Missouri Woman Escapes From Serial Killer That Police Previously Dismissed as Rumor

A 22-year-old Missouri woman who escaped after a White man kidnapped, tortured, and imprisoned her in a basement for weeks alleged her captor murdered several other Black women.

This came less than a month after police assured residents that their fears of a serial killer were "completely unfounded," The Guardian reported.

The unnamed woman was held captive for about a month. She escaped on October 7 while still wearing a metal collar that had to be unlocked by officials.

She told police in Kansas City that Timothy M. Haslett, 39, kept her in a basement room in Excelsior Springs, a city northeast of Kansas City, and beat and raped her repeatedly.

The Missouri woman escaped while Haslett was dropping his child off at school. She then approached several neighbors for help, claiming that her friends "did not make it out" and had been murdered by Haslett.

Police Dismissed Abductions as 'Rumor' Before Missouri Woman Escapes

People in the Kansas City neighborhood where the woman went missing were worried about a possible serial killer because other Black women and girls had gone out around the same time. However, the Kansas City Police dismissed their worries, Yahoo noted.

Social media was flooded with reports of killed and missing Black women in Kansas City before the woman's escape.

A community leader, Bishop Tony Caldwell, talked about the issue in a video that The Kansas City Defender also put out. He said women had gone missing from a certain part of Prospect Avenue. After she got away, the woman said she had been taken there.

"There is no basis to support this rumor." Kansas City Police said in a statement at the time, labeling the allegations as "completely unfounded."

"We base our investigations on reports made to our department," police spokesperson Officer Donna Drake said in an email.

Her email states that their department has not received any complaints of missing people from Kansas City.

She also said that before they could start looking for a person, someone would need to report them missing to their department.

Missouri Woman Escapes House of Horror

Around 7:45 a.m. on Friday, the Missouri woman ran barefoot down the street to a neighbor's house, Lisa Johnson, while wearing latex underwear, a metal dog collar with a padlock around her neck, and looked malnourished.

"She was wearing a very, very short black latex dress, which appeared opened up in places, you could plainly see what she had been through," Johnson said.

She also said that the victim was dehydrated and very malnourished.

Johnson also stated that the victim said her abductor would not let her go and was going to kill her as he had already killed two of her friends.

According to New York Post, the Missouri police are investigating if the suspect who held the Missouri woman captive for a month as his sex slave had killed other people.

"We are taking this accusation of two more women victims seriously and are actively investigating it," said the spoke person.

Haslett, the serial killer, was now in custody, facing rape, kidnapping and assault charges.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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