Missouri Mayhem: Mystery & Murder with Mindy & Megan! · Megan Owens & Mindy Johnson

The Kansas City Strangler - Lorenzo Gilyard, Jr.

January 5, 2026·34 min·35 clips

Mindy and Megan open the episode with the Kansas City Strangler, Lorenzo Jerome Gilliard Jr. They say the story starts in 1977, and Mindy admits she knows very little while Megan says she is anxious, even a little scared, to hear more. The show stays casual. They thank listeners on Patreon, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify, share a new email address, and invite people to send in strange or wild personal stories for a possible listener-story segment. Then the case takes over. The hosts describe Gilliard as charming and aggressive, especially with women, which makes the violence feel even more unsettling as the timeline unfolds. It does not get prettier. In 1979, after two years of killings, he is arrested for assaulting a young couple, raping the girl, and threatening to kill her fiancee. The jury still lets him go. At his September 1980 trial, the episode says the victims identify him as their attacker, but he is acquitted for lack of evidence. That is not the end. A few months later, after he has taken a third wife, he is arrested for aggravated assault, and the punishment is only an administrative fine and a divorce. The pattern keeps repeating. In February 1981, he attacks his ex-wife twice, first knocking out her front teeth and then stabbing her hand with an ice pick, but the response is still only a third-degree assault charge, a suspended sentence, and probation. Even that does not stop him. In November 1981, he is arrested for theft and released on $3,500 bail, then later receives a four-year prison sentence for violating probation. The clock keeps moving. On January 10, 1983, he is paroled from that sentence, and the episode ends by stressing how often he was not held accountable. The hosts widen that point into a plain moral argument. They say the case shows women not being taken seriously and note that people around Kansas City may have never heard his name, even though the record around him was already long.

As heard by us

A Kansas City case where arrests, acquittal, probation, and parole keep widening the wound.

Mindy and Megan shape the Kansas City Strangler story around Lorenzo Jerome Gilliard Jr. with a steady sense of chronology, moving from 1977 through arrests, an acquittal, probation, and parole without losing the human cost.

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Why you'd press play

A Missouri true-crime case about the Kansas City Strangler, Lorenzo Jerome Gilliard Jr., and how often he seemed to avoid consequences.

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