on Jan. 22 and the rape and robbery on Feb. 3. The victims described their attacker as a man with a bandana covering his face and armed with a long knife.

“His pattern of contacts to that area of town and the time of the alleged crimes are concerning to me, and because of that we are taking a look much more thoroughly at his entire history,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Thursday.

Court records provide details that allege Odums likely targeted his victims, paying attention to their daily routines.

According to court records, a victim told police that she woke up to find a man standing in the doorway of her residence in the 4600 block of Troost Avenue. The intruder wore a black skull cap with a red bandana over his face. He was armed with a knife.

The man told the victim not to move and mentioned he had seen her daughter in another room. The victim she gave him her purse and told him that she only had $15 and her debit card. The man refused to take the debit card but stole the $15.

As he walked toward the back door, the intruder advised the victim to keep her windows locked. He then removed the two-by-four that barricaded the back door and walked away in an unknown direction.

In the second incident, the victim told investigators she left her apartment in the 900 block of East 39th Street just after 5 a.m. and walked to her parked car. Before she was able to lock the driver-side door and start the engine, a man opened the door.

As she screamed, the man held a knife to the woman’s side and told her, “Shut the (expletive) up,” court records stated.

The attacker got into the backseat, placed the knife against the woman’s neck and instructed her, “Drive where I tell you to drive.”

He then made her drive to several bank ATMs. At one point, the attacker forced the victim to park in a residential neighborhood. He then removed the victim’s work identification badge from her shirt and forced the woman into the backseat, where he raped her, according to court records.

He allegedly made the victim get into the front seat and told her, “Don’t think about calling the police. Obviously I know where you live and if you do that, I’ll kill you next time.”

The attacker ran away in an unknown direction.

Odums was linked to the attack by DNA collected at the crime scene. The DNA profile was entered into a database and returned as a hit to Odums, who was listed in Louisiana as an offender.

Odums was arrested Tuesday and allegedly denied attacking the woman. When investigators told Odums that his DNA was collected at the crime scene, he told them that it must either be a mistake or that he has a twin somewhere, according to court records.

While he was in custody, Odums was able to move his handcuffed hands from behind his back to the front of his body. He began manipulating the interview camera, rending it inoperable. Odums allegedly wrote expletives on the dry erase board in the interview room.

In 2013, Odums pleaded guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. He was placed on two years of probation after serving 180 days in the Jackson County jail.

On Thursday, Baker said that the office is looking at other crimes Odums may be connected to elsewhere.

“I want to know who else we should be notifying,” she said. “I am concerned of other communities where he may have been.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2017 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Authorities seek other possible victims of KC man accused of kidnap and rape."