Kelvin Malone Executed For Three Murders

Kelvin Malone was a spree killer who would be executed by the State of Missouri

According to court documents Kelvin Malone would murder William Parr in St Louis Missouri during a robbery. Malone would then murder James Rankin in California and then would murder Myrtle Dee Benham

Kelvin Malone was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death in both Missouri and California

Kelvin Malone would be executed by lethal injection on January 13 1999

Kelvin Malone Photos

Kelvin Malone - Missouri execution

Kelvin Malone Case

On March 18, 1981 at around 12:40 a.m. Kelvin Malone arrived in St. Louis, Missouri from Los Angeles, California at the downtown Greyhound Bus station. He had a .25 caliber Raven automatic pistol and a Galesi .25 caliber pistol in his suitcase.

Around the same time, Mr. William Parr, a taxi driver for Yellow Cab, received a call for him to pick up a package at the First National Bank in downtown St. Louis. About four minutes after Parr left for his delivery, a second cab driver, Mr. Richard Eder, passed by the First National Bank building on his way to pick up an order and observed Mr. Parr’s cab parked out with the dome light on. A short distance away Mr. Elder observed an individual with a suitcase attempting to hail a cab. This person was later identified as Kelvin Malone. Mr. Daniel Ward, an employee of the First National Bank, testified that at around 1:00 a.m. as he left the bank building he observed a man with a suitcase sitting in the back seat of Mr. Parr’s cab. Mr. Parr picked up the package shortly after 1:00 a.m., but never arrived at his destination in St. Louis County.

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1981, the body of Mr. William Parr was found at Entrance Park in Berkeley laying face down. Mr. Parr was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to the head.

Police later discovered an abandoned Yellow Cab in Berkeley a short distance from the home of Michael Crenshaw. Emanual Bego, who lived with the Crenshaw family in Berkeley, said that at around 1:30 a.m. he heard a knock at the door and that when Michael Crenshaw answered the door he greeted the visitor as “Kelvin”. Bego testified that later that day Malone and Crenshaw left the house to return to Los Angeles. Bego also reported that he found a Greyhound Bus ticket at the Crenshaw house later identified as one from Los Angeles to St. Louis dated March 15, 1981.

On March 24, 1981, officers of the San Jose, California Police Department found Kelvin Malone and Michael Crenshaw asleep in a mercury Capri. The two refused to provide identification and then attempted to get away from the officers. A high speed chase followed and the pair was apprehended. Recovered was a .25 caliber Raven pistol and a .25 caliber Galesi pistol and small suitcase.

Ballistics experts in California fired three test shots from the Galesi and mailed the projectiles to the Berkeley Police Department. The projectiles and a bullet taken from murder victim William Parr were identified by a Federal Bureau of Investigations firearm expert as being fired from the same Galesi .25 caliber pistol.

State of Missouri v. Kelvin Shelby Malone
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