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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that everyone knows about from the Queen of England to the
00:01:52
hounds of Hell ladies and gentlemen the captain Off With Their Heads it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks
00:01:59
for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend today we got that Golden Monkey
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these fine folks contributed to the Beer fund at true Crim garage.com yeah BW are you in beer run
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go to the store Page get you some merch keep the lights on here in the garage get you some and that's enough of the
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business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:26
crime I don't want your love oh I [Music] don't when we left off Captain we were
00:03:47
reintroduced to Kyler yust a name we've heard before he was the boyfriend of missing person Cara kety from 9 years
00:03:58
ago Jess iica did not tell Jackson that she was going out with Kyler that Thursday night when she did not come
00:04:06
home now at this time Kyler was living in Kansas City with his grandfather this after being released from prison just
00:04:16
over a month earlier and he was hanging out with Jessica runions of Raymore who was as said apparently the
00:04:24
girlfriend or ex-girlfriend of Kyler's friend Jackson Mallet meanwhile on Saturday September 10th
00:04:32
2016 at 1:41 a.m. the Kansas City Fire Department found a vehicle on fire at 95th Street in Blue River Road this is
00:04:44
in Jackson County Missouri the man who reported the car fire recognized the license plate of the burning vehicle as
00:04:53
that belonging to a girl he'd seen online as missing Jessica runion indeed the car
00:05:00
which was incinerated to a smoking shell was Jessica's Equinox it had been deliberately set a
00:05:07
blaze with gasoline spread inside and out of the vehicle later that day on the 10th a young man named Jessup Carter
00:05:16
called the belon police department he told them that he was with his half brother Kyler
00:05:22
UST apparently they share a mother when Kyler set Jessica Ran's vehicle on fire further Kyler confessed to Jessup that
00:05:32
he had strangled Jessica and that she was gone double douche Cano Kyler told Jessup he dragged her into the woods and
00:05:40
left her there Kyler had asked Jessup to help him destroy the vehicle and to hide
00:05:46
evidence and while he was burning the vehicle Kyler got burned himself yes he managed to burn his hands and face while
00:05:54
setting Jessica's car on fire Jessup took Kyler to to a trailer home in Edwards Missouri to let him hide out for
00:06:04
a while and heal from these Burns but then he decided to call the police it's too bad Jessup didn't decide
00:06:12
to put Kyler out with the shovel authorities obtained a search warrant to search his mobile home they were looking
00:06:19
for evidence in relation to the vehicle fire and to a missing person's investigation well and remember he was
00:06:27
also the main suspect in the disappearance of Cara they collected a blue plaid shirt and an alcohol pad and
00:06:36
a Q-tip with blood on them but more importantly they found Kyler eust hiding out just as Jessup had said a photos of
00:06:46
Kyler taken by police show that he had burns on his face he also had Burns and blisters on his arms and hands and in my
00:06:55
opinion Captain if you look closely at these pictures you can see he also has scratches on his face and hands that
00:07:03
came possibly from Jessica runions defending herself well it's interesting that you point that out cuz that's in my
00:07:10
notes but that's not reported anywhere well since they had no idea where Jessica was police did not feel that
00:07:17
they had enough to arrest Kyler for her murder they don't know in fact at this point if she has been killed they just
00:07:25
know that she's missing at this time so what they did do though was they arrested him on charges of knowingly
00:07:32
burning a vehicle which of course is not as serious as murder but at least it would
00:07:39
ensure that he would be locked up for a while right while they're going to try to obtain other evidence against Kyler
00:07:47
but also based on what his half brother is saying it leads you to the idea that we need to find her and chances are
00:07:55
you're not going to find you're not going to find Jessica alive yes in these situations you are looking for
00:08:02
a live missing person until you have something to suggest otherwise and here with jessup's story that he's telling to
00:08:11
police we have something to suggest otherwise very sad and disgusting Kyler was taken in by detectives from the
00:08:18
Kansas City Police Department's fugitive apprehension unit on Wednesday September
00:08:24
14th this was his 28th birthday he was arrested and held on $50,000 cash only Bond and at this time in our timeline
00:08:34
Captain Kyler wasn't talking to anyone anymore Kansas City Police issued a press release conducted searches for
00:08:42
Jessica interviewed all of her friends and acquaintances and followed up on tips and leads they searched the area
00:08:50
where Jessica's car was found for 2 days reportedly they collected a bag that belonged to Jessica found where the
00:08:58
vehicle was set a blade they continued searches for Jessica over the next few months even asking the
00:09:05
public for any type of surveillence footage that they may have from their homes or from businesses that were near
00:09:12
the location that the vehicle was found well this is like deja vu to this small town 25,000 people this just happened 9
00:09:21
years ago where we were looking for Karen now we're looking for Jessica this whole Community is going to Rally around
00:09:29
these families Cara's family is going to Rally around Jessica's Family and I wish
00:09:35
more communities were like this and it's just great to see in this case so the authorities searched Kyler's
00:09:42
grandfather's apartment remember he's living there briefly with his grandfather once he got out of prison
00:09:48
this was in the 8700 block of Crescent Avenue Kyler's grandfather his name Alfred eust aged 85 at the time told the
00:09:57
police he didn't know what was going on with Kyler as he hadn't been around for a few days Alfred later told the star
00:10:05
that Kyler was a good boy when he was living with him and his late wife he said he never saw the side of Kyler that
00:10:13
police say they were seeing meanwhile Jamie runions this is Jessica's mother was going crazy with worry about her
00:10:22
missing daughter right where could she be well you would think that law enforcement would a relay they basically
00:10:30
have a confession from Kyler to Jessup about him strangling Jessica and leaving her out in the woods her family spent
00:10:40
the time Captain conducting organized searches actively looking for Jessica and handing out flyers they told the
00:10:47
media that these activities keep us from sitting at home waiting for a phone call
00:10:53
adding that we can't just sit this was Mike runions Jessica's grandfather told the Kansas City star jimie found some
00:11:01
solace in the only person who could understand what she was going through believe it or not it's Ronda Beckford
00:11:09
we've heard that name before that's because that's car capet's mother Ronda and her husband Carr's
00:11:16
stepfather they've been actively keeping Carr's case in the public eye for all these years now organizing rallies and
00:11:24
walks and keeping the belon police accountable even as the investigation dragged on with seemingly
00:11:32
nothing Rhonda told the Kansas City Star that when she first learned on the news
00:11:39
that Jessica runions was missing and that she had last been seen with a man named Kyler UST her heart sank she
00:11:47
reached out to Jamie Rhonda said her primary focus now was supporting jimie and helping her stay positive she told
00:11:57
the star quote when you're going through something like this you have to hold on
00:12:02
to hope if you don't you end up in a very dark place that's good advice she hoped that with Kyler's arrest some
00:12:11
light would be shed on what happened to her daughter Cara as well as Jessica over the next months with no sign of
00:12:20
Jessica her family held vigils sold t-shirts passed out flyers and tried to keep the pressure on the police to find
00:12:28
their girl they also searched everywhere they could dedicating as many as 3 days
00:12:35
a week every week to look for Jessica and this is kind of shocking here Captain not once but twice in fact two
00:12:44
weeks in a row groups out looking for Jessica discovered other human remains they found bodies in Brushy wooded areas
00:12:53
bodies that were not Jessica or Cara mhm at least the family thought that they were providing some type of closure for
00:13:00
some other families if not their own well and also remember if you go back 9 years prior this restraining order
00:13:07
against Kyler was that he was choking Cara so now here we have another situation where somebody's claiming that
00:13:16
he strangled Jessica yeah and like you pointed out the belon authorities it looks like they were fairly certain that
00:13:24
Kyler was the one responsible for Cara's disappearance way back in 2007 and they
00:13:30
just couldn't prove it Belton PD Lieutenant Brad Swanson often visited Kyler in prison and made sure that Kyler
00:13:38
saw him when he was set free so he tells the Kansas City Star that I make sure that he never forgets that I'm around
00:13:47
and this is interesting because it looks like since 2009 the Kansas City municipal court
00:13:53
records show that police gave Kyler at least eight traffic citations s for everything from failure to obey traffic
00:14:02
signs parking in an improper Manner and running a red light I mean these are all
00:14:07
things that they should issue citations for anyway but it almost gives the appearance that the police always seem
00:14:14
to be around or on the lookout for Kyler they're kind of letting him know we're watching you now that Kansas City
00:14:23
Police had Kyler incarcerated for that car fire and again he finds himself being the suspect number one in a
00:14:30
disappearance of yet another young woman Belton Police began working with the Kansas City Police Department to gather
00:14:39
evidence against Kyler that could help them both put murder cases together against him well in 2010 he was accused
00:14:46
of trying to choke his 18-year-old girlfriend to death and he was also accused of trying to kill her three cats
00:14:54
so what we have here Captain is sadly car's case goes cold and then all these years later Jessica goes missing we have
00:15:04
months that go by and it looks like we're in danger of the same thing happening here in this case well it's
00:15:11
hard to get a conviction if you don't have the body well the break that law enforcement needed it comes in the
00:15:19
spring of 2017 this when a mushroom hunter Keith Todd was exploring the woods near a
00:15:27
quarry for fungi on April 3rd 2017 he was in the area of 233rd Street and Y Highway this is in Cass County a
00:15:40
heavily wooded area south of belon Todd Came Upon what he immediately recognized
00:15:45
as a human skull he called police and reported what he found police roped off the area and looked for any evidence
00:15:53
that they could find and sure enough they found more human bones they were scattered many had been gwed on and some
00:16:00
were never found police called the parents of both Jessica and Cara to let them know that remains had been found
00:16:10
this was standard operating procedure of course they had no idea whether the remains belong to either of the girls at
00:16:18
that time right remember search teams had found bodies twice before on January 21st and January 28th that were not the
00:16:27
girls that they were looking for but Rhonda and Jamie did not sleep much that night this is what they L later said to
00:16:34
the media well and if you're law enforcement I I wonder if they're more hopeful for one remains or the other
00:16:43
because with the car case you have some evidence that points towards Kyler but with the Jessica case especially with
00:16:53
this supposed confession to Jessup his half brother that if if you find her remains you're going to be able to build
00:17:02
a stronger case against him because you have that confession in the in your back
00:17:06
pocket so while they're waiting on pins and needles then the next day a second set of human remains believed to have
00:17:14
been there much longer were found now at the time Jamie and Ronda were sitting down for a joint TV interview the call
00:17:24
came in from Lieutenant Brad Swanson who told them I'm not going to say 100% but just my gut is telling me we
00:17:33
may have some resolution police then summoned the families of both Jessica and car to a
00:17:40
meeting at the police station jimie and Ronda faced the media afterwards holding
00:17:45
hands they had to wait for confirmation of their worst fears but they said if the remains were the girls they were
00:17:52
glad they were together and indeed the Kansas City medical examiner office and State Crime Lab identified the first set
00:18:00
of remains as Jessica runions after Jessica was ided Ronda Car's mom acknowledged that it could take months
00:18:09
to determine whether the older bones found near Jessica belong to her daughter she said quote in my heart of
00:18:16
hearts I believe it's Cara here we are still waiting yet again end quote the second set of remains was finally
00:18:23
identified through DNA as Cara on August 16th 20 2017 this with the help of the FBI crime lab in Quantico Jamie said
00:18:34
that while she had searched for months and months for her daughter she never went as far as the 233rd Street location
00:18:43
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[Music] 2023 all right we're back you filthy animals cheers to you cheers to everyone
00:21:22
out there all right Captain how about a little background information on Kyler here mhm
00:21:28
what we could find says he was born in 1988 reportedly he never knew his mother jonine until his teen years and his
00:21:38
father Kenny as we have seen or heard was reportedly a meth attic Kyler was raised by his
00:21:47
grandparents this is Alfred and Doris eust and he was troubled from a very early age court documents filed by his
00:21:56
attorney site kler being sexually abused as a child and suffering from PTSD as a
00:22:02
result and maintain that he also was diagnosed with bipolar disorder whatever the cause of his delinquency court
00:22:10
documents reflect that Kyler has said he started abusing alcohol at a very young
00:22:16
age at the age of 11 smoking pot at age 12 and using cocaine at age 14 saying he
00:22:23
even dabbled in heroin by age 16 mhm people who knew knew him said that he was very charismatic as you pointed out
00:22:31
earlier but people also said he could turn angry within seconds and as a teen he started getting into legal trouble
00:22:39
one early arrest was from 2010 this for stealing from a tattoo paror where he worked for which he served 10 days in
00:22:47
jail and soon after he nearly killed a woman this is going to kind of flesh out that story that you were talking about a
00:22:54
little bit earlier here C the one from 2010 yeah yeah this was a girlfriend of Kyler's and she
00:23:02
should be described in my opinion as very very lucky because she was able to eventually get away from Kyler still
00:23:10
alive this was Candice Martin stclair Kyler assaulted her sometime in 2010 and at that time Candace was 18 and
00:23:21
6 months pregnant with twins fathered by Kyler the two were living together for about 6 months but his behavior became
00:23:29
increasingly aggressive and violent so she was trying to leave him Kyler came home drunk one night when she was
00:23:37
packing her bags to leave and he grabbed her around the throat with both hands pinning her to the bed she said that he
00:23:45
looked deranged as he was choking her until she would almost lose Consciousness and then he punched her to
00:23:54
make sure that she would stay awake and aware she says that she finally passed out but when she woke up he was lying
00:24:02
behind her spooning her and Whispering I love you and telling her that if she was
00:24:09
good that would not happen again this guy's a raging psychopath but this was not the entire story for one thing
00:24:17
Candace told police that at two different times Kyler killed some kittens right in front of her the couple
00:24:24
had three kittens together and for my own sake and everybody else's without going into any detail he killed them all
00:24:34
Kyler was beating up Candice in fact he bragged to her that he had killed a girlfriend in the past and would do the
00:24:41
same to her if she left him well the killing of the cats is that's Luca magnata [ __ ] you know puka not hadada
00:24:49
nevertheless Candace said that she felt sorry for Kyler as he threatened to kill
00:24:54
himself often if she left and he also was the father of these unborn twins so she kind of felt forced to stay with him
00:25:04
at that time she didn't report the attack at the time but after a while with the kittens and some other stuff
00:25:11
his behavior became so frightening that she left and didn't look back yeah good for her and after she left she noticed
00:25:18
him following her and him leaving threatening messages for her to find part of the problem is that these guys
00:25:27
are so manipulative and they can twist words and they can make you think that you're crazy but you have to have your
00:25:35
radar out for these creep bags and family members and friends have to have their Radars out for these creep bags
00:25:41
and I wish people would just raise better men so women wouldn't have to put up with this [ __ ] she
00:25:48
too attempted to obtain an order of protection against Kyler eventually she had it dropped this once they got back
00:25:56
together they were on and off for quite some time it looks like um before it was
00:26:01
finally over Candace said that she did not realize that Kyler was a suspect in a girl's disappearance until she Googled
00:26:09
him and found that there was a connection between him and Cara kety well and she would have found that
00:26:15
Cara's claims against Kyler are the same claims that she was making because he does this to every girl he dates then a
00:26:25
judge ordered the arrest of Kyler for failing to appear in court for each of the tattoo parlor incident and the
00:26:32
kitten killing situations he was arrested and charged with animal cruelty so Kyler pled guilty and got two years
00:26:43
probation for several charges right he eventually violated his probation by failing to attend a
00:26:51
single this is crazy he's ordered to attend 20 six Court mandated batterers intervention
00:27:01
classes he fails to attend a single one like not even going to fake it for a little while right well because he's a
00:27:08
giant bag of [ __ ] so at that time Captain his probation was then revoked and he sentenced to 180 days in jail he
00:27:17
eventually serves 120 of that but look if you know for a fact that Kyler if you're law enforcement you know for a
00:27:25
fact that this horrible human well he's at this point he's not even acting in any way shape or
00:27:34
form like a human he kills several cats that you got to give him more than two years probation even with all this
00:27:44
violence and stuff going on he's also busy committing other types of crimes and several of these are serious crimes
00:27:52
at some point he got in Big Time legal trouble when he got caught receiving receiving a shipment from China of quote
00:28:00
unquote designer drugs this was intercepted by Customs agents in San Francisco this was a this is something
00:28:08
I'm very I'm really not familiar with here thankfully uh this was a drug with the street name meow meow wait so he's
00:28:16
killing cats and he's taking drugs called meow meow well probably looking to sell them if he's not oh he's taking
00:28:25
them he's consuming them and looking to sell them because eventually he's going to be charged with a felony of drug
00:28:33
trafficking based off of this situation so he's sentenced to 45 months in federal prison and he only ends up
00:28:40
serving about 27 months of this and he was permitted to live in a halfway house for two months after that and then
00:28:49
starting in April of 2016 He was ordered to home confinement in his grandfather's apartment this en
00:28:57
camp Kansas City so this kind of brings us up to the point of Jessica going missing in September of
00:29:04
2016 but like you said when Jessica goes missing we we know she was last seen with Kyler then we know through his half
00:29:12
brother Jessup that we burned her vehicle Jessup is also telling you hey Kyler confessed to me saying that he
00:29:19
strangled her and threw her out in the woods yeah but I also find it weird we we talk about this all the time I don't
00:29:27
care if he's your half brother or what he is if a scumbag tells you hey choke this girl and I threw her out in the
00:29:34
woods and I I need to help me burn her car he he better have something damn good on you or you shouldn't be helping
00:29:42
in the first place and I find it very strange that he showed Jessup shows up to help Kyler Jessup shows up with his
00:29:50
girlfriend and she's and and I'd like to know a little bit more information on this I couldn't
00:29:56
find it but she had a pistol with her well we have to keep in mind that often people don't realize they're an
00:30:03
accessory to a crime until they're accessory to a crime right you usually don't lead in with hey I murdered
00:30:11
someone can you help me a lot of times it's uh hey I need you to pick me up from here or I need you to meet me here
00:30:17
and then next thing you know your hands are dirty as well well see that's also why I wondered and it wasn't that clear
00:30:24
is it possible that Kyler says hey come pick me up here Jessup shows up and the car is already
00:30:30
on fire and he had nothing to do with the car actually being on fire other than he was there cuz Kyler obviously
00:30:38
got some pretty bad burn marks from the fire Jess uped in it yeah so that is really all the information that's
00:30:45
leading us up to when Jessica runions vanishes in 2016 which was on September 8th I do
00:30:53
want to point out too that by the time that Kyler is arrested in in 2016 for the burning vehicle he had three
00:31:01
children at that point now Kyler's first court appearance after this arrest was eagerly attended by Ronda Beckford car's
00:31:11
family had made sure to send someone to every court appearance of Kyler's throughout the years so remember how we
00:31:17
pointed out that the police kind of reminded Kyler over the years hey we're watching you we don't like you we think
00:31:24
you're a scumbag he received a lot of traffic citations anytime he was charged with
00:31:31
something that was big enough to hit the papers over the years car's parents would show up and sit in court yeah
00:31:37
that's awesome and kind of rally behind the idea of well we don't have any answers in our case in our daughter's
00:31:43
case but at least the guy that we're convinced did this is going to be locked up even if it's just for months he's
00:31:51
going to be locked up well a lot of these missing person cases where it takes him a long time to find find any
00:31:57
remains especially when there's some kind of accomplice normally it takes a very long
00:32:04
time for the accomplice to come forward but Jess's calling law enforcement the night that this happens yeah and that's
00:32:13
where the storytelling portion of this case gets a little difficult to follow along in the timeline because what we're
00:32:21
going to see here Captain is Kyler will be arrested in charge for burning Jessica vehicle but keep in mind when
00:32:29
he's arrested and charge with that there is no bodies at this time we've not located Jessica we've not located
00:32:38
Cara and it makes the story kind of not follow along a natural order to Things So currently on our timeline we have
00:32:51
Kyler arrested for burning Jessica's vehicle MH now now remember that Jessup Carter Kyler's half brother called the
00:33:03
police and reported Kyler for burning her car but also for killing Jessica this was in September of 2016 in
00:33:13
April of 2017 an article in the star reported that police had been seeking Jessup
00:33:19
Carter on an outstanding felony charges for a traffic stop that went down on the
00:33:26
day Jessica's car was burned this was on the 10th of September deputies from the
00:33:33
Henry County Sheriff's Office pulled over jessup's 1998 Dodge Durango for crossing the center line and drifting
00:33:41
onto the grass on Northeast Missouri Highway number two as well for failing to have a working plate illumination
00:33:51
light in the vehicle at the time were Kyler e and a woman named Crystal Taylor this is jessup's longtime girlfriend the
00:34:03
cops fris the occupants of the vehicle and found a knife on Jessup and a gun on crystal Jessup was charged in April of
00:34:14
2017 this 6 months later with resisting a traffic stop as well as multiple misdemeanors such as driving without a
00:34:22
license being uninsured and failing to display plates but he was also wanted on a charge of failure to appear in a
00:34:30
domestic assault case this whole bloodline is full of [ __ ] Jessup eventually turned himself into
00:34:36
authorities on April 28th it's not clear why the charges were were just now filed
00:34:44
in 2017 when the incident took place in 2016 it seems likely that the police wanted to keep pressure on Jessup to
00:34:55
give them more information about KY and what the three of them were doing that day after Jessica's car was found
00:35:02
on fire so on May 4th 2017 this is at the 10th Annual walk for Cara we have over a 100 people here
00:35:12
walking in observance of the 10th anniversary of her disappearance you know they're holding signs honoring the
00:35:19
young woman demonstrating support for the family she had still not been identified at this time remember it
00:35:27
wasn't until August 16th that she was officially confirmed via DNA but my hat goes off and you have to applaud this
00:35:34
community how much they rallied around both of these girls Cara and Jessica yes and at this at this annual walk for Cara
00:35:46
we have her mother Rhonda who tells the newspaper I am finally relieved to have confirmation we've known for a long time
00:35:53
that Cara was gone and we felt when they found the other remains that the other set was Cara it's been a long 10 years
00:36:02
and this is the start of hopefully moving forward toward a prosecution Kyler's trial for the vehicle arson was
00:36:10
scheduled to commence on October 23rd 2017 but on the 5th of that month there was big news Kyler was officially
00:36:19
charged with murder for the killings of Jessica and Cara the initial charges include two counts of Abandonment of a
00:36:29
corpse but these charges were later dismissed the probable cause affidavit stated that at least four people told
00:36:38
investigators that Kyler had confessed to choking Cara to death he told some that he put her body in the woods and
00:36:46
others that she would never be found and October 6 2017 article said it's not clear why UST was not charged in
00:36:56
kopetsky death earlier and a follow-up article says might Jessica be alive today had he been arrested in connection
00:37:04
with Cara's death based on those multiple recountings to acquaintances about the killing these articles are
00:37:11
pointing out that police had witness statements months after car went missing that Kyler killed her right and
00:37:22
so now everybody's really concerned that hey we may have saved a life if we could
00:37:28
have locked this guy up all those years earlier yeah and the community as law enforcement can't make this mistake
00:37:35
again right and so what we have here now Captain we have Kyler's going to face charges in multiple counties but you
00:37:42
have the counties that are kind of going to band together and they're like you know what we can afford to drop the
00:37:48
arson charges we can cancel that trial let's all band together and focus instead on the much more serious murder
00:37:56
case case so Kyler he's allowed to plead not guilty to these charges this in October of
00:38:06
2017 now how now brown cow how now brown cow we need to go back just a minute here because after Jessup the half
00:38:14
brother was released for turning himself in in April 2017 well he went on a bit of a bender
00:38:21
his girlfriend and then wife Crystal Taylor remember she was the one in the vehicle with Kyler Jessup on that night
00:38:28
said that after the episode where Jessup called the police on his brother that he
00:38:33
relapsed into drugs and then very quickly went downhill he was arrested for domestic violence and she took the
00:38:41
kids and stayed in a shelter for a while when Jessup was arrested again in April
00:38:47
of 2017 for failure to appear on those domestic violence charges and for various charges from the incident where
00:38:55
he was pulled over with Kyler and Crystal mhm he's asked by reporters you know will you comment on Kyler youed
00:39:02
case at this point and he says that he could not but that his family did not approve of what Kyler had done and they
00:39:09
empathized with the girls fames in July of the same year Crystal turned on the news and saw jessup's
00:39:17
Uncle Paul's house okay so this is where Jessup was staying she sees Paul's house on the
00:39:27
news because it's on fire and Jessup was arrested for arson this guy has some issues and for trying to stop
00:39:34
firefighters from putting out the fire so he's booked into County Jail on September 24th Jessup was found dead in
00:39:44
his cell at 4:30 a.m. of an apparent suicide he hung himself police said apparently there was an FBI
00:39:52
investigation into his death but there was nothing to show that it was not a suicide
00:39:59
however this is a weird little nugget here Jessup left behind a note that has been regularly referred to as encrypted
00:40:09
and believe it or not that note has magically disappear well maybe I'm just a freak you know maybe I'm just freak
00:40:16
nasty with it but uh when I hear suicide crypted note I want to get my hands on that I want to know
00:40:27
what he was trying to communicate and and then it makes you wonder why did it go missing Jessup was in the back pocket
00:40:36
of law enforcement so now with the suicide you got to toss that away it's going to make convicting Kyler a lot
00:40:42
more difficult you're exactly right and that was the fear the shared fear at that time we have both Jessica and car's
00:40:50
families they're now very concerned that Jessup is dead he was expected or at least at least they expected him to be
00:40:57
the star witness in the state's murder case against Kyler mhm Jessup even once proclaimed that he wanted the families
00:41:05
to feel better at night that Kyler was finally put away I mean those are his words so you would expect him to be the
00:41:13
star witness but clearly he must have been conflicted about testifying against Kyler or you know he was spiraling out
00:41:21
of control it's really tough to say when we examine this situation here well and
00:41:26
he had that heavy drug addiction that he was back at but another little interesting nugget here Captain is that
00:41:33
at this time yeah it was not public information that Jessup had ratted out Kyler you Dey
00:41:41
rat so I don't know if he was dreading testifying against him or what have you but he commits suicide the prosecutors
00:41:49
have to forge ahead and they go on record saying Jessup was a problematic witness anyway
00:41:56
right because he was in jail for arson and had two protective orders taken out against him so while he may have had
00:42:04
good information to offer up on the stand they weren't super in love with this guy cuz he was no saint himself
00:42:10
well again he he calls right away after this after they set fire to Jessica's vehicle and then now he commits suicide
00:42:22
it's almost like he was so remorseful or so so much hated that he was involved at
00:42:28
all that that's why he took his own life seems that way to me anyways if very well could be it also could be I think
00:42:37
it's probably a mountain of things or maybe he was more involved than he's even telling people and he just couldn't
00:42:44
live with himself it looks to me regardless of his involvement he was going to go away to prison himself right
00:42:52
and that might have not been something that he was willing to live with yeah I agree with you Kyler's
00:42:59
attorneys they were doing their best at this time to delay the trial and to dig up evidence exonerating Kyler in
00:43:07
December of 2019 they sought the right to independently test the remains found by the mushroom hunter as well as hair
00:43:16
recovered from an SUV searched by the FBI in 2013 this was the vehicle of someone who
00:43:24
had been looked at as a potential other suspect in car's case mhm the defense is
00:43:30
trying to raise concerns about this alternative suspect well they're trying to do the same thing
00:43:36
that Kyler was doing point in every direction other than himself correct and that and that's not where the twist and
00:43:43
turns stop with this case he's going to start throwing more people under the bus
00:43:48
once this hits trial well and the thing too is this is kind of leaving the door open right once Jessup kills himself now
00:43:58
if you're the defender of Kyler you're looking at this through a different lens you're going okay well maybe regardless
00:44:07
of what the police say he very likely could have been their star witness now that guy's gone so the door is open to a
00:44:15
potential defense here and the first thing that they start attacking is look there was another suspect at one point
00:44:21
in at least car's murder and in car's disappearance and what they're saying at this point is we don't think that this
00:44:29
guy was thoroughly investigated well it's too bad Jessup took his own life because we could have got him on the
00:44:36
stand like and A Few Good Men and said Colonel Jessup I want the truth give me the
00:44:44
truth the defense for Kyler also filed motions challenging some of the witness statements in the case because they
00:44:51
alleged that a Kansas City police officer who was working the case case was told to step back from it as this
00:45:00
officer was involved in a sexual relationship with one of the witnesses but then continued to investigate the
00:45:07
case even after being told not to so the defense questioned the Integrity of the
00:45:13
evidence and the Integrity of the investigation itself at one point the defense made a motion to have the judge
00:45:20
removed because they argued that he was biased against their client this motion was denied by another judge and they
00:45:29
alleged that their confidential phone email and text conversations with Kyler from jail were improperly recorded and
00:45:38
reviewed by the Cass County Sheriff's Office yeah they're just trying to every freaking trick in the book and they're
00:45:44
you know just pulling [ __ ] out of their ass throwing the [ __ ] on the wall and
00:45:48
seeing what sticks on August 23rd 2019 Kyler's attorneys filed a motion to have him declared incompetent to stand trial
00:45:57
and seeking a psych evaluation a mental evaluation found that he was in fact competent to stand
00:46:04
trial however there was some back and forth as the defense attorneys objected to this finding and insisted on a second
00:46:13
opinion they then backed out of the second opinion but required Kyler to be medicated for anxiety and depression
00:46:22
which who knows how much of it was smok and MIRS by the defense team the trial eventually
00:46:29
commenced in April of 2021 but not before Kyler's defense attorneys moved for a change of venue
00:46:36
claiming that he could not receive a fair trial in Cass County eventually both sides agreed that the trial would
00:46:43
stay in Cass County but jurors would be imported from St Charles County closer to St Louis meanwhile the poor families
00:46:52
of our victims had to endure more more waiting and a statement from John runan said we want Justice for Jessica and
00:47:01
Cara which in turn would be Justice for our families and our [Music] community join us back here for part
00:47:27
three there's so much more to get to if you have thoughts and opinions check out
00:47:32
our blog at truecrime garage.com and also check out our music that I create every week for the show
00:47:41
it's on Spotify or apple music and until next episode be good be kind and don't litter
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