Krajcir was born Timothy Wayne McBride in West Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania to Charles McBride and Fern Yost on November 28, 1944. In 1945, when Timothy was around a year old, Charles abandoned the family, leaving Fern to raise him on her own. In 1949 or 1950 when Timothy was either 5 or 6, Fern met and married Bernie Krajcir. Timothy was legally adopted by Bernie in 1953 and Timothy's surname was legally changed from McBride to Krajcir. At the age of 10, Timothy began to develop an unhealthy sexual and emotional obsession with his mother, and by the age of 13 he had become a voyeur and exhibitionist. Krajcir later enrolled at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he earned a BA in the Administration of Justice, with a minor in psychology.
In carrying out his crimes, Krajcir would travel to various towns that he had no connection to, stalk his victims, and then break into their homes and wait for them to arrive. In 1977, Krajcir was released from prison after serving time for rape, and as a condition of his parole, he was required to enroll at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. There, in 1981, he earned a degree in Administrative Justice with a minor in psychology. Some victims were found tied up in their beds. Others were kidnapped and transported across state lines before they were killed. Most of them were raped and forced to perform sexual acts. Some were killed by a gunshot to the head. Others were stabbed or asphyxiated. There was little evidence pointing to any of the rapes or murders being linked or to them having been committed by the same person. The lack of forensic and DNA technology at the time and the multiple methods of murder made it difficult for investigators to link all the crimes to a single suspect.
Krajcir was finally connected to a murder because of DNA evidence left at the crime scene. At the time of the commission of the crime, DNA testing was not available, but as DNA analysis advanced, testing became possible. Krajcir was sentenced on December 10, 2007 to 40 years in prison for the 1982 killing of Southern Illinois University Carbondale student Deborah Sheppard and in addition was charged with five counts of murder and three counts of rape against women in the Cape Girardeau area from 1977 to 1982. On January 18, 2008, Krajcir pleaded guilty and was sentenced to another 40 years in prison for the 1978 killing of Marion resident Virginia Lee Witte. The new sentence will be served consecutively with the 40-year sentence he received in December 2007. On April 4, 2008, Krajcir pleaded guilty to the murder of five women in Cape Girardeau, to seven sexual assaults, and one robbery. He was then sentenced to an additional 13 consecutivelife terms. Relatives of the victims agreed to the plea bargain, which took the death penalty off the table. At his sentencing in April, Krajcir stated, "I don't know if I could have been so generous if I were in the same situation. Thank you for sparing my life." Krajcir is currently held at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois.
