‘Like a butterfly’: Friends remember woman found dead in KC area kidnapping, torture case

When she met Jaynie Crosdale, Abbey Moore was skeptical they would get along as roommates. They were both leaders, blunt and loud.

But Moore was wrong. The two women became fast friends during their nine months sharing a prison cell at Chillicothe Correctional Center.

“We didn’t meet in the best of places,” Moore said.

They made the most of it, though. On the outside — Crosdale was released first in 2017 but went back for two months in 2018 — Moore said they remained in touch at first, but eventually fell out of contact.

A few weeks ago, memories of her friend came flooding back to Moore as Clay County prosecutors announced Crosdale’s body had been found June 24 in a blue barrel in the Missouri River. It took the Missouri State Highway Patrol one month to come back with a positive ID.

The chilling discovery came after authorities spent months searching for Crosdale, putting her photograph and name up on Kansas City highway billboards. She was sought as a “potential witness” in connection with the investigation of alleged rapist and kidnapper Timothy M. Haslett, accused of imprisoning another Black woman in his Excelsior Springs basement.

The high-profile criminal investigation captured national attention. It has also been closely watched in Kansas City, as questions were raised about whether authorities were taking cases of Black women who were unaccounted for seriously after Kansas City police discounted reports that a serial killer targeting Black women was on the loose.

Authorities have yet to say how Crosdale, 36, died or when she disappeared. Her body was in an advanced stage of decomposition when kayakers found the barrel in Saline County, about 65 miles east of Kansas City.

Relatives of the woman largely shied away from media attention.

One reached by phone for comment on this story declined an interview with The Star but said she “is going to be missed.” Another who spoke to The Star in January said Crosdale had not been in contact with the family for about two years. Neither wished to be identified.

Earlier this month, FOX News reported that before Crosdale went missing, she started spending more time with her family, citing a relative who did not share her name.

“I’ll always remember just how happy she was,” the family member said. “She would do anything in the world for anybody.”

Friends of Crosdale, reached by The Star after her death was announced, said she was a light to others, despite what they believed to be a difficult upbringing.

One of those friends, Moore, 41, of Mt. Vernon, says she remembers Crosdale as a good woman who left the world in a horrific way. She believes Crosdale was a God-fearing person who hoped to one day set out on a different path.

“She was just a really good person,” Moore said. “And that’s not the person that the police ... or the courts know or Prospect (Avenue) knows.”

“She was just Jaynie. She was like a butterfly. She was everywhere. She loved people and people love her.”

‘A brand new start’

For 16 months, beginning in 2016, Crosdale was incarcerated in Chillicothe for an involuntary manslaughter conviction.

The conviction stemmed from a car crash involving a pedestrian on Sept. 22, 2015, in Kansas City.

Crosdale was arrested after a woman was struck by a vehicle near Independence and Bales avenues. Crosdale told police the woman was threatening her, so she picked up a stick to defend herself. Witnesses told police they saw Crosdale chase the woman with a stick, but never hit her.

As the woman, 46-year-old Angela McCrackin, stepped backward to get out of the way, she was struck by a car headed west down Independence. McCrackin died in a hospital four days later. Crosdale pleaded guilty to a Class C felony in January 2016.

Cecilia Palmer, 27, of St. Joseph, said in a way, prison offered Crosdale a chance to begin again.

“She hadn’t lived a normal life in such a long time,” said Palmer, who shared a housing unit at Chillicothe with Crosdale. “When she came into prison it was like a brand new start.”

Moore, the former cellmate, said she could usually hear Crosdale coming from way down the hall with fresh gossip. Often, her stories would start with, “Oh my God, you are not going to believe this …”

Some nights they would gather their rations from the commissary and fashion meals. Crosdale liked tamale pies and potato wraps. And when they were finished, Crosdale always insisted on giving any leftovers to women who could not afford to buy extra food.

They confided in one another. Less so about their pasts. More about their futures and fears.

Crosdale spoke of traveling to places with sparkling water and palm trees, of going to college, of taking a family she dreamed of starting to Disney World. It’s the hope of most people in prison, Moore added.

Crosdale kept a Bible next to her bed and “was very into God,” Moore said. On the anniversary of Moore’s father’s death, Crosdale prayed over her friend as they cried together.

“She wouldn’t leave your side until you were better,” Moore said, later adding: “She would’ve been a really good therapist.”

In her final weeks in prison, Moore said her friend became quiet and irritable. Asked what was wrong, Crosdale said she wasn’t sure she was ready to go back to society yet.

It scared Moore, who could hear the fear in her friend’s voice.

“If she had been given the help that she needed when she got out, the resources, I think Jaynie would have done all the things she said she was going to do,” Moore said.

Moore said she wants more people to learn about Crosdale’s life. Charismatic and boisterous, Moore said, Crosdale’s eyes sparkled like she was a cartoon whenever she smiled.

Palmer hopes Crosdale is remembered for her positivity and energy.

“It seemed like she had a really good head on her shoulders and potential to do better in life,” Palmer said.

Break in kidnapping, rape case

Efforts by authorities to locate Crosdale early this year came in response to her alleged connection with a case that first broke in Excelsior Springs in October.

On Oct. 7, another woman escaped from a home on a quiet Excelsior Springs street seeking help from neighbors.

That woman, identified in court documents as T.J., said she had been held against her will by a man she knew only as “Timothy.” She said he chained her up in a small basement room he had built, where she was raped and whipped.

When police arrived, she told them she had been held captive there for about a month. And she offered another cryptic detail: Her captor had killed two people and, if he found her, would kill her too.

As the woman was being taken to the hospital, she pointed to the house where she said she had been held.

The resident, Haslett, 40, who lived there with his elementary-school aged son, was arrested that morning and booked into the Clay County jail. A Clay County grand jury later indicted him on a nine felonies, including charges of kidnapping and rape. Haslett has pleaded not guilty to the crimes.

For months, detectives with Excelsior Springs police and the Clay County Investigative Squad worked on the case without making much of their progress public.

Then, on Aug. 1, the Clay County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced a motion to increase Haslett’s bond, currently set at $3 million, ahead of his upcoming Oct. 9 court appearance, because Crosdale’s body had been discovered.

A judge ruled against that motion, saying that while the details of the witness being found dead are “concerning,” there was no reason to increase Haslett’s bond as prosecutors have not charged him with crimes related to Crosdale’s death.

But authorities say there is evidence that Crosdale was at Haslett’s home at some point before she disappeared. They also say she is believed to have been there before T.J. escaped in October.

During an interview with The Star, Excelsior Springs Police Chief Greg Dull said police suspect Haslett of being connected to Crosdale’s death, including because police discovered blue barrels on Haslett’s property during a days-long search in October.

The barrels, Dull said, appear to be advertised for commercial uses, such as storing solvents and petroleum products. He said they do not look like the ones “you typically see” at a hardware store.

“The fact that (Crosdale) was found in a blue barrel that is very similar to the blue barrels that he had on his property, and the fact that she was there at his property, we would be remiss if we didn’t look at him as a potential suspect,” Dull said.

Detectives also investigated the statements made by T.J. that Haslett had killed two people. But Dull said upon further questioning, she told them she never witnessed anyone else being harmed.

“She was repeating what Haslett had told her,” Dull said. “Now, was he telling her this to manipulate her and control her? Or was that true?”

“At this point, we still don’t know.”

Like T.J., Dull said Crosdale was never reported missing to police — something he finds “sad.”

Dull added that if there are other victims, he also doesn’t believe they’re been reported missing.

“I think that it’s sad that (police) continue to try to shift the focus from public safety to personal responsibility,” Michele Watley, founder of the nonprofit Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, said in response to Dull’s latest comments. “At the end of the day, there has been a total lack of transparency.”

She noted that a website created by the Excelsior Springs Police Department to keep the public informed on the Haslett case has only been updated twice since October. Watley is a member of the advisory board The Star formed after its “The Truth in Black and white,” project in 2020.

Area residents continue to question whether the processes and policies of local law enforcement agencies contribute in part to an environment where community concerns about missing people — Black women in particular — are simply going unheard or unreported.

For example, Watley said, the decision by police to broadcast Crosdale’s photo and information in a way that Watley said “looked more like a most wanted poster than a plea to the community for help” is a “glaring example of why the community does not trust the police.”

She said the community is owed as much information as possible — both about the Haslett case and about how to report someone missing safely. She said the conversations that began in the community last fall around missing Black women prove as much.

“I think it’s validated that the police departments need to educate their community and equip this community with the information and tools that they need to keep folks safe. I think the community is owed as much information as possible.”

The Star’s Bill Lukitsch contributed to this report.