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Judge Convicts Lorenzo Gilyard of Murdering Six Women in Kansas City in 1986 and 1987

DNA from old evidence linked the former trash company supervisor to the killings in 2004. The judge acquitted him of a seventh murder.

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Lorenzo Gilyard in glasses and a navy sweater, led into a Kansas City courtroom by a deputy

For two decades, the strangling deaths of women in Kansas City in the 1980s went unsolved. On March 16, 2007, a judge found Lorenzo Gilyard, 56, guilty of murdering six of them.

Judge John O'Malley convicted the former trash company supervisor at a trial without a jury. Prosecutors had agreed in January not to seek the death penalty if Gilyard's lawyers accepted a bench trial, and they also agreed to give up nearly all his appeal rights. In his ruling, O'Malley called the crimes "obscene insults to our sense of justice, security and freedom."

The women were Catherine M. Barry, 34; Naomi Kelly, 23; Ann Barnes, 36; Kellie A. Ford, 20; Shelia Ingold, 36; and Carmeline Hibbs, 30. Police had linked Gilyard's DNA to the deaths of a dozen women in April 2004, as crime lab workers tested evidence from old cases with a federal grant. He was later charged with 13 murders, but six counts were dropped as the trial began. Prosecutors said his semen was found on six of the women. The defense argued that this proved only that he had sex with them, not that he killed them.

O'Malley acquitted Gilyard of killing Angela Mayhew, 19, saying prosecutors had left him with suspicions but not convincing proof. "It's been 21 long years and it's finally over," said Catherine Barry's brother. On April 13, 2007, O'Malley sentenced Gilyard to life in prison without parole on each of the six counts.

One Associated Press report said a hair of Gilyard's was found on Angela Mayhew's sweater, while another said hers was the only body that did not provide DNA evidence.

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