KCPD officer accused of having sex with witness

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    KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV/KSMO) — Attorneys for murder suspect Kylr Yust are accusing a Kansas City, Missouri, police officer of having sex with a witness and inappropriate contact with another witness.

Yust is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abandonment of a corpse. Investigators believe he killed Kara Kopetsky and Jessica Runions.

Kylr Yust’s attorneys are asking a judge to require a forensic examination of a Kansas City, Missouri, police officer’s personal cell phone.

They also want to examine any KCPD issued phone he used to search those cell phones for information connected to Yust’s case.

Ever since Kara Kopetsky disappeared on May 4, 2007, KCTV5 News shared her family’s search for her and their pleas for justice.

According to prosecutors, Kopetsky was last seen alive at 9:19 a.m. on video surveillance at Belton High School.

Prosecutors say phone records show Yust called her one minute after she left the school. Kopetsky had previously filed a restraining order against Yust because she said he had kidnapped and attacked her. Her family long suspected Yust.

They would speak to journalists outside of his court hearings for other criminal charges he faced.

“I can’t put it any other way. I hate him. I hate him for taking not only my child but now you know possibly taking another,” Kopetsky’s mother Rhonda Beckford said.

In September of 2016, witnesses say Jessica Runions left a party with Yust. The vehicle she drove away with him that night was found burned and she was missing.

Fast forward to April 2017, a mushroom hunter found both Kopetsky and Runions’ remains together in the woods near 233rd and Y Highway in Cass County. Prosecutors charged Yust for their deaths.

Since then, his attorneys have filed multiple motions in his murder case.

The latest motion states that during depositions, it was disclosed to defense counsel that a KCPD officer had a sexual relationship with an adult witness.
The court filing does not state who disclosed that information or provide any evidence to its credibility.

According to Yust’s attorneys, the officer involved conducted, “unauthorized investigations, did not follow proper procedures and potentially tainted witness statements,” by investigating a case he was not assigned to. The officer was not part of the official investigation that was used to file charges.

KCTV5 News asked the Cass County prosecutor’s office for comment but have not yet heard back.

A spokesperson for Kansas City police said their investigations bureau and command staff are aware of what was stated.

They added, “We are confident that there is not a criminal investigation underway regarding any actions of KCPD in regard to this, if the events discussed warrant an internal investigation one will be initiated.”

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