Trial of Kylr Yust: Jessica Runions’ mother recalls panic when daughter went missing
Jamie Runions told jurors the longest seven months of her life began Sept. 9, 2016, when her daughter went missing.
The mother of Jessica Runions testified Thursday in the trial of Kylr Yust, who faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Runions, 21, and Kara Kopetsky, 17.
That day, Jamie Runions had planned to go with her daughter to a doctor’s appointment. When she went to Jessica Runion’s home in Kansas City, her car was not there and her phone went straight to voicemail.
“This was not like her,” Jamie Runions said, recalling how she began to feel panicked.
She filed a missing persons report with the Kansas City Police Department and the Belton Police Department. The family and community members began conducting searches.
During the weeks and months that followed, Jamie Runions became close with Brenda Beckford, Kara Kopetsky’s mother. Kopetsky disappeared in May 2007.
In April 2017, Beckford called Jamie Runions and told her Kopetsky had been found with Jessica Runions.
Yust had been linked to Kopetsky and Jessica Runions, but their cases remained long-running mysteries in the Kansas City area until a mushroom hunter found remains in a wooded area south of Belton.
Yust was charged six months later.
Opening statements were presented Monday and Beckford was the first witness to take the stand Tuesday.
Earlier Thursday, jurors heard a wiretapped conversation about Kopetsky in which Yust said he had “f------ killed her.” The recording was captured in 2011 after the FBI asked Yust’s ex-girlfriend Katelynn Farris to assist in the investigation.
Yust’s defense team has raised questions about the the integrity of the investigation.
Last year, Yust’s attorneys said police failed to fully investigate an alternative suspect and alleged that a Kansas City police officer had sex with a witness. His attorney, Sharon Turlington, said Yust is innocent. No physical evidence connected him to the murders, she said.
The trial is expected to take three weeks in Cass County.
