The Prospect Killer: Terry Blair

WEBVTT

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minted murder. Terry Blair grew up surrounded

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by crime and violence. His family
tree was full of criminals. He was

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the fourth eldest of ten siblings who
would have many run ins with the law,

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and some say the Blair family is
one of the most notorious Kansas Any

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crime families ever. This family of
felons began in the nineteen seventies when Terry

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Blair's mother, Janice, killed her
drug dealing boyfriend. She entered in Alfred

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Plea and didn't serve any time,
but over the next two decades, two

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of her ten children were convicted of
murder and a third is serving two life

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terms plus two hundred forty years for
kidnapping and forcible sodomy. While incarcerated for

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charges that I wasn't able to find, Terry Blair's brother, Walter Blair,

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accepted an offer of six thousand dollars
to quote get rid of a woman who

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was making rape allegations towards a fellow
inmate. Walter accepted the offer and upon

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his release, went to the home
of the twenty one year old law student

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to seal the deal. He struck
her over the head with a brick and

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shot her numerous times at close range. He was convicted of murder and later

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executed for his crimes. His brother, Clifford, was convicted in the abduction

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of a woman from a bar.
He shot the woman in the arm before

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forcibly taking her to an abandoned house, where he raped her and beat her

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repeatedly until she blacked out. She
didn't die, she suffered extensive injuries and

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spent two months in the hospital recovering. Clifford was sentenced to two life sentences

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plus two hundred forty years. Other
members of the Blair family, including Terry

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Blair's sister, brother in law,
and nephew, have faced charges for a

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myriad of offenses such as robbery,
kidnapping, and rape. Although this episode

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could be about the entire family as
a whole, Terry was by far,

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somehow the worst, so it wasn't
surprising when Terry Blair turned to a life

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of crime and followed in the murderous
footsteps of his family. Blair was ultimately

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accused of raping and killing at least
seven women in Kansas City, Missouri,

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but investigators think there could be many
more victims that will never be found.

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Terry began his murder spree by killing
Angela Munroe, a pregnant mother of his

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two children. On May fifteenth,
nineteen eighty two. Blair and Monroe got

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into an argument and he beat her
to death, and she was only nineteen

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years old plus pregnant with their third
child. Terry later admitted that he was

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angry that she was a sex worker
and that was the motive behind her murder.

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He was convicted and sentenced to twenty
five years for her murder, and

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throughout his sentence he was in and
out of prison on various parole releases,

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but parole violations kept sending him back. During one of his parole releases,

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Blair murdered another woman. On June
thirtieth, two thousand and three, police

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found the body of a forty five
year old woman named Sandra Reid. She

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was strangled and her neck had been
broken. Blair was never formally convicted of

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her murder, but it's likely that
he was involved. A parole violation shortly

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after that murder sent him back to
prison to finish his sentence for the Angela

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Monroe killing. Terry Blair served twenty
one years in prison for the killing of

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Angelo Monroe before he was released officially
January of two thousand and four. Just

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months after his release, his reign
of terror in Kansas City officially began.

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He stuck to a sixteen block radius
when committing these crimes and targeted prostitutes along

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Prospect Avenue, earning him the nickname
of the Prospect Killer. He later said

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in trial he wanted to kill as
many women in prostitutes as possible. Allegedly,

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Blair killed eight sex workers in three
months. He would also make multiple

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phone calls to police, giving them
detailed directions on where they could find the

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bodies, but not giving away any
clues as to his identity. Throughout this

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summer of murder, Blair was living
with his mother and sister. It had

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been reported that the man living above
the family would frequently let prostitutes eat,

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sleep, and shower in his apartment. Terry began his spree of violence with

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at least two sexual assaults, raping
two separate victims June first, two thousand

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and four and June sixth, two
thousand and four. He was not charged

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or either of these assaults, but
victim and witness testimony would later be his

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downfall. Anna Ewing's body was found
on July fourteenth, two thousand and four,

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by a man spraying for weeds.
She was strangled and her neck was

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broken. Initially, the medical examiner
ruled her death to be a cocaine overdose,

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but that was later re examined,
linking her to Blair. On August

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eighteenth, two thousand and four,
Blair attempted to claim another life, but

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he failed in that attempt, leaving
behind another eyewitness who survived a choking attack

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from Blair. Following that failed murder
attempt, in late August, Blair murdered

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sex worker Patricia Butler. He dumped
her body in an old, abandoned garage.

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A few weeks after the murder,
another sex worker, Sheila mackenzie,

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was strangled and had her neck broken. Her body was dumped on top of

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Butler's in that same abandoned garage.
Police were notified of a strong foul odor

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coming from a vacant and discovered the
bodies of both Butler and McKenzie covered in

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a tarp and decomposing. Completely unaware
that their bodies had already been found.

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Terry Blair made one of his anonymous
nine one one calls, bragging I put

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them there. At this point,
the serial killer running rampant in Kansas City

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was still unidentified, and more murders
would take place before he was stopped.

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The day after Butler and McKenzie's bodies
were found, an anonymous tipster, very

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likely Terry Blair, called nine to
one one to tell the police where to

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find the body of another victim,
Carmen Hunt. Police had to use fingerprints

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to identify Hunt's remains. She was
forty years old at the time of her

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murder. On September fourth, two
thousand and four, nine one one caller

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led police to two more bodies once
again. Sex worker Claudetta Juniel's body was

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found in the woods near an abandoned
building. She was strangled and had a

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broken neck. Like the others,
she was sixty three years old. On

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that same day, twenty five year
old Darcy Williams was found with a broken

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neck and strangled with her own clothing. Her body was found in an abandoned

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alley. Before Blair could claim another
life, he was arrested on a parole

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violation. It's not uncommon for detectives
to arrest a suspect on a parole violation

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to question them regarding other open cases, and that's exactly what the detectives did

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in this case. Terry Blair was
initially charged with the murder of Mackenzie based

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on DNA evidence from seamen and remember
her body was found in the empty garage

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along with Butlers. This would be
the first of many, as Kansas City

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thought this reign of terror was over. Days after Blair's arrest, police found

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a skeletal body in an alley in
an advanced state of decomposition. Her neck

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was broken and it was clear that
she died of strangulation. Blair was indicted

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for her death, but those charges
would later be dropped. Three months after

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his murder spree ended, Blair was
finally indicted for eight total murders. He

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pled not guilty on December thirteenth,
two thousand and four, and the trial

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process began. While waiting for trial, numerous charges were dropped from Blair,

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including two murders and various assault and
sexual assault charges. Finally, after many

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delays, Blair's trial began March two
thousand and eight. In a predetermined agreement,

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prosecutors removed the death penalty and Blair
agreed to a trial by judge only

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in this agreement, the state would
dismiss two of the murder charges and the

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assault and forcible rape charges. The
trial went on for seventeen days and Terry

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Blair was found guilty of six total
murders. The only possible sentence for this

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was life without parole on each charge. Blair was sentenced to six consecutive life

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terms with no possibility of parole,
and despite numerous appeals, Terry Blair remains

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in prison to this day. That
is ten minute murder for today Brief and

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Bingeible True Crime. My name is
Joe, I'm the host. Hello,

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and I really appreciate you listening today, especially if you're a brand new listener.

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Thank you for taking the time to
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today, and I hope you enjoyed
it. Please subscribe so that you can

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catch up on all the back episodes
and never miss any of the new ones.

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And with the back episodes, I
never know how many exactly there are,

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because I'm not one of those podcasters
that at the beginning says this is

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episode six hunty two. I guess
I could do that, but I don't

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do that because I don't keep up
with him. Plus there's a chance that

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I will go back and delete episodes
from time to time that it would throw

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off the count them because I get
self conscious and I think that episode sucks,

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so i'll delete it. I've done
that a few times and I'm trying

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not to do it. I'm super
self critical, and I go back and

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listen to older episodes. Mostly it's
when people ask me, have you done

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a story on blah blah blah,
And I'll go back and I'll say,

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oh, yeah, it's right here, and then I'll send them the link

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to it, and then I'll listen
to the episode myself if it's been like

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a couple of years since I've done
it, and I cringe so hard.

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Sometimes I'm like, oh, that
is not good, and it makes me

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want to delete it. But then
I just sent the link to someone who's

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going to listen to it, and
I can't delete it because they're gonna listen,

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and you know what I mean.
So I don't number the episodes.

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That was a long way of telling
you that I don't number the episodes.

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By the way, someone sent me
a picture. They emailed it to me

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Joe at ten minute murder dot com. That's my email address. They emailed

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it to me and I laughed so
hard that I felt like I needed to

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tell you about it, and I'll
post it as well. If you follow

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the podcast on social media, you
know that I enjoy a good meme from

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time to time, a true crime
meme. And this isn't even that.

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It takes a minute to explain,
but I'll do that. If you know

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who Richard Marks is, you know
he had a hit song in the eighties

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called Hazard not a bad song.
He's like the nineteen eighties version of Ed

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Sheeran. And in this photo he's
standing next to a lady and she's wearing

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a T shirt that says I'm no
detective, but I'm pretty sure Richard Marks

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killed that woman and left her by
the river. And I'll post it unless

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I forget hold on. Thank you
myself a note. I just made myself

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a note post the photo and if
I forget still and if I forget to

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read the note that reminds me to
post the photo, please remind me.

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Okay, that's it for today.
Thank you for listening to Ten Minute Murder