- A suspect in the rape and kidnapping of a Black woman in Missouri will appear in court on Jan. 10.
- Timothy Haslett Jr. is accused of keeping a Black woman in his 'dungeonlike' basement and raping and whipping her repeatedly.
As one of the first court dates for a Missouri rape and kidnapping suspect nears, residents in Kansas City and the neighboring Excelsior Springs are wondering whether more victims will come to light — and whether other missing Black women will be among their number.
Excelsior Springs authorities arrested Timothy Haslett Jr., 39, on October 7, after a Black woman claimed she escaped from a basement and sought help from his neighbors, alleging Haslett had raped, whipped, and detained her against her will for weeks. The woman escaped while Haslett was dropping his son off at school. Police searched his home and discovered a "dungeonlike cell" in his basement, painted black and equipped with several "devices" to restrain the woman, according to The Washington Post.
Haslett was charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, and second-degree assault, according to court records. The Post and the Kansas City Defender reported that Haslett was known to post racist content on Facebook, and that he clashed with Black soldiers during his time in the military in the early 2000s.
Haslett is due to appear in court on January 10, 2023, for a preliminary hearing. His attorney did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
In recent months, Kansas City community activists and relatives of missing women have come forward on social media and in news media, discussing their fears that a serial killer has been targeting Black women — specifically in the city's Prospect Avenue area.
In the wake of Haslett's arrest, some of the families of missing women have been demanding that Kansas City police investigate their disappearances. The Kansas City Police Department previously told Insider they had not received any reports of missing Black women — or missing persons in general — from the Prospect Avenue area.
"We base our investigations on reports made to our department," the police department said in a statement. "In order to begin a missing persons investigation, someone would need to file a report with our department identifying the missing party."
A local man named David Finnell told The Post his stepsister Sirrena Truitt has been missing since June and had been pushing the Kansas City Police Department to investigate Truitt's disappearance.
"You might say that the girl who escaped that house has brought it all to the forefront," Finnell told the newspaper.
Another local, JoAnn Stovall, told the Kansas City Beacon that her 25-year-old granddaughter Samone Jackson went missing nearly two years ago and has struggled to gain the police department's cooperation in investigating. Stovall said authorities spoke with Jackson's boyfriend, who told them they broke up and that Jackson didn't want to contact her family.
Stovall said police told her they had no obligation to track down an adult who doesn't want to be found and return them to their family against their will.
"They said she's OK. And so I don't think that they filed the missing report. It's like they closed the books on her because they said she's OK," Stovall told the Beacon.