Woman buried on Jackson County property killed as part of sex fantasy: court records
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Human remains found in Jackson County
Buried human remains recently found in the yard of an unincorporated Jackson County residence were apparently discovered after a teenage girl told police that the homeowner admitted to killing a woman and hiding the body, according to court records.
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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story improperly used a brand name to describe a piece of heavy machinery. The maker of the machinery in this instance is not known and the story has been updated to reflect that.
Detectives found a dismembered body buried in a Jackson County residential yard this week after witnesses told authorities the homeowner confessed to killing a woman with his girlfriend as part of a sexual fantasy he wanted to fulfill, according to court records.
Buried human remains were unearthed by authorities Wednesday in the 4000 block of South Buckner Tarsney Road as police were searching for Kensie Renee Aubry, a missing 32-year-old woman originally from Texas. Police on Thursday identified Aubry as the body found at the site.
Police have yet to officially name a suspect and no criminal charges had been filed related to the homicide as of Thursday afternoon. But court records show the homeowner, Michael J. Hendricks, 40, and his girlfriend Maggie Ybarra, 30, were central subjects of the investigation that led police to find Aubry’s body in Hendricks’ yard.
Greg Watt, a criminal defense lawyer representing Hendricks, told The Star in a statement this week that he believes his client is innocent of any wrongdoing.
“We will be zealously representing the accused to the fullest extent of the law and believe strongly in his innocence concerning these matters,” Watt said in an emailed statement. “We have no doubt about our ability to provide strength during this difficult time and look forward to presenting his case to a Judge/Jury.”
According to witnesses who spoke with detectives, Hendricks allegedly described choking a woman to death and putting her body in a freezer. He then cut the body into pieces and hid her body near the air vehicle hangar on his six-acre property in the Kansas City suburb, the witnesses told police.
Aubry was last known to be living in Kansas City, Kansas. She was last seen with two men and a woman, according to a flyer released by Kansas Missing & Unsolved. Her family has long suspected she was the victim of foul play.
Authorities began investigating Hendricks and Ybarra in April after a 13-year-old girl who was in foster care told police she was sexually assaulted by them and shown pictures of a dead woman. The girl met with them on occasions between October 2020 and April 2021.
Pictures she saw showed a woman naked, bound and gagged, and dismembered body parts, the girl told a detective at the time.
“She said that they told her they buried the body,” the detective who interviewed the girl wrote in a court document. “(Redacted) said she knows the area of where it is.”
Earlier this week, another witness interviewed by detectives said Ybarra had told her she met Hendricks as a “trick” while working as a sex worker and that Hendricks had expressed a desire to “kill someone while having sex.”
Afterward, the witness claimed Hendricks and Ybarra showed her photographs of Aubry dead with missing body parts sometime in October 2020. Hendricks allegedly admitted to cutting up the body with a chainsaw in his basement, putting the remains in a box and burying them in a septic tank near his house, court records say.
Hendricks allegedly told the witness they tried to dispose of the body by dropping part of the body in a box from a helicopter and when that didn’t work, Hendricks allegedly dug a hole near or under a septic tank at his residence and buried the remains there, according to the search warrant.
The witness told police Ybarra and Hendricks confessed to the killing while they were all gathered to celebrate Ybarra’s birthday.
On an earlier search of the property in May, authorities found a circular saw in a tool cabinet inside Hendricks’s aircraft hangar that tested positive for DNA compared to one of Aubry’s relatives. Photographs were found in the basement of the home. One showed a naked woman wrapped in barbed wire and bleeding.
Authorities also learned a white freezer had been kept in the aircraft hangar until roughly one month before they executed the search warrant. Forensic examiners found the presence of blood that had been cleaned up in the basement, according to the search warrant.
Aubry was last heard from by relatives in early October. According to the search warrant, Aubry was contacted by Ybarra, who is dating Hendricks, and asked her to meet her and Hendricks over Facebook during the last time she was seen alive.
Relatives told investigators that Aubry worked as a sex worker on occasion, according to court records.
Ybarra told Aubry to turn off her cellphone when she met with her and Hendricks. Those messages were the last ones received from Aubry’s Facebook account.
In May, a neighbor reported to detectives what she considered to be odd behavior when Hendricks was allegedly digging in the yard with heavy machinery. Another described a fire pit being filled in by Hendricks at some point.
Ybarra and Hendricks currently face charges of sex crimes involving a child and both are held in Jackson County jail. Prosecutors allege Hendricks and Ybarra tried to coerce the girl into having sex with them and trying to form a standing sexual relationship with her. Hendricks allegedly assaulted the girl while he was having sex with Ybarra.
Both are also accused of tampering with a felony investigation for allegedly pressuring the teenage girl to keep quiet.
In one Facebook message, Ybarra allegedly denied being a murderer and asked for the girl to refrain from telling anyone about what happened “before she ruins my life.” Authorities also listened to calls Hendricks made to Ybarra while she was in jail expressing concern after consulting with an attorney about possibly facing criminal charges, court records show.
Hendricks told Ybarra he needed to prepare his wife for what was about to happen, court records said. She recently filed for divorce and is seeking sole custody of their two children.
Hendrick’s property is a large house beside a two-lane highway near farmland and suburban Grain Valley. Authorities began searching there around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. A massive hole was dug in the side yard of the home with heavy construction equipment.
The Independence Police Department is leading the investigation. Several other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, were assisting.
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 5:23 PM.
