KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A 22-year-old man was charged Friday with killing six women since September, and police said he told investigators he used a promise of crack cocaine to lure one of the victims to her doom.
Ray Shawn Jackson of Kansas City also was charged with aggravated assault in an attack on a woman Monday, authorities said. They said she survived.
The bodies of the six women were found in or near Gillham Park in Kansas City's midtown area. Jackson lived just a few blocks from the park, police said.
All of the six women found dead were black and in their 20s and 30s, police said. Several of them were addicted to crack and most had links to prostitution, police said.
Five of the women were strangled and the sixth was suffocated with mud forced down her throat.
David Fry, the chief warrant officer for the Jackson County prosecutor's office, said he asked Circuit Judge George Aylward to order Jackson held without bond.
However, the judge instead set bond Friday at $100,000 on each of the counts for a total of $700,000. Jackson was being held at the county jail.
Police said Rita Cheadle, 27, told them a man followed her Monday as she walked along the street, then grabbed her around the neck with his arm. She said he dragged her into some bushes, knocked her to the ground and began choking her with his hands.
Another man, walking his dog, interrupted the attack, and the assailant fled. Cheadle later identified Jackson as the man who choked her, investigators said.
Jackson was taken into custody Thursday and questioned for several hours, authorities said. Police said they had received hundreds of calls since the drawing of a possible suspect in the slayings was released last week.
Police said the suspect admitted to at least one of the killings. He told police he approached the victim and told her he knew where to get crack. In a statement, he admitted choking her, tying a shirt around her neck and tying a headband she was wearing around her eyes.
