Defrosting Cold Cases

Jackson was paroled from prison in 2008 after serving more than 20 years for attempted forcible rape, burglary, and three other convictions. Although he was only charged with one sexual assault, police suspected him in several others in the 1980s. Police would not say how they developed the parolee as a suspect in the five Waldo-area attacks, which occurred between September and February. Police said the five cases shared striking similarities that convinced police they were related.

Dozens of investigators have been working for months, following hundreds of leads called in to the TIPS Hotline, to try to identify the rapist. The attacks spread panic among women in Kansas City, especially after he logged his fifth attack Feb. 22 despite an onslaught of publicity, including a heavily distributed composite sketch, and extra police patrols. The case occurred in the city’s southwest corridor, where much of Kansas City’s civic elite still lived. According to the papers, the case also had a racial angle to it — the rapist was a black man and the victims were five white women, in separate cases. Maybe Chief Corwin will elaborate later on his blog about the investigation.