A body, a fire and a baffling oversight. The big questions about the KC highway shooter
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Authorities believe the burned body found in Independence is the highway shooting suspect.
- Jackson County Medical Examiner will confirm identity and determine cause and manner of.
- Investigators are probing how and when the fire started and why the body wasn't found.
Authorities strongly believe it was the suspected Kansas City highway shooter whose body was found inside a burned Independence home Wednesday.
But they say they still need to wait for the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s office to officially identify the body.
And that’s not the only answer to lingering questions authorities are waiting on in the baffling search for Oscar Sanchez-Munoz.
Among them: How did Sanchez-Munoz die and when and how did the fire start inside the Independence home where the 22-year-old was hiding during a standoff last week with police.
Then there’s the ultimate mystery — how did authorities not find his body inside the home before launching a weeklong extensive manhunt drawing in extensive local, state and federal resources?
“That’s the question everybody has, obviously,” Capt. Jake Becchina, a spokesperson with the Kansas City Police Department, told reporters Wednesday evening.
And one that authorities will be attempting to answer in the coming days.
‘Distinct odor’ led to discovery
Kansas City detectives went back out to the Independence home in the 700 block of South Brookside Wednesday.
Police found his vehicle outside that residence soon after a string of highway shootings on June 16, the night of the first FIFA World Cup match in Kansas City.
One person was killed and four injured in those shootings that happened in rapid succession in under 30 minutes.
Family members of Sanchez-Munoz alerted police around 2 p.m. Wedneday that they found what they thought was a human body inside the basement of the home. They had gone there to remove some debris, work on rehab and recover some items, police said.
As they were doing that, Becchina said they detected “a distinct odor” and that prompted them to search the debris further.
The clothing on the body was consistent with what the suspect highway shooter was wearing June 16. Homicide investigators “are working under the assumption right now” that it was Sanchez-Munoz’s body his relatives found.
“Right now, our homicide unit and those investigators are working with the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office,” Becchina said Wednesday evening. “And they will begin a death investigation where they will work to confirm identity of the deceased person inside the residence and also the cause and manner of death.”
Cause of the fire?
During the police standoff with the suspect at the Independence home soon after the shootings, the home eventually caught on fire, prompting a response from the Independence Fire Department.
When asked how the fire started, Becchina said the working assumption is that Sanchez-Munoz started it that night, but that is also still under investigation. It’s believed, he said, that no one else was in the house.
After the fire, there was “several feet” of water in the home’s basement, Becchina said. And when investigators were processing the scene, there was some water remaining.
He also pointed to extreme clutter and congestion in the basement and that if someone walked down there, they wouldn’t have been able to see the body, which was under “piles” of debris.
When asked when a law enforcement officer was last inside the home, Becchina said he did “not know the exact answer to that.”
No one, he said, had reported an odor in the home until Wednesday, he said.
“This investigation has been unique, and it’s taken several turns,” Becchina said. “The important thing to know is this person is not going to cause any further injury to anybody in our community. ... All the questions you guys have of us, of Independence police, that’s all fair.”
But, he reiterated, the person responsible for the highway shootings last week is “accounted for, and we can certainly say that person won’t cause injury anymore.”
