Trial delayed in high-profile Clay County case involving missing Black women
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Clay County judge postponed Timothy Haslett Jr.'s trial to October 2026.
- Charges include murder, rape, kidnapping in case involving multiple victims.
- Case sparked national scrutiny over police response to missing Black women.
The trial for an Excelsior Springs man accused of rape, kidnapping, and murder in a high-profile case involving missing Black women has been postponed until next year, according to the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office.
Clay County Judge David Chamberlain rescheduled the jury trial for 42-year-old Timothy M. Haslett Jr. to begin on Oct. 26, 2026. A pre-trial conference is now set for Oct. 9, 2026. The trial was previously scheduled to begin in early December.
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 ran to a neighbor’s house and said she had been restrained in the man’s basement. She told police she was held as his sex slave, according to court documents.
The woman also told police that Haslett kept two other women captive in the basement, but they did not “make it,” according to court documents.
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.
Then in July 2023, a grand jury indicted Haslett on 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 in June 2023 in the Missouri River in Saline County, stuffed into a blue barrel. When she disappeared, police circulated information that she was considered a potential witness.
Evidence from the crime scene and victim statements suggests the possibility of a third victim, according to court documents.
The case garnered national attention as well as criticism from Black leaders and advocacy groups in Kansas City, who questioned whether police take cases of missing Black women seriously.
