If I Can’t Have You /// Part 1 /// 535 | Forensic Files

so [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] [Music] this week on true crime garage
we find ourselves once again looking at another horrific and tragic case this one is unique
but again aren't they all this week's true crime story starts off over 14 years ago and spans all of the
way into this year 2021 there are three missing persons in this story and after each disappearance
several suspects emerge some would get the answers they seek but feared relatively quickly
while others would have to wait suffering for years the emptiness and terrible pain
of not knowing exactly what happened to their loved one then years later when the answers do come
they turn out to be what they had feared all along it all started back on friday
may 4th 2007 when a 17 year old girl decided to skip a few classes and play a little hooky
sometimes unfortunately we find that the things we are running and hiding from are actually protecting us
from what we truly should be running and hiding from many times i have found that the feeling we get deep down in our
gut that feeling that tells us something here just is not right well those feelings are often correct
and those are feelings and suspicions that i hope and pray that everyone receives those warnings loud and clear
because those warnings don't come from your gut they come from your soul call it the truest form of instinctual
self-preservation that tiny little voice just might save you so please remember that sometimes things are truly what
they seem to be and often evil has a difficult time disguising itself this is true crime garage
[Music] friday may 4th 2007 we have 17 year old kara kopetsky had the entire weekend ahead of her and it
seems maybe she could not wait to get this friday over with and move on to better things and while she arrived at
school safe and sound on that friday she decided to cut out for a while cara is a student at belton high school
appropriately located in belton missouri friends would later say that carr cut out early on that day not just before
the day was over but early as in 9am ish later that day at 5 17 p.m cara's friend amy clark went to the
belton police department she was worried about her friend she wanted to file a missing person's report
she felt that something bad had happened to carra because she and none of her other friends could reach her
so the police contacted carr's mom and stepfather this is rhonda and jim beckford rhonda said she had seen her
daughter that morning but not since and they too could not get a hold of cara via cara's
cell phone and so an official missing persons report was filed that night on may 4th
around that same time police contacted carr's boyfriend he said he too was concerned and he had
last seen her the day before on may 3rd car didn't turn up the next day or the next let's take a quick look at the
spring of 2007 and see what is going on in kara kopetsky's world leading up to this mysterious
disappearance at this point she's been going out with the same guy for about nine to ten
months this is 18 year old kyler yust cara's mother and stepdad were not too excited about kyler
but it also sounds like cara was not too excited about her mom and stepdad she was at an age where for cara she felt
she was old enough to do as she pleased and she exercised those feelings whenever she felt like it hence the
cutting out of school on may 4th that normally backfires when the parents come forward and say hey we know you're
dating this kyler guy but we don't like him that normally draws the girl more into
wanting to date the boyfriend on april 24 2007 we have something of potential interest here this is a post from cara
on her myspace that says quote so life hasn't been the greatest for me lately over the last nine months of my
life i've dedicated my life to kyler i made no other time for any of my friends nor my family
over those nine months i forgot the person that i was i'm trying to find that person again end
quote then just four days later after that post this is on april 28 2007 carr went to
the belton police department and reported that her ex-boyfriend whom she had just broken up with
had kidnapped her she's referring to kyler she told them she was leaving popeye's fried chicken
where she worked this after finishing her shift when her ex kyler yust appeared and demanded that she go with
him when she refused he grabbed her and forced her into his vehicle and then drove around for several hours kyler
finally letting her out of his truck in grandview missouri what a douche i don't
know if this is one of those situations captain where they're breaking up and kyler convinced himself if i could just
get some time with her maybe i could talk some sense into her gets her into his vehicle forcefully
and then drives her around pretty much against her will for hours i'm guessing we don't know what the
conversation was but i'm guessing it was him trying to convince her to not break up with him some of these
controlling boyfriends will they they do the i'm sorry game and when that doesn't
work they get angry when that doesn't work then they act like they're depressed and if that doesn't work it's
almost like they'll keep trying every angle just to get just to win the person back well this bizarre act scared cara
enough to go to the police and she wanted a restraining order against him her report alleged that kyler kidnapped
and restrained her and that he choked her and threatened to cut her throat while holding a knife
her petition alleged that kyler was stalking her and subjecting her to emotional and physical abuse the
protection order was granted on april 30th and served to kyler by the cass county authorities on may 1st
a hearing on the matter was scheduled for may 10th cara's mother rhonda later said that cara and kyler's relationship
was quote volatile and that he was manipulative and abusive on the 4th of may may the 4th be with you this is the
day in question carr walked to school that morning and she called her mom nearly as soon as
she got there telling her that she forgot a textbook at home her mother then drives and drops off the textbook
to the school office and cara retrieves it there but then she abruptly leaves the school
at 9 19 a.m and we have that exact time because surveillance footage from inside
the school shows carr walking down the hallway at the school and then heard leaving the building
right her house is just a few blocks away but she does not walk home her family reported her missing that
evening after she never came home and like you said she has a restraining order against her
ex-boyfriend but what law enforcement come to find out is that she's been texting with her ex-boyfriend all day
yeah and i think the first major red flag for the family was when she failed to show up to her evening
shift she was scheduled to work at 4 p.m at popeye's that day and from my understanding car didn't
always come home when she was told to but it was not like her at all to miss work
and shortly after leaving school that day no one heard from her again so she also failed to pick up her paycheck
at popeyes on may 9th so this is just a really weird situation where i don't think
that her walking out of the school at 9 19 a.m that morning was something that was a major red flag
i think as you're pointing out here captain it's all of those things afterward that are the red flags here
well as a high school student i mean we both were high school students i'd say a large percentage of high
school students skip at some point whether it's a couple classes i mean look she went into class she did a
couple things and then said hey today's day i'm not going i'm not going to be in class the whole day cars family
was concerned and this is what's interesting to me they're not just concerned about the
whereabouts of their daughter their stepdaughter their concern is extremely specific
they say we were concerned immediately that kyler had done something to her well yeah because just a few days ago
he basically held her against her will and they had to press charges against him so that's
where they say their suspicions were from the very beginning but police thought that since she you know she's 17
years old and there was previous occasions when she chose not to come home and stayed away briefly
that this likely was a similar situation and that she would turn up when she was
ready to the other thing here too captain that's a little bit weird about this story you
know we said they're all unique and they are but it's all these happenstance things
that are odd in a lot of these cases this same day that we have in question about her whereabouts
law enforcement was stretched very thin because later that day a devastating tornado hit nearby greensburg that same
night in fact the ustornados.com has a fantastic piece about these terrifying tornadoes that
hit and the title best describes the devastation the online article is titled may 4th 2007 the night that made maps of
greensburg kansas have to be redrawn so there was a lot of devastation as far as
this tornado goes it was not in the immediate area but it was close enough that we have first responders
really helping and trying to sort things out due to the tornado but carr's parents
emphasized that their daughter was not the kind to run away so on the sixth belton pd detectives sat down to talk to
kyler the family's actively telling belton pd this you have to talk to her boyfriend
this is a guy that we don't like and we suspect all these different things about this man
so they sit down and they speak with him he said he knew about the restraining order that carr obtained against him
kyler said that he had last seen cara on the third but he did say he got a call from her phone on the fourth now he
tells investigators that carr called him around 11 a.m that he missed the call and tried to call her back but she
didn't answer that he said was the last contact he would have had with cara but that was
not exactly true police got a warrant for cars phone and text records and they were examined by the fbi
the records showed that carr was trying to skip school on the morning of may 4th
and was texting some friends for a ride carr called kyler at 9 14 a.m from school she's still in school at this
time the call lasted 61 seconds she left the building the school building at 9 19 that morning and her
phone received a call back from kyler's phone at 9 20 am this call lasted a minute
her phone sent a text at 9 46 a.m and she made a call at 10 25 a.m but after that there was no record of the phone
and no social media post from carr detectives noted that cara and kyler were in constant communication until the
morning of may 4th but after that they never spoke again or at least never used her phone
to speak again and then her phone is never used again after that call that she made at 10 25 am yeah to me it makes
somebody look so guilty if you're in constant contact with this individual they go missing and you don't even reach
out to them to see if they're okay seems like she took the threats and him kidnapping are basically serious but i
hate the fact that she is having any contact with this dirt bag yeah i i don't i want to make sure we're painting the
right picture here and we're not saying that it doesn't look to me like she's going out of her way to communicate with
kyler it looks more like he's trying to get in touch with her and speak with her now
kyler's story didn't change no matter how many times the police spoke with him but he did offer up some new information
he said carr was running around with a bunch of different guys on the 7th belton detective mike clark sat down
with kyler for an informal interview where kyler told him that he and carr had dated for nine months recently broke
up and he was very upset about this kyler admitted to the kidnapping episode saying that on april 28th he and carl
were arguing because she was dating other guys so he thought he'd drive her around and
talk some sense into her but that was it in the next police interview kyler admitted that he and carr argued
on may 3rd he said that they had argued on the phone because cara had a male friend coming into town for the weekend
and was planning on hanging out with this guy and of course kyler did not want her to
spend the weekend partying with this other guy well too bad all right captain so now we take the questioning on to the
next guy this is joel harmon so kyler's able to tell police who carr was planning on hanging out with by
name right so they take this information and now we're going to speak with this joel harmon person see if he knows where
she could be or when he last saw or spoke with her so joel confirmed to police that indeed
he was supposed to visit with cara that weekend but he repeatedly called her on may 6
and was not able to get her on the phone he found out that she was missing when he called her home phone on may 7th and
spoke with one of her family members and police searched some more they noted that carr's bank account had
not been touched since the last time she was seen right so we have no activity on
her bank account and we have her not picking up her check at work right these are items that you're gonna look at from
a police standpoint and say you know what okay if there were some problems at home and
again i want to be clear here it doesn't seem to me like there were really any problems at home it's typical teenager
stuff she's not getting along with mom and stepdad and it seems to me a lot of it's
stemming from her relationship with this guy they're convinced is not good for her douchebag and i think
the episode of him forcefully grabbing her and pulling her into his vehicle and driving her around for a few hours right
well that seems to seems to back up their suspicions about this guy well they're
not getting along because the parents are actually given a [ __ ] and they're actually trying to be
involved in her life and they're actually trying to be parents and say look you're still
a minor you're still under our roof you're dating this guy he's no good for you you know he's no
good for you like i said they're arguing because the parents actually give a [ __ ] and so from a police
standpoint you're going to look at a couple of these things and say all right well
even if there was some stuff that we may not be fully aware of inside the home or
between mom and daughter or step dad and daughter her not going to work okay well she already skipped out on
school but not picking up a paycheck and no activity on her phone or bank account
does not really point you in the direction of well she took off and she's not coming home right this tells us
something else may be going on here if i'm law enforcement i want to know why she left
school in the first place yeah that's that's a good question here now police did go and search kyler's
apartment relatively early in this investigation but they came up empty-handed in finding any evidence of
any type of foul play there was really nothing there that they gained from that search
and as belton pd lieutenant brad swanson said we don't have anyone to say they saw them meaning
kyler and cara together on or after the day that she was last seen so nobody that tells them hey i saw the two
of them together later that day after she left school or anytime after that day and kyler says that he had an alibi
for the day in question saying that he went to visit a relative at a nursing home with his grandfather
we need to point out here though captain that that was not until about 1 pm that afternoon so
he may say he has an alibi for that time but we know cara left school at 9 19 a.m
his alibi does not start until 1 pm that afternoon his morning is largely unaccounted for and when's the last time
that he talks to carr on the phone well remember his words were that he called her back that he missed a call from her
called her back never spoke with her right but what we have is the the search warrant on her phone records
tell us differently that his phone called her phone at 9 20 a.m and this call lasted
for one minute for 60 seconds so we don't even know if she's technically like skipping class right at that moment
or if she's leaving the school to maybe make this phone call to talk to her ex-boyfriend and maybe he
says something that lures her out uh to at least talk to him you know it could be as something as i i miss you
i'm going crazy if you don't talk with me if you don't visit me i'm going to commit suicide or something
like that possibly i actually don't think that her leaving school had anything to do with him
because we have friends who stated later that she was trying to get a ride from us yeah yeah and she was texting other
people about it yeah and after it's after this that she doesn't get a ride that she
leaves now again she lives very close to the school so she could have just intended on
walking home after leaving the school but if this doucheburger was aware that she was trying to leave school he could
go and drive up and again he could kidnap her like he did the other day yeah and we have her statement that she
gives when she requests the restraining order that he is stalking her so this could be
a situation captain where she he's actively following her around those were her words we don't know if it's true or
not but he could have actively been following her around and seen her leave that day or caught wind
somehow that she was attempting to leave that day we know that he has actively told police look she was gonna
go hang out with this other dude this weekend and i wasn't happy about that so we got kind of a lot going on leading
up to this point of her walking out of school at 9 19 on that friday now several weeks after card disappeared
kyler did an interview with the kansas city star so he's spoke with police multiple times they've interviewed him
by this point they've interviewed him multiple times they've searched his apartment by this
point but this is also several weeks after she disappeared so things are starting to get cold at this
point leads are starting to dry up this is when he talks to the kansas city star he said that carr was a fun girl
who wanted to live life to the fullest according to kyler cara had talked about running away to mexico
saying quote lately i've been kind of depressed about the whole thing i have no idea where she is end quote
per kshb.com belton police said that kyler passed a lie detector test and had an
alibi for the time of carr's disappearance but the community was not happy with letting kyler go free
in late june 2007 some citizens of belton circulated a petition demanding that the state step in and
take the case away from belton police department in general it was felt that they had treated her
case dismissively assuming that she was a runaway and had not investigated as thoroughly as the family wanted the
family aided by volunteers and even former law enforcement took it upon themselves to search for cara
in one crazy circumstance a secret team comprising of private investigators criminal psychologists and
others conducted secret investigations tracking down rumors and even conducting a search of a private home with a
civilian cadaver dog this was a house that had been rumored in online chat rooms to be quote the murder house
where cara was killed sure enough in the home the dog hit on something in the basement
and kudos to kshb.com for doing gangbusters work on the story including an entire podcast on the case
one portion spoke about their search of the quote murder house that says our cameras followed group members
inside an abandoned building that looked like the set of a horror film the walls are sprayed with satanic
messages and references to kara this here says kara is gone said a group member who like all members says they fear
reprisal from police or suspects in the case and do not want to be identified it says i did it one hallway has murder
makes me happy spray-painted sideways next to references of death and satan [Music]
all right well the search for karaka pets kopetsky has been excruciating for her family friends and for law
enforcement and especially difficult because there seems to be so few credible clues kara kopetsky was last seen the
morning of may 4 2007 by the security camera at belton high school her mom says she was excited about getting her
senior picture taken and was looking forward to her final year of school but something mysterious happened to
cara that may morning she left school either on foot or in a car with someone else
her last cell phone call was made at 10 30 a.m when she didn't show up for her after-school job her parents became
worried and reported her missing on may 17th cairo was reportedly seen with a young man at a gas station in lewisburg
but that has never been confirmed despite many searches a reward fund and even national publicity cara has never
been found well tomorrow is kara kopetsky's 21st birthday the reward for information on
where she is now stands at 80 thousand dollars please call the tips hotline at 816 474 tips if you have any information
[Music] all right we are back cheers everybody cheers to youcat everybody have a great
week so a couple red flags one controlling boyfriend don't like that that's douchey
we have this situation again it could have just been a heated situation got out control maybe it's just a one-time
thing but she took it serious enough where she says hey i need to get a restraining order against this guy he's
stalking me but the big red flags for me when this uh [ __ ] princess dingle donkey
is pointing every which way oh well she was supposed to go hang out with this other
guy all she was seeing a bunch of other guys so go look at him go look at this other guy oh and by the way she also
talked about running away so go check that out over there always constantly pointing the finger in other directions
so you don't look at him as a suspect it's like a suspicion that you find in the jonbenet ramsay case where you have
some of the police department looking at the family as being responsible and the
family is handing them a list of 70 to 80 suspects that they think right could have kidnapped or killed their daughter
and so you're right it's like are they giving us a fool's errand here to to run around
then in in kind of a weird bit of this story and you don't see this in most cases
is there's like public backlash where the community saying we don't think that our police
department has done enough and the police department in return is saying look we
questioned the boyfriend he admitted to breaking the law right i mean he essentially admits that yes
everything that she complained about when she got that restraining order i did that
then according to the police he passes a lie detector test they search his apartment they don't find any evidence
of foul play there so i i feel like the police department's kind of saying in return here
i know that you've heard all these rumors community i know the public has seen all these rumors in online chat
rooms we are conducting an investigation here just our major lead which would be the
boyfriend or ex-boyfriend whatever title you want to give kyler at that point our major lead seems to be going nowhere
we have concerns that he has an alibi for a large portion of that day we have concerns that he's passed a lie detector
test and so on and so on so he's he's kind of checking off boxes that say that he should not be a suspect
well look this is a suburb of kansas city right 25 000 people roughly but this is
a very tight community so when you grow up in an area like this you're normally pretty good
at one talking to authority and also talking to parents and one of the things about
kyler a lot of people say that he was a charming kid a believable kid so i think that played
against law enforcement but i think the community started speaking up when they got when
that this alibi wasn't 100 checked out properly what do you mean checked out properly well there was people at the
nursing home that that law enforcement never ended up interviewing and they couldn't find
yeah i mean i mean that might be hearsay but that that's that's what one it says in the
documentary but that's what some of the rumors around town were no i i know that
i'm not disagreeing with that i'm saying that i don't think to me it doesn't matter about the alibi and i think and
that's why i went out of my way to point out earlier that hey police are saying we have concerns that he does have an
alibi for a large portion of that day but i'm pointing out that let's say that the alibi is true
even if it is true which it does seem to to carry some weight right but even if it is true it
it's right like if if there's a bank that's robbed at 10 o'clock this morning it doesn't matter if i can tell you
where i was at 3 p.m today right his alibi starts at 1 pm that afternoon she the last time we have any evidence
that she's alive and well and is not abducted or anything like that has happened to her is 9 19 that
morning so we have hours that have passed before his alibi even starts yeah basically a three and a half hour window
right so police of course they are aware that the public's not super happy with their
investigation here as you pointed out captain tight knit community they're probably i don't think that that their
suspicion so much is coming from this alibi portion i feel like a lot of it's coming from hey it's 25 000 people
we know her family her family's quite loud about her being missing and i think it's really just people kind
of pulling together here and questioning the authority on on who's supposed to be
leading this investigation yeah but good for them i mean i'm not saying that you're talking bad
but just the way it came off was like the family being loud you need to be loud if the family doesn't show that they
care the community is not going to care exactly and in fact we covered a case last week where i'm convinced that the
reason why the body is still unidentified is because nobody bothered to report the individual missing to
begin with so if if the family's not going to speak up for the victim yeah then then likely nobody is going to now in
response the belton police this is in response to the house being searched and spray paint
on the walls and whatnot in response to this the belton police did search that same house where the cadaver dog hit on
something their official report is that they found nothing at this house meanwhile the police threatened to
arrest members of this secret team when news of its activities came out the police chief his last name is person
police chief person said in a written statement i can say that the belton police department and fbi have searched
many locations and properties some with the assistance of dogs some sites have required the use of specialized
personnel and equipment including excavation divers canine equestrian and information
technologies either way police and civilian groups were having simply no luck locating car no matter what side of the
fence you were on they're not finding her they're not even finding additional leads to lead them further along the
trail and so her family was left to wait wonder and work to keep her case alive they lovingly remember and describe cara
as someone who loved animals and butterflies loved to shop and was loyal to friends
she got in over her head with a boy named kyler and feared she couldn't get out now while the greensburg ef5 tornado
that destroyed 95 percent of the greensburg city and it killed over 10 people this tornado this this thing we we
should kind of break this situation down a little more as distracting as it likely
was in the moment because the reports i've seen captain was this was a series of tornadoes that hit over the course of
56 hours and so this was a lot of devastation yeah um hitting the state of missouri hard and just about 12 hours
after carr was last seen at school this certainly did not help to kick-start the missing persons
investigation there were other factors that stalled the investigation along the way as well
for one while kyler was their best suspect he was not law enforcement's only suspect in that case and capped
that off with one month later and just about 20 miles away another girl just out of high school and
only 18 years old vanished from a target store parking lot well like you always say when we have a
teen girl going missing from school you kind of have to do the old scumbag pervert roundup
and so not much time passes and we have a very similar situation and if i'm a law
enforcement maybe i'm jumping to some conclusions because car didn't have any there's no sign of her after that day
right so i'm kind of expecting the worst and so there's a possibility that there's a serial killer out there yeah
there were some other things that that we don't need to get into because there's a lot of information
in this story here that i want to make sure that we cover all of our bases but there was a weird bit in cara's
disappearance where she had a a look-alike somebody that looked a lot like her about the same age that lived
in another town nearby so those sightings of this other person which they were all later confirmed to
be of this other person really kind of distracted some of the investigation as well
the incident that you're talking about where we have a situation where we have a simmer we have a similar victimology
really is a big distraction to this case as well so this takes us to june 2nd 2007. this
is less than one month after kara kopetsky went missing this is a saturday night remember car
went missing on a friday morning here we have kelsey smith she's 18 years old and
a recent graduate of shawnee mission west high school just before 7 pm she arrives alone at her local target
store she is going with the intention of purchasing a gift for a close friend so she parks her car
walks to the store's entrance and goes inside unfortunately she is unaware that there
is a monster on the prowl in the area that night and this sub-human likely chose this
area because it's a saturday evening and this target is right next to a mall so this will be a busy area with lots of
potential prey so kelsey enters the target she does her shopping purchases her selected items and then
security cameras show kelsey leaving the target store at 7 07 p.m now kelsey makes a call while still inside the
store sadly she does not come home that night and based off of everything her family
her movements her lifestyle and personality there is zero zero concern that she took off somewhere
this is a situation where as soon as the minutes start to turn into hours and she
is not back that night her parents are very aware that something terrible has happened to their daughter so now we
have a situation and our family goes out looking for her about four or so hours later kelsey's vehicle is
located by her family they find the car abandoned but it's not at the target parking lot where they know her to have
been earlier that night no they find her car in a parking lot located just outside of the mall across
the street from the target now even more troubling all of her belongings are found inside
of the vehicle the family notifies the police and the police determined that kelsey was most
likely abducted so local pd starts their investigation immediately they take a look at the surveillance
footage from both inside the target store and the target parking lot and they can see
her being forced into her car at approximately 7 10 p.m they go to the mall and see on the mall camera footage
someone pulls up parks kelsey's vehicle leaving it abandoned in the parking lot at 9 17 p.m
in a very smart move they decide to see if they can figure out kelsey's movements
by checking cell tower records as per the reports kelsey's cell phone last pinged in grandview missouri
this is the night that she went missing very sadly just four days after kelsey went out alone to purchase a gift for a
friend local law enforcement along with agents from the fbi they were able to locate
her remains in the afternoon of june 6 2007 her body was found near longview lake in
the woods about 20 miles away from the target store where she was last seen alive
kelsey after being abducted and her abductor and killer using kelsey's car in the commission of
committing several felonies was strangled with a belt and left in the woods now we in a very short order
go from looking for this young woman to now looking for her attacker and detectives are armed with some very
good lead information here because god bless it captain this is a story where the security
cameras were rolling they were actually working and the people in charge had the
cameras recording well that's a shock so from the surveillance footage investigators identified an older model
chevy pickup truck pulling into the target parking lot right after kelsey and smith pulled in
then they see the perpetrator get out of his truck and walk into the target just behind kelsey this
man is described as a white male mid-20s wearing a white t-shirt and dark possibly black shorts
the man at no time speaks to kelsey but he seems to have been following her into
the store and then kind of following her around the store yeah stalking her and she's probably not even taking notice he
does not purchase anything instead while kelsey is making her purchase he goes out to the parking lot where he
seemingly is preparing a blitz style attack because the closed circuit tv cameras
got video of this same man now with a gun in hand rushing kelsey and then forcing her into her car
we were just talking last week captain about the power of crowd sourcing as we are still hoping that someone can
identify the man with no hands the kentucky cold case covered right here in the garage last week so detectives again
making all of the right moves they release stills and clips showing this man and give a description of him to the
public they give a description of his apparel and the truck that he was driving well it doesn't take long
because the same day that they locate the victim's body we have people phoning in hey we know
this guy he's our neighbor it's the putting two and two together that made the tipsters so convinced that the
perpetrator seen on tv was their neighbor well it's one thing to have video footage or clip of a person or
even just a photo like we do in the delphi murders but if we could take the delphi
if we could take bridge guys photo and connect that guy into a vehicle then we'd have more people coming out of
the works going i know a guy that looks like that and has that vehicle exactly and that's what they were able to do
here very interesting though because when he abducts her he uses her vehicle leaving his vehicle behind to have more
and more customers see that vehicle in that parking lot that night so in this case right here we have a guy that looks
like our neighbor this from the tipster and the vehicle is the same and by the ways
the great thing about information in this case it's not that common of a vehicle
right i believe it was a chevy truck manufactured sometime in the 70s and this was 2007
on the old true crime garage timeline right so it sticks out like a sore thumb that's right this mystery sub human
turned out to be 25 year old edwin roy hall he was taken into custody and no surprise charged with premeditated
first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping of course he denied it but police had
him on camera they found his fingerprints inside kelsey's vehicle and so on and so on
eventually this douche canoe caves in and cuts a deal to spare his ass spicy and he volunteers for life in
prison and i don't think this guy is ever getting out and certainly hope not because he
wasn't terribly old when he went in and if this dude gets out and he's still physically able
this monster will do something like this again now what was difficult for cara's case
in relationship to this case again it's just one month later about 20 miles away victimology very
similar it was quickly determined that in kelsey's case the target store case that this was a totally random attack
edwin simply drove around looking for a young woman to abduct so of course everyone now has to wonder
could edwin be responsible for cara's disappearance right could he have just been driving around on it on an earlier
day looking for another victim and yeah and where would you go if you're driving
around looking for a victim right outside the school of course he says no but we will just have to wait and see if
detectives can find any connection between these two cases and like we said this is
a very small suburb of kansas city we have car going missing in 2007 and another town not so far away we have
kelsey smith going missing and her murder but then we have another tragedy happening in 2016.
yeah as we said earlier in this case captain this is a story and a true crime case that spans a great
deal of length of time so we have our case starts in 2007 there's still movement on these cases up to this year
so we don't want to bore anyone with a lot of minutiae here so we'll just fast forward to september of 2016
into the city of raymore this is a suburb of kansas city and not far from the other two locations that we have
discussed yeah on friday september 9 2016 jamie runions calls the kansas city police department
reporting her daughter jessica as missing now in the colonel's recommended fashion
that being report your loved one missing everywhere and as many times as they will allow you to
ms runyon's very astutely goes to the kansas city police department in person the following day
september 10th and again reports her 21 year old daughter jessica runions as missing so she reports her
the night before and then again the following day but this time in person mother jamie says her last contact with
jessica was a brief text conversation on wednesday the 7th this one jessica text
her sweet dreams and jamie sent back a selfie with jessica's little sister to which jessica responds sending back a
picture of her cat so the concern started when jessica failed to show up for a doctor's
appointment on the 9th this was a critical doctor's appointment after an appendectomy
jessica needed the doctor's clearance to go back to work so she would not have missed this
appointment her mother jamie was meeting her there and waited for her but she never showed
and jessica wasn't answering her phone jamie started calling everyone that she could think of trying to locate her
daughter now we will go through this timeline in chronological order but of course some of this stuff was not
figured out until after jessica was reported missing and police began looking for her
so jessica was living with her one-time boyfriend but it sounds like they were on again
and off again they shared an apartment but more than one source says that at the time of jessica's disappearance they
were sleeping in different rooms so we have the text conversation between mother and daughter
on that wednesday night yeah that night jessica goes to sleep at her apartment and again she and her
ex-boyfriend jackson share this apartment then later we learn that jessica did respond to a post on
facebook on thursday around 2 p.m after that her family received no communication from her
on the last night that jessica was seen thursday september 8th she told her boyfriend her ex-boyfriend jackson
that she was going to a friend's house for drinks and to hang out he says that they spoke
and agreed to try to work on their relationship around 10 pm though jessica stopped responding to jackson's
text he says at the time he assumed that her phone had died then jackson he says he was very concerned when he
woke up the next morning on the ninth and jessica was not home yet captain do you want a little background on jackson
and jessica's relationship or should we just keep moving forward yeah definitely i want to know
about i mean he's a possible suspect jessica met her boyfriend ex-boyfriend jackson when they both were
working at the foxwood retirement home jackson went to belton high school and they knew a lot of the same people by
september of 2016 when jessica goes missing jackson and jessica had been together
for three years and were living together but as said the relationship was rocky and they were sleeping in separate rooms
i'm not clear exactly what here captain but it's been reported that jackson had some health issues as well
then on friday jessica misses that doctor's appointment that we discussed her mother speaks with jackson
at this time mom calls and reports jessica missing and then the next day jessica's mother
jamie and jessica's ex-boyfriend jackson they go together to the police department and file a
missing person's report in person now jackson is going to be a key factor in this case here because he lives with
jessica so he's going to be able to provide police with some leads right from jump street
and this is what he tells the police jessica went to a friend's house for drinks on that thursday
when she was not home the next morning when jackson woke up he called the person who hosted the party this person
tells jackson that jessica was at the party and she arrived with jackson's friend
his name kyler use scumbag jessica and kyler knew each other from high school the party host said the
people there were surprised when jessica and kyler arrived together several people later told police that
kyler was visibly heavily intoxicated that night drinking gray goose and wine he's double fisted
most of the evening even more importantly they say that he was acting possessive
about jessica and aggressive toward the other party goers several witnesses told police that
jessica and kyler were arguing loudly and jessica wanted to leave but kyler didn't want her to go back to jackson
the host asked kyler to leave red flag jessica and kyler left the party at 11 42 p.m in
jessica's car we know almost to the minute when the two left and you'll see why jessica's car
was a black 2012 chevy equinox with missouri plates kyler remember we have everybody saying this
dude's hammered he insists on driving but when they go to leave he clipped someone's car in the
driveway so jessica took the wheel and they drove off now the host of the party took a picture of this car incident
which they later showed to police so the photo was time stamped 11 42 pm that's how we
have almost the exact time of when they left so he hit the car they told people at the party obviously
they'd take a picture and then they let them drive off correct friends at the party told jessica to text when she got
home safely but she never did text shouldn't let your friend get in a vehicle with
somebody that won you is so intoxicated that you ask to leave the party and then he hits a vehicle and
you still let her leave with this intoxicated guy no one saw jessica after that [Music]
thank you so much for listening thanks so much for making us a part of your week so much more to get to tomorrow
make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure you go to itunes and leave a five-star review and join us back here
in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't [Applause] [Music] you

If I Can’t Have You /// Part 1 /// 535 Part 1 of 3

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com This week’s True Crime story involves several disappearances and murders. It’s a case that has spanned years. 17 Year old Kara Kopetsky of Belton, Missouri went missing in May of 2007. Less than one month later, recent High School graduate Kelsey Smith goes missing after what was to be a quick trip to her local Target store. In 2016, Jessica Runions is reported missing to Kansas City PD after attending a party with friends. Join us in the Garage for an adult beverage or three as Nic & Captain go through all of the details surrounding these cases.

Beer of the Week - Golden Monkey Belgian Tripel Ale Garage Grade - Victory Brewing

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Kara Kopetsky went missing in 2007, raising suspicions about her ex-boyfriend Kyler Yust amid community frustrations over the investigation.

Key points

The Disappearance of Kara Kopetsky. A 17-year-old girl goes missing after skipping school, leading to a tragic investigation.
Kara's Troubling Relationship. Kara's ex-boyfriend, Kyler, had a history of controlling behavior and violence.
The Day of Disappearance. Kara leaves school and fails to return home, raising alarms for her family.
Kyler's Alibi. Kyler claims to have an alibi for the day Kara went missing, but details are suspicious.
Kyler's Alibi. Kyler passed a lie detector test and had an alibi for the time of Cara's disappearance.
Community Backlash. The community questioned the police's handling of Kara's case, demanding more action.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Those feelings are often correct; I hope everyone receives those warnings loud and clear.

4:42WatchNov 19, 2021

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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